KEYBOARD KOMMANDOS 4EVER.

The Koch Brothers are rich but they can't be handing out the big, big paychecks to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who arrives at the shape-up flexing his thumbs in prep for some X-teme political texting. So most of the dummies are paid in esprit de corps. They're set to churning out high-fives for a ridiculous nontroversy, disseminating insults from the conservative activist dictionary, and shaking their digital fists at everyone who does not respond with megadittos.

But sometimes Tom, or Dick, or Harry will glance up from his basement warren at his strawboss with a tired, confused look in his eyes. This may indicate that he's begun, if just barely, to suspect that he's not really a great citizen journalist, dishing out the zingers that will eventually drop the Lame Stream Media dragon and free the sheeple it holds in lieberal bondage, but a mere propagandist working in a sub-sub-contractor's hackshop. And for free!

He may be thinking: I didn't get into this to enforce someone else's groupthink. I wanted to tell my own story my own way. These people seem not to appreciate my individuality, my gifts, my beautiful soul. Maybe it's time to get that communications degree and join a PR firm, preferably one with a social media emphasis...

That's when you tell him about Omaha Beach. He may flee then and there. Or there'll be a pause, and maybe a faint crackling sound and smell of cordite as his pride flares up and burns out of his brain-pan whatever common sense he was raised with, and in that cleansing fire he will begin to see himself as an actual soldier in the cause, a battle-weary dogface who does his killin' with a keyboard, a guy who, when he gets to the Great Beyond, can proudly mount the final Hill with the Duke and Audie Murphy and whatshisname from Band of Brothers, confident that he's given his true, last full measure.

This is better than citizen journalism. This is dead butch!

He'll get back on the case, and for good this time. Because he's in the Army now. You can get him to write, or at least tweet or yell at hippies, stark raving crazy shit like "JEW-BASHING NYT COLUMNIST CALLS OBAMA 'ISRAEL'S BEST FRIEND'" and he won't even feel self-conscious about it. You can get him to tell the world that Blessed Andrew Breitbart was murdered by ObamaHitler. You can get him to use hashtags and wear T-shirts that would embarrass a self-respecting 12-year-old. He won't care. He's got that thousand-yard stare. He's part of something bigger than himself, bigger than any of you -- big enough to fight and die for, maybe even big enough to kill for -- try him, Cap; you'll see.

How does it end? Hopefully like the hippie communes that ran out of weed and quietly broke up, rather than like Synanon or the Branch Davidians. In either case, it'll be fun to watch -- from a suitable distance.

UPDATE. In comments, wjts wrote a monologue. Excerpt:

... Invective was flying, mostly from the libs. Lies of course - "Oh, you're a racist." "Oh, you hate women." "Oh, you're a paid mouthpiece for the Koch Brothers." Some guys couldn't take it. One fella - navyseal69@aol.com - caught an accusation of misogyny right in the face. Never heard from him again, and he had told me he had two Medals of Honor, four Purple Hearts, six Silver Stars, and a signed photograph of Janine Turner. Nothing to be ashamed of, but some men are cut out for the battlefield and some aren't. Me, I kept fighting. Every accusation that I didn't know what I was talking about I threw right back in that LibCom's face. "What percentage of the student body at top-tier law schools are of Hispanic descent?" they'd ask, and I fired right back with "What percentage of your mother was a Mexican whore?"...

Whetstone gets Shakespearean:

Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot
But he'll remember with advantages
What tweets he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Ace of Spades, The Jawa Report
Atlas Shrugged, Instapundit
Be in their flowing Big Gulps freshly rememb'red
This blog shall the paranoid teach his son
And Breitbart shall ne'er go by....

That's good shooting, soldiers! Now get some shut-eye -- we got a big day of Alinskyizing ahead of us!