Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Arlington

The first few steps were certainly the hardest that I took. Coming out of the visitor center in the early morning, I felt the patriotic sun of the Potomac coercing the sweat to bead out of my skin and roll down my forehead. It was early enough that not a lot of people had come out yet to this vastly hallowed grounds of American Heroes that my feet fell on top of in Arlington Virginia. The National Cemetery was far bigger and expansive than I could have imagined it to be, and the tears looked to weep around the corners of my eyes.

I couldn't understand what it was I was feeling. I expected to be crippled, unable to continue, going down to a knee a weeping. I was glad to have my glasses on, not only so that I wouldn't have to squint in the bright early morning sun, but also to hide from my family the tears welling up in my eye lids. I walked and tried to appreciate the beauty of the cemetery, the perfectly manicured grass and blooming flowers. The tombstones were in near perfect rows as far as I could see, only broken up by the occasional tree or roadway. I walked, not feeling my legs past the pounding of my heart.

I started to understand what it is I exactly felt. I'm sure that since I've served this nation and have the possibility of being buried in such a remarkable dedication to those who were loyal enough to sacrifice everything for this country, and knowing some who are buried here, I took things a little more to heart. Walking and reading the names off of the white granite stones I couldn't but help to feel so extremely honored to be around the spirits of those who were willing to make such a sacrifice. I felt honored to be associated with these men and women who sacrificed their own lives allowing me to appreciate all that I had with my family in our Nations Capital.

I walked around, feeling the tears at the gates of eruption turn from one's of grief to one's of great veneration. At the JFK grave site, I looked over hi speech carved in granite over the graves below on the hill, and into the Captial at sights end, just waking up with the bustle of tourists and church goers on a wonderfully beautiful Easter morning. I couldn't help but feel abhorrent to the fact that so many were expressly enjoying the freedom and liberties that they so unknowingly take at such face value that they couldn't even begin to understand the amount of honor and respect that the men around me deserved. As beautiful a place as they had made to rest the fallen, it could not be enough to give the proper amount of homage to the saviors of freedom and fighters of oppression.

The kids walk past me on the road, playing grab ass and hollering about. It took some personal restraint to keep from making a scene, or worse hitting somebody, but I managed to deliver myself from doing so. I felt honored now, and disgusted in the fact that I had served this nation in combat in the sands of another country in order to help maintain the things we appreciate on a day to day basis protected; and yet I felt that no one of my generation, or close to it understands the price of that daily liberty. I start to feel embarrassed when I watch the news and see the way the youth of our nation are now allowed to act. We've made excuses for everything poor that we do now as a nation. These men resting eternally at my feet, they did not make excuses. They understood, much as I have, the willingness to put it all on the line to live a free life. That idea hasn't been as seriously threatened in long enough for us to really remember. We have forgotten about 9/11 in almost the same way that we've forgotten that we are at war.

I walk through the visitor center, a flew of emotions gripping at my soul, and beating my heart with their hammer throws. I'm glad to have come, unwilling as it had been. It inspires me to try and make a change in our country. I look up at the hill of change that we must make to preserve what for so many years we had valued, and what we fail to value anymore. The tightness in my throat, I can no longer tell where it comes from.


Give me liberty, or give me death.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Subway Ride

The lights flickered slightly enough to make me question whether or not they had. The rocking motion finally forced me to take a seat. The woman I had offered it to on the subway had declined and I reluctantly joined my family sitting in the tight, dirty seats. I observed the man with his gray hair and beard lose himself in the book as he stood near the door, an obvious professional at surfing the rock of the underground train. He held onto nothing to keep him steady, but his expression told me he was clinging on for his life.

He was older than my father, and appeared to have had a tough life. He creased the pages as he turned them, and moved his head along with his eyes as he read. He had been outside for sometime, and his coat appeared to be wet. The book was folded over so that I couldn't see the cover. The pages were yellow with age but unused and still stuck together with every vigorous turn his old cracked fingers flipped.

The train lurched, the old man looked up, and with the exit of so many people, and the availability of a seat just in front and right of me, he took the chance to rest his legs. He sat crooked on the chair, his attention enveloped by the book, reading of a life he'd rather be living. I noticed him in greater detail then. He wore a down jacket, and a few of it's feathers slipped through the old blue material. It was much to winter of a coat for the end of April, and I paid closer attention to his red blotchy skin, now seeing it was marked with small zits and blemishes. The coat was wet and so was his hair. Though I couldn't tell if it was with water or grease. His hair was either combed forward or his hat hair from he hood on his jacket that he had been wearing during the rain had pushed his hair into a neat row of pushed over stalks of corn. His scalp barely visible through the white well designed mess like the earth beneath a farmers crop.

His white beard covered up a lot of his age and imperfection but didn't hide the excitement in his eyes. The book he read I couldn't see the title of. Perhaps it was about things he did, or desired to do. Basic comforts of food or shelter, or extravagant ones of adventure in the outback. His eyes didn't come off of the pages of the book, glued to the words, even when the train stopped at it's next station. It was my exit and I felt compelled to stay on board, continue to watch this man live vicariously through the book in his hands. I felt I needed to know what was there, what secret of life was obviously written in the pages. I shuffled pass the oncoming crowd and didn't look back. I walked up the stairs and left the station.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Is There Life On Mars?

The middle of the day flows into the end as the beginning felt just out of reach now. I lean back and close my eyes. I can feel the earth rotate beneath me. I search for the bliss of hearing the bustle of work around me, just on the other side of the partitioned wall. The chair beneath me sinks, and I'm floating in my dreams. I'm aware of my body, but don't feel a thing.

Not a single thought races across my mind, and only then I start to breath. I've been fighting at being productive all day, and my lack of laziness has paid off. My worries, fears, and loathes are all but gone it seems, and I don't know what hide and seek game they are playing, but I'm glad they've let me get to home base, if at least for the moment.

Before I remember it I find my face being held up by a thousand red poles. They are gentle and warm in touch, and a wry smile spreads across my cheek as I realize that I had been dreaming for a time. I don't remember what time I started to read my book, or remember a conscious decisions to abandon it and lay the right side of my face down on the soft red blanket I have on my bed. I don't even know how long I was untethered from my consciousness. It could've been a minute or a week, and regardless of the difference between the two, I feel extremely refreshed and worried.

The weight on my mind has been one worthy of a two man lift, but I've been mulling over it mostly alone. I watch the world deteriorate around me, and wonder what my part will be. I imagine I could be in the middle of stopping things, of saving it all. In my thoughts, i realize the sacrifices we must make, before it's all to late, before we've squandered it all. We've been selfish and greedy for far too long.

The earth rotates and I flinch back awake, feeling the gravity pulling me back into the chair I had forgotten I was sitting in. I open my eyes, the bustle, the noise is gone. The barrier between it and I is also gone. They all are staring at me. I look in their faces, can feel their contempt, can see the hope of my demise in their evil eyes. They have my eyes. My arrogance has turned me into them. They stand fast and ready to take my chair, and I never even realized I had it. It's gone. I no longer float, I no longer have my chair. I sit on the floor in my rags and cloths.


Counterfeiting Ourselves

Saturday, April 9, 2011

The Ball Set Forth

"Servicemen and women don’t serve their nation for the pay; however, the assumption of their continued service without financial subsistence is an unforgivable act, the ramifications of which further the deepening divide between an apathetic nation and its warriors. The term “nation at war” is a misnomer. There are no national war-time sacrifices being made nor is there a national consciousness of war; rather, we are a nation whosepublic servants are fighting a war that has been condoned either explicitly or passively by its citizens. Shame on all Americans, our transgression of neglecting the sacrifices of our military at war has escalated to neglecting their human rights. Pay the fucking troops." -Dan Nelson


I served with 1LT Dan Nelson in Baghdad, Iraq between December 2008 and November 2009. He was the inspiration for a lot of my more heated blogs concerning the views of America. He would stand in the guard shack with me and the others, and see the grim looks on our faces, past our weary eyes and see what was eating us up inside. He would have the right thing to say, to make you feel that at least someone notices, even if they're going through it too. What he says above here, there is nothing is closer to the truth. It's an idea, much as the military itself, that is not recognized not supported, not a part of this society.


As I flipped back and forth from the different 24 hour news networks that I could definitely say that I despise, I found myself wondering how many other Americans were watching the countdown to the shut down of our government. How many people of my age were watching the new Enron of called the United States Government fail in front of their eyes. The ticker rolling across the screen is about the only place you get any solid news. '... in the event of shutdown, military death benefits will not be paid...' I read that, and get as sick to my stomach as when I see a new row of tombstones being put in at Arlington. I realize that I am the last of what America used to stand for. That dying for an idea is worth the weight of freedom, of liberty.


We have so many causes that we push for these days, that it's hard to even sort your own mail. We give and give and give as an American society to so many other nations (356 million to Haiti). It feels good to help others out, but for far too long have we focused on the needs of others and forgot about the needs of our own. We've created so many programs within our government that gives money to those who pay nothing into these programs and provide no service back to society. We are up in arms about the possibility of cutting welfare, of cutting planned pregnancy programs, but when it comes to possibly not paying the protectors of all of the precious freedoms that we as Americans have become so accustomed to, to the point that we think we deserve them without sacrifice, we do nothing. 


Regardless of the fact that the Government came to an agreement on a budget (and only a temporary one) for the fiscal year, we should still demand the step down of all of the Congressmen, Senators and President of The United States. They have failed us, we have failed ourselves. The people of this nation must take back the power from these men and women who were so willing to cut all the pay to the employees that put in more time and effort than the paycheck that they receive would indicate. Yet, they would still collect their six figures on the 1st and 15th, while Americans would die in defense of this nation and their families would receive nothing. This country has lost it's morals, it's ethics, it's liberty if we do not demand a change, if we do not force a change, if we are not willing to make whatever sacrifice we must, to include the ultimate one to protect what is right! The breach of trust the government has caused has implications apparently to only those who know what the true price of freedom is. The sheep dogs and not the sheep have the clairvoyance to know what this has all meant, and if we do nothing, well then we've let this nation be devoured by the wolves that we are sworn to protect.




"I ask no greater glory, than to defend our country and our way of life, against all enemies, both foreign and domestic"