Form 189
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have seal'd,
Dying as their father died,For the God their foes denied; -
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
-Byron
Praying while something is going wrong, or when you think something is about to go wrong, is harder than one would imagine. Adrenaline courses through your veins, and your pupils dilate; and you go almost deaf as your brain diverts energy, like Scotty on the Enterprise, from your ears to your eyes, which are much more important in a crisis. Body rebels against mind and you are not able to stop taking in information from every available source at an enormous rate. This is why people who’ve lived through hairy situations remember them so clearly. It makes it very difficult to concentrate on anything but survival. Praying is not integral to biological survival, so you have to try to pray in the midst of this massive influx of information, and while your brain is prioritizing said information. It is even more difficult if you are in a position where you have to communicate a sitrep to your commander, or coordinate a defense. Things around you and from your training leap to your mental lips unbidden, and your confuse the messages in your mind, so your prayer goes something like: “Our Father who art in twenty-seven in the magazine and one in the chamber, hallowed be thy earplugs and eye protection. Thy Beef Ravioli MRE come, Thy will be done, on saltpeter chewing gum as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our Line Sierra, four pax, and forgive us our Line Alpha, possible VBIED as we forgive those who Warning shot, fire a warning shot, dammit! Lead us not into somebody’s got a hot mike, get off the net, and deliver us from wait, wait, it’s just a bunch of old women in a van. For Thine is the Son of a BITCH, we almost shot them, what the hell are they thinking, and the power, and the glory, forever and dammit, the people in this country need to learn to drive like civilized people, Amen.” I’m sure God understands. I hope I haven’t offended Him, or accidentally cursed while praying, or something like that; but a couple of seconds later, I can’t even remember what I was praying. Was it the Lord’s Prayer? Was it the Count Me Among Thy Saints? I don’t know.
We are apparently safe again—were safe all the time, and don’t I feel like a jackass—and I come back to my senses. I find myself in a scalding truck on the Highway of Death, hurtling toward Taji, and immediately the conversation between the driver and the TC picks up where it left off. Who would win in a fight: Blade, the girl from Underworld, or Vampire Hunter D? Sgt V, the driver, has the moral high ground in this conversation, since a) he saw Underworld 2 while home on leave, and b) his wife sort of looks like Kate Beckinsale. Sgt T, the TC, raises the important point that Vampire Hunter D has an eye in his HAND, so that proves how badass he is. From what I remember of Vampire Hunter D, I don’t recall if this is true, but if he’s lying, he’s good at it. They lapse into silence as each prepares his next mental salvo. The gunner, Pfc E, leans down from the turret and yells that what the hell, Sergeant, why are you even arguing about it at all? You know Spawn could kick all of their asses at once. The NCOs know that they’ve been bested, but are extremely unhappy that it is at the hands of a Pfc. They tastefully ignore the Pfc’s statement, and change the subject to questioning the intelligence, upbringing and ancestry of anybody who enjoyed the movie Brokeback Mountain. This is not a controversial enough subject, however—we are all in agreement too readily—and so the argument changes again, to whether or not Will Smith ever played a gay character. After about half an hour of deliberation, we arrive at the conclusion that he did, in the movie Six Degrees of Separation. This lowers the collective esteem of Will Smith inside our HMMWV, and they start demeaning other, heterosexual roles that he has played as well. However you feel about gay culture, they say, you have to admit that I, Robot was one of the worst movies ever made. He was part robot in that, they say.
We may as well be part robot, they say, with all this damn gear. Thirty to forty pounds of armor, depending on what size you are. A K-pot that is much lighter than the old ones, but still gets heavy after twelve, eighteen, twenty-four consecutive hours. Ballistic eyewear, even: a video circulates every once in awhile of a truck being blown up, the driver staggering out of his smoking vehicle, and taking off his glasses, which have stopped so much shrapnel that you can’t see through them. Tiny pieces of twisted metal embedded in the actual glass. He has minor wounds on his face. Rumors make the rounds of another IED which blew right under the engine of a truck, spraying piping hot engine fluids all over the inside of the cabin. Both driver and TC apparently suffered second and third degree burns on their faces—except for their eyes, which are protected by their ballistic sunglasses. Oakley, or Wiley X, or whatever company produces those glasses, saved the eyesight of those people. I know this rumor to be true, because I was there. I don’t say this to the two arguing soldiers as they return to our vests, and another video that is circulating, and that I have seen, of a medic that is shot in the chest with a .50 caliber rifle—and gets up, chases the stupid Haji down, shoots him, and then treats him. All of this gear is so damn heavy, they agree, but it goes to show how liberal the news is when they tell Americans that we don’t have enough armor.
The reason people are dying here is not because of their armor, or lack thereof. It is because people try to kill them. People in the states go out and drive on the highway every day, and they don’t die, and do you know why? they ask. It’s not because they’re not wearing armor. It’s because people don’t try to kill you on I-45, or I-40, or the Nashville loop. Why won’t people back home listen to how stuff really is, they ask. Why won’t people let us fight the war like it needs to be fought, they ask. Why do people insist on getting angry over the “torture” of detainees (if we want to slap around a guy who just murdered one of our buddies, dammit, his blood on our uniforms says we earned it), they ask. Why won’t people stop listening to the news, the CNN, the MSNBC, even the Fox News is sometimes way off, and start listening to us, they ask. Why won’t people see we’re winning this, they ask, as we roll toward Taji, a lone American truck in a convoy of smart, tough, freedom-loving, battle-hardened Iraqi soldiers.
I am still wearing my armor as I type this.
Their belief with blood have seal'd,
Dying as their father died,For the God their foes denied; -
Three were in a dungeon cast,
Of whom this wreck is left the last.
-Byron
Praying while something is going wrong, or when you think something is about to go wrong, is harder than one would imagine. Adrenaline courses through your veins, and your pupils dilate; and you go almost deaf as your brain diverts energy, like Scotty on the Enterprise, from your ears to your eyes, which are much more important in a crisis. Body rebels against mind and you are not able to stop taking in information from every available source at an enormous rate. This is why people who’ve lived through hairy situations remember them so clearly. It makes it very difficult to concentrate on anything but survival. Praying is not integral to biological survival, so you have to try to pray in the midst of this massive influx of information, and while your brain is prioritizing said information. It is even more difficult if you are in a position where you have to communicate a sitrep to your commander, or coordinate a defense. Things around you and from your training leap to your mental lips unbidden, and your confuse the messages in your mind, so your prayer goes something like: “Our Father who art in twenty-seven in the magazine and one in the chamber, hallowed be thy earplugs and eye protection. Thy Beef Ravioli MRE come, Thy will be done, on saltpeter chewing gum as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our Line Sierra, four pax, and forgive us our Line Alpha, possible VBIED as we forgive those who Warning shot, fire a warning shot, dammit! Lead us not into somebody’s got a hot mike, get off the net, and deliver us from wait, wait, it’s just a bunch of old women in a van. For Thine is the Son of a BITCH, we almost shot them, what the hell are they thinking, and the power, and the glory, forever and dammit, the people in this country need to learn to drive like civilized people, Amen.” I’m sure God understands. I hope I haven’t offended Him, or accidentally cursed while praying, or something like that; but a couple of seconds later, I can’t even remember what I was praying. Was it the Lord’s Prayer? Was it the Count Me Among Thy Saints? I don’t know.
We are apparently safe again—were safe all the time, and don’t I feel like a jackass—and I come back to my senses. I find myself in a scalding truck on the Highway of Death, hurtling toward Taji, and immediately the conversation between the driver and the TC picks up where it left off. Who would win in a fight: Blade, the girl from Underworld, or Vampire Hunter D? Sgt V, the driver, has the moral high ground in this conversation, since a) he saw Underworld 2 while home on leave, and b) his wife sort of looks like Kate Beckinsale. Sgt T, the TC, raises the important point that Vampire Hunter D has an eye in his HAND, so that proves how badass he is. From what I remember of Vampire Hunter D, I don’t recall if this is true, but if he’s lying, he’s good at it. They lapse into silence as each prepares his next mental salvo. The gunner, Pfc E, leans down from the turret and yells that what the hell, Sergeant, why are you even arguing about it at all? You know Spawn could kick all of their asses at once. The NCOs know that they’ve been bested, but are extremely unhappy that it is at the hands of a Pfc. They tastefully ignore the Pfc’s statement, and change the subject to questioning the intelligence, upbringing and ancestry of anybody who enjoyed the movie Brokeback Mountain. This is not a controversial enough subject, however—we are all in agreement too readily—and so the argument changes again, to whether or not Will Smith ever played a gay character. After about half an hour of deliberation, we arrive at the conclusion that he did, in the movie Six Degrees of Separation. This lowers the collective esteem of Will Smith inside our HMMWV, and they start demeaning other, heterosexual roles that he has played as well. However you feel about gay culture, they say, you have to admit that I, Robot was one of the worst movies ever made. He was part robot in that, they say.
We may as well be part robot, they say, with all this damn gear. Thirty to forty pounds of armor, depending on what size you are. A K-pot that is much lighter than the old ones, but still gets heavy after twelve, eighteen, twenty-four consecutive hours. Ballistic eyewear, even: a video circulates every once in awhile of a truck being blown up, the driver staggering out of his smoking vehicle, and taking off his glasses, which have stopped so much shrapnel that you can’t see through them. Tiny pieces of twisted metal embedded in the actual glass. He has minor wounds on his face. Rumors make the rounds of another IED which blew right under the engine of a truck, spraying piping hot engine fluids all over the inside of the cabin. Both driver and TC apparently suffered second and third degree burns on their faces—except for their eyes, which are protected by their ballistic sunglasses. Oakley, or Wiley X, or whatever company produces those glasses, saved the eyesight of those people. I know this rumor to be true, because I was there. I don’t say this to the two arguing soldiers as they return to our vests, and another video that is circulating, and that I have seen, of a medic that is shot in the chest with a .50 caliber rifle—and gets up, chases the stupid Haji down, shoots him, and then treats him. All of this gear is so damn heavy, they agree, but it goes to show how liberal the news is when they tell Americans that we don’t have enough armor.
The reason people are dying here is not because of their armor, or lack thereof. It is because people try to kill them. People in the states go out and drive on the highway every day, and they don’t die, and do you know why? they ask. It’s not because they’re not wearing armor. It’s because people don’t try to kill you on I-45, or I-40, or the Nashville loop. Why won’t people back home listen to how stuff really is, they ask. Why won’t people let us fight the war like it needs to be fought, they ask. Why do people insist on getting angry over the “torture” of detainees (if we want to slap around a guy who just murdered one of our buddies, dammit, his blood on our uniforms says we earned it), they ask. Why won’t people stop listening to the news, the CNN, the MSNBC, even the Fox News is sometimes way off, and start listening to us, they ask. Why won’t people see we’re winning this, they ask, as we roll toward Taji, a lone American truck in a convoy of smart, tough, freedom-loving, battle-hardened Iraqi soldiers.
I am still wearing my armor as I type this.
posted by Battler03 at 10:07 AM
1 Comments:
very insightful. i love you!
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