LUDIC LOG

It's about twenty clicks south of Baghdad when it hits me. My moment is coming. My time is near. It's really going to happen. It's time to earn my stripes. So naturally I want to make a good showing. I start drawing up a set list.

"Hey Benny," I say, calling over to the CO. "Do you think I ought to start out with 'The Angry American'?"

He glares over at me. He really takes this gig seriously. Sometimes he acts like he'd rather have me assigned to another battalion. He says it's because I'm not pulling my weight which is bullshit. It's because we were at band camp together and I'm the guy who knows he's not as cool as he tries to act like. "I'm your commanding officer, Martin," he growls, like I'm going to be so intimidated that he calls me by my last name. "You'll address me as Captain Ring."

I blow him off. "Whatever, Captain Ring. That doesn't answer my question."

"What question?" He goes back to looking over his maps like he isn't even listening to me. Like my job isn't going to be important when we go through the city gates. Actually, I don't know if Baghdad even has gates, but I'm not going to tell him that.

"I'm making my set list. For the big day. And I wanted to know if you like 'The Angry American' to start." I prompt him, because I know he doesn't like country. I don't want to embarrass him. "You know, the Toby Keith song."

"What are you talking about, Martin?"

"Because I want a good up-tempo kinda patriotic number at first, to get everyone's adrenaline pumping, but I know they told us to kind of soft-pedal the America stuff. Like, no planting flags and that kind of thing." Sometimes I wonder; I mean, I have to explain everything to Ben. And yet he's the one in charge. That's the Army for you.

"Martin," he says in that aggreived voice he gets -- the Captain Jealousy voice, I like to call it -- "who gives a shit what you play? I have to execute troop movements here. I have to make sure we hold the strongpoints without getting our asses blown off by a bunch of irregulars. I haven't got time to talk to the company DJ."

Christ, he knows how to push my buttons. I guess that's what passes for leadership qualities these days. "I am not a DJ. I'm a member of the drum and bugle corps."

"You don't play a drum or a bugle. You play a drum machine. And whatever that thing is, the Rap-o-Phonic tape deck, or whatever."

Let it slide, let it slide. He's just trying to needle you. "It's a keyboard sampler, Captain. I don't go around calling your assault rifle a 'boom stick'. Have some respect. The United States Army issued me this sampler."

"I don't have any idea why," he says, turning back to his maps. "You're about as useful around here as a ski instructor. Rabbi Finkelman does more work than you do, and we've only got two Jews in this whole company including him."

I think about snapping at him. I think about giving him a lecture on the proud history of the drum and bugle corps. I think about mentioning that it was the hard, selfless work of men and women like me that got Noriega out of Panama. I think about telling him that Sgt. Dean Yancey took a bullet in the thigh while manning the 808 in Kuwait City, and that his Purple Heart is an eternal testament to how he stood there, bravely telling the medics to patch him up on the spot rather than drop the beat on the remix of "Wild Thing" he was spinning. But I don't. All the tradition, all the sacrifice would be lost on a Philistine like him. Telling him the facts wouldn't ease the bitterness he feels at having been passed over for first chair trombone in the 8th grade. "Look, Cap, are you gonna help me out or not?" is all I say.

"Not," he grunts. "Look, why don't you just play the Battle Hymn of the Republic or something? Why don't you play, you know, the classics?"

I sigh. "For the same reason they don't send in air support using B-17 bombers, Benny. Times have changed. We have to change with them. Modern equipment. Modern music. You think those boys out there are going to be inspired to take down the Republican Guard by hearing a goddamn Stephen Foster song?"

He mutters something under his breath. I wonder if I should ask him if he thinks I should segue right into "The Venga Bus (Is Coming)" when the first tanks roll through, but I'd just be wasting my breath. In a way, I almost pity him; he's a remnant of old wars, old ways. He belongs to the Civil War, to a time when men rode horses and fired muskets. He's not worth the argument, really; I've got too much work to do. The blowing sand is hell on a CD, and there's only so much alcohol solution in my kit bag.