Shotgun Balcony

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
-Owen

I got to go to the Birthday Palace a couple of days ago. CNN showed a clip, during the runup to the war, of Saddam going out onto a balcony to grace the gathered masses with his beneficent countenance and fire a shotgun, a birthday present he'd just received, into the air. This was that palace. I got to hang out on that balcony. Even three years after the fall of Saddam's regime, after all the looting and at least a year of an Iraqi Army company using the palace as their HQ, the place was still incredible. Marble everywhere. Gaudy chandeliers and Saddam's initials carved into every surface. Cheap, flimsy luxury purchased with Suffering.

I marvel at the absolute, crushing, ash-in-mouth-unspeakable desolation brought upon humanity by Pride. Pride, the sister-sin of Fear. Pride made that place. Pride made that place horrible to behold. It's not just the garishness, the decorating scheme that looks like Emperor Palpatine, Georgia O'Keefe and Liberace all got together to design a mansion. It's knowing what went on around the place while people inside relaxed in luxury made possible by Suffering.

The building we use for our company CP used to be a butcher's shop. A butcher's shop on the dictator's private horse ranch in his hometown. I wonder, sitting in my CO's office while he tears apart another one of my engagement reports, the same thing I wondered a few days ago walking through that palace: how many people died in here? How many people were tortured right in this room? How many bodies would we find if we plowed up the earth all over this place? I doubt Saddam actually had people tortured right in front of him, at least not in the same room as the good furniture, but in those cases I wonder, how many people's fates were decided from this room?

I am not a proponent of the United States meddling in foreign affairs. I consider myself an isolationist in the classical sense. At the same time, however, I think about what Jesus told the rich man. Sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Would that rich man be justified in saying that he didn't want to "meddle in the affairs of the poor?" Of course not.

God makes some of us strong for a reason--to see if we are worthy. To see if we will look after the weak. To see if we will sell our metaphorical riches and use what we get from it to help the poor. Human nature dictates that there will always be underdogs, that there will always be oppressed and downtrodden people. I think the strong are obligated to protect the weak. We may not be able to help everybody, but we can make a difference for some. The horrible and liberal-leaning movie The American President had one good line that I like and remember: you don't fight the fights you can win--you fight the fights that are worth fighting. It is unwieldy dialogue, but I agree with it.

I think about that when I consider the direction we are headed after Iraq. Iran? Korea? China, by 2010? All of those together may break us. But I don't think that we should use that as a reason not to fight. Evil should be hunted down and fought. In its very lair, wherever possible. We may be fat and stupid and lazy, but we are still Americans, and we still can occasionally muster the hardihood to put our foot down. Nobility is humility. Leadership is service.

Everybody, every nation, eventually goes down. It is better to go down fighting. It is better to try. It is better to work toward peace than to change your definition of peace so that no work is necessary. Peace is not the absence of conflict. It is the absence of Suffering. It is the presence of Justice. It is worth fighting for, which is convenient, because with the state of diplomacy in the third world aristocracy of the UN, fighting is the only way to accomplish anything nowadays.

There is another kind of evil, to quote the monseigneur in Boondock Saints, which we must fear most. The indifference of good men.

Quarter and Dime

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
-Henley

I need to clean my rifle. The sand and grit make it hard to keep anything very clean around here. All the lubricant and little crevices in an assault rifle means that the thing gets caked with grime after a couple of days. It was much worse in Kuwait, though. The sand there was so fine that cleaning took two or three times as long.

I had a round jam on me when I was on a convoy a few months ago. This was down south. The damn thing was stuck IN THE BARREL. I had to yank very strongly on the charging handle to get it to pop free. It made for a very exciting few moments. You want to give it enough lube so that the receiver and bolt function properly, but not so much that it attracts dust and clogs the machinery. It is a delicate line. Frequent cleaning helps. I was embarrassed to have a round jam on me. That is usually a sign that your weapon is not clean, which is unthinkable.

I don't talk to my family about certain things. Maybe that's what I've been avoiding with this talk about weapons cleanliness. I don't tell them when I go outside the wire. I tell Nick, but I hardly ever talk to him. I don't want my family to worry. More than anything, there is some stuff I just don't want to talk about. There are things that happen here that are unpleasant and dirty, and that is why we are here: to keep those things from happening in America. I want certain things to stay here. I want to leave a lot of this behind. My family shouldn't have to know about it. It's enough that we're here, taking care of things.

There are things that you see, sometimes, that you can't un-see. Or un-know. Or un-think. I don't want there to be many of those things in the lives of my children and friends. They shouldn't have to deal with it.

I am not sure why this has gone off into this direction, but I was trying to explain why I talk about video games or movies or books most of the time, in my letters or emails or phone calls. Stuff that goes on here is either too boring to talk about, or would worry people. So I'm sorry for all the fluff and not so much "what I've been up to," but what flavors of ice cream they have or how my workouts have been progressing--these topics are infinitely more interesting and comfortable for me. And, I hope, for You.

Deluge

And you could have it all:
My empire of dirt.
I will let you down.
I will make you hurt.
-Cash, "Hurt"

The rainy season has officially started. It suits my mood lately. Everybody has been asking me if I'm okay. Apparently I look vaguely angry or upset. Apparently I am expected to be happy that I'm stymied at every turn by the very people who are supposedly supporting me. Apparently I'm supposed to let my soldiers get every stupid detail that comes up and smile about it. Apparently I should accept the fact that because we're the best platoon, we get treated the worst.
Anyway, the rainy season is here. It has been pouring snakes and pitchforks for the last two or three days. It is supposed to last for a couple of months. I wonder how much water this place can take before it floods the whole FOB. We'll have to swim from place to place.
My dog lost his last baby tooth, according to my wife. I guess he's all grown up now. I miss him. I miss them all.
My warrant officer and I play Halo in the evenings sometimes. That helps relieve a little bit of tension, I guess. I wish I could get a day or two off, though. That would be great.I usually like the rain.

Debacle

A long December, and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last.
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself to
Hold on to these moments as they pass.
-Duritz, Long December

I was sparring with a buddy of mine yesterday, practicing combatives, and bruised my ribs. I went to the medics and they gave me all these pills to take. Muscle relaxants and this elephant-strength ibuprofen. I feel uncomfortable taking drugs, even if the medics give them to me, so I will probably just save them for headaches. I get at least one really bad headache every week or so. Once I had to lie down. I think I was dehydrated that day. Because it’s so windy in the winter, here, you forget that it’s actually much warmer than it feels, and you forget to drink water.

My iPod quit working again. This time is much like the last few times—I had been listening to a very long track. Eddie Murphy’s “Delirious” show, actually. And after I turned it off, it wouldn’t come back on. Hopefully it’ll revive itself in a day or so, like all the times before. I guess it’s not just the Douglas Adams audiobooks that do it. Maybe it’s just all very long tracks. I don’t understand why this could be, though. This is one of those times you really wish you were home. Best Buy is only about four minutes from my house.

I received perhaps the coolest package I have ever gotten in my life from my parents today. I opened it and there was a Styrofoam cooler inside. And it was…cool. I wondered, what the hell is in here? Dry ice? I opened the cooler and there was a Ziploc bag of sausage balls inside, and some mostly-thawed freezer packs. There was also a paper bag inside, with incomprehensible permanent-marker writing on it. I said, now, this seems familiar, but why? I realized why when I saw what was inside: two Freebird burritos. The writing on the outside is what they do so you know which order is yours. I can’t believe my parents sent me two Freebirds. I am going to eat one for lunch tomorrow, and I’m trying hard to make up my mind as to what to do with the other one. Should I eat that one as well? Should I give it to somebody? If I give it away, to whom should it go? One of my soldiers used to live in College Station, and loves Freebird. On the other hand, maybe it should go to someone who has never tasted one. I have no idea. I will probably end up eating both, but I am having fun thinking about whether to give the second one away. To my parents, thank you. I feel very close to home today. Tomorrow I’ll heat one of them up in the microwave, put in a country CD, and lock the door to my office while I eat.

There is a kind of crazy soap opera going on here right now. I can’t believe how unprofessional some people can be. It is amazing, in the middle of one of the most dangerous combat zones in theater, with our crazy op tempo, and all the things we should be focusing on—it is amazing how distracted and sidetracked we get by people just acting stupid. This is not a vacation. This is a noble crusade of good against evil, of light against dark. We are laboring to bring hope and freedom to these ass-backwards people. We are working to make their country safer, and the region and the world safer by extrapolation. This is not a job. It is a calling. It is a quest. It is a gift bestowed upon us by our country: a life absent of mediocrity.

It is bad enough when civilians misunderstand or demean us. It makes me furious when fellow brothers in arms don’t take the calling seriously. We’re professionals. We should act like it.

The USC-t.u. game is on tomorrow morning at 0400. I think I’ll sleep through that one. Need all the rest I can get: next season is fast approaching.