I Can Taste It

[unhappycamper]

I Can Taste It

Going home is a beautiful, terrifying thought to have once it gets this close to happening. Not only am I in the twilight of the deployment, but of my military career that began three years ago yesterday. It was then when a nineteen year old chubby kid found himself bound for Ft. Benning, Georgia, fresh and malleable as molten copper. Weeks from completing a fifteen month tour, I’m as confused and apprehensive as that teenager with the twiddling thumbs and darting eyes that had no idea where he was going, or why.

You may want to sit down for this.

This occupation, this money pit, this smorgasbord of superfluous aggression is getting more hopeless and dismal by the second. It’s maddening to think that more than a year’s worth of blood, sweat and tears will lead to little more than a pat on the back and a hideously redundant speech from someone who did none of the bleeding, sweating or crying.

Despite being in a meaningless situation, my life has never had this much meaning. I watch the backs of my friends and they do the same for me. I’ve killed to protect them, and they’ve killed to protect me. For friends and family, being deployed is like being pregnant or surviving a car wreck; everyone is nice to you all of a sudden. People I don’t even know send me kind words and packages from all over. They came out of the woodwork knowing my plight and shared with me heartfelt hope and luck. The fact that you’re reading this now, dear reader, is a testament to that. Would you have cared about what I thought, felt or did two years ago? This position I’m in, shared by less than one percent of the U.S. population, has given me the distinct privilege of sharing my experiences and ruminations of this war, observations undiluted by perpetually delirious officials like General Petreaus and mainstream media sirens. I have felt every extreme of the human condition, physically, morally and emotionally. I’ve never laughed so hard, cried so long or felt more ashamed of myself in all of my life. In a matter of weeks it’ll be over, and I’ll have just the memories of enduring 130 degree heat, and poker games lasting well into the night. I’ll look back on the hysterical laughter during fifteen hour Baghdad clears, the terror of being pinned down by machine gun fire, the sight of a Stryker on its side and the unfolding of a body bag under the flames of a nearby school, unzipped tenderly to fit the body of Chevy as RPGs screamed overhead. Soon this place will all be in the past.

What a beautiful, terrifying thought.

Next month we’ll be the first unit home that completed a three month extension. We were one of few to see Iraq before and after the surge. If the media got anything right, it was that the surge failed. The idea, as birthed in a bloody, mucous-y blob of counter production by General Petreaus, is quite simple on paper, impossible to execute in a meddling reality. The concept is that combat troops would move from their huge bases that housed obscene luxuries like beds, flushing toilets and running water, and into outposts within the most dangerous parts of the city. The key to it all would be 24/7 interaction with Iraqi Army and a constant presence among the Iraqi citizens, giving them confidence in the mission of coalition forces. The building we picked used to be a whiskey distillery, and we’ve been busy putting up concrete barriers and wire around it. A house was too close to where the wall was supposed to be, so engineers blew it to smithereens and sent the family packing. The father owned the plot for forty years and comes by every so often to collect the useful bricks left scattered a hundred yards in every direction. Before he entered once, I patted his seventy year old frame down like a common criminal.


Rest of article at: http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-can-taste-it.html

[frogcycle]

1. oh my

thank you so much for the link. Everyone should follow the link, read the entire post, and the responses.


Here is what I posted on the blogsite in response:

I just found your blog via a link in DemocraticUnderground.

It is a treasure.

First, let me thank you for your service - for signing up with the intention of helping support our great nation. Then let me apologize on behalf of that nation for what it did - put people in power who have only their own interests at heart, and give you a nebulous "mission" with atrocious circumstances under which to attempt to carry it out.

And then let me thank you profusely for your writing. People like you are why this country came to be. They had names like Thomas Paine, and wrote things like "Common Sense." By communicating so eloquently what our country is actually doing, you can, and I am confident, will, help to change it.

Be safe, come home, and keep writing!

[unhappycamper]

3. Thanks for your post.

After you mentioned it, I went over & posted a response also.

unhappycamper said...

Wow. Just plain wow.

I stumbled onto your blog this morning via a slate.com link.

When you get home, I hope you'll think about joining the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW.org). We need your voice.

Peace and welcome home, Brother.

[Kajsa]

2. I hope and pray that he

and his brothers make it home safely.

He's a great writer and gives us at home
first person insight into the insanity of this war.

Thank you, Unhappycamper, for posting this.

K&R.

:kick:

[snappyturtle]

4. Oh my....this is what needs to be heard at congressional hearings

rather than the blather we hear. K&R Thanks much.

[gateley]

5. K&R nt

[Major Hogwash]

6. "Soon this place will all be in the past."

Nope, he'll carry it like a rucksack for the rest of his life.

We have made these young men and young women carry an unfair burden far too long.

[unhappycamper]

7. He *will* carry a rucksack the rest of his life.

But it sounds like he's figured out the whole charade, which should put him ahead of the game. I hope he gets the counseling he needs, and has a full and healthy life. His Mom and Dad are firmly in his corner. Based on his writings, I think that will happen.