Wright's-Rite-Write, Right?

Today I learned that I have been immortalized. I learned through word of mouth that I, in my own rite, Wright, have been given what some could consider an ambiguously confusing gift. My name, and title as it's known to my job, has been inscribed in response on a bathroom wall. This is the first time, at least to my knowledge, that I have been mentioned on a bathroom wall.

Some people wouldn't consider this such an honor. Normally the Sirly Sue-Sue's are one's that would write something nasty or haneous, or embarrassing or untrue on the wall. Some would consider what was written about me slander. I don't find it all that much offensive, but alas I am an infantryman, and such insults are welcomed to a warriors ear. If you can't have a sense of humor about oneself, you truly have nothing in this job.

The inscription of course was entirely false in nature, and actually not specifically written about me. However, the mere idea that someone thought of me when they read about the accusatory quote of one's sexual exploits and the rendering of a disease transmitted in some way not entirely disclosed, was to say the least, flattering. The ink was mostly in black, covering the juicy facts of a SSG giving a bump to someone. Another tagger asked who may have been the culprit. The third graffiti-ite, a possible oner as Brad would say, etched my name neatly as possible through the red paint, exposing the white that once was there, with the undeniable lettering spelling SSG WRIGHT. I'm honored.

I of course am not a rule breaker. I bend them occasionally, and smartly, but when it comes to things as juvenile as writing in a bathroom stall, I put it beneath me. This kind of excitement though had me childish. I couldn't not help but add to my legend, small but growing in the fifth stall of a 'shitter-trailer.' So then, for such an amateur as myself what would, what could I write? It had to be poignant, it had to be clever, it had to be both satirical and thought provoking.

The military traditions of jesting one another with somewhat cowardice on a wall only read by the occupant currently taking the king's throne is as similar to the war bush or gallon challenge on a deployment. I for one, enjoy the amniminty of such things. Like a fifth grader I read the inscription over and over, doing my best in my favorite think tank to come up with a great line. As I broke the rules in the sense of adding to my own fallacy now covering the stall wall, I couldn't help but continue the jest at myself, whilst also jesting the perpetrator. The brilliance flowing through the felt of the clickable Sharpie I carved the new punchline to the old joke. I opened the door for my own immortal future.


sleep now in the fire...

Ways to get Higher

I can't say what I'm understanding, but I'm sure you'll talk about it one day.

I've been thinking about getting a tattoo. I was never one that could be decisive on such a big decision. Well, unless there was some kind of pressure on me to do so. Hold a gun to my head, and I seem to perform better. A fact that I admire about myself is the ability to perform under pressure. If I elevate whatever it is that I'm doing when I get the pressure, the heat, the fire from the kitchen; how then do I turn the heat up on myself?

That question is about as easy to answer, or figure out as the age old cliche of 'why are we here?' I'm not sure that I'll ever figure out that level of self motivation, but it doesn't mean that I won't try. As far as tattoo's are concerned, I don't think I'll be throwing them on the burner anytime soon.

This black holed sun, though, it rotates, sleeps and dives deeply into something I cannot grasp. It slips through the cracks between my fingers. The clock, ticking away in the corner of the bright room, stares straight through me. I swallow knives of anxiety. It stops, reverses and speeds up. The room cascades through morning and night, light and dark and I sit vacuous.

I could be slumbered over the side of the prison I call a chair. Things have stewed for years to a point. It has to be done, and the timing could be worse. The ambiance mounting it's offensive, I rotate slowly towards the reflection of myself. I splash cool water of reality onto the vacuumed expression casually laying down on my face. What's something that will transcend the generations of my life to come and still connect my youth to my elderly self.

The argumentation within the forum of my brain constantly results in a parlay resulting in no action. Obedience betrays something sweltering deep inside, but the disobedience isn't worth the risk which I always calculate like a Julius in battle. The thoughts come and go. Some stick through a few days, but as my grandfather would say, nothing oatmeal's against my ribs. It's so hard to swallow, but I think one day, I will have a drink.


Take it easy, but take it.

Green Light, Go

I'm at the door, the green light is on and I'm ready to jump out. I've done it a thousand times, or nearly thirty. This time though, is different. Instead of four seconds of free-fall ended by the security of a parachute deploying from the pack on my back, and a twenty feet per second descent--the same scary speed you reach when you leap from a three story building--to the ground now nearing just as fast a speed. My life, an airborne metaphor. I've nearly reached the end of Army life. The last feet of my jump. My feet and knees are together, chin tight into the chest but I'm not landing on a DZ of Fort Bragg. I'm landing on the sands of time in the land of reality.

It's exciting in the same way, sort-of. The leap, the exhilaration can take your breath away. But every paratrooper knows it's not the fall to be afraid of. It's the landing. The ground. How hard is it going to hurt, and where will I land? This exit, my most important, a contrast to the others.

I look forward to going home, a decision that I've almost entirely made concrete. If for at least a semester or a time to sleep on the parents couch and figure out what's really best for me. When the dust has settled from a quarter career in a tough profession. It's exciting to think about, living back at home. Parents and family that I've sparsely seen over the course of training, living in a distant state and two deployments in defense of what you might call this great nations constitution, and which I call brotherhood.

With so many relationships built over the course of the last five plus years, I can't help but feel like a traitor moving back to the west from the east. All of these relationships, some close enough to consider 'like' family. My adult life had been built around these people. They're part of me. I've taken a piece of each of them and learned plenty about myself in the process. It's been a tormenting thing for me. The consideration of leaving all of what I've had in the past few years is something that terrifies me. All the friends that have left over the course of an Army career, they do it so seamlessly. They don't seem to have regret about leaving dear friends. Of course, the plus side is astonishingly greater wherever they move to.

The options have weighed heavily on my shoulders, and to be honest I'm still not totally decided on what happens next. What the next act of my life is, or where it will take place. There's plenty of upside regardless of the question marks stabbing its premeditated beginnings. I've always lived my life best through spontaneity and have yet to live a regret. Perhaps the mystery, the open doors are just a symbol of what has constituted my life. The only for sure choice in the near future, is college. California, Texas, NC, or Florida. So many choices, so little time. Oh, how I wish we had more than one life to live.


one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand

Ghost Protocol

The sweat of anticipation wrestles into the collar at the neck and the sleeves at the wrist. The breeze cools your nerves and whispers affirmation of your confidence. Working hands rest easy but ready. You shuffle from foot to knee and back again. The things you think about yourself are all put on the line. No redoes. The feelings you might have always envisioned in such a moment, surprise you when they don't come. They're stifled by preparation.

Fear doesn't set on your horizon today. You couldn't explain the feeling and don't have to as training entirely takes over. You assess what you don't even see. You've sized it up, drowning your certainty in the water of confidence your senses take the hose from your mind. Everything elevates, like an important at bat in a childhood game, but at a level that can't be understood except in the moment. It's a drug, latching on it's high. Too much and you're addicted. Not enough and you strive for more, a junky of consequence and suspense. 

Every sense screams to your instincts, your next step stopped. Eyes squint, vision tightens and the colors, shapes, shadows, natural and man-made objects seemingly move to reveal, display themselves on the beat of your heart pounding in your ears. The game is risk versus reward and often these two hands are played together. Lay it down or play it isn't necessarily an option you have but if you're skilled enough, outcome can still be ruled by you.

Left and right you sweep frantically, but no one would ever know. Your presence, attitude, a rock. Steady and boldly you move your feet to destiny, forcing it's wicked hand. Instinct applauded, you guessed right and moved left. It's a higher power known as coincidence, if not God. Wondering wastes your time at the moment, so you mark the page of life and promise to reread, rethink it later. One day one will rehash, rethink all that could've been, and like a ghost, trapped in the depths of night of one's mind, it rests uneasy and ready to haunt. 

Yea it's fine, walk down the line

Tell it to me Slowly

Somewhere, out of nothing, comes everything. The rush, the feelings criss-crossing beams of emotions like lights moving in the midst of a roistered fireworks night. The rock falls to the pit of my stomach like, and I'm enthralled, perpetuated by hope and visions of futures seemingly concrete in their determination. The muscles pull tight with the excitement my breathing produces. Idly, impatiently and boldly I sit in my own created suspense. Powerfully I create through an immense imagination an impossible scenario of happiness that only a self full-filling proficiency could produce. My life continually changes, and the confusion becomes greater and lesser with it's own dancing of somber life lessons learned and forgotten. I'm a conundrum of myself, hypocritical to no end and know end.

There's much to do, and little time to do it. The time flies. The flies bite. August, my favorite month and my last hoorah. It's my Mohican's last ascent, my game 7, the bottom of the 9th. The all-in of a lifetime lived in nearly six years. I'll have nothing to regret, nothing left to prove. Lived more than most ever will, and willed more than most ever live. It's the pain and agony that's never to be lived by most. The simple life, a lot simpler. The way things were, were never meant to be for most, and foremost the way things should be. The sheep, the flock protected. The ignorance. The bliss. Life as uncomplicated as you can make it, or complicated as you can.

Clarity becomes clearer, despite the constant growth. The leaves of my life provide the shade of understanding. That understanding ultimately blocks the light of the coming sun, and you realize the plant has to die, birth new leaves, new beginnings, new understandings. The same is different, but mostly the same. I'm the birth of a star, the generation of excitement. The world is my pawn and I it's chessboard or the exact opposite. It's perspective with retro but mostly intro and we realize we are small, but huge in everything or every way that we may or may not be. Vastly our horizons stretch, and we're wired, addicted to the game that we call life. We don't comprehend most of what we do, or why, how we do it, but the promise I make is to do it to the best of my ability or at least the best I think I know how. Often, the drop of reality stings like the dumping of ice water, shocking and shivering the soul. It's refreshing.

The promises to keep in this life are to yourself, and those who you love.


Angry Bear would say of that, "Deployment Weird"