The 1%, by Josh Marenco

I've noticed a lot of "I am the 99%/1%/sqrt(x*.42)%" posts on Facebook, mainly by people who've run on hard times and blame this group or that company or that politician for their woes. An Army buddy of mine who I was deployed to Iraq with, who is now currently fighting the fight in Afghanistan, posted this the other day. I liked it, so with his permission, here it is in its entirety:

I am a college graduate. I don't have a house or apartment right now. I have around 37k of student loan debt. I deployed to Iraq 4 years ago to pay for it. I am currently in Afghanistan paying some more of it off. Even on my downtime, I'm always on call, 24/7. When you factor in the hours I work I make less than minimum wage, and I've already been promoted 3 times. I carpoo...l with my colleagues to work dodging bombs in the road. I try to help people only to get shot at and rocketed on the drive back home. My job has me moving up and down mountains carrying a minimum of 100lbs of extra gear, and my load is light compared to some of my friends. I can feel my shoulders, lower back, and knees lose years of their use every passing day. I'm only 25 years old but I feel like I'm 40. My health care plan believes drinking water cures most ailments. My meals on the job are rations most people in the Third World don't want to eat. Whether I get enough sleep or feel good doesn't matter to my employer or job, because whether I give 100% or only a mere 99.99% of possible max effort could mean the difference between life or death.

I've had to say goodbye too soon, and too suddenly to some of the best people I, and probably you, could ever meet. There was little time to mourn their loss because the job still needs to get done. My friends and I have only tattoos, Velcro tabs on our kits, or Sharpie scrawlings inside of patrol caps as tribute to our fallen friends. This is while people back stateside who are famous for snorting coke and playing make-believe get tributes in the news and People magazine as if the Pope, Mother Teresa, and Ghandi drove off of a cliff.

But guess what? Never missed a day of work, because my friends count on me to be in the right place at the right time. I don't bitch about my job (too much), and laugh away my circumstances, because I'm surrounded by people in the same boat as me, and the only thing more unbearable then the aforementioned is an obnoxious whiner.

Is it easy? Not exactly. Am I slightly jaded now? A shade or two. Do I want a better lease on life? That sounds amazing right now. Whose fault is all of this? Me, Myself, and I, because I'm the one who signed the dotted line without anyone pointing a gun to my head telling me to do it, and unlike you I've learned to accept responsibility for my actions and accept the outcome, something you clearly haven't learned how to do. If I dick around on the job, say "Screw this, I'm not gonna do the right thing today", forget something or even just make an honest mistake, I might be going home in pieces. But guess what? That's just life, man.

So you can't pay off your student loans? Tough shit. You're getting evicted from a house you can't afford? Sucks to be you, nerd. You can't afford groceries? Yes you can, it's called store brand oatmeal and canned tuna. What's that? Your worried about your health care and your health sucks? Put down the beer and fast food and walk for a block or two. Oh no, you're and overqualified, ultra talented megastar in your job, but you lost it and can't find another one? Sorry guy, sorry you don't live in Mr. Roger's neighborhood anymore and no one's around to tell you that you're special. I graduated from a private college with a 3.56 GPA and my professors told me the world would be my oyster, yet here I am, having to ask permission to take a piss, and sleeping where people and animals shit during my business trips. Not everyone gets to be an astronaut when they grow up, sweet heart.

Of course, there's a relatively simple solution to that. The US Military is always hiring. If you're lucky, you may get a job that requires comparatively little physical effort and little chance of seeing actual combat. Pretty kick-ass deal, right? Oh yeah, that's right, you're too good to do that. That's only for losers like me. Or it goes against your ideals and everything you believe in. Really? Where have you been in life so that now you have the answers to everything and anything? Oh, you studied abroad, smoked dope and drank Absinthe in Europe for a semester. You really do have the crystal ball with all the answers. Sorry, my bad.

So you want to take back what's owed to you? I've learned your next breath isn't even owed to you. You want to take what isn't yours but you think you should have? Where I come from that'll earn you an ass-beating. You're sick and tired of this screwed up country that you've put no effort into improving? Pretty sure no one would miss you if you left, so what are you waiting for?

I'm the real 1%, and I hope each and every one of you gets struck by a SL500-driving-Armani-suit-wearing-corrupt-corporate-executive-shaped comet on the way to Wall Street.

Well said, Hillary.