making up for lost time, before its even lost

Somewhere between Baltimore and Chicago today, I realized something about myself:

I tend to live life at one hundred miles per hour.

I've spent so much time gone, that I feel a deep, pervasive need to accomplish things in my life that are important to me but otherwise notionally impossible to attain while my life is on hold.

My life here is contrary to the idealized image of a soldier returning from deployment. There is no deep sigh upon my arrival and plaintive search for somewhere dark and quiet so that I can re-adjust. Similarly, there's no bender nights of drinking. There's no "come on, I've just got back! I want to watch what I want to watch. Can't you leave me alone for a while?" This picture is not atypical... I've seen it among friends and fellow servicemen countless times.

But not me.

While gone, and aside from those things that I really do want in my own right -- like a meal that doesn't suck and a cold beer -- I think -- and I've just realized this -- that I subconsciously shoulder a heavy burden of guilt. A primary but not exclusive reason for this guilt is my daughter.

Among the others? Well... my life centers on love. The image of it. The possibility of it. The ideal of it. The promise of it. The reality of it. I have so much of it myself and I want to share it. And I want to feel it in return.

Consequently, when presented with the opportunity, I run at it at a hundred miles an hour. And it is frightening. Scary. Terrifying to the object. "Intense," as someone told me recently... "Justin, there's no other way to put it; you're intense. You have so much passion."

It is different with Madison... I breathe, a little. Because I know she'll always be there. And I'll always be there. But when I see promise in another, I frantically cling to it, squeezing and squeezing.

I think it is because I'm afraid it'll leave. Because it has. That if I don't provide so much attention and adoration in that short time I am here, I won't be able to make up for the time when I am not. And I am afraid to death of not having built sufficient margin in a relationship to otherwise compensate for my frequent, maddening absences.

So. I've learned something about myself today. I just don't know how to fix it.

through me, my father yet lives

Today I had my daughter for the first time in many months. Because of my extraordinarily high deployment rate.

I've missed her terribly. Having had her this weekend just pains me... my heart aches to have her with me always.

Alas.

In a recent conversation with my mom, I unexpectedly learned something about my father. He had only seen her once -- just for a short week -- before he passed on. Mom told me -- in one of those memories recalled as much to preserve his station in our life as to illustrate a point -- that when he'd met her, he was scared. Frightened.

At first, I could scarcely believe her. My father -- the stoic and brave -- ... scared? But I remembered. I remembered, actually, being a little irritated at what seemed my parents' reluctance... the lack of an offer to take her, alone, themselves, while I bid my time in my old stomping grounds. A chance for them to bond with her. A chance for me to taste just a bit of carefree freedom.

It was forgotten.

But Mom, telling me that Dad was scared, reminded me. Evidently, he confided in her that he'd never been so intimidated in his life. This from a man that spent his entire adult life on the edge of danger protecting other people. As a Sailor. As a cop. As a correctional officer. A three year old? Scared him?

He told Mom that he was abjectly afraid of disappointing her. My Madison. Of doing or saying or not doing or not saying something that would upset her. Because she was so precious. So precocious. So loving. So goddamned smart.

It's funny, that. My dad, the Dad. Afraid of a little girl.

When my mom told me this, a part of the inside-me broke a little. Because... in time... I'm sure Dad would have grown stronger. And would have grown more comfortable with her. And would have shared the myriad... the unimaginable and unquantifiable love and wisdom... and... he would have been wrapped around her little finger, I'm sure.

Dad's gone now, of course. He'll never get the chance. Neither will she.

It's up to me, then, to fill his void.

Earlier tonight, she spoke with my Mom: "Grandma." She later told me that she hardly remembers what Grandma looks like.

Another part of me broke a little when I realized that at least Mom's around to answer the phone.

Dad? I can only hope he answers prayers.

Home Again

Home for the Holidays... I've made my sweet escape.

Double entendres for everyone!

---

I am happy.

There	Here

n.ever a.gain v.olunteer y.ourself

While my brothers-in-blog were contemplating the loss of their pimp-a-rific mustaches, I was contemplating the continued forfeiture of my freedom.

I re-enlisted today for an additional three years, bringing me to 17 total years of service. The ceremony was performed while I was piloting our plane over the Horn of Africa.

GO NAVY, BEAT ASS-CANCER*.

---

*Ass-Cancer = Army.

p.s. And to a certain very special Project Manager / Office bitch: I'll be home before we know it. I tore a ring today, by the way.

i could be the next hemingway

Evidence against:

I do not write particularly well.
That which I do write is not "characterized by economy" or "understatement."
I possess neither a gnarly beard nor mats of gnarly chest hair.
I do not have any cats.
I have never been to Cuba.
I dislike Paris.
I have not been awarded a Pulitzer or Nobel Prize.

Evidence in support:

A cold beer, a hot cappuccino and a good novel at sunset in Africa.

run

I am sad, shuttered. Distant. Removed. Separated.

It is time to escape again.

Instantly, mottled grey and khaki sweeps beneath me. Knees aching, my mind swimming. Her voice compels me further, but my breathing is labored.

A cloud of choking fog and soot parts as I charge it, but it's always there. Ahead of me. I will myself further.

For a moment, there is silence. Thoughts crash at me. A choir of doubt and sadness and longing echoes against the chamber walls of my mind. I alone listen. I alone can hear. It sounds like a dirge: unfair.

I ask to be loved but I am never there to return it. I am perpetually absent.

Absent: this refrain repeating itself again and again, in time with the swoosh-swoosh of blood against my eardrums.

Suddenly... erased. It is pushed aside; gone again, if only for noise. It waits just beyond the edge, though.

A moist, acrid wind pushes against me; I draw my face down. Before me and behind, I notice half-crescent dimples in soft gravel. They mark my path.

Every three feet or so, there is evidence of where I have been, and where I am going.

I make the last turn, and I remember being here before. I am brought to the same place I'd just departed. I am tricked. I am tricking myself.

Trapped in a circle.

I'm done now. Panting. Seated outside my tent beneath sickly yellow light. My elbows rest atop my knees. I realize nothing has changed. I am not escaping.

A smile cracks. Beneath me, little drops collect and turn the grey cement black. It feels like I went somewhere. Like I tried.

the culture of suck

"The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy." -
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

---

"Please taste this and let me know what you think. I'd like to serve it to the men."

"What is it?" asked Yossarian, and took a bite.

"Chocolate-covered cotton."

"This stuff is better than cotton candy, really it is. It's made out of real cotton. Yossarian, you've got to help me make the men eat it. Egyptian cotton is the finest cotton in the world."

"But it's indigestible," Yossarian emphasized. "It will make them sick, don't you understand? Why don't you try living on it yourself if you don't believe me."

"I did try," admitted Milo gloomily. "And it made me sick."

--Catch-22

I am deployed to the Horn of Africa. There is a lot to complain about.

Over fourteen years, I have been deployed all over the Middle East. There has always been a lot to complain about.

But where does it end? When are we -- the boys and girls of your American military -- happy?

Never.

Let me give you a recent example:

I have been tentatively promised AAA batteries by an in-camp hook-up, which I need for my GPS watch and are NOT FUCKING AVAILABLE HERE... why, you ask? A good question. The story:

Me. In the "Exchange." Hey, look, I can buy a FUCKING 32" FLATSCREEN TV. That's neat. For a war zone and all. Man, I need batteries. Hey, where are the batteries? No, really, where the FUCK are the batteries? ANY FUCKING batteries? AA, C, D, AAA, 9-volt? Anything, you FUCKING RETARDS? What? You don't have a SINGLE FUCKING BATTERY? How is that possible, you ignorant smiling motherfucker? You must not be understanding me. I'm going to speak to the only American in here. He must be the manager. Oh, look, he is! And he called me, "Chief." This should work out, after all. Hey, Mr. Manager, how come I can't find any batteries? Umm, sorry Chief, it's because we don't have any. How in the fuck is that possible, Mr. Manager? Well, we get cases every month, but the minute they come in, the women on the Camp come in and buy them all up. WHAT? Why the fuck would they.....ooooooohhhhhhhhh. GOD DAMN IT. VIBRATORS SUCK.

• We have peanut-butter, but no jelly.
• We have air conditioning, but it fails.
• We have wildlife, but it is the kind that kills you.
• We have yogurt, but no spoons.
• We have juice, but it's not filled in the magic little dispensing thingies until 10 minutes before the chow hall closes.
• We have "Containerized Living Units" but less than half of them have toilets.
• We have water heaters for our showers and 60" widescreen flatpanel televisions in the chow hall but neither are not connected to power.
• We have an oven on the plane to make nifty little heated meals, but we have no aluminum foil.
• We have shampoo, but no conditioner.
• Alternatively, we have conditioner, but no shampoo.
• We have body wash, but no pouffs.
• We have razors, but the blades only fit the razors we don't have.
• We have a chow hall, but (sometimes) it has no roof.
• We have mosquito netting, but no cord with which to hang it.
• We have Maxim, but no Economist.
• We (evidently) have vibrators, and some of us have batteries.

And yet we laugh. As recent as only a few years ago, the prospect of posting a blog while in a combat zone was ridiculous; our only connection to the Real World was official message traffic. We prayed for "FamGrams" -- a sort of pseudo-telegram limited to 40 words. Food came out of a brown plastic bag... and among the variety, there were the "Three Fingers of Death."

We're never satisfied, because something is always dicked-up. Complaining establishes a lowest-common denominator. It actually works, I think, to establish a sense of camaraderie. An esprit-de-corps (we have it worse than everyone else, right?)

And kind of like in Joseph Heller's Catch-22, it is sometimes necessary to complain because it reminds us we're alive.*

Last night, I may not have had batteries for my watch (and there may have been an annoying multi-volt chorus coming from the female-only tents), but I got to call someone wonderful who is very, very important to me. My night and day and week and even deployment has been made.

Wouldn't have happened, yesteryear.

Perhaps tomorrow, though, we'll have aluminum foil. Cotton balls -- even when covered with chocolate -- taste like shit.

---

*Alive (recently overheard):

"Flight station, I need a right turn to 250."
*crickets*
"Flight station, turn right to 250."
*crickets*
"Flight station from Nav, I need a right turn to 250."
"I'd love to, Nav, but right now I'm busy making sure we don't stall."
Me: "What?!? Is there suddenly a 300-knot headwind? Why are we just now hearing about this?"
*crickets*