When you deploy, the first three months you spend learning your job.
The last month you spend trying to not think about home, about getting extended, about getting hurt or killed.
I spent 2009 in Afghanistan.
I spent four months of 2010 in Afghanistan.
I’ve spent all of 2011 so far in Afghanistan.
In the last twenty nine months, I have spent twenty one of them in Afghanistan.
If I had deployed thirteen days earlier,
I would have been in Afghanistan for 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
So, I’m coming “home” for leave.
Two weeks of R&R. Rest and Recreation.
Civilians probably think we have some stupid name for it, like “Rest and Reproduction”.
No, we don’t joke about it. We joke about death. We joke about being hurt. We joke about being captured, and having our heads cut off, we joke about prosthetics.
We just call it “Leave”.
I’ll come “back” to America for two weeks.
“Back”.
I don’t know America any more. I don’t know how to be there. Is there stuff I want to do, are there places I want to see?
I have no idea.
What am I supposed to do for two weeks?
And I am haunted by the knowledge that Leave is a reflection of being deployed back to the States, and that is a reflection of being a civilian.
What the fuck would I do as a civilian?
How would I find a job? What would I be qualified as? What would happen when I lose that job?
Coming back to America is too much like dying.
Here, I have a job, a task, a purpose. Here I am valuable.
There, what am I?
Useless.
Unemployed.
Without purpose.
How do I go “home”?
What would the point even be?
Will she like me?
Will she like the changes that have happened to me?
The callouses, the cuts, the bruises, the fact that I shave my head every morning? The muscles, the fat, the wrinkles and lines, the differences in my body, my mind, my soul?
Will she still like me?
Will the children want me around? Will I be patient enough? Will I be a good father? Will they remember me? When will they judge me? Will they forgive me?
The mind attempts to grab on to things to focus on. A present! If I could find the right present, _that_ would make things better! A stuffed animal, or a scarf, something beautiful, or silly, or strange, or endearing. The item, ultimately empty. Meaningless, except to keep the mind anchored, keep it from drifting into shallow waters of fruitless worry and stress.
Never think about the possibilities. Do they love you? Do they still need you? Have you been replaced? Is there any meaning to the sacrifices you have made? Will they be there for you, or will you come home to an empty airport, and empty ceremony, and empty home?
And if they are there this time, what about next time? And the next time?
It’s like jumping. Leaping. In the dark. And you cannot see the other side, and you don’t know if there even _is_ another side.
You just jump.
And hope.
And again.
And again.
Tonight is my last night at work.
Getting ready for that plane flight. Getting ready for that ticket home.
Getting ready to jump.
In the dark.
Again.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Monday, April 18, 2011
My Father
So, two more packages from my father in the mail today.
Now, I have to give you some context.
I was two weeks old when my mom and dad split up. I’m pretty sure what happened was she split,
with me, possibly with another guy. Over the years, I was told a lot of bad shit about him.
When I was nine, I got a box from him. I remember there being a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull amongst the contents.
When I was seventeen, I flew to Alaska, where I got to meet him for the first time.
Now, this was an interesting experience.
Bob was a Marine. He volunteered for the Marines, for the Infantry, and he served in Viet-Nam. He ran long range patrols, weeks in the bush. He came home with a Purple Heart, a case of trenchfoot, and a lot of other things. Things you don't talk to people about all that much.
He came home without the name he left home with.
The Marines, like war, bring out the best in a man. They also bring out the worst.
My father and I spent two weeks together. I learned to drive a stick, I learned to shoot. I’m not sure if he learned much from the experience. It is possible he did, he never had an opportunity to be a father, maybe he got a taste of it. Maybe not. It’s hard to tell. Plus, he’s set in his ways. Any lesson he learns takes a few years to set in.
Bob came out to Buffalo when I was twenty-two. That visit went even less well. He managed to fight with every single person in the household.
While he was in Buffalo, I lost my job. I only misplaced it, it turns out, but at the time it looked like it was definitely missing, probably for good. When I was about two weeks unemployed, I received a check in the mail from one of my clients at the hospital. She had been dying, I had been taking care of her for years, her family didn’t care about her, she mailed me a check. The check happened to be for the same amount as I made in two weeks.
Well, Bob was in town. Fathers day was coming up. His birthday fell right around the same date. I went to the mall, and I saw a framed print. Odds are you have seen it. It depicts the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. It’s a print by Lee Teter. My dad fought in Vietnam. He was a volunteer, not a draftee. He looks a lot like the guy in the print. I bought it for him.
I didn’t have a job, which no-one knew yet, but I had the money my client had given me.
I wrote a note on the back and left it in the basement where he was staying. His response, to my grandmother, was, and I quote “Too Little, Too Late.” That print is still hanging on my wall in my living room. I am not one to forget, or forgive, a slight.
There were a few other things. My father and I are _painfully_ similar. We are both _right_. ALWAYS. We aren’t know-it-alls, we just know it better. See, for some reason, we both genetically have a sense of “rightness”. We are unbearably sure of ourselves. It makes us insufferable to people who don’t like us, and sometimes makes us capable of doing things others would not expect, or sometimes even believe possible. But we believe. Down to the core, whatever it is that we feel, or know, or are, there is not a shred of doubt. One of us can be annoying, provoking, difficult, arrogant, illuminating, amazing, daring. Two of us is guaranteed to be a disaster.
There are other problems. Men who are very confident and believe in themselves attract women. And are usually attracted to women. Soooooo, maybe it’s best we didn’t live in the same household. That being said, his visit when I was 22 was rather difficult.
I think I saw him once or twice since then. I think when the boys were young. I have this weird glitch in my memory, things beyond three years are really vague. Have had it since I was a kid. I suspect a cause, but have never been certain. So I am pretty sure I’ve seen him once or twice since then.
Well, a couple years ago, I was going through a bad time. Which is like describing a hurricane as a “spot of bad weather”. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have much of anything. I had lost custody of one of my kids, gone bankrupt, lost a lot. I needed something. Maybe I needed a purpose. Maybe I needed a reason why I couldn’t see my kid, so when he asked why I didn’t see him, I could say “Because I was in Afghanistan” which is _so_ much better an answer than “Because of your mother”. Maybe I just needed to die. I was really close. So I stopped at the recruiters office, and talked to the Marine recruiter.
They called back, and said I was too old, would I be interested in having my info passed on to any other branches? I said sure, give it to the Army. And when the Army called, I demanded infantry, demanded combat, demanded enlisted. See, I remembered talking to my father. I knew a man who hasn’t seen combat has no business leading soldiers in combat. So I knew I wanted Infantry, and I knew I wanted enlisted. And I knew I wanted combat. After all, there was a war on: if there’s anyone who can use a man who isn’t afraid to die, it would have to be the Army, wouldn’t it?
My scores were rather high. By rather, I mean “so high I had to argue to get into the infantry because they wanted me to design rockets or some shit like that” rather high.
And now I’ve been in the Army for almost four years. In the Infantry, combat arms. Enlisted. A Sergeant. Like my father. I’ve deployed twice. I’ve been shot at, with machine guns and with RPGS. I’ve been blown up. I’ve shot back. Effectively. I’m a soldier, an Infantryman. Want to know what I do for a living? I walk around. I eat stuff. I talk to people. Sometimes people try to kill me, and I try really hard to not get killed, and I try to kill them back. I’m really good at my job.
You wouldn’t believe how much knowledge and training and experience goes into something so simple.
My father started sending me packages this deployment. I talk about getting healthy, and cutting down on candy, the packages include healthy snacks. The packages include things to disarm an IED. They include socks. They include knives, and flashlights, and multi-tools. They include external hard drives, and scarves, and earplugs. They include magazines and supplements and a lot of other things. I am an Infantryman. There are tools to my trade, and the name brands on the things he sends me? They are the best. And, incidentally, the most expensive. His packages, each and every single one of them, are loaded with the very best tools of the trade that he practiced and I practice. I know this: like any professional, I know what works, and what doesn’t. His packages usually don’t include letters.
My father talks to my wife sometimes, but he and I rarely speak, or directly write each other. We have a lot in common these days. We have each had a son taken from us. We are each hard men. We are each solitary men by nature. We both still believe. I doubt we could be together and get along. But sometimes, it’s easier to get along with someone when they are a little further away. And Afghanistan and Alaska are pretty far away.
Now, I have to give you some context.
I was two weeks old when my mom and dad split up. I’m pretty sure what happened was she split,
with me, possibly with another guy. Over the years, I was told a lot of bad shit about him.
When I was nine, I got a box from him. I remember there being a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull amongst the contents.
When I was seventeen, I flew to Alaska, where I got to meet him for the first time.
Now, this was an interesting experience.
Bob was a Marine. He volunteered for the Marines, for the Infantry, and he served in Viet-Nam. He ran long range patrols, weeks in the bush. He came home with a Purple Heart, a case of trenchfoot, and a lot of other things. Things you don't talk to people about all that much.
He came home without the name he left home with.
The Marines, like war, bring out the best in a man. They also bring out the worst.
My father and I spent two weeks together. I learned to drive a stick, I learned to shoot. I’m not sure if he learned much from the experience. It is possible he did, he never had an opportunity to be a father, maybe he got a taste of it. Maybe not. It’s hard to tell. Plus, he’s set in his ways. Any lesson he learns takes a few years to set in.
Bob came out to Buffalo when I was twenty-two. That visit went even less well. He managed to fight with every single person in the household.
While he was in Buffalo, I lost my job. I only misplaced it, it turns out, but at the time it looked like it was definitely missing, probably for good. When I was about two weeks unemployed, I received a check in the mail from one of my clients at the hospital. She had been dying, I had been taking care of her for years, her family didn’t care about her, she mailed me a check. The check happened to be for the same amount as I made in two weeks.
Well, Bob was in town. Fathers day was coming up. His birthday fell right around the same date. I went to the mall, and I saw a framed print. Odds are you have seen it. It depicts the Vietnam Memorial in Washington. It’s a print by Lee Teter. My dad fought in Vietnam. He was a volunteer, not a draftee. He looks a lot like the guy in the print. I bought it for him.
I didn’t have a job, which no-one knew yet, but I had the money my client had given me.
I wrote a note on the back and left it in the basement where he was staying. His response, to my grandmother, was, and I quote “Too Little, Too Late.” That print is still hanging on my wall in my living room. I am not one to forget, or forgive, a slight.
There were a few other things. My father and I are _painfully_ similar. We are both _right_. ALWAYS. We aren’t know-it-alls, we just know it better. See, for some reason, we both genetically have a sense of “rightness”. We are unbearably sure of ourselves. It makes us insufferable to people who don’t like us, and sometimes makes us capable of doing things others would not expect, or sometimes even believe possible. But we believe. Down to the core, whatever it is that we feel, or know, or are, there is not a shred of doubt. One of us can be annoying, provoking, difficult, arrogant, illuminating, amazing, daring. Two of us is guaranteed to be a disaster.
There are other problems. Men who are very confident and believe in themselves attract women. And are usually attracted to women. Soooooo, maybe it’s best we didn’t live in the same household. That being said, his visit when I was 22 was rather difficult.
I think I saw him once or twice since then. I think when the boys were young. I have this weird glitch in my memory, things beyond three years are really vague. Have had it since I was a kid. I suspect a cause, but have never been certain. So I am pretty sure I’ve seen him once or twice since then.
Well, a couple years ago, I was going through a bad time. Which is like describing a hurricane as a “spot of bad weather”. I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have much of anything. I had lost custody of one of my kids, gone bankrupt, lost a lot. I needed something. Maybe I needed a purpose. Maybe I needed a reason why I couldn’t see my kid, so when he asked why I didn’t see him, I could say “Because I was in Afghanistan” which is _so_ much better an answer than “Because of your mother”. Maybe I just needed to die. I was really close. So I stopped at the recruiters office, and talked to the Marine recruiter.
They called back, and said I was too old, would I be interested in having my info passed on to any other branches? I said sure, give it to the Army. And when the Army called, I demanded infantry, demanded combat, demanded enlisted. See, I remembered talking to my father. I knew a man who hasn’t seen combat has no business leading soldiers in combat. So I knew I wanted Infantry, and I knew I wanted enlisted. And I knew I wanted combat. After all, there was a war on: if there’s anyone who can use a man who isn’t afraid to die, it would have to be the Army, wouldn’t it?
My scores were rather high. By rather, I mean “so high I had to argue to get into the infantry because they wanted me to design rockets or some shit like that” rather high.
And now I’ve been in the Army for almost four years. In the Infantry, combat arms. Enlisted. A Sergeant. Like my father. I’ve deployed twice. I’ve been shot at, with machine guns and with RPGS. I’ve been blown up. I’ve shot back. Effectively. I’m a soldier, an Infantryman. Want to know what I do for a living? I walk around. I eat stuff. I talk to people. Sometimes people try to kill me, and I try really hard to not get killed, and I try to kill them back. I’m really good at my job.
You wouldn’t believe how much knowledge and training and experience goes into something so simple.
My father started sending me packages this deployment. I talk about getting healthy, and cutting down on candy, the packages include healthy snacks. The packages include things to disarm an IED. They include socks. They include knives, and flashlights, and multi-tools. They include external hard drives, and scarves, and earplugs. They include magazines and supplements and a lot of other things. I am an Infantryman. There are tools to my trade, and the name brands on the things he sends me? They are the best. And, incidentally, the most expensive. His packages, each and every single one of them, are loaded with the very best tools of the trade that he practiced and I practice. I know this: like any professional, I know what works, and what doesn’t. His packages usually don’t include letters.
My father talks to my wife sometimes, but he and I rarely speak, or directly write each other. We have a lot in common these days. We have each had a son taken from us. We are each hard men. We are each solitary men by nature. We both still believe. I doubt we could be together and get along. But sometimes, it’s easier to get along with someone when they are a little further away. And Afghanistan and Alaska are pretty far away.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
...
La la.
Working working.
Today "working" means "explaining Islamic and Afghan burial customs",
instead of "walking 20 kilometers carrying shit".
Working working.
Today "working" means "explaining Islamic and Afghan burial customs",
instead of "walking 20 kilometers carrying shit".
Saturday, April 16, 2011
It's dark.
It’s dark.
It’s dark, my eyes are closed.
I’m drifting.
There is a rhythmic
sound,
but it is far away.
I’m drifting.
The sound changes pitch,
becomes higher,
sharper,
more of a whine and
less of a throb.
My eyes come open.It’s dark.I’m holding my weapon, barrel pointed downwards.I’m strapped in,
heavily armed, heavily armored.
Emphasis on the “heavy” part.
Strapped in.
Next to me, on either side and across from me, are the rest of us, strapped in, faceless in the dark.
In some ways, it’s like being on a bus.
Or like being in an airplane.
But it’s not.
The shape next to me leans in:
“TWO MINUTES! LOCK AND LOAD!”
I pass the message on, as I snap to full consciousness, my hands loading my M-4, checking the safety,checking my ‘203 rounds, releasing my five point safety harness.
“ONE MINUTE! HOT LZ!”
The pilots must have seen tracer fire.
The insurgents know the sounds our helicopters make.
The engine is screaming now, the pilots don’t like people shooting, they are coming in fast and hard,they aren’t going to land, they’re going to skip off the ground and we are going to get the fuckoff their helicopter as fast as we can so they can leave.
A helicopter, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter,a “shit-hook” helicopter, the fastest, highest flying, double-rotor helicopter, costs between eighteen and twenty five million dollars, plus crew and extras.
We must be the extras.
We don’t cost nearly as much.
The back door is open.
It’s a ramp, it folds down.
We are a couple hundred feet over the Afghan hills,
we aren’t buckled in,
we are travelling around a hundred miles an hour,
the door is open,
we are in a helicopter,
and someone down there is shooting at us.
If the bullets hit us, they’ll go right through the airframe.
Right through us.
They’ll make a movie about how brave we were, how we were like brothers to each other, about our grieving, yet strong wives and parents and their noble sacrifice, about our heroism.
They always leave out the screaming in the movies.
The screaming and the crying.
And the whimpering.
They always leave out the screaming.
I even know guys who don’t seem to remember the screaming.
Who told me “wow, he didn’t scream at all! He just joked and laughed and was really brave!”
Really? Is that what you remember? Because I remember the screaming. I remember the screaming like someone shot a dog, and it was dying. Scared, and in pain. Dying, scared and in pain. When they bring you the news, and they tell you "it was quick, he didn't suffer" they lie. Its never quick. Even if it only takes a few hours, or a few minutes. Those are the longest, the worst minutes of your life. Every - last - second of them.
It’s dark, nighttime, almost pitch black.
The dark velvet is relieved only by small red lights, by the lighter green of glow-in-the-dark patches on some of our equipment.
I check my weapon again, make sure the safety is on, again, make certain the magazine is secure in my weapon, again.
We hit, and are running out the door, streaming out the back of the aircraft, falling out of the back of the chopper, dust, dust everywhere.
Throwing ourselves down into the prone, the last few guys literally jumping off the bird as it leaves.
The pilots are not sticking around, a helicopter costs 18 to 25 million dollars.
Plus extras.
The chopper is gone.
We’re alone,
in the desert.
They put us down 3 kilometers from where we were supposed to be.
Time to go.
It’s dark, my eyes are closed.
I’m drifting.
There is a rhythmic
sound,
but it is far away.
I’m drifting.
The sound changes pitch,
becomes higher,
sharper,
more of a whine and
less of a throb.
My eyes come open.It’s dark.I’m holding my weapon, barrel pointed downwards.I’m strapped in,
heavily armed, heavily armored.
Emphasis on the “heavy” part.
Strapped in.
Next to me, on either side and across from me, are the rest of us, strapped in, faceless in the dark.
In some ways, it’s like being on a bus.
Or like being in an airplane.
But it’s not.
The shape next to me leans in:
“TWO MINUTES! LOCK AND LOAD!”
I pass the message on, as I snap to full consciousness, my hands loading my M-4, checking the safety,checking my ‘203 rounds, releasing my five point safety harness.
“ONE MINUTE! HOT LZ!”
The pilots must have seen tracer fire.
The insurgents know the sounds our helicopters make.
The engine is screaming now, the pilots don’t like people shooting, they are coming in fast and hard,they aren’t going to land, they’re going to skip off the ground and we are going to get the fuckoff their helicopter as fast as we can so they can leave.
A helicopter, a CH-47 Chinook helicopter,a “shit-hook” helicopter, the fastest, highest flying, double-rotor helicopter, costs between eighteen and twenty five million dollars, plus crew and extras.
We must be the extras.
We don’t cost nearly as much.
The back door is open.
It’s a ramp, it folds down.
We are a couple hundred feet over the Afghan hills,
we aren’t buckled in,
we are travelling around a hundred miles an hour,
the door is open,
we are in a helicopter,
and someone down there is shooting at us.
If the bullets hit us, they’ll go right through the airframe.
Right through us.
They’ll make a movie about how brave we were, how we were like brothers to each other, about our grieving, yet strong wives and parents and their noble sacrifice, about our heroism.
They always leave out the screaming in the movies.
The screaming and the crying.
And the whimpering.
They always leave out the screaming.
I even know guys who don’t seem to remember the screaming.
Who told me “wow, he didn’t scream at all! He just joked and laughed and was really brave!”
Really? Is that what you remember? Because I remember the screaming. I remember the screaming like someone shot a dog, and it was dying. Scared, and in pain. Dying, scared and in pain. When they bring you the news, and they tell you "it was quick, he didn't suffer" they lie. Its never quick. Even if it only takes a few hours, or a few minutes. Those are the longest, the worst minutes of your life. Every - last - second of them.
It’s dark, nighttime, almost pitch black.
The dark velvet is relieved only by small red lights, by the lighter green of glow-in-the-dark patches on some of our equipment.
I check my weapon again, make sure the safety is on, again, make certain the magazine is secure in my weapon, again.
We hit, and are running out the door, streaming out the back of the aircraft, falling out of the back of the chopper, dust, dust everywhere.
Throwing ourselves down into the prone, the last few guys literally jumping off the bird as it leaves.
The pilots are not sticking around, a helicopter costs 18 to 25 million dollars.
Plus extras.
The chopper is gone.
We’re alone,
in the desert.
They put us down 3 kilometers from where we were supposed to be.
Time to go.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
ch-ching...
There are no Democrats and there are no Republicans. They are two faces of the same coin, and the coin is counterfeit.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Just some thoughts, brought to mind my a conversation about the Air Force.
My friend told me a story today, about a soldier who went to a gathering of Veterans.
And he said that at this gathering was a man who had served with the Air Force and had been deployed to a nice, safe, cushy job for three months in a country where one is not subject to daily bombings, IEDs, rocket attacks, where you don’t have people shoot at you when you walk to the shitter.
The man who was in the Air Force said when he came home, he couldn’t go into a large group of people without wanting to “smoke some dudes”.
My friend told me this story, and there is a lot of humor in a man complaining about life when he had it so easy. He wasn’t bombed, or blown up. He never threw pieces of a friend in a river to keep the dogs from eating it. He never saw the hood of his truck hung in a village with graffiti about “Bush” and scrawling of RPGs on it. He never got shot, or even shot at.
But this man stood up, and he said he had some issues.
Why? Why would a soldier have an embedded core of anger and frustration?
Is he a whiner? Does the human penchant for exaggeration explain it? Probably a bit of both.
Maybe there is something else there too. Maybe the military systematically degrades and humiliates its soldiers, maybe the military never bothers to show you what you have done, what meaning there was in your actions. Maybe three months doing a meaningless, repetitive job, for low pay and little thanks leads to feelings of frustration and alienation. Maybe the military has a bit too much of sitting in the hall and waiting for orders. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Maybe in some ways I was lucky. I saw the people we were trying to help. I saw the enemy I signed up to fight, and had the opportunity to shoot at him. I got to see what we were doing, and what we were not doing, and what needed to be done. I know what I did, and what I didn’t do. Honestly, now that I have been to combat, the volume on everything else has been turned down. Little things don’t stress so much. Know what makes you want to kill people? The DMV. The guy on the bus giving you the wrong change. The guy in line in front of you who doesn’t seem to know that 20 items is more than 12, and he should be in the other aisle. And now he’s writing a check. And doesn’t have ID. And wants to argue with the teller, a poor single mom who just wants to finish her shift so she can take off her shoes and sit down and rest. Know what? Going on patrols is awesome. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s interesting. It’s like going on vacation, walking around, taking pictures of mountains and little kids and lakes. And when you do it, you are doing a job you have practiced, that you are good at, that you enjoy. Coming home, sitting in garrison, in the hallways, staring at the fucking cement walls while guys play light saber battles with their iphones for hours, break for lunch come back, sit on the floor and watch the walls while they play with their iphones, “Look, I caught a big fish on my phone!”, staring at the walls, for hours, the boss comes out: “Go home, be back at 6:30 for pt (so we can do it again)”. Staring at the walls.
“Bring the soldiers home!” you say. Why? Why would you do that to me? Why would you take away the things that I do that have meaning, take away my job, my livelihood, make my skills pointless, make me sit and stare at walls and do nothing, when I could be deployed, I could be on patrol, I could be defusing bombs, and meeting elders, and talking to kids and living my life and doing important, exciting things?
When you say “bring the troops home” you are telling me “I want you to be fired, I want you to be unemployed, I want your life to have no meaning, no purpose. I want you to be a shell of a man, sitting on the couch, old and fat and soft, wishing I were deployed, wishing there was a purpose.” Bring me home, feed me, buy me drinks. Take me somewhere I can see water, and grass, and pretty girls. Wash me, shave me, hold me. Send me back out to do what I am good at. Send me out to do what I want to do, what I need to do, what makes me a hero, what makes me brave.
I pity that guy from the Air Force. He signed up, and in his heart, he hoped he’d get what I got: the chance. He didn’t get that chance, and he’s mad about it and he whines about it.
No man is brave from a couch. No man is a hero from home. Here, I am a hero. Here, I am brave. Here, I do something important, something meaningful.
And he said that at this gathering was a man who had served with the Air Force and had been deployed to a nice, safe, cushy job for three months in a country where one is not subject to daily bombings, IEDs, rocket attacks, where you don’t have people shoot at you when you walk to the shitter.
The man who was in the Air Force said when he came home, he couldn’t go into a large group of people without wanting to “smoke some dudes”.
My friend told me this story, and there is a lot of humor in a man complaining about life when he had it so easy. He wasn’t bombed, or blown up. He never threw pieces of a friend in a river to keep the dogs from eating it. He never saw the hood of his truck hung in a village with graffiti about “Bush” and scrawling of RPGs on it. He never got shot, or even shot at.
But this man stood up, and he said he had some issues.
Why? Why would a soldier have an embedded core of anger and frustration?
Is he a whiner? Does the human penchant for exaggeration explain it? Probably a bit of both.
Maybe there is something else there too. Maybe the military systematically degrades and humiliates its soldiers, maybe the military never bothers to show you what you have done, what meaning there was in your actions. Maybe three months doing a meaningless, repetitive job, for low pay and little thanks leads to feelings of frustration and alienation. Maybe the military has a bit too much of sitting in the hall and waiting for orders. And waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Maybe in some ways I was lucky. I saw the people we were trying to help. I saw the enemy I signed up to fight, and had the opportunity to shoot at him. I got to see what we were doing, and what we were not doing, and what needed to be done. I know what I did, and what I didn’t do. Honestly, now that I have been to combat, the volume on everything else has been turned down. Little things don’t stress so much. Know what makes you want to kill people? The DMV. The guy on the bus giving you the wrong change. The guy in line in front of you who doesn’t seem to know that 20 items is more than 12, and he should be in the other aisle. And now he’s writing a check. And doesn’t have ID. And wants to argue with the teller, a poor single mom who just wants to finish her shift so she can take off her shoes and sit down and rest. Know what? Going on patrols is awesome. It’s fun. It’s exciting. It’s interesting. It’s like going on vacation, walking around, taking pictures of mountains and little kids and lakes. And when you do it, you are doing a job you have practiced, that you are good at, that you enjoy. Coming home, sitting in garrison, in the hallways, staring at the fucking cement walls while guys play light saber battles with their iphones for hours, break for lunch come back, sit on the floor and watch the walls while they play with their iphones, “Look, I caught a big fish on my phone!”, staring at the walls, for hours, the boss comes out: “Go home, be back at 6:30 for pt (so we can do it again)”. Staring at the walls.
“Bring the soldiers home!” you say. Why? Why would you do that to me? Why would you take away the things that I do that have meaning, take away my job, my livelihood, make my skills pointless, make me sit and stare at walls and do nothing, when I could be deployed, I could be on patrol, I could be defusing bombs, and meeting elders, and talking to kids and living my life and doing important, exciting things?
When you say “bring the troops home” you are telling me “I want you to be fired, I want you to be unemployed, I want your life to have no meaning, no purpose. I want you to be a shell of a man, sitting on the couch, old and fat and soft, wishing I were deployed, wishing there was a purpose.” Bring me home, feed me, buy me drinks. Take me somewhere I can see water, and grass, and pretty girls. Wash me, shave me, hold me. Send me back out to do what I am good at. Send me out to do what I want to do, what I need to do, what makes me a hero, what makes me brave.
I pity that guy from the Air Force. He signed up, and in his heart, he hoped he’d get what I got: the chance. He didn’t get that chance, and he’s mad about it and he whines about it.
No man is brave from a couch. No man is a hero from home. Here, I am a hero. Here, I am brave. Here, I do something important, something meaningful.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)