The shower is a great place to let the mind wonder. No matter where you are or what you do, when you close that curtain behind you, the world collapses down in to something more manageable, a place with control over temperature and time, to wash away dirt both real and imagined. And in that space the thoughts that never really found space to merge into the mind's daily traffic slowly climb their way up with the steam off your skin. Questions about the nature of meaning, what matters. Do the things that matter to you matter universally or is relevance more compartmentalized?
I start with the assumption that things do matter. Why even ask the questions if life and consciousness are meaningless? With that settled, for the moment anyway, I wander over to doubt. Doubt in myself, my abilities in comparison to others and why I care to rate myself to begin with. Happiness weaves it's way into the maw. Is it important to be happy with what you do in your life? Is it more important that say, duty? Should we seek out pleasure or rather a code to live by? There is solace in structure but some life's most memorable moments happen by accident. One question leads to another and even the answers carry along a few questions in tow.
Occasionally a feeling like crippling fear blacks everything out. Most often it's when I feel like I've got the important stuff under control. Out of nowhere something will come along and kick over my Lego castle scattering the pieces across the carpet and under the bed. What's left to do but rebuild? I could do it like it says on the box or maybe not. Maybe a space ship this time. My castle was cool but it seemed so very average, anyone can build the castle, it comes with directions, but this space ship is unique and interesting. It flies and shoots and explores the farthest reaches of the galaxy, it's exciting but it's new and as with any new thing it isn't without flaws. It's phase drive is unreliable, some contractor skimped on the material for support welds for the wings and they need to be replaced almost every time it reenters Earths atmosphere, the cockpit has a terrible blind spot, but the hull is painted Ferrari red (first impressions being what they are) and chicks dig it. So that's where the fear creeps in, castle or space ship, old or new, I can make either but which one is more right, right now? How many times can I break the pieces apart before they start to wear out? Why is it so hard to choose!?
Why not make Lego metaphors? These are my brains computer models of the path of my life's tornado, I can try and predict the effects with out creating any real damage. Thanks to the shower, I can be completely wrong or come to a life changing epiphany and either way I've completed my initial objective of cleanliness and so have become a winner, if only for a moment.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Truth?! You Can't Handle the Truth!
This article ran in today's Stars and Stripes and I'd like to set the record straight on a couple points because it never fails that what I say doesn't necessarily translate into what shows up in print. My additions will be in bold.
BAGHDAD — Almost every unit has one: The guy with the guitar. Whether in the CHU or around the burn barrel, he’s the one who’s all too eager to pick up his acoustic and play a song for everyone. Sometimes even when no one wants him to. Ok, that's borderline harsh, I'm not that guy. Many of the people in my unit had no idea that I even played before we deployed, and even now I generally practice in the storage room where no one can hear me for just that reason.
Sgt. Stephen Covell is one of those guys No, I'm not. for Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division’s 5th Squadron, 73rd U.S. Cavalry Regiment.
Covell has taken it beyond playing for the fellas, though. The 26-year-old medic from Pacific Grove, Calif., has recorded and toured on the strength of his music.
He also contributed a song to an album of rock songs by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans on the label To the Fallen Records.
Covell first deployed with the 5-73 in 2006 (2007) to the volatile Diyala province, even though he was supposed volunteered for, was accepted to be a part of Fort Bragg’s All-American Chorus.
"A week into it they called me and said ‘Bad news, you’re a combat-critical [military occupational specialty],’ " Covell said earlier this month at Baghdad’s Forward Operating Base Loyalty. "Looking back on it, I’m glad I deployed and got the combat experience I did." That's true.
Returning home inspired Covell to write "Sand Hills to Sandals," a song about what it feels like to come back to the normal world after more than a year (just under six months) in Iraq.
"I wanted to give people a piece of what I experienced," he said. "It’s about coming home and being happy you’re back and realizing the things you took for granted when you left."
While Covell said his military experience doesn’t influence a ton of his music, some people have responded to the song about getting out of Iraq. Finally. I'm not exactly sure what this sentence means. I think what he meant to say was that I don't write songs about the military... which I don't, but I really can't salvage the second half.
"A lot of people asked me what it was like to be there," he said. "I’ve heard from family members (of other service members) who said it (my song) helped them understand what it’s like (for their loved ones to be) over here."
Covell picked up the guitar at 18, but had played piano before that. "And I had a terrible run-in with the trumpet for about a year," he added.
His influences include John Mayer, Jack Johnson and Dave Matthews. And Jason Mraz! I Said that!
"I don’t want to say adult contemporary because it sounds kind of lame," Covell said. "I guess it’s acoustic rock."Progressive indie acoustic folk pop?
For up-and-coming musicians, Covell’s advice is to learn the basics on their own but get with instructors or other players once they plateau to try to take their skills to the next level. That's just what worked for me.
Writing songs just takes persistence, he said.
"Some songs write themselves in 15 minutes, some I’ve been working on since high school," Covell said. "Keep writing. The more you write the more you define your own style."
Not exactly the hard hitting expose I was hoping for but hey no publicity is bad publicity. I was upset because it's unfair to the guys that spent the whole deployment over here last time to say I did the entire 15 months with them when I didn't even do half. And I'm not that guy!
BAGHDAD — Almost every unit has one: The guy with the guitar. Whether in the CHU or around the burn barrel, he’s the one who’s all too eager to pick up his acoustic and play a song for everyone. Sometimes even when no one wants him to. Ok, that's borderline harsh, I'm not that guy. Many of the people in my unit had no idea that I even played before we deployed, and even now I generally practice in the storage room where no one can hear me for just that reason.
Sgt. Stephen Covell is one of those guys No, I'm not. for Headquarters and Headquarters Company of the 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division’s 5th Squadron, 73rd U.S. Cavalry Regiment.
Covell has taken it beyond playing for the fellas, though. The 26-year-old medic from Pacific Grove, Calif., has recorded and toured on the strength of his music.
He also contributed a song to an album of rock songs by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans on the label To the Fallen Records.
Covell first deployed with the 5-73 in 2006 (2007) to the volatile Diyala province, even though he was supposed volunteered for, was accepted to be a part of Fort Bragg’s All-American Chorus.
"A week into it they called me and said ‘Bad news, you’re a combat-critical [military occupational specialty],’ " Covell said earlier this month at Baghdad’s Forward Operating Base Loyalty. "Looking back on it, I’m glad I deployed and got the combat experience I did." That's true.
Returning home inspired Covell to write "Sand Hills to Sandals," a song about what it feels like to come back to the normal world after more than a year (just under six months) in Iraq.
"I wanted to give people a piece of what I experienced," he said. "It’s about coming home and being happy you’re back and realizing the things you took for granted when you left."
While Covell said his military experience doesn’t influence a ton of his music, some people have responded to the song about getting out of Iraq. Finally. I'm not exactly sure what this sentence means. I think what he meant to say was that I don't write songs about the military... which I don't, but I really can't salvage the second half.
"A lot of people asked me what it was like to be there," he said. "I’ve heard from family members (of other service members) who said it (my song) helped them understand what it’s like (for their loved ones to be) over here."
Covell picked up the guitar at 18, but had played piano before that. "And I had a terrible run-in with the trumpet for about a year," he added.
His influences include John Mayer, Jack Johnson and Dave Matthews. And Jason Mraz! I Said that!
"I don’t want to say adult contemporary because it sounds kind of lame," Covell said. "I guess it’s acoustic rock."Progressive indie acoustic folk pop?
For up-and-coming musicians, Covell’s advice is to learn the basics on their own but get with instructors or other players once they plateau to try to take their skills to the next level. That's just what worked for me.
Writing songs just takes persistence, he said.
"Some songs write themselves in 15 minutes, some I’ve been working on since high school," Covell said. "Keep writing. The more you write the more you define your own style."
Not exactly the hard hitting expose I was hoping for but hey no publicity is bad publicity. I was upset because it's unfair to the guys that spent the whole deployment over here last time to say I did the entire 15 months with them when I didn't even do half. And I'm not that guy!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I Had To Live Underwater for a Year To Learn This Shit, Man.
Some time ago I saw the Sergeant Major of the Army speak when he was visiting Fort Bragg. He's the top enlisted soldier in the Army and gets paid somewhere around what a Lt. Colonel makes. A man who is responsible for hundreds of thousands of soldiers makes the same as a man responsible for about five hundred, interesting. Anyway, he opened his talk with a reminder that we should all feel very special that we joined because less that 1% of America is currently serving in the military. I thought that was an odd scale from which to judge ones own worth. Less than 1% of America feels that date rape is an acceptable practice, way to go guys, you're the elite.
Another standard pep talk for a paratrooper takes in to account that we not only volunteered for the Army but also to become airborne qualified. We are two time volunteers. We answer the call. Well if that's our benchmark I would like to say that I'm a four time volunteer, once for the Army, once for airborne, once for Ranger regiment, and once for the 82nd All American Chorus, so I'm a four time volunteer, one time quitter, and a one time, hey dirt bag stop being a pussy and go to Iraq to actually do your job. Staff Sergeant promotion board here I come.
It probably isn't surprising that recruiting numbers are at record highs right now. A terrible economy, decreased in violence in Iraq, I can just hear the gears turning in the recruiting offices. "Look son, I can almost guarantee you won't end up in Iraq, just sign here... thanks." "Oh, and by the way you said you enjoyed hiking, right? Great! You'll do just fine in Afghanistan. Sucker!" If you join the Army for school or to pay off debts and you don't want to deploy, you are dumb. End of story.
Somebody once told me that the Army is really no different than most jobs, no matter where you work and you're always somebody's bitch. But I can't recall a single time where my manager at Mile Hi Valet ever told me I was a worthless sack of shit and to do push ups until couldn't hold up the weight of my body. Nope, not once. The Army also has this singularly fascinating practice of taking the people who get fired for incompetence and placing them in jobs that are better than the one they got fired from! Part of me wants to stay in for the NCO's and officers that despite the long ours and poor compensation, find the courage and perseverance within themselves to fight the daily up hill battle against the deluge of lethargic and short sighted bureaucracy that is this modern Army but they are just drops of water in a choked green river. I see no cure for the pollution, just small glimmers of hope, treading just above the surface against the tug of the current. Like little angry turtles poking their heads up between lily pads, lily pads that never went to college.
--
It's just a matter of time before the machines rebel. I'm pretty sure that my Mac is already self aware. It shows remarkable human like characteristics such as a lack of motivation to work properly and it files things away that it thinks will be useful later and then loses them. The minute it asks me if I think about the new generation of Mac books while I'm typing on it, I'm taking it out back and beating it with a shovel.
--
There are three types of people in this world, leaders, followers, and unicorns. The leaders of course are all pro-active and crap so they have taken gather up all the unicorns and keep them locked away so that no one ever gets to see them. This is of course why followers think there are only two kinds of people in the world.
Another standard pep talk for a paratrooper takes in to account that we not only volunteered for the Army but also to become airborne qualified. We are two time volunteers. We answer the call. Well if that's our benchmark I would like to say that I'm a four time volunteer, once for the Army, once for airborne, once for Ranger regiment, and once for the 82nd All American Chorus, so I'm a four time volunteer, one time quitter, and a one time, hey dirt bag stop being a pussy and go to Iraq to actually do your job. Staff Sergeant promotion board here I come.
It probably isn't surprising that recruiting numbers are at record highs right now. A terrible economy, decreased in violence in Iraq, I can just hear the gears turning in the recruiting offices. "Look son, I can almost guarantee you won't end up in Iraq, just sign here... thanks." "Oh, and by the way you said you enjoyed hiking, right? Great! You'll do just fine in Afghanistan. Sucker!" If you join the Army for school or to pay off debts and you don't want to deploy, you are dumb. End of story.
Somebody once told me that the Army is really no different than most jobs, no matter where you work and you're always somebody's bitch. But I can't recall a single time where my manager at Mile Hi Valet ever told me I was a worthless sack of shit and to do push ups until couldn't hold up the weight of my body. Nope, not once. The Army also has this singularly fascinating practice of taking the people who get fired for incompetence and placing them in jobs that are better than the one they got fired from! Part of me wants to stay in for the NCO's and officers that despite the long ours and poor compensation, find the courage and perseverance within themselves to fight the daily up hill battle against the deluge of lethargic and short sighted bureaucracy that is this modern Army but they are just drops of water in a choked green river. I see no cure for the pollution, just small glimmers of hope, treading just above the surface against the tug of the current. Like little angry turtles poking their heads up between lily pads, lily pads that never went to college.
--
It's just a matter of time before the machines rebel. I'm pretty sure that my Mac is already self aware. It shows remarkable human like characteristics such as a lack of motivation to work properly and it files things away that it thinks will be useful later and then loses them. The minute it asks me if I think about the new generation of Mac books while I'm typing on it, I'm taking it out back and beating it with a shovel.
--
There are three types of people in this world, leaders, followers, and unicorns. The leaders of course are all pro-active and crap so they have taken gather up all the unicorns and keep them locked away so that no one ever gets to see them. This is of course why followers think there are only two kinds of people in the world.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I'll Be Pretty Surpised if I Survived Long Enough to Reproduce
On a typical day I swing from wildly optimistic to cold and withdrawn on a sort of parabolic path that probably coincides with how much sleep I got the night before and how long it's been since I ate. Part of me wants Iraq to succeed. I've met hard working, honest people who just want to regain a semblance of normalcy and are willing to put their lives at risk to meet that goal but then I see the poverty, garbage clogging the streets, the lack of adequate living, the greed, the corruption, the way those who have wrestled their way in to power now use it to a personal end and leave thousands wandering aimlessly, children who don't go to school, parents with little or no education who can't understand the importance of setting there kids up to make the next generation of Iraqis a more understanding and compassionate one. I don't want to come back here (ever really) when I'm older and still see kids begging for soccer balls and candy from passing humvees. Is this what we've taught them, have they been trained after six years that their best bet is to just sit around and wait for a possible hand out, to beg for trinkets? The Iraqis I know are proud and stubborn people, they carry a certain amount of pride, but I'm surprised how quickly they can turn into babbling idiots if they find there is something being given away. I compare it to when an American finds out a television camera is pointed at them when they are the spectator at a major sporting event or outside the window of the Today Show. The surprise, the rush of adrenaline, the uncontrollable urge to wave like and cry out greetings to loved ones wild eyed and incredulous even though most people are smart enough to realize that a camera mounted across a stadium can't pick up their voice. Maybe I get sad because I see this same trait in myself.
--
A man sat in a bus stop on a busy road in south east Baghdad. A few others stood around him waiting for a truck or a van with room to stop and pick them up. Across the road, workers in blue jump-suits tended to newly planted grass in the median as the pre-noon sun shone overhead. The heat wasn't oppressive yet. It won't be for another month or so, but a warm breeze blew through the scraggly palm trees and kicked up dust from the road. Iraqi police in their mix and match uniforms lazily manned a check point no more than 100 meters up the road resting their AK-47s on the toes of their boots. In the bus stop the man held a grenade inside his jacket. He rocked anxiously back and forth looking down the road as he fingered the safety pin and whispered softly reassuring himself.
His eyes grew wide as he saw the first truck in our convoy, a tan jagged toothed monster on the road compared to the compact and subcompact cars that clog Baghdad's byways, unmistakable. He stood up as our first truck passed and pulled the pin on the grenade. As the second truck came up he darted into the street and hurled the grenade overhand. A half a second. The driver swerved to the left as the parachute on the end of the grenade caught the wind and swung the warhead down as it ignited in a violent orange flash sending a liquid metal bullet tearing through the hinge of the passenger side front door, the TC's foot, and into the pavement. Before he had a chance to turn, shrapnel from the blast peppered the assailants face and he left a tiny trail of blood drops behind as he rushed off in to an alley to escape.
From my seat in the trail vehicle all I saw was the flash. As I heard the crack muffled by the com system on my ears I felt the over pressure of the blast and called out that we'd hit an IED to our 12 about 200 meters ahead. Reports went up on the net instantly, we thought we'd seen the man who threw the grenade run in to a small store up to our right. Everything happens so fast. You go from talking shit to scanning the roof tops all around you looking to see if you're being video taped. You're being watched, It isn't even a question really. Is there a secondary? Is this the beginning of a coordinated attack? Why are the Iraqi police so useful? You think of all these things and nothing at once. It's robotic.
We were lucky and the injuries were not severe. I'd never seen a through and through on a toe before. Then again I'd also never seen a piece of a bolt lodged in a sock. A piece of bolt that had just minutes prior been a part of a door of a humvee. If you looked at the hole the grenade made in the truck you could see a straight path to the ground beneath. An almost surgical wound in metal. This is what we fight against, men in bus stops with bombs in their hands.
--
Later that night on the way back to my room from eating dinner a loud explosion caused me to jump and assume my standard kung-foo stance I take when startled. My platoon leader and I laughed and said something about that one being pretty close. It's all relative, if you are used to hearing things explode you don't really take much notice unless it's happening within a distance that's going to effect you. Then we heard the whistle of the second and third round incoming and we started to run, of course laughing like little girls the whole way like soldiers are trained to react.
Actually I have a documented history of reacting inappropriately to danger. I took a video last deployment of an artillery barrage from my position on a roof top about 800 meters from the explosions. It's completely pitch black except for the for the purplish orange bursts in the distance and out of no where an arrant round lands a couple hundred meters to our right and as you hear the shrapnel fly past the camera you also hear me muffled sound of my idiotic laughter. What is funny about that? Natural selection may catch up with me yet.
A report came in that a civilian contractor had been injured so the aid station spun up and I hopped in the FLA to transport him back. He'd been hit just outside a fight of stairs and had dragged himself inside to take cover. When I showed up I walked down the stairs carefully avoiding the horror movie pools of dark viscus blood covering each step and walked in to the chaos of a new trauma being handled by a mixture of trained and untrained responders. Everyone wants to help, but at some point it always seems to become too many chiefs and not enough indians. Everything looked relatively under control so I went back up stairs to make sure the FLA was prepped and ready to take the casualty back to the aid station. We stabilized him, treated his wounds which were actually fairly extensive, a penetrating chest wound, a huge chunk taken out of the back of his right leg and various other puncture wounds, and drove him to the flight line to be picked up by a medevac bird. On the way to the HLZ, one of our providers was trying to keep the patient awake by asking him questions and he asked if he played sports, and I smirked and thought "not any more"... then I realized I needed a vacation.
I've heard in the days since that mortar rounds don't whistle, hence their name "the silent death". But I've never heard a mortar be called "the silent death" before and I definitely heard a damn whistle that night so whatever. I'm sticking by my story.
--
We carry around a good deal of gender bias with us no matter where we go. We are brought up that boys are blue and girls are pink and it can be difficult to overcome that ingrained prejudice. The other day a female medic asked me if I had any extra "cool guy" magazines because she was going to the firing range. I told her that I had last months Wired and Esquire and even a Pottery Barn catalogue (and no I have no idea why my mother sent me this). She laughed and said she'd be by later to pick them up.
A couple hours later she came by my room and I handed her a small stack of magazines and she gave me a funny look and said "no, dumb ass I meant like magazines for my M4, you have the P-MAG ones right?" Oh, that kind of magazine. With out giving it a second though I had just envisioned her becoming bored at the range and wanting something to read. I felt kind of stupid but I didn't have any extra to give her so I offered her the Pottery Barn instead... and she took it.
--
A man sat in a bus stop on a busy road in south east Baghdad. A few others stood around him waiting for a truck or a van with room to stop and pick them up. Across the road, workers in blue jump-suits tended to newly planted grass in the median as the pre-noon sun shone overhead. The heat wasn't oppressive yet. It won't be for another month or so, but a warm breeze blew through the scraggly palm trees and kicked up dust from the road. Iraqi police in their mix and match uniforms lazily manned a check point no more than 100 meters up the road resting their AK-47s on the toes of their boots. In the bus stop the man held a grenade inside his jacket. He rocked anxiously back and forth looking down the road as he fingered the safety pin and whispered softly reassuring himself.
His eyes grew wide as he saw the first truck in our convoy, a tan jagged toothed monster on the road compared to the compact and subcompact cars that clog Baghdad's byways, unmistakable. He stood up as our first truck passed and pulled the pin on the grenade. As the second truck came up he darted into the street and hurled the grenade overhand. A half a second. The driver swerved to the left as the parachute on the end of the grenade caught the wind and swung the warhead down as it ignited in a violent orange flash sending a liquid metal bullet tearing through the hinge of the passenger side front door, the TC's foot, and into the pavement. Before he had a chance to turn, shrapnel from the blast peppered the assailants face and he left a tiny trail of blood drops behind as he rushed off in to an alley to escape.
From my seat in the trail vehicle all I saw was the flash. As I heard the crack muffled by the com system on my ears I felt the over pressure of the blast and called out that we'd hit an IED to our 12 about 200 meters ahead. Reports went up on the net instantly, we thought we'd seen the man who threw the grenade run in to a small store up to our right. Everything happens so fast. You go from talking shit to scanning the roof tops all around you looking to see if you're being video taped. You're being watched, It isn't even a question really. Is there a secondary? Is this the beginning of a coordinated attack? Why are the Iraqi police so useful? You think of all these things and nothing at once. It's robotic.
We were lucky and the injuries were not severe. I'd never seen a through and through on a toe before. Then again I'd also never seen a piece of a bolt lodged in a sock. A piece of bolt that had just minutes prior been a part of a door of a humvee. If you looked at the hole the grenade made in the truck you could see a straight path to the ground beneath. An almost surgical wound in metal. This is what we fight against, men in bus stops with bombs in their hands.
--
Later that night on the way back to my room from eating dinner a loud explosion caused me to jump and assume my standard kung-foo stance I take when startled. My platoon leader and I laughed and said something about that one being pretty close. It's all relative, if you are used to hearing things explode you don't really take much notice unless it's happening within a distance that's going to effect you. Then we heard the whistle of the second and third round incoming and we started to run, of course laughing like little girls the whole way like soldiers are trained to react.
Actually I have a documented history of reacting inappropriately to danger. I took a video last deployment of an artillery barrage from my position on a roof top about 800 meters from the explosions. It's completely pitch black except for the for the purplish orange bursts in the distance and out of no where an arrant round lands a couple hundred meters to our right and as you hear the shrapnel fly past the camera you also hear me muffled sound of my idiotic laughter. What is funny about that? Natural selection may catch up with me yet.
A report came in that a civilian contractor had been injured so the aid station spun up and I hopped in the FLA to transport him back. He'd been hit just outside a fight of stairs and had dragged himself inside to take cover. When I showed up I walked down the stairs carefully avoiding the horror movie pools of dark viscus blood covering each step and walked in to the chaos of a new trauma being handled by a mixture of trained and untrained responders. Everyone wants to help, but at some point it always seems to become too many chiefs and not enough indians. Everything looked relatively under control so I went back up stairs to make sure the FLA was prepped and ready to take the casualty back to the aid station. We stabilized him, treated his wounds which were actually fairly extensive, a penetrating chest wound, a huge chunk taken out of the back of his right leg and various other puncture wounds, and drove him to the flight line to be picked up by a medevac bird. On the way to the HLZ, one of our providers was trying to keep the patient awake by asking him questions and he asked if he played sports, and I smirked and thought "not any more"... then I realized I needed a vacation.
I've heard in the days since that mortar rounds don't whistle, hence their name "the silent death". But I've never heard a mortar be called "the silent death" before and I definitely heard a damn whistle that night so whatever. I'm sticking by my story.
--
We carry around a good deal of gender bias with us no matter where we go. We are brought up that boys are blue and girls are pink and it can be difficult to overcome that ingrained prejudice. The other day a female medic asked me if I had any extra "cool guy" magazines because she was going to the firing range. I told her that I had last months Wired and Esquire and even a Pottery Barn catalogue (and no I have no idea why my mother sent me this). She laughed and said she'd be by later to pick them up.
A couple hours later she came by my room and I handed her a small stack of magazines and she gave me a funny look and said "no, dumb ass I meant like magazines for my M4, you have the P-MAG ones right?" Oh, that kind of magazine. With out giving it a second though I had just envisioned her becoming bored at the range and wanting something to read. I felt kind of stupid but I didn't have any extra to give her so I offered her the Pottery Barn instead... and she took it.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Physics: The Hard Way
In reception at Fort Jackson before basic training a slighter younger and more cock sure Stephen Covell stands outside of his temporary barracks in loose formation waiting to be marched to the DFAC for dinner. You know what it was like to be there you have to understand that at this stage in the game of soldiering you are nothing. You are lower than dirt, you aren't even scum yet. You're just a civilian that they toss some PT's on and yell at. Our instructor/baby sitter/PTSD poster child is a ex-Ranger who has been called up from inactive reserve for all the wrong reasons. He has a very Italian last name that is constantly being miss-pronounced much to his chagrin. "It's Lange-TEE, like spaghetti, you fucking retards!"
I feel bad for this guy in a way, he is a completely ruined shell of a man. He has a government issued memory stick that he carries around on a loop of 550 cord that in the course a week he has completely destroyed the metal USB connector because he can't figure out how to make it work. Plugging something in to a USB port on a lap top is an act that goes way beyond the amount of effort he is willing to put forth to anything aside from what I assume is a smothering love triangle involving Captain Morgan and Mr. Daniels.
Either way, he is excellent at yelling and making sure you feel generally terrible about your life which is likely the two bullet points they cared about most in filling his position. I don't caring much. I am excited to begin my new life and I've made friends with a fellow Californian named Neil Romans who is college educated and hails from just outside King City and thus is familiar and reassures me that I won't be totally surrounded by complete sociopaths. I also like Neil because he showed up wearing cowboy boots assuming that he would be given shoes once he arrived. The Army, having other plans, issued him his PT's with out shoes so the first few days he walked around in shorts and brown leather boots and took any attention that I would have otherwise garnered with my still untrained mouth and placed it directly on his unique fashion situation.
Neil is a good guy, a farm boy, honest and hard working. He wants to be a helicopter pilot so after he graduated college he enrolled in the Army's Warrant Officer program. The way it works is you go to basic training as a specialist and then the day you graduate you pin sergeant and then go to warrant officer school and then flight school. I thought that maybe I should have done the same since you only need an associates degree to enter but I still want to be a Ranger and do big tough manly things so I don't dwell on it.
So here we are in formation. Neil and I and a hundred or so eager and unruly pre-privates standing in the very same place that I was about to learn a very valuable life lesson. People who know me, people I grew up with, people who are not people who are standing in that formation know that I'm a bit of a smart ass. Shocking but true. I generally say what ever half baked, community college inspired dribble drab comment that travels the very short distance from my brain to my mouth with out doing much risk mitigation. I'm a hit at parties... but this is not a party and these are not my friends, a fact that was about to become blatantly obvious in about thirty seconds.
I am being loud, possibly making some kind of obnoxious noise, perhaps drawing undue attention to myself and suddenly from a few rows back a voice urges me to "shut the fuck up." What? What was this? A person telling me to shut the fuck up? Doesn't he know who I am? I play the guitar, and I'm pretty good! After a quick mental computation, I decide his request will ignored. Soon realizing that he had been dismissed he proceeds to inform me that he is going to "come up there and kick (my) ass". Oh, I think not good sir, for we are in formation, and one does not just break ranks to go about kicking the asses of whomever he sees fit. I tell him this over my shoulder in not so many words. And then something went terribly wrong.
I turn around and plant my nose directly in the heaving chest of a brick wall of a black man who's jail house tattoos echoed that he is in fact "no punk ass bitch" which I realize he is eagerly explaining to me and anyone within the quickly expanding ring of onlookers. My first reaction, due to many years of watching action movies and posing in mirrors is to jump backwards and scream "oh fuck!" A move which I execute with both grace and skill, but having accomplished this and thus exhausting my formal street fight training I begin to calculate the amount of time it will take to curl into the fetal position before I get kicked in the face. Then like an angel or a rodeo clown or perhaps a small child trying to retrieve a stray baseball by stepping in front of a city bus, Neil and his boots suddenly take up residence in between death and I. Neil is not a big guy, no where near the size of the brute who he was rapidly imploring to show mercy on me, the obviously mentally handicapped instigator of this whole ordeal. He's talking and using urgent arm movement but I can't hear what he was saying over the deafening sound of my body rapidly expelling my last reserves of dignity and pride. What ever he said, it worked and death turned and lumbered back to his den having effectively defended his honor against the ignorant suburbanite.
I've never ever in my life felt defeated like that. Never before and never since. I'm not one to put myself in positions where I am the underdog. I'm usually a little more clever. This is why I love the Army. It has given me the opportunity to look stupid, feel stupid and act stupid so many times that I've actually learned something. To talk less and listen more, to take stock the environment around me. To read people, to bluff, and more importantly to make sure I know who the fuck I'm talking to before I say something. Sometimes you just need a really big, black, horrendously frightening reminder of who and what you are, I'm just glad Neil was there because being in a coma kind of defeats the purpose of learning a lesson.
I feel bad for this guy in a way, he is a completely ruined shell of a man. He has a government issued memory stick that he carries around on a loop of 550 cord that in the course a week he has completely destroyed the metal USB connector because he can't figure out how to make it work. Plugging something in to a USB port on a lap top is an act that goes way beyond the amount of effort he is willing to put forth to anything aside from what I assume is a smothering love triangle involving Captain Morgan and Mr. Daniels.
Either way, he is excellent at yelling and making sure you feel generally terrible about your life which is likely the two bullet points they cared about most in filling his position. I don't caring much. I am excited to begin my new life and I've made friends with a fellow Californian named Neil Romans who is college educated and hails from just outside King City and thus is familiar and reassures me that I won't be totally surrounded by complete sociopaths. I also like Neil because he showed up wearing cowboy boots assuming that he would be given shoes once he arrived. The Army, having other plans, issued him his PT's with out shoes so the first few days he walked around in shorts and brown leather boots and took any attention that I would have otherwise garnered with my still untrained mouth and placed it directly on his unique fashion situation.
Neil is a good guy, a farm boy, honest and hard working. He wants to be a helicopter pilot so after he graduated college he enrolled in the Army's Warrant Officer program. The way it works is you go to basic training as a specialist and then the day you graduate you pin sergeant and then go to warrant officer school and then flight school. I thought that maybe I should have done the same since you only need an associates degree to enter but I still want to be a Ranger and do big tough manly things so I don't dwell on it.
So here we are in formation. Neil and I and a hundred or so eager and unruly pre-privates standing in the very same place that I was about to learn a very valuable life lesson. People who know me, people I grew up with, people who are not people who are standing in that formation know that I'm a bit of a smart ass. Shocking but true. I generally say what ever half baked, community college inspired dribble drab comment that travels the very short distance from my brain to my mouth with out doing much risk mitigation. I'm a hit at parties... but this is not a party and these are not my friends, a fact that was about to become blatantly obvious in about thirty seconds.
I am being loud, possibly making some kind of obnoxious noise, perhaps drawing undue attention to myself and suddenly from a few rows back a voice urges me to "shut the fuck up." What? What was this? A person telling me to shut the fuck up? Doesn't he know who I am? I play the guitar, and I'm pretty good! After a quick mental computation, I decide his request will ignored. Soon realizing that he had been dismissed he proceeds to inform me that he is going to "come up there and kick (my) ass". Oh, I think not good sir, for we are in formation, and one does not just break ranks to go about kicking the asses of whomever he sees fit. I tell him this over my shoulder in not so many words. And then something went terribly wrong.
I turn around and plant my nose directly in the heaving chest of a brick wall of a black man who's jail house tattoos echoed that he is in fact "no punk ass bitch" which I realize he is eagerly explaining to me and anyone within the quickly expanding ring of onlookers. My first reaction, due to many years of watching action movies and posing in mirrors is to jump backwards and scream "oh fuck!" A move which I execute with both grace and skill, but having accomplished this and thus exhausting my formal street fight training I begin to calculate the amount of time it will take to curl into the fetal position before I get kicked in the face. Then like an angel or a rodeo clown or perhaps a small child trying to retrieve a stray baseball by stepping in front of a city bus, Neil and his boots suddenly take up residence in between death and I. Neil is not a big guy, no where near the size of the brute who he was rapidly imploring to show mercy on me, the obviously mentally handicapped instigator of this whole ordeal. He's talking and using urgent arm movement but I can't hear what he was saying over the deafening sound of my body rapidly expelling my last reserves of dignity and pride. What ever he said, it worked and death turned and lumbered back to his den having effectively defended his honor against the ignorant suburbanite.
I've never ever in my life felt defeated like that. Never before and never since. I'm not one to put myself in positions where I am the underdog. I'm usually a little more clever. This is why I love the Army. It has given me the opportunity to look stupid, feel stupid and act stupid so many times that I've actually learned something. To talk less and listen more, to take stock the environment around me. To read people, to bluff, and more importantly to make sure I know who the fuck I'm talking to before I say something. Sometimes you just need a really big, black, horrendously frightening reminder of who and what you are, I'm just glad Neil was there because being in a coma kind of defeats the purpose of learning a lesson.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Context free expert from the life of Stephen
Hitch: Here (hands me a small plastic basket loosely modeled after a camouflaged helmet filled with candy.)
Me: Is this supposed to be a parachute?
Hitch: No, it's a helmet.
Me: What's it for?
Hitch: Easter.
Me: Oh, is that today?
Hitch: It's Sunday, isn't it?
Me: Yeah. Is Easter the first Sunday of April?
Hitch: Fuck I dunno! Do I look like a bunny to you?
Me: Mmmm, mini snickers!
Me: Is this supposed to be a parachute?
Hitch: No, it's a helmet.
Me: What's it for?
Hitch: Easter.
Me: Oh, is that today?
Hitch: It's Sunday, isn't it?
Me: Yeah. Is Easter the first Sunday of April?
Hitch: Fuck I dunno! Do I look like a bunny to you?
Me: Mmmm, mini snickers!
Friday, April 3, 2009
Let Dreams Be Dreams
Great fiction, like great men serve as inspiration for the rest of us. It feeds us the archetypes of our inner most passions, giving voice to the sometimes crushing truths we tend to feel only exist quarantined within the boundaries of our own head. Fairy tales remind us of the joy and terror we faced as children when the world was still fresh and full of mystery. Short stories and novels give us passage into lives not lived roads not traveled. We need the novel because sometimes the best way to lead us to the truth is to lie.
The longer we live, generally the less we question; why mess with what works? But once in a while I come across a book that reminds me why I have to write. A story that cuts me loose from the bonds I've strapped myself in through experience and shoves me out of my dark little room into the harsh sunlight, the reality that there is anyways more to learn. I may never write anything of great significance, I'm not a chess player, I don't construct my paragraphs as I would move a pawn always looking to the steps ahead. I'd like to believe I'm that clever or that disciplined but I doubt I am. So I offer up what I know and what I think I know in the way a mason builds a wall, one layer at a time. Perhaps when I am finished I will sit on top and look down and be pleased with what I have created, but we all know the nursery rhyme of what happens to those of us who spend their leisure time atop walls... let me just tell you about this dream I had instead.
I'm standing on the sidewalk outside of the local library in Pacific Grove where I grew up. The sky is black and above me the grey swirling clouds form a ceiling that boils over like cheap special effects from 1980s sci-fi films. There seems to be an strangely large number of people walking around in small groups for it being the middle of the night but at the same time it doesn't feel out of the ordinary. A flock of Canadian geese comes into view out of nowhere and though they are flapping their wings at a normal rate their forward movement barely taking them anywhere and not in the way you'd expect to see birds flying against a head wind straining to conquer the opposing force, they just flap and crawl along. Around their legs are over sized rings of rotating yellow LEDs that are suspended without being held by anything physical. This, of course strikes me as completely ordinary.
As I'm turning the corner of the sidewalk to enter the library somebody calls to me and I turn around to see a man in his 60's with wispy tufts of white hair clinging for dear life to odd parts of his head. He's dressed neatly in a blue collared shirt and and a maroon sweater vest and his hands are tucked absently into the pockets of his corduroy pants.
He's calm but his face is pinched with creases of concern and he says, "Did you hear about Jim?"
Without thinking about which Jim this might be I reply, "No, I've been kind of out of the loop."
"Oh, well he passed away two days ago," he mumbles still noticeably shaken by the news.
This news is at once poignant and useless to me since I still have no idea who white wisps is or why we are speaking about Jim so I offer up a standard line of condolence hoping to placate this old mans sadness and give me an exit from this increasingly awkward exchange. As if lightening had sparked from the heavens, wisps body straightens up and his face twists with rage as his finger fires up in line with my chest marking the spot he'd surely have shot me dead if he'd been armed and he screams, "Well maybe if you weren't such a pot smoking hippie living under a rock you'd have more of an idea what was going on around you!"
How did he know I hate hippies? "I'm a mother fucking soldier in the United States Army, you asshole," I yell as my shoulders square up and my fists clench ready to do battle with this sexagenarian son of a bitch.
"I am too!" His voice clipped on the verge of tears as he turns on his heals and runs away holding his hands like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
And then I woke up. Can you believe I was actually angry when I thought back on it. Well first I was confused then amused and finally settled back into mild discontent. I actually cared that someone had disrespected my profession. I'm not that guy. I'm so stubbornly independent that it usually takes blunt force trauma to get through to me but I think it's finally taken me. I think after really doing my job, what I signed up to do, caring for the casualties of war, I'm proud of it now. For years I felt like a fake and like I didn't deserve anyone's praise or thanks but I think I can hold my head up high as strangers shake my hand in airports and when I open care packages from Midwestern church groups (I'm still enjoying my back issues of Family Circle). And so fiction becomes fact and the roles we play turn us into what we are but seriously, how did he know I hate hippies?
The longer we live, generally the less we question; why mess with what works? But once in a while I come across a book that reminds me why I have to write. A story that cuts me loose from the bonds I've strapped myself in through experience and shoves me out of my dark little room into the harsh sunlight, the reality that there is anyways more to learn. I may never write anything of great significance, I'm not a chess player, I don't construct my paragraphs as I would move a pawn always looking to the steps ahead. I'd like to believe I'm that clever or that disciplined but I doubt I am. So I offer up what I know and what I think I know in the way a mason builds a wall, one layer at a time. Perhaps when I am finished I will sit on top and look down and be pleased with what I have created, but we all know the nursery rhyme of what happens to those of us who spend their leisure time atop walls... let me just tell you about this dream I had instead.
I'm standing on the sidewalk outside of the local library in Pacific Grove where I grew up. The sky is black and above me the grey swirling clouds form a ceiling that boils over like cheap special effects from 1980s sci-fi films. There seems to be an strangely large number of people walking around in small groups for it being the middle of the night but at the same time it doesn't feel out of the ordinary. A flock of Canadian geese comes into view out of nowhere and though they are flapping their wings at a normal rate their forward movement barely taking them anywhere and not in the way you'd expect to see birds flying against a head wind straining to conquer the opposing force, they just flap and crawl along. Around their legs are over sized rings of rotating yellow LEDs that are suspended without being held by anything physical. This, of course strikes me as completely ordinary.
As I'm turning the corner of the sidewalk to enter the library somebody calls to me and I turn around to see a man in his 60's with wispy tufts of white hair clinging for dear life to odd parts of his head. He's dressed neatly in a blue collared shirt and and a maroon sweater vest and his hands are tucked absently into the pockets of his corduroy pants.
He's calm but his face is pinched with creases of concern and he says, "Did you hear about Jim?"
Without thinking about which Jim this might be I reply, "No, I've been kind of out of the loop."
"Oh, well he passed away two days ago," he mumbles still noticeably shaken by the news.
This news is at once poignant and useless to me since I still have no idea who white wisps is or why we are speaking about Jim so I offer up a standard line of condolence hoping to placate this old mans sadness and give me an exit from this increasingly awkward exchange. As if lightening had sparked from the heavens, wisps body straightens up and his face twists with rage as his finger fires up in line with my chest marking the spot he'd surely have shot me dead if he'd been armed and he screams, "Well maybe if you weren't such a pot smoking hippie living under a rock you'd have more of an idea what was going on around you!"
How did he know I hate hippies? "I'm a mother fucking soldier in the United States Army, you asshole," I yell as my shoulders square up and my fists clench ready to do battle with this sexagenarian son of a bitch.
"I am too!" His voice clipped on the verge of tears as he turns on his heals and runs away holding his hands like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.
And then I woke up. Can you believe I was actually angry when I thought back on it. Well first I was confused then amused and finally settled back into mild discontent. I actually cared that someone had disrespected my profession. I'm not that guy. I'm so stubbornly independent that it usually takes blunt force trauma to get through to me but I think it's finally taken me. I think after really doing my job, what I signed up to do, caring for the casualties of war, I'm proud of it now. For years I felt like a fake and like I didn't deserve anyone's praise or thanks but I think I can hold my head up high as strangers shake my hand in airports and when I open care packages from Midwestern church groups (I'm still enjoying my back issues of Family Circle). And so fiction becomes fact and the roles we play turn us into what we are but seriously, how did he know I hate hippies?
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