Arguing Over Some Military Thinking

(I sign up for a tour group that, in this story, is in Wales to tour Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, a town famous for its long name. This tour group takes you around Europe for the summer. In order to join, you have to have something on you that says where you’re from. To do that, I carry around a backpack with an American flag on it. Most in the group are amazing and I still keep in touch with them, but there are two in the group who are downright rude to me. One is a boy who wears a British flag jacket, and the other is a girl who wears a French flag necklace. We stop at one of the restaurants to take a break from walking, and we get on the conversation about healthcare.)

Me: “Well, my country has pretty okay hospitals and all that, just a bad plan. I wish we could put more money into the budget, but most of the money has to go to the military.”

British Guy: “Wait, why? So you could take more for your empire?”

Me: “What? No, we do it to protect other countries.”

French Woman: “Yeah, sure, you guys say that, and then you always get involved in other’s affairs. Why don’t you just keep your nose out of other people’s business?”

(It’s at this point that somebody else in the group, a Jewish man wearing an Israeli flag pin on his shirt, speaks up.)

Israeli Man: “Probably because the last few times they tried to ignore Europe, two world wars happened.”

(That shut the two of them up, though of course they didn’t stay that way. But whenever they tried to insult me, the Israeli and a few others would speak up, until the two finally left me alone. Don’t worry; other than them, the people in those countries were very nice and polite. I had a blast in Europe!)