On Fantasy and Memory

Jon: lol

  you should blog more!

 i think i want to do that...

Coincidentally, we were talking right after I wrote about reading military fiction and how I can't relate to the book I'm reading. I remember having a conversation with a NCO (staff sergeant) about literature, and how he read fantasy novels to keep himself busy, particularly due to the ferocious nature of the Iraq War during his previous tours. Though I haven't really been reading fictional books as much, I must admit I've been enjoying video games with a fantastical element like Killing Floor, as opposed to the faux realism of Battlefield or Modern Warfare. More on wargaming later, I could write a whole blogpost about that.

Now I'm not that educated on the whole process, so this is probably going to sound like ignorant drivel, but human memory is something I've always been fascinated with, especially since it's something I can learn so much from but oftentimes do not. One of the things that intrigues me: my memory strongly remembers December 26th as the date my team got to Iraq... but all of my photos have timestamps of the 28th. I wonder why that little detail is off by two days - maybe because I remember with great certainty being stuck in Kuwait on Christmas? In any case, it's nice not to be in the Middle East, and I'll probably write more about it as I reflect on the past year.

Our accommodations in Kuwait - borrowed that blanket, travel pillow is mine

War Fiction

I recently purchased a Kindle Fire to do some reading with, as well as to entertain myself at airports or in the air. I bought the novel "Of Rice and Men" because I thought it was a nonfictional account of civil affairs units in Vietnam, but as it turns out, it's fiction based on the author's experiences. For that reason, I can't really get too absorbed into reading the book - I don't really care, because on some fundamental level, it's not real and I don't know what I can learn from that.

"We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People" was a much more interesting read for me, mostly because I would have written a very similar book myself, and I can relate to the subject matter. Basically it's the story of one State Department diplomat's time as a PRT team leader in Iraq, so it's interesting to see how things unfolded from a top-down perspective.

I wonder if my reading tastes are another one of the things that have changed this year.

On Anger

The nice thing about having a blog is that even though it's a public space, if people don't know where to look then they won't find it - depending on how private you want your thoughts to be, it could be the perfect niche.

I think I can diagnose when I started thinking about my buried anger: at one of the Yellow Ribbon workshops this past weekend, there was an "Anger Self-Assessment Test." The metrics themselves were irritating me because most of them are legitimate in my eyes: of course it's true that I still get angry when I think of the bad things people did to me in the past, because it happened recently!

I feel like it's something I've been trying to hide, especially because no one wants to listen, but I can't set it aside any longer - yes, I did mean it when I said Iraq was an eye-opening experience and good overall, but there was a lot of shit that happened while I was there, and I simply can't talk to people about it because no one wants to hear about it or understands. Maybe it was being back in an Army-related setting, maybe it was a lack of access to my normal outlets for this kind of thing, or maybe it was the shitty plane rides there and back, but something snapped on the way back home.

I don't need someone lecturing me that I'm being melodramatic about being lonely, far from home, in a country where the natives are trying to kill me - this conversation actually happened early on in the tour, right at its loneliest point. I've tried to play it off cool, but the experience was a rude awakening to how human nature really is - shitty terrorists, abandonment by friends, leaders pawning off responsibilities, etc. I could go on and on, but no one wants to hear that shit!

I've constructed a clever, logical narrative, but I think the facade is starting to wear on me. I'm pretty sure I don't have PTSD or any of that shit, but one of the things I find incredibly frustrating is being unable/reluctant to articulate my true feelings about the deployment and how my values have changed to my closest friends... might as well hint at it on a blog!

9/11

At 8:46AM on September 11th, 2001, I was a sophomore in high school - I don't remember what I was doing at the time... I do remember walking into my next class, seeing the World Trade Center billowing smoke, and commented that they must be talking about the terrorist attack in 1993. Another classmate corrected me, "no it's happening right now!" We basically watched speechless as the towers continued to burn, and then collapse in horrific fashion.

At 8:46AM on September 11th, 2011, I was in a large airliner flying from Kuwait to at Atlanta, just a few minutes from touching down on American soil, commenting to a fellow soldier that it was about that time 10 years ago that the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

If anything and in spite of things I'm not necessarily content with, one of the things my time in the Middle East (so far) has taught me is just how fortunate I am. I wasn't deployed for a full year, there was only one mildly hairy incident outside the wire, and I'm coming back with quite a few blessings to say the least. A lot of money, post-9/11 GI benefits that I can use for grad school, and my mind & body intact... I'll take it! Many of my other buddies in my unit, though assigned to other PRTs, have also gotten through our deployment okay, and we'll all be demobilizing together at Fort Dix, the rest will come home soon as well. It's been quite the ride, and I know for a fact that even with all the dysfunctions of PRT operations, I was right where I needed to be from December 2010-September 2011. Did I change the world? Did I necessarily fight the good fight? I dunno about that, but I did my job!

It rained yesterday, no shit!

Granted it was 105 degrees or so, the rain was pretty light, and from the looks of my camera possibly mud rather than water... but it was still refreshing to step outside and experience a little bit of precipitation. There's been a lot going here, maybe it symbolizes a break in the shenanigans... or maybe I'm talking out of my ass, haha.