The night Max wore his unicorn suit and made mischief of one kind

and another

his first sergeant called him "Dirt bag!"

And Max said "BLOW ME!"

So he accepted NJP without consulting a lawyer.

That very night in Max's room a wilderness grew and grew

and grew until his ceiling hung with black mold and the walls became the world all around

and an ocean tumbled from the crappy air conditioning that base maintenance was never going to repair

so Max set sail through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost over a year

to where the Shit Birds are.

And when he came to the place where the Shit Birds are

they roared their false motivation

and gnashed their teeth that were terrible because they always missed dental appointments

and rolled their belligerent eyes

and gave bullshit excuses about how they got screwed by recruiters

‘till Max said "BE STILL!"

He tamed them with a magic trick

of staring into all their yellow eyes without blinking once

and talking a lot of trash about how he would have kicked the first sergeant's ass if the Marine Corps wasn't run by pussies

and they were frightened

and called him the biggest Shirt Bird of all

and made him king of all the Shit Birds.

"And now," cried Max, "let the wild rumpus start!"

Then there was disorder and a decided lack of discipline

and they put their hands in their pockets

and wore white socks in their boots

they Snapchatted and Facebooked at work

they kept more than a six pack in their rooms!

“Now stop!” Max said and sent the Shit Birds to the rack without chow.

And Max the king of all Shit Birds was lonely and wanted to be where someone appreciated what a sheepdog bad ass he truly was.

Then all around from far away across the world

he smelled good things to eat at the food court

so he gave up being king of where the Shit Birds are

because restriction sucks.

But the Shit Birds cried, “Oh please don’t go-

we need someone to justify our miserable existence and give us poor legal advice!”

And Max said, “No!”

The Shit Birds roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible vocabulary calling him "Lifer"

and "POG"

and "Blue Falcon"

in between many creative expletives.

But Max stepped into his boat and gave them the finger

and sailed back over a year

and in and out of weeks and through a day

and into the night of his very own room where he found his DD214 waiting for him.

Later, Max would start his own veteran t-shirt company and talk a lot of trash on social media.