On the first floor of our barracks there are three dayrooms--one in each stairwell. The fourth stairwell has the Anthrax Chapel instead of a dayroom. Each of the dayrooms is different, but dominated by a large-screen TV several feet across. Sports and movies are the programs of choice. This afternoon Braveheart was on the big screen in one of the dayrooms. This movie is a favorite of mine and many other soldiers. In fact, as I walked into the dayroom, one of the older soldiers declared Braveheart "the best movie ever made." The scene playing as I walked in was the one in which an evil English Lord claims his right of Prima Nocte with a just-married Scottish bride--he takes the young woman to his bed the first night of their wedding instead of her husband. It is a poignant scene and everyone is quiet both on screen and in the dayroom when the young woman is taken away. Then suddenly the same sergeant who declared Braveheart the best movie ever said, "It's this kinda shit is the reason we're in Iraq." I had not ever heard this interpretation of the war in Iraq.
NOTE: In this quote shit is a pronoun replacing "strange nasty customs."
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