Humanity

  I have been given the pleasure of talking with a wonderful friend and it is so nice to be able to open up and not have it used against me.  I look forward to our daily talks and the normal jokes and silly humor that goes into it and it makes me feel normal again, something I haven't had in so long.  It is nice to once again just be a man, without the pressures of my job weighting down on me or the need to impress in order to get things done for my soldiers or for myself.  It's so nice to let the ice melt away and get to be human, to actually be allowed to feel things without reservations.     I wish people could understand how wonderful that sensation is to feel again, when you don't live with it for so long you forget how great it is to feel.   To be able to just reach out and be peaceful and human.

So thank you my friend, glad I got to prove you wrong about the kind of person I actually am.

Another hot day down!

So let’s set the stage for today, I wake up still rattled from the nights thunder and lightning, this morning was the Division run and well since my left ankle is a wreck right now I spent my time putting my body through as much muscle failure as I could manage.   Now with that being said, I had work to still do for the day and came back to the battery to get cleaned, eat breakfast and changed.  Off to work I went, so the day progressed just fine.  Hot and sunny a rather nice day, so after lunch the Lt has me  and one of the other joes take a HMMWVE over to the paint shop, so we got that ready to roll.  Well on the way there, I got to enjoy old times of running around with no top or doors on the truck.  Just a seatbelt and my helmet for safety and it felt amazing.  

Later in the day however one of the new privates made it a point to back talk and just flat out displays a total lack of discipline and training.   It took some time and doing but he is finally starting to understand after a few long ass chewing’s that he needs to keep his mouth under control.  I will protect and look after any of my soldiers when they act like soldiers and deserve to be treated as such instead of children I have to babysit.  But it let me know exactly what I am dealing with, after a while he finally realized what I was talking about.  A few hours later he finally shook my hand and made it clear that he understood why I am doing what I am doing and understood why I chewed him out.  So that has been brought to a rest for now but I see more and more every day that I am on a very long road and I choose this road.  Like the song asks, when will it rain?  I could use the relief of the cool breeze and water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0U0fRwAbrHI

Another week down

So between the alerts, the rampant stupidity and the weather I have managed to survive yet another week and this time I still managed to stay in good health.  Though last weekend would have said other wise when I got so light headed I could barely stand while leaning on a wall, let alone walk; it was more along the lines of falling forward at a walking pace if you will.  As for what caused it, who knows and at this point I don't care.  It was just that night so I'm doing good, though knowing my record for pushing myself to stupid limits I will probably end up like that again in the near future till I get out of this country.


However while I have had down time and on my days off I have been doing some reflecting and trying to better understand myself and those I care about and why I care about them.  Some of them it's just I care about these people and it's just that I care and I don't know why and to be honest it doesn't matter.  Others however I have certain reasons why I care about them and most of them are people I took under my wing and have made sure to point them in the right direction, not so much a do what I do but a matter of this is a good idea go for it.  I enjoy doing the big brother thing, though I do get tired of raising other peoples kids so there is a major difference in the two.

Look up to the sky, see the moonlit night
The winter night sends shivers up your spine
But it's deep inside your mind that's where you may find
Inner demons and your desire
Don't give up, don't give up
Don't give up, don't you ever give up


   Winter Nights by Iced Earth


The above is a great example of when I like to reflect, in the dead of night in winter.  This same band does another song about enlightenment that I enjoy as well but I will save that for another time.  However one thing I know is that enlightenment can only come from reflection and understanding, however that understanding comes in many forms and ways.  I am most familiarly with pain and misery.  As these two aspects have been a constant companion for many years and they have taught me so much about my own limits and was to deal with them for others or at least to provide advice to keep someone from getting to were I am.  However sometimes we must suffer to learn our own lessons that no one else may teach us from their own experience.   I can honestly say though that misery has been less of a companion these last few years as it use to be, more so in these last few weeks.  I see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak but I know that I may be facing another deployment here in the next 8 months so the cycle may start again, time will tell.  


I have also learned from things like love, oh the things that love has taught me are boundless and the most important in my view.  I have also learned the unending limits of what I will do for someone that truly loves me and that I love in return.  This is were misery comes in, because I have learned that I am willing and able to kill and if need be die for love and I am completely ok with this fact.  Now understand I am tired of the death and misery but I am fully capable of going back to it at the drop of a hat for someone I love, that however is how it should be for any man that is in love and more so if he is married and or has children.  Love should be able to drive you to do superhuman acts.  


However it all comes down to some major issues for me, I know what my desires are and I know what my inner demons and they are both brutal to deal with.  My inner demons have been so up front lately, I have woken up every day for the last week with my bed totally destroyed and or soaked from cold sweats.  Yeah the PTSD is coming back in a hardcore way and I think a good deal of it is the undue stress of dealing with this new idiot in charge of the Platoon.  Hopefully that will end before I leave, I don't need to be a total wreck when I get back to home and my family sees me in this wrecked state that I'm in.  


For now I will close this with this like I do most things.


Memento Mori 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGbEDkurm7w

Lost

 For those who know me, I am not one to let fear control or guide me as I am one who pushes through my fears to lead people beyond their own.  Now though I find myself very depressed and a lone, I spoke with my father Friday night local time and the news he gave me hit like a brick.  Now understand I have watched my father battle cancer twice, he's had two sets of bypass surgery the first was a set of four bypasses and the second was a set of three bypasses, they wanted to do five but the extra two would most certainly have killed him.  He has also had a few strokes.  This is a man I have grown up and seen as my hero my whole life, flawed as he may be, he is human.  He is tough beyond reasoning and yet so kind a gentle as to make one wonder about the history of his life.  Make no mistake though; he's been a warrior like few others and a complete and total hell raiser.  Friday he tells me that he's dropped his weight down to 204lbs; now understand that is very light for him.  He is 6'3" and I have never seen him that small ever.  For those who know me I get my build from my father, the man is a freaking bear of a human being; he looks like he should have been a pro football player up till his first surgery.  So when I hear that he's down to 204lbs my brain goes into a spin of what are these symptoms of.  The first and major one that came to mind is cancer and scares the hell out of me because he only said he was getting back surgery on June 7th and I know that he has had back problems in the past.  I know however that this is different and he doesn't want to tell me because I am so far from home and I can't do anything for him and he doesn't want me worrying and possibly getting myself killed at work. 

So yes I'm panicked in the worse possible way and yet there is nothing I can do, but I fear for his life and I yes while I know that death would end his suffering and I know he is I can see it when I look into his eyes.  Hell you can hear it in his voice.  I remember one email from him and the phone conversation as well that caused the email.  He had forgotten about my birthday and it ate him up so bad, I can forgive the man so easy for forgetting my birthday hell that didn’t bother me as much as what he said, he said it was “hard living such an empty and hollow life” that to me said a books worth and so much more.  He’s ready to die and has been for some time and it hurts so bad.  I still have so much to learn from him, so many great memories of his I wish to know, so many things he could teach me about life and the world even at my age I still can learn from him.  His mission is done, he helped take care of two kids, my sister and I.  I’m not sure how he feels about how she turned out but he still loves her regardless.  I know he is proud of me for serving despite his desire that I not enlist, I made him even prouder when I came back even injured like I was and yet I didn’t shy way.  He has seen his grand children born watched at least one of his children get married all be it a very simple and flawed wedding he got to watch it.  What I don’t think he is aware of is that if he hangs in there long enough he will live long enough to be a great grandfather.

I feel so sorry for anyone that has to deal with me when I get the news of his passing, I will not be one of sensibility and calm.  Already I can feel the pain building and the thought just the thought of losing him brings tears to my eyes.  I’m not beyond emotion no matter what my ex wife likes to say that I’m emotionally dead, I am far from it I’m just very controlled. 

Must remember

I must remember to breath, to keep my mind from being clouded by anger and disappointment.  While I am of dominate personality I have however lived my life in service to others, be it as a soldier, a peace keeper or even just looking out for others and being a shoulder to lean on when times get hard.  Gods knows I have been all of those things and so much more and rarely if ever do I ask anything of anyone.  Hell even my soldiers ask me if they can buy lunch for me or something of that nature and I have to tell them no, because that's not what a leader does.  I just spent the last week getting a soldier out processed from the army in a hurry and learning the system used here as I went.  Let me just say that was a nightmare unto it's self. 

Now though, now I just want to be greedy damn it, to see some return for my hard work and in some cases very much so a great deal of misery and agony.  I'm not talking in a figurative sense I mean real and true misery and agony.  Why is it so hard for so many to understand what happens in my world is not easy to deal with, I feel like I must raise a lot of other peoples kids and teach them along the way how to be men.  This should have been done before they enlisted and or even before they left home.  Instead I have to help them work through their own personal issues along with everything else and keep them the hell alive at the same time.  Seriously what the fuck happened to my country, once you had men coming out of high school, now you are lucky to get them coming out of college. 

So for once can I please be greedy, can I actually take the time to be loved, to relax and just left life cruise on by, to take a bit of time for myself.  That's all I want to really and honestly to be loved for me and the hard ass work I put in day after day.  What am I doing wrong or what the hell did I do to deserve this?

Memento Mori!!! (it's latin look it up)

A vent

Warning explicit content. 

I am so fucking tired of people bitching about how bad their jobs suck, how bad they have it.  Hey assholes wakeup at least you have a fucking job and you get to see your family as well.  Granted yes I have a job, I however only have the family I have made for myself basically.  But there are those poor souls who are scraping as much as they can to feed their wives and kids because their employer was a fucktard or because the government screwed them over.  These poor people in Wisconsin are getting a raw deal from an inept Governor that has no fucking clue how to run a state let alone budget money because chances are the fuckstick came from money and never had to worry about it because daddy was keeping tabs on it for him. 
It's shit like this that pisses me off to no fucking ends.

Then you have the bullshit over here, I hate this fucking country.  Yes granted one soldier fucked up horribly a few weeks ago and they now act like all Americans are the same way, yet in the states we don't see a Korean as all asians despite them almost all having the same damn mindset. That they are better than everyone else, sorry assholes but before you look down on me, better check the situation you find yourself in.  I'm in your fucking country protecting your sorry asses from being invaded and or out right killed by North Korea and or China.  I am the wielder of one very big ass stick, one that military wide across all branches and in many of our allied nations that get's called the Grid Square Killer.  With the flip of a few switches and the push of a few bottoms I can kill thousands of men and destroy millions of dollars worth of gear, weapons, trucks and buildings.  Yet I don't want to kill anyone anymore, I'm tired of the killing. 

My ex-wife use to ask me when we still dated how I could sleep at night and I always told her most of the time I don't.  It's becoming that way again, because that nice wall I had up between me and the nightmares crumbled slowly starting with her leaving me.  She truly was a saving grace and she knew this, but after telling her about one mission where I was forced to kill two young people, she never looked at me the same.

I have done missions to save lives, rescues that if they had gone any different in any way, I would be dead.  So would the hostages most likely, I have secrets I've had to keep for so long that eat away at me that even if I told them to the world, they would never be believed.  The truth is stranger than any fiction and so much more horrifying in the extreme.  Some of the things I have that sit in the back of my mind and have for years have nearly caused me to kill myself, I have set at times with a pistol in my mouth or under my chin with tears rolling down my cheeks wanting so badly to end it but never able to do so.  Some say that only the weak pick suicide, sometimes I have to say that only the truly strong can me so absolute of purpose to be able to end their own life.  I am envious so often of those that live in such ignorant bliss, those who don't see the world for what is truly there and they don't truly understand themselves are often so lucky.   They don't have those doubts; they don't have to hide what they know or who they truly are.

Me I find myself so alone so often because I know so much about the world, I also know more about myself than so many others could handle about me and that has cost me many relationships.  I know exactly what I want and so few understand that, but I also get called a monster for what I am and what I have done.  But truly a monster is the one who feels no regret for what they do, or are they the ones that allow evil to happen and stand by and do nothing.  Yes there are things I regret doing, there are other things I have done that I wish I had done sooner, things that have saved lives and things that would have saved even more if I had just gone with it.  So yes for each action or inaction I have regrets and horrors that terrorize me in my sleep. 

I know what it would take to end those, or I could reach out and find a reprieve from them in the form of a loving set of arms the problem is this.  I could settle for someone and never truly be myself, live a lie and not know fulfillment all to keep the horror at bay or I can suffer through the hell till I find the right one.............................................

What do I do?

In my time

I heard it so often when I was young and now I find myself saying it now.  I constantly am reminded of what I use to do and the times I came from, I joke with some of my coworkers that are around the same ages as myself and that's far and few between.  I got to joking with one of the other guys close to my age and we talked about the jobs skills we have that we could use when we get out.  I find myself all still geared toward weapons and ammunition, which some would say is sad and others would find much more focused.

As a whole I wonder though about so much these days, I find myself wanting to watch the world just burn because I am so tired of seeing all the madness and rampant stupidity of the world.  Egypt being a prime example, yes they are right to push a foul man out but at the same time so many artifacts were stole or damaged in the museums. These idiots can't see fit to protect their heritage and value their history.  I just don't get how anyone would want to destroy so much of their history but that's how it is with Islam.  Destroy the history of a culture so it can't go back to its old ways. 

I look back on all my deployments, I look and see what I am now and I wonder if I will ever be able to find the kind of woman that I can trust and depend on to keep the house safe while I am gone.  Can I find someone that won't run off when times get hard and lonely.  Things I don't do even when I have the option to do them because they are wrong.  It's hard to see myself happy like so many others, more so with the lifestyle I'm into.  So often the ladies who share it are more demanding of time and attention to make things work than a normal relationship.  Don't get me wrong though it often produces a relationship that is far more close and binding but none the less it is very hard to get the needed time together because of the work I do so I find myself at odds. 

However I think in the end what I want though is just a good love and to be remembered.