A Satire
Link http://www.duffelblog.com/2014/01/nations-veterans-demand-farmland-in-gaul/
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A delegation from the American Legion had a meeting today with several leading senators to demand suitable farmland for the nation’s landless veterans in the province of Transalpine Gaul.
“We swear here, upon Jupiter’s Stone, that if Consul Obama Africanus does not compensate us with suitable farmland in a quiet province, we shall not peaceably disband or leave the capital,” declared Mattis Magnus, former commander of the I Marine Legion and head of RUBICOM.
He spoke on the front steps of the Senate under a banner proclaiming “We came! We saw! We conquered!” and was dressed in full armor, brazenly armed with his gladius sword and brandishing the skull of a Parthian warrior he took at Fallujah.
Mattis called on Obama to come out from behind his Praetorian Guard and speak to them directly, or send co-consul Hillaria the Elder. He and other veterans then publicly spurned Obama’s offer, relayed to them by Coinmaster Petraeus, of free farmland in Afghanistan on the condition that they only grow cotton and not poppy.
“Afghan land is only good for growing poppies,” complained Decimus Verdus of Dayton, Ohio, “and [Obama's] refusal to declare Afghanistan as a slave province means we will not have the necessary Pathan labor to properly farm it. Plus the plows keep hitting IEDs.”
Many other veterans who fought in the eastern campaigns seemed to agree, claiming this was only the latest in a series of broken promises going back to Georgius the Younger’s invasion of Mesopotamia.
“There is no more farmland left in my home province of Wisconsin,” noted Gaius Rufus Snuffius, a resident of Wausau who served with the X Mountain Legion. “It is all owned by patricians and worked by slaves from Hispania. For this I decimated Ramadi?”
Studies have shown that unlike their predecessors, younger veterans are twice as likely to end up begging in the marketplace or the forum, and four times as likely to end up fighting in the arena. Many veterans have also complained that they are alienated from their fellow countrymen.
“I swear to Pluto, I will run-through the next yellow-tunic wearing citizen who thanks me for my service,” said First Spear Centurion Severus Murfus Felix. “And stop asking me if I’ve crucified anyone!”
The Legion says this only proves the need for fresh land for veterans to help them beat their swords into plow-sheers. They have also ridiculed what they call Obama’s false statement that Gaul is too small for them and can only be properly divided into three parts.
“Without land, what other course do our men have, save banditry?” asked a Legion spokesman on condition of anonymity. “This is a bipartisan issue: it shouldn’t matter whether you’re an optimate or a populare.”
“I spent my youth marching up the Via Tampa to Babylon with the CI Airborne Legion. Don’t I deserve land, and slaves, and German women?”
Update: This report has been amended to indicate the preference for land in Transalpine Gaul, not Cisalpine Gaul, which is overrun with hairy Gaestati.
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