“It’s three in the morning and it‘s still over ninety fucking degrees, how can it be so damn hot? it‘s only March!” I was thinking to myself. While in the background our Lieutenant continues his mission brief.
We all know what we have to do, when and where it’s going to go down, and who we are after. “Just like we trained for.” is what our Lieutenant always says to calm us. We are going to raid a house, a big house by Iraq’s standards. Most homes are one or two rooms, this one is around ten rooms. I sigh upon hearing this, I know my team is the entry team. I look at Dean, Loren, and Etchie, my brothers who will go in with me, and I see the same look on their faces as I have on mine, grief. Entry teams on large houses usually lose a guy, we are all too aware of this. I can tell we are all thinking of worst case scenarios but we are still listening to our briefing. The target: some hajji, our source of information: unknown, armament of the home: unknown, number of inhabitants: unknown. “At least they got an address” someone would say, or “Fuck M.I.” (military intelligence) is also popular. We all know the risks, and we all know that the home we are about to raid is, probably, full of innocent people. Innocence…that’s what makes this job is so hard.
A raid like this will take about 35 men (a platoon) to complete. My team will enter, clear and secure the building and the target. Once it’s clear more men will come in to search the house and take the prisoner away. At this point my job is done. To get there we will ride in the back of a lightly armored pick-up, eight men in full gear on the roughest ride ever. I hate these trucks. The armor on the sides of the truck bed is so short that your back and head are exposed, we are a prime target for a roadside bomb. I day dream during these rides, we all do something to keep our minds off of how vulnerable we are. I am forced from my dream into the now as the truck stops two miles from the target, we dismount. Time to earn our pay.
My squad is split into two teams of four men, my team will enter and secure the house while the other team secures the perimeter of the house. We line up close together, to one side of the door. Nut to butt close, stealth is our only wild card in this game of poker. All the unknowns on the other side of this door give the inhabitants a royal flush over our pair of deuces. Two men from the other team have the door ram at the ready. Loren is our lead man, Dean is number two, I am third with a machine gun, Etchie is last man. The third man in a stack is always in charge, so that is me. I nod and the ram swings and drops the door to the floor. The entire team is inside the first room before the door hits the ground. Room by room we search for our target and clear each room as we pass through it to the next. We find our man still asleep in his bed. How anyone can sleep through a door being knocked down amazes me. Dean searches him for any explosive devices as Loren cuffs him. I radio the others so they can enter and Etchie interrogates him to make sure we got the right man. Nine times out of ten military intelligence will send us to the wrong house. Today we were right, a text book example of a raid. No one got hurt and nobody had to shoot. Etchie, our token black guy, always raps “I didn’t even use my AK, I gotta say, today was a good day” as we leave a building that we never had to shoot in. The rush of a midnight raid is almost unbeatable. If a fire fight broke out then it would be the ultimate rush.
The Lt. was right, just like it was in training. In the months before the war we rehearsed these raids so many thousands of times. It makes it instinctual. Only a minute elapsed from our entry to now. So fast, so smooth, I feel like a part of a ballet, a part of beauty, we don’t charge through the house, we flow like armed water from a broken pipe. Silent and harmless but ready to drown those who will stand in our way. There truly is such a thing as an art of warfare. Nowhere on Earth feels as safe as being in a stack before the entrance, you’re covered by your brothers and you are covering them. What beauty and serenity one can feel from being a part of a masterpiece, our own Rembrandt of destruction and perfection.
Back at base we get to relax a bit. After a raid we always get some time to decompress in our own ways. Frank loves his computer games, Etchie loves to watch movies on his computer, Kostoff makes slide shows of our exploits beautifully timed to music, and me, I disappear. Alone time in the army is impossible, unless you really work at it. I hate crowds and people so stealth and hiding are the two ways I found to get some time without interruption. The best place to hide is in the most obvious place, the army loves to complicate simple things, so the obvious is often overlooked. In front of our house is an old concrete bunker shaped like a pyramid with a flat top. It stands about 60 feet tall and the top is large enough to park two vehicles on. There are about a dozen of these around our base, but this one is the closest to the wall. Our base is in the middle of the city and our house is hand grenade distance from the Iraqi’s. We are supposed to wear all our gear if we want to go on top of these bunkers. I never do, but I never let the danger of being up here slip my mind. Since the bunkers are remnants of Saddam’s era not many guys want anything to do with it, some for superstitious reasons but most just hate anything Arabic. After days like today I climb to the top and relax, all alone. I go inside the bunker during the day when the sun is too hot to stand, at night I go on top. I only need my gun, water, cigs, and my pipe.
After a day like this, or any that is stressful, I will spend nearly all night on the bunker looking at the stars, the moon, or at the city that surrounds me. All alone, the background noises give way to the sounds of my thoughts. I reflect, relive, dream, wish, hope, worry, but mostly I try to make some sense of it all. Pausing to load a bowl of Afghani hash, (for my glaucoma). I smoke it, then a cigarette or two, as I tune into the music on my MP3 player and drop out for a bit. Laying on my back under the beautiful night sky that only the darkness of the dessert can show I am struck by the same reoccurring thought each time: Why am I so scared to go home? It was not that long ago I was scared of war, now I am scared to show my battle hardened face in my own home town. Home has become my war and war has become my home. “How ironic. How fuckin ironic” I muse quietly to myself.
Now, I’m short. Not in height but in time left in my tour. In twelve days the war is over to me. The only problem is the twelve days. It’s been about three weeks since any major happenings and that makes me nervous. When you get short you key in on all kinds of potential threats that previously were not dangerous. Everyone is suspect and everything looks like a damn IED (roadside bomb). It’s only now that I have become enlightened with just how dangerous this job is, and how many times I should have died.
Back up on the bunker, tonight’s a party of sorts. More for necessity, I have to smoke the last of my stash since I leave in two days I won’t have another chance to smoke it. And I need it tonight. What would be my last shots of the war were fired today. A car didn’t see our check point, fearing that it’s a car bomb, I shot and killed the 13 year old learning how to drive from his dad. Maybe I did over react since I am so short, but in that moment I acted in the same manner I have twenty times before, faced with the same deal. What makes this one so hard to swallow was not his youth, most kills are kids, but his father’s non stop wailing. I felt like shit, “sorry don’t work in this line of work” is written on my helmet. How true. How god damn true.
There is always a bright side and my gunner Matt seized this one. Matt …Matt….that sadistic mutha; he ran up to the father, covered in his boy’s blood and brains, grabbed him, shook him and slapped him, then yelled in his face “THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL”. How fuckin funny is that? I’ll tell you… I have never laughed so hard in my life. EVER. But, now the humor has subsided and the gravity of that and all of the chaos and carnage of the last 12 months is on my mind now.
A few hours have passed and I am stoned to the gourd and still have some left. “Bonus” I think to my self, “It will help postpone reality a bit longer”. My mind never stops thinking, even as high as I am, I still wrestle with the thought of how to explain days, even moments like this to the ones at home. The sheltered masses of innocence. Why do I even want to explain this to anyone? I know they will not understand, most really don’t care, and I don’t blame them. War is so much like a dream, it is unbelievable, unimaginable, unfathomable, and unexplainable even to those who have tasted it, know, that we don’t try and explain it to be understood by the innocent masses. We explain it in the hopes that one day it just might be understood by ourselves. I want answers to questions raised by war. I deserve these answers. That’s why I keep trying to explain it, so maybe, just maybe, the answers I want will show themselves to me. Hell, maybe I already have all the answers I need, perhaps it’s the questions that produce these answers that I want to discover so badly. Either way, the war is over for me. I just have to convince myself that it really is over.
Monday, May 7, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Who I am place, WAR
I am a warrior. I was born to the eighth generation of a family that measures the power of their men by their service in war. Part from our native side that makes the man count coup. And part from the white side that has waged so many different wars that it seems to be the only thing the men have in common. I became a warrior for it was what I felt I must do. Six years is an unfathomable commitment to a youth of 18 years.
I have been free of war for 2 years, yet, I have not really been free of war for more than a day. I am only a snapshot, a picture in someone elses mind. For the ones who have been close to me, are now, with me only at times when I can sense their presence. The war has cost me the lives of my only 9 friends. My brothers from other mothers. It also cost me my fathers last days, the love of my life, and the sanity of my mother who has yet to come back to us after being told of my death in a hole half a world away.
Did I forget my innocence? That is presuming I had any. After all who takes a job that trains him to kill and equips him to do so? Not a man with innocence. But over six years have passed me since my first tour in the barren mountains of hell, but I still wake up screaming and crying nearly each night. Not for the loss of my innocence, if I had any to begin with, nor for the wasted lives of my brothers, but for the true innocent of war, the children. To see a toddler holding the cold stiff hand of their parent asking her, begging her “mommy please wake up I am hungry and scared,” then two days later seeing the toddler lying next to her mom with the same color of death in both their faces.
I cannot explain where I lost my innocence or when, but I can give you a hundred examples of what it looks like, feels like, even smells like to watch innocence die.
In some way shape or form I am the taker of innocence. For freedom, I steal innocence. For revenge I steal innocence, for spite, anger, hate I steal innocence. How I live with this is the real war. The war that will never end. I stole innocence trying to find mine.
I am the innocence I destroyed in war. That's who I am.
I have been free of war for 2 years, yet, I have not really been free of war for more than a day. I am only a snapshot, a picture in someone elses mind. For the ones who have been close to me, are now, with me only at times when I can sense their presence. The war has cost me the lives of my only 9 friends. My brothers from other mothers. It also cost me my fathers last days, the love of my life, and the sanity of my mother who has yet to come back to us after being told of my death in a hole half a world away.
Did I forget my innocence? That is presuming I had any. After all who takes a job that trains him to kill and equips him to do so? Not a man with innocence. But over six years have passed me since my first tour in the barren mountains of hell, but I still wake up screaming and crying nearly each night. Not for the loss of my innocence, if I had any to begin with, nor for the wasted lives of my brothers, but for the true innocent of war, the children. To see a toddler holding the cold stiff hand of their parent asking her, begging her “mommy please wake up I am hungry and scared,” then two days later seeing the toddler lying next to her mom with the same color of death in both their faces.
I cannot explain where I lost my innocence or when, but I can give you a hundred examples of what it looks like, feels like, even smells like to watch innocence die.
In some way shape or form I am the taker of innocence. For freedom, I steal innocence. For revenge I steal innocence, for spite, anger, hate I steal innocence. How I live with this is the real war. The war that will never end. I stole innocence trying to find mine.
I am the innocence I destroyed in war. That's who I am.
who I am "family"
I am from a small, distant family, my family has always been very advanced in women’s rights yet, strangely, very patriarchal. My mother’s side offers a Southern family rich in American history from early in the 1700’s. My father’s side offers a Native American side rich with love and care for the wilds of our home lands. Both combine to put me in the seat of eighth generation United States War Veteran. Men of my family have fought in every major war that America has been in. I hold the prestige of the first to battle three times in two wars.
Women in my family have all had post high school education dating as far back as 1880. My grandmother held a bachelors degree from Minot, ND and pursued a life a ranch wife. Never using her education in a profession, the fact that she had it is remarkable for the 1910’s. Before women could vote my Grandmother was more educated than 70% of the voting men in America.
In the last year all the living men in my family have died. Leaving me the lone male in charge of my patriarchal family. At 25 I had survived 3 wars, that I would’ve preferred not to, lost my father, uncle, and grandfather, and was thrust into the care of my sisters, aunt and, mother. All of which are difficult duties to perform while attending school. Yet that is who I am, a man of DUTY. The former elder of my family said, “Without our duties to perform and the challenge we feel to perform these duties... us men are lost”.
So I perform, despite being lost, my duty will find me. It always has.
This is who I am. And who I am from.
Women in my family have all had post high school education dating as far back as 1880. My grandmother held a bachelors degree from Minot, ND and pursued a life a ranch wife. Never using her education in a profession, the fact that she had it is remarkable for the 1910’s. Before women could vote my Grandmother was more educated than 70% of the voting men in America.
In the last year all the living men in my family have died. Leaving me the lone male in charge of my patriarchal family. At 25 I had survived 3 wars, that I would’ve preferred not to, lost my father, uncle, and grandfather, and was thrust into the care of my sisters, aunt and, mother. All of which are difficult duties to perform while attending school. Yet that is who I am, a man of DUTY. The former elder of my family said, “Without our duties to perform and the challenge we feel to perform these duties... us men are lost”.
So I perform, despite being lost, my duty will find me. It always has.
This is who I am. And who I am from.
a true tale with a twist
A Love Lost
This is the story of a love so strong and lasting that it will be retold for generations to come. At a time when a country was involved in an unpopular war that divided its people over the need for such a war. As with all wars young men must leave their lives and loves behind to do battle in a fight they had no part in starting. Many of these men were never to see their families and friends again, such a high price is paid in all wars. Out of this time of chaos and sorrow our story begins.
A lone soldier named Chad, having already fought his country’s war on two separate occasions, had settled into a life of peace in the woods of his hometown. After his return from the war, a year earlier, he met Jena. Jena was the picture of beauty and elegance, her hair shined like the fire of the sun and her eyes were so blue that the sky itself seemed gray in comparison. Chad’s heart soon took control of him and he found himself unable to live without Jena by his side.
One can not fight the power of love. Even a man as strong as the soldier, who has seen the darkest of human nature and faced death on so many occasions, is powerless to love. Since the first night Chad took another life in the midst of battle, he slowly fell into the despair that life is made of only suffering. Once the war was behind him he vowed to live a life so sheltered that he would never again feel the pain of life. More proof that even the strongest defenses can not hold against the heart once it falls for another. Chad was no exception, the first time he saw Jena something unexplainable shook him to his core. Jena, too, had the same reaction to Chad and the first time their eyes met they both knew that they would never again be apart.
Within a few months they were inseparable and the whole town talked of how perfect they were. The most beautiful, charming woman in town and the most handsome and strong man, together they gave new hope to the future of love in that quite mountain town. The wedding soon followed, it was a beautiful day to accompany a perfect union of hearts. It seemed as though the heavens too were overjoyed at the union of such a pair. For the first time the young warriors life, everything was going his way. Yet, the first challenge these two lovers would face was nearly upon them.
While life seemed perfect in the eyes of the newlyweds, and of their townsfolk, the war raged on a half a world away. Soon Chad was called back to serve once again in the war he tried so hard to leave behind. The war had claimed so many lives that the country was desperately short of men, and they began recalling prior soldiers to return to do battle. Faced with not only a war but a life devoid of this new nirvana called love, Chad felt sick thinking of leaving his beloved Jena. Jena was strong, perhaps stronger than Chad, and she knew he would go, he was born to a family of warriors, to think he would stay was foolish.
The day soon came to leave and the goodbye was painful and long. Chad knew what lay ahead and could not bear the thought of Jena losing him, nor could he her, so he promised himself to return to her. Jena stood silent tears rolling from her blue eyes that now seemed to be darkened by the clouds of pain, as her love and her heart rode away in the back of a truck. Chad was to be gone for a year, but what is time to an aching heart? A minute is a year to a broken heart. Jena wrote Chad everyday and when he could he wrote to Jena, she told him of the life that he was missing and he told her of his longing for her touch. Her letters kept him going in a world he never wanted her to know, and her love gave him the strength to fight his toughest battle to come.
One stormy night Chad and three others were patrolling a violent stretch of a war torn city when they were ambushed. In seconds they were attacked by so many guns that Chad thought the sky was hailing bullets. They ran for their lives trying to reach a nearby river that offered them woods to hide in and wait for help. Chad ran and ran shooting instinctively at those who tried to stop him, he soon reached the river and hid. In that moment he thought of Jena and he saw the look of devastation in her face as she heard of his death. That same moment he made a vow “My last war I fought with out a cause, now I have something worthy of a fight. Jena, I love you, I‘m coming home”. With the power of love in his heart and the mind of a determined warrior Chad fought his way to a cave and waited for help. For three weeks Chad waited, oblivious that he was the only survivor, or that word was already sent to Jena of his death.
At home Jena only recalled a man in uniform talking she couldn’t hear a word but she knew before he spoke that her beloved Chad had died. Grief stricken she fell into a pit of despair surrounded by the memories of their love. She got to a point of no return and chose to end her suffering and her life. She loaded Chad’s gun and began the ordeal of preparing herself to be with Chad for eternity when the mail man knocked at her door. The mailman could see the desperation in his daughters eyes when he gave her a letter from Chad. It was too much for Jena, so her father told her something only another warrior could know. “Jena, Chad has fought for three years of his short life in war and always survived, this time he has love with him. The man may die easily but his heart won’t die that easy, give him time to love you again.” With that the mail man left his daughter to read the words from her lost love.
Jena trembled as she read the letter from a love now departed. When she got to the end the words spoke a promise to her that until then Chad refused to say: “I will come home to you my love, this I promise.” Over come by grief at this impossibility she felt she cursed him by selfishly wanting to hear him say that. Her mind again went to the gun only she was too weak to reach it, as she struggled to get the strength to kill herself a familiar voice spoke to her. She heard Chad ask why she was crying so? So clear was his voice that Jena thought his spirit was with her. Until Chad lay down next to her on the floor and said “My love I will never again cause you this pain, for I am home and that will never change.” Against all odds Chad lived and returned to his love without a moment to spare. United again in love Chad and Jena continued their lives and true to his word he never left her and she never left him.
To this day no one knows how Chad survived, or how he got home from such a land. The records of his country still list him as killed in action. Some say he wanted it that way, others say he was killed and the heavens sent him back to keep a beautiful love alive. I say a little of both.
This is the story of a love so strong and lasting that it will be retold for generations to come. At a time when a country was involved in an unpopular war that divided its people over the need for such a war. As with all wars young men must leave their lives and loves behind to do battle in a fight they had no part in starting. Many of these men were never to see their families and friends again, such a high price is paid in all wars. Out of this time of chaos and sorrow our story begins.
A lone soldier named Chad, having already fought his country’s war on two separate occasions, had settled into a life of peace in the woods of his hometown. After his return from the war, a year earlier, he met Jena. Jena was the picture of beauty and elegance, her hair shined like the fire of the sun and her eyes were so blue that the sky itself seemed gray in comparison. Chad’s heart soon took control of him and he found himself unable to live without Jena by his side.
One can not fight the power of love. Even a man as strong as the soldier, who has seen the darkest of human nature and faced death on so many occasions, is powerless to love. Since the first night Chad took another life in the midst of battle, he slowly fell into the despair that life is made of only suffering. Once the war was behind him he vowed to live a life so sheltered that he would never again feel the pain of life. More proof that even the strongest defenses can not hold against the heart once it falls for another. Chad was no exception, the first time he saw Jena something unexplainable shook him to his core. Jena, too, had the same reaction to Chad and the first time their eyes met they both knew that they would never again be apart.
Within a few months they were inseparable and the whole town talked of how perfect they were. The most beautiful, charming woman in town and the most handsome and strong man, together they gave new hope to the future of love in that quite mountain town. The wedding soon followed, it was a beautiful day to accompany a perfect union of hearts. It seemed as though the heavens too were overjoyed at the union of such a pair. For the first time the young warriors life, everything was going his way. Yet, the first challenge these two lovers would face was nearly upon them.
While life seemed perfect in the eyes of the newlyweds, and of their townsfolk, the war raged on a half a world away. Soon Chad was called back to serve once again in the war he tried so hard to leave behind. The war had claimed so many lives that the country was desperately short of men, and they began recalling prior soldiers to return to do battle. Faced with not only a war but a life devoid of this new nirvana called love, Chad felt sick thinking of leaving his beloved Jena. Jena was strong, perhaps stronger than Chad, and she knew he would go, he was born to a family of warriors, to think he would stay was foolish.
The day soon came to leave and the goodbye was painful and long. Chad knew what lay ahead and could not bear the thought of Jena losing him, nor could he her, so he promised himself to return to her. Jena stood silent tears rolling from her blue eyes that now seemed to be darkened by the clouds of pain, as her love and her heart rode away in the back of a truck. Chad was to be gone for a year, but what is time to an aching heart? A minute is a year to a broken heart. Jena wrote Chad everyday and when he could he wrote to Jena, she told him of the life that he was missing and he told her of his longing for her touch. Her letters kept him going in a world he never wanted her to know, and her love gave him the strength to fight his toughest battle to come.
One stormy night Chad and three others were patrolling a violent stretch of a war torn city when they were ambushed. In seconds they were attacked by so many guns that Chad thought the sky was hailing bullets. They ran for their lives trying to reach a nearby river that offered them woods to hide in and wait for help. Chad ran and ran shooting instinctively at those who tried to stop him, he soon reached the river and hid. In that moment he thought of Jena and he saw the look of devastation in her face as she heard of his death. That same moment he made a vow “My last war I fought with out a cause, now I have something worthy of a fight. Jena, I love you, I‘m coming home”. With the power of love in his heart and the mind of a determined warrior Chad fought his way to a cave and waited for help. For three weeks Chad waited, oblivious that he was the only survivor, or that word was already sent to Jena of his death.
At home Jena only recalled a man in uniform talking she couldn’t hear a word but she knew before he spoke that her beloved Chad had died. Grief stricken she fell into a pit of despair surrounded by the memories of their love. She got to a point of no return and chose to end her suffering and her life. She loaded Chad’s gun and began the ordeal of preparing herself to be with Chad for eternity when the mail man knocked at her door. The mailman could see the desperation in his daughters eyes when he gave her a letter from Chad. It was too much for Jena, so her father told her something only another warrior could know. “Jena, Chad has fought for three years of his short life in war and always survived, this time he has love with him. The man may die easily but his heart won’t die that easy, give him time to love you again.” With that the mail man left his daughter to read the words from her lost love.
Jena trembled as she read the letter from a love now departed. When she got to the end the words spoke a promise to her that until then Chad refused to say: “I will come home to you my love, this I promise.” Over come by grief at this impossibility she felt she cursed him by selfishly wanting to hear him say that. Her mind again went to the gun only she was too weak to reach it, as she struggled to get the strength to kill herself a familiar voice spoke to her. She heard Chad ask why she was crying so? So clear was his voice that Jena thought his spirit was with her. Until Chad lay down next to her on the floor and said “My love I will never again cause you this pain, for I am home and that will never change.” Against all odds Chad lived and returned to his love without a moment to spare. United again in love Chad and Jena continued their lives and true to his word he never left her and she never left him.
To this day no one knows how Chad survived, or how he got home from such a land. The records of his country still list him as killed in action. Some say he wanted it that way, others say he was killed and the heavens sent him back to keep a beautiful love alive. I say a little of both.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Art and story of Eros
Eros is known as the god of love. Considered to be one of the oldest gods of ancient Greek society, he was the maker of man kind. He is also credited with the power to grant new life from his use of love in humans and in early mythology even animals. Eros has had three identities in his life as a god to the ancient Greeks, each in connection with the three main periods of the Greek empire. Although he has had three names and identities his power to instill love and therefore life have always been the same. Depicted as a human with wings armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows tipped in poison that causes love. Usually depicted as a male, his age varies from artist to artist. Ancient Greeks depicted him as a full grown adult male. The image of Eros as the cupid we are familiar with today, as the dwarfish and pudgy child, was not used until the Renaissance Age in Europe.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
"What is Love" free writing poem
Love is evil, mean, ruthless.
It only leads to unhappiness.
Why do we fall so freely for it?
To lessen our sorrow?
Or do we just emptily say it
hoping to get laid tomorrow.
It only leads to unhappiness.
Why do we fall so freely for it?
To lessen our sorrow?
Or do we just emptily say it
hoping to get laid tomorrow.
"What is Love" Free writing results
Love is simply the demise of the individual self.
Love makes one cherish the source of the the love more than one cherishes themself.
Once the individual self is compromised into the state of love,
they stop being unique and become conformed to the idea of being in love.
There-fore love is an addiction to passion. A passion that is unattainable solo.
Like all other addictions, if left unchecked it will destroy the individual self of the addict.
My advice: SOBER UP!!!!!
Love makes one cherish the source of the the love more than one cherishes themself.
Once the individual self is compromised into the state of love,
they stop being unique and become conformed to the idea of being in love.
There-fore love is an addiction to passion. A passion that is unattainable solo.
Like all other addictions, if left unchecked it will destroy the individual self of the addict.
My advice: SOBER UP!!!!!
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