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The Dangers of Internet Writing...
by Ninja R, 7-15-2006

Time for another story, folks.  That’s why you’re reading, right?  To hear the ol’ Ninja R tell some stories, right?  Well, this one’s a little different.  I haven’t gotten very personal on this site for several reasons.  You’re about to find out why. 

Side note: This story has no pictures.  Sorry about that.

Dateline: June 23, 1993, 6:35 p.m., Pacific Standard Time,—I was 17 years old standing outside the USO terminal at the San Diego airport.  About ten minutes earlier, I’d smoked three Harley Davidson cigarettes at once.  I wouldn’t have another smoke for three months.  There were strange, older men in weird green Smokey-the-Bear hats yelling at a bunch of people, telling us to stand behind some other random guy.   

I was receiving my indoctrination into Marine Corps recruit training. 

Over the next three months, I pretty much went through what seemed like hell on earth.  But that’s not the real story here.  It’s just the beginning.  Yes, I was an active-duty Marine for almost 13 years.  Some of you already know this and the point of this story isn’t to let you know what I did for almost half my life, but to explain a couple of things. 

Over the years, I went all over the place and did all sorts of kick ass stuff.  Initially, I was a radio operator working with forward observation artillery teams.  Fun stuff…got to blow a lot of stuff up from far away but it wasn’t much fun humping around with infantry types.  After a few years of that, I decided I wanted to do something a little different that would qualify me for a job once I finished my time in the Corps.  I studied journalism and public relations at the Defense Information School in Fort Meade, Md., in 1998 and headed back to Camp Pendleton, Calif., to write as a combat correspondent. 

WHAT A GREAT JOB.  Basically, I could be anything I wanted as long as I shot good photos and wrote something about the guys with whom I was doing stuff.  I’d head out with infantry types for a few days, come back, write a story and be done.  As long as the story was well written, I never had any problems.  This was also where I discovered my love for writing. 

After a year of doing all that, I received orders to go to Kansas City, Mo., and act as the public relations specialist for the Marine Corps recruiting effort in Kansas and Missouri.  I didn’t know one damn thing about public relations.  I didn’t enter the journalism field to go smile and giggle with a bunch of people who liked me because I’d have government money to spend.  My place was in the frickin’ field, wearing camo and boots and hanging out with men, not effeminate, technical males. 

I never went back to the field again. 

I worked in public relations for five years.  I went from the best job I could imagine to the worst possible job anyone could have.  I’m not a people person.  I don’t enjoy talking to people I don’t know.  Still, I worked hard at the job, got it down, and did pretty well after a while once I got over my severe hatred of being nice to someone in exchange for something else. 

And there were some definite civilian possibilities once I left, too.  The contacts I made were phenomenal, and if I wanted to continue in the PR field, I could have easily done so. 

Remember, this isn’t supposed to be about stuff in the Corps. 

In my spare time, I learned a little about creating web sites.  After reading some everything/nothing sites like Jasonrivera.com, I figured it really couldn’t be too hard to create a web site that people would read…all I needed were a couple of writers to write with me and lighten my writing load and it’d all work out fine. 

Yeah.  Think again. 

The two writers with the site, Chainsawz.com, never wrote, leaving me to handle the entire workload as well as the layout and design.  I basically ripped off the Jason Rivera design (with his permission, of course), so there wasn’t too much actual graphic design to worry about.  Still, it took around five hours for me to write a story, lay it out, upload and publish ONE PAGE.  That’s not a slight against them; I’m just creating the amount of work I put into my creation. 

Even just writing on my own, it was a lot of fun.  Chainsawz was basically like this site is, just with a different layout and less anonymity.  After one writer quit, I hired T2, who actually DID write.  The other writer basically retained a place on the site, but never wrote. 

Things were great.  The site’s traffic hit a feverish pitch when I published stories about “Trick Nasty,” a 16-year-old “gangsta” girl from Independence, Mo., which is a suburb of Kansas City.  Friends of mine and I had a lot of fun with her and her friends, who apparently hated the color blue and were “Bloods.”   

There’s really not much more funny than white 16 year olds talking about how thuggish they are. 

In between Trick Nasty updates, I published a story about work.  We’d gone to Nevada, Mo., to train some future Marines on what the Corps was like.  I snapped some behind-the-scenes pictures of us acting goofy…nothing bad or incriminating, just us being us.  We were a tight group of friends. 

After I published the story, one of them asked me if I had the pictures.  “Sure.”  I pulled them up from my web site and showed people.  Everyone thought they were funny and we all got a kick out of the retarded story I wrote.  In the story, I’d called my commanding officer “one bad ass ninja,” which is a hell of a compliment if there ever was one—and very well deserved. 

Little did I know Big Brother was watching…specifically, the IT guys at my headquarters. 

About a week later, my sergeant major yelled at me, “GET IN MY OFFICE.”  Once I was in there, he started reading me my rights police style.  “What the hell is this about?” I wondered.  I hadn’t done anything wrong.

AU CONTRAIRE.  It seems that while Big Brother was watching, they noticed the web site I had visited from work.  After checking it out, they saw it was MY web site and that I’d been writing on it.   

“What’s illegal about that?” you ask?  PLENTY, according to them…it’s very subjective according to how someone reads it.  If you’ve read anything on this site, you know I curse a lot.  It was worse on Chainsawz.  They read through the stories I’d posted, read where I wrote I was a Marine, saw the pictures I’d posted of myself and others in uniform, and decided to bring charges of “conduct unbecoming of a Marine.” 

That wasn’t the only charge.  They were also trying to bring charges of “misappropriation of government equipment” against me.  Apparently, they thought I was using a government camera to take photos, after which I would come to work, turn on my work computer and post everything through that. 

The charges were ridiculous, of course.  I had a desktop and laptop computer at my house where I wrote everything.  I used my own digital and film cameras for every photo on the web site.  I’m not really sure why they would think a mere amateur can’t put this stuff online…but whatever the reason, it stands as a testament to THEIR INCOMPETENCE, not mine. 

They wanted to punish me at what’s called “NJP”—non-judicial punishment.  Basically, it would spare me from having to go through a court martial, but I would have to plead guilty to the charges.  I could either accept it or refuse the charges and possibly have to attend a court martial. 

I fought it.  I didn’t do anything wrong.  I used my own equipment for everything on the site.  And…contrary to prior thought, we DO NOT give up our free speech rights once entering the military.  There are political speech stipulations when acting in an official capacity, but for the most part, I can say whatever the hell to whomever I want, provided it’s not against civilian law. 

And that’s what happened to Chainsawz.  I got a hold of a lawyer who advised me to take down the site.  He agreed with me the charges were bullshit and asked me who was holding a grudge against me.  I don’t think it was any sort of grudge as much as it was people who ranked over me not agreeing with how I said things. 

I took down the site at my lawyer’s advice.  He said he didn’t see anything I’d done wrong from his cursory look, but that if I chose to fight it, they would print out every page looking for SOMETHING illegal to charge me with in case the propriety and misappropriation charges didn’t stick. 

The charges were eventually dropped.  During the time I was charged, though, my work life was basically hellish.  It doesn’t matter if you’re “innocent before proven guilty.”  All anyone knew besides my accusers was that I’d been involved in some sort of web site impropriety.  Guys were calling me up asking what sort of porn I’d been posting or asking why I was writing about being a terrorist and “against the war” (for the record, I’m very much in support of it)  All of it was false, of course, but again, it doesn’t matter.  When you’re involved in legal trouble, that’s all anyone knows and it creates a severe stigma around you.  No one wants to have anything to do with you or anything of which you’re a part.  Since my job was basically helping other people out, they didn’t have the necessary trust in me to help them out. 

Even though the charges were dropped, the stigma never went away.  I spent the rest of my time there still dealing in an atmosphere that since I’d been charged, I was guilty, regardless if the charges were dropped. 

My sergeant major did this thing about hailing the people who were charging me, saying they'd decided to cut me a little slack and protect my career.  My lawyer told me the truth—I'd made it more trouble than they were willing to put up with, especially when they knew I hadn't done anything wrong.  A court martial can take days of interviews, paperwork and investigating, not to mention the time they'd have to take to travel to San Diego, which is where the trial would be held. 

This taught me something about fighting, arguing and debating: Always make it too much trouble for your adversaries to put up with and you'll win every time. 

But my lawyer was right—they DID seek out another reason to charge me…“improper use of government resources.”  This, too, was bullshit…the fact that I’d looked at a web site that didn’t apply to job-related work meant I was improperly using my computer and the Interweb.  What the hell?  People I worked with looked at Ebay and sports scores all day, for cryin’ out loud.  If I was guilty of it, SO WERE THEY. 

But they were right; I wasn’t supposed to look at that stuff.  It was useless to fight it because it IS a regulation to which I’d signed my name.  There really wasn’t any pleading or anything like that…I got what’s called a Page 11…basically, it’s an entry on page 11 of your record book that details what you did wrong.  It’s not THAT big of a deal…it really depends on the offense. 

Unfortunately, the site never went back up.  Even exonerated, I was still extremely fearful of being discovered speaking my mind.  T2, The ‘Hoo and I discussed how we could get around the regs.  I’d have to restrain myself if I wanted to write officially…I wasn’t going to do that.  What’s the point of writing if you can’t piss off someone? 

So I reached a compromise with myself.  I established the Hoodratz.net domain and wrote under my current moniker.  My official photo was, for a long time, a picture of a frickin’ ninja rat I’d been several years ago.  I DID post a picture of myself sleeping and reading to my newborn daughter, but I don’t think anyone would have been searching for those pictures. 

I was still very careful, though.  I didn’t let anyone with whom I worked know about the site.  To this date, there are still only a few Marines I know whose trust with me is so complete, they know about the site. 

About a year and a half later, I was asked to head up the editorial staff and webmaster responsibilities at my headquarters.  That oughta tell you something about hypocrisy…a year and a half prior, I was in danger of having to defend myself and web site.  Now, the same people wanted me to create and maintain their web site.  After I’d been there six months, one of the guys who pushed the issue called me in his office.  “You know, I had a lot of reservations about bringing you up here to do this job, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.”  Exactly, you fucking pretentious bastards.  Just because a guy writes “fuck” a lot doesn’t mean he’s a bad guy. 

As a tribute to myself and a subtle *fuck you*, I restructured the web site I maintained for them and rebuilt it in the same scheme as Chainsawz.  I couldn't use the same colors or anything, but everything else was basically the same.

Now, I’m out of the Marine Corps.  I didn’t get out because I hated it or because of any free speech issues.  My reason for leaving is another long (but not bad) story I won’t tell right now. 

But just think—this is for you people who seriously despise me (and I know there are plenty of you out there)—if you wanted to cause me any significant harm, you could have contacted any local Marine Corps office and told them about me.  I chuckle to myself every time I think about that fact…you missed your chance to get me GOOD and finally shut me up.  I’ve been out since April 14, 2006.  I’m no longer held under the jurisdiction of the UCMJ. 

Don’t get me wrong…I’m not trying to say anything bad about the Marine Corps in general.  I loved it and it was a great 13 years…but if you treasure your right not to be threatened with punishment for something that is not against the law, then I would not advise a military career.  It’s not a place that tells you to SHUT YOUR MOUTH all the time – they just don’t want you writing a bunch of stuff in public. 

A last thought, I suppose—every time I think about “free speech rights” and all that stuff, I think of all these antiwar types talking about how they don’t have free speech and OMG HOLY CRAP WE’RE NOT TREATED THE SAME BECAUSE NO ONE LISTENS TO US. 

Yeah, SHUT YOUR FACE.  MY LIFE was almost destroyed by writing about the non-political…and very well could have been destroyed because I speak critically of the uneducated, unwashed masses.  The Dixie Chicks have millions of dollars and just as many adoring fans…but they bitch about their “free speech.” 

Bite it, Natalie Maines.  You have no idea what it’s like.

- Ninja R

This story is dedicated to all the people who could have called up my superiors and ruined my life.  With all the shit I've done online, it's positively amazing how you could have easily shut me up...and now it's too late.  Too bad you lost your chance, huh?  HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!