The Hurt

I just watched an incredible film. It is called The Hurt Locker. It ie about an EOD team in Iraq. I am not sure that anyone who has not experienced war can fully appreciate the film, but I appreciate it.

I pity those who have not known what it is to be under fire, to put life on the line. I have in my own small way walked the line and I am not sure I know how to equate all that to normal civil life.

There is no way to put in words how it feels to be wakened in the middle of a clear dark night, smoke and powder in the air. To see the tracers overhead. To hear the whistle of bullets passing by.

There is truly a clarity in battle. And though I hate the war, and the futility of it all, there is a part of me that misses the clarity of serving a just cause, and fighting the good fight. I do not believe there is a true soldier living who does not envy the flag-draped coffin.

I am not sure how to reconcile being here, while my brothers and sisters are there, in the crosshairs, or in the cold dark tomb.

Truly there be none who can long for peace as a soldier longeth for peace, yet there is also a longing for the moment of proof, where life hangs in the balance, and the cause is just.

I fear my soul will never know peace as long as there be war, and I am left on the bench, in the wings. Truly I cannot know happiness when I know my sisters and brothers are far from home, and in harm's way.

Nobody can understand war, and peace, honor and freedom, like a soldier. And oh how I feel I have failed to live up to the challenge posed by the suffering and sacrifice of my kin. Whatever god there be, grant me strength to bear my cross, and lose myself.

Greater love hath no man than this, that he layeth down his life for his brother.

How can I know peace when my brothers and sisters are in the dark. In the cold. On the deserts or mountains of distant lands. How can I find joy in my woman's arms, and my childrens' embrace, when my sisters and brothers are fighting and dying.

I long for the day when the sword shall be beaten into the plowshare, and the childrn of men or God or whatever shall know peace.

Truly there is no peace for the soldier away from the fight. How can I know joy when my brothers and sister's are gone.

As they say in Pashto, bas, enough. I have had my time and my time issure to come again. Now is the time to lay up for the harvest. TO strengthen and prepare. The waters are at the banks and the flood shall surely come.

Carpe Diem. Dulce et decorem est, pro patria more. Pur father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

I shall bide my time and prepare myself.

I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

Time to recommit. To prepare. To know, be, and do.

Civilized?

I have been fascinated lately with the idea of civilization. It seems that societies have a tendency to determine for themselves what behaviors are or are not civilized and then make an assumption that that is necessarily a standard that can be applied to and imposed upon all civilizations, cultures, and institutions that do not conform to the standards of acceptable civility. Interestingly enough the only real thing that determines the primacy of one set of social and cultural values is inherently superior might, both militarily and economically. Lately I have spent a great deal of time ruminating over whether the modern Western ideal of civilization is actually all that great a thing, or at least the American version of it. I really don’t think I have any good answers yet.

One of the things I find most fascinating is the debate lately about the ability of “Christian” states to adapt to the modern (and inherently better????) and the failure of Muslim states to do so. I personally feel this is a tremendous case of cultural and spiritual blindness and completely disingenuous. Most of the successes of the West I would term to be scientific and economic. The scientific advances occurred, in many instances, in spite of Christianity, rather than because of it. The sectarians, both the leaders and the masses, have been at best antagonistic to scientific progress. True Galileo and Copernicus have been vindicated but the battle with Darwin is still raging. In Evangelical and fundamentalist Christian areas of the United States there is a great distrust of science, and I believe much of this is due to the fight over creationism vs. evolution. So the west has generally been able to accept technology and science, but in many cases it has been in a disregard to the bastions of Christianity. I do not believe that Christian culture inherently led to the great reforms and discoveries of the western world. The brave men and world who made real impact generally either did so in the dark, were forced to recant, were burned at the stake, or were somehow lucky to have been born and worked after the inquisitions and the intellectual purges.

To tie Western economic dominance to Christianity is a travesty. The West has been very successful at subverting some of Christ’s most basic teachings to fit its materialist/economic ends. I am sure if Jesus were to come around today he would definitely say that it is okay to do whatever is necessary to live a comfortable life of more than modest means. Forget the poor and the hungry. They are lazy and stupid anyway so it is their fault they are poor. It seems to me that many Westerners, Capitalists, and honest Churchgoers would put more stock in the words of Ebenezer Scrooge (“Are there no prisons, no workhouses”) than the words of Christ when it comes to our dealings with the poor. Ultimately something will trickle down anyway so everything will be alright. I fear that Western material success has come through extensive and selective forgetting of Jesus’ teachings.

Another thing that fascinates me about being civilized is the detached impersonality by which we kill. I think the motives for war have not really changed since the first hominid clubbed his buddy because he coveted his furs or woman or dog or magic rock or whatever. We tend to try to glorify it and make it look better but basically every war comes down to somebody trying to take something somebody else has or somebody trying to protect what he/she has from being taken. And there may be noble justifications for it. What is incredible though is the extent to which the “civilized” nations have taken war. I think in some ways the world was a much better place when people battled with sticks and knives and swords and shields and whatnot. You had to actually see the man or woman you were killing and get his or her blood on your face. You had to slip and slide and stumble in the limbs and the gore and the blood. But you had to be actively involved in the act of killing. I think it was especially significant that Kings and Lords used to fight along with everybody else. I do not see a superior civility or justness in a system where enemies are killed from afar with big explosions or little bullets or even bigger explosions and men and women completely detached from the reality of war and death make the decisions.

This gets me finally to the Death Penalty, which is what got me going on all this to begin with. I think that if we really have so much confidence on our justice system that it can justly administer death, then it should be done much more judiciously. A sentence of death should be passed by a jury, and carried out as quickly as possible after it is passed. Not only that, it should be such that a member of the jury will be randomly selected to carry out the sentence. If we have the confidence that we have the right and the responsibility to kill criminals, we should feel confident enough in our justice system that each citizen would be willing to pull the trigger him or herself, with no compunctions. It is evident to me that we do not have the confidence in our system to believe that the death penalty is fairly and justly administered, so we should not be doing it.

So these are some of my recent thoughts.

On Sheep and Goats

I suppose with the coming of a new year the time has come for me to make some explanations. I have been avoiding doing so because I feared such explanations could be painful to those I love and care for deeply. For this reason I have been avoiding doing this. The other main reason I have been hesitant to explain myself is not my desire or intent to challenge the values and beliefs of others. I will to the best of my ability try not to do this. I realize I will likely fail but I must make the effort at any rate.

Firstly, I must say that I am not caught in the throes of some petty juvenile rebellion. Rebellion may be the right term for what is going on with me in the opinion of some out there but it is far from juvenile and I find it offensive that anybody could possibly make such an assumption about me and my motivations. Another concern I have is that there may be those who believe that anybody who turns away from a strict religious system is somehow simply seeking to justify bad behaviors, or rather avoid the guilt inherent in engaging in forbidden activities. I find this idea highly offensive and disingenuous. I suppose it is necessary for those who persist in their beliefs to try and find an explanation that is accessible and understandable and simple. I suppose that if there are any now reading this of that mindset these words are only lost to them because they likely feel I am guilty of self deception. Whatever, I have too long worried about the perceptions and opinions of others. That is not to say that I am not concerned with the feelings and sensibilities of others. I am. I always have been. I have however realized that I need to be able to be honest with myself. Unfortunately my efforts to live a life that is true to who and what I am have the unintended side effect of causing pain to others. I am truly sorry for any pain or heartache my behavior may cause anybody. However, I cannot live my life with eyes tightly shut just to avoid causing others pain.

I am also greatly offended by any thought that the military, or military service, has somehow ruined me. There may be those who think I have picked up some bad habits due to unworthy associations that I have only due to my military service. I assure anybody who has this idea that the vast majority of people with whom I associate in the military are strongly religious and exemplary in the maintenance of their religion, in spite of, or perhaps even because of their service.

My issues are extremely fundamental. The easiest way for me to put it I believe will most likely be the most difficult for others to accept. I have no faith. Religion, or at least the concept of religion with which I have the most experience requires great faith. There is no real tangible support for any one religious philosophy. There are various things, small and great, that can be interpreted, with faith, to support certain religious ideas, but without faith all it really becomes is a mingling of mythology and superstition. To me faith has always been a difficult process. It has been a conscious decision to believe something in spite of the mental concerns I have with them. To me faith has always had to be a conscious effort to believe. I am still capable of this conscious effort, but I have become increasingly exhausted with the process. The western system is based on questioning and searching. To me faith has always meant not asking certain questions. Beyond that it has meant a fear of what the answers to forbidden questions might be. I have always struggled that I have a mind that will not stop questioning. I have grown tired of trying to contain it.

I realize that to those whose belief persists, I probably seem extremely arrogant. I can understand this perception. There are minds vastly superior to mine that are able to accept faith and belief. I have been extremely frustrated because I have tried to find a way to join my intellect with religion and all the resources that have been available to me have basically been written from the perspective that there are some things that are inexplicable from a religious point of view, and that one must simply have the faith to ignore these things and hopefully they will eventually be sorted out. I find myself incapable of doing this. I have spent my entire adult life and perhaps longer living this way and it has been a constant struggle. I have to often felt like I did not belong among the faithful. I tried so hard to be what I believed I was supposed to be. Inside though, I was always empty. I struggled so long to understand in what way I was unworthy. I wondered why I do not feel the way everybody else either truly feels, or at least acts like they feel. I went on wearing my mask and hoping the outward illusion would eventually become the internal reality. Through the years the weight of my dishonesty and deception became painful for me to bear.

Again I must return to faith. Faith is where my failure lies. I have an incredibly difficult time with the concept of a loving God who wants his children to be happy. I have a hard time reconciling the realities of human existence with the concept of some divinely benevolent being. I cannot understand how it is the weakest and most vulnerable, the most worthy of God’s love, who suffer the most. And truly many little children suffer. I have seen too much intolerance and bigotry justified on religious grounds. Religion has far too often been justification for oppression and tyranny. I struggle with the idea that a God who loves all his children equally, would for some arbitrary reason put some in his children in a position where they know only waste and abundance, when so many others have nothing.

Anyway, I fear that I am not saying what I want to and basically any point I may have been trying to make has been lost. I just want anybody who has any questions at all about me and my decisions to realize that there is nothing I have undertaken that I have done so lightly. Actually, I take that back. There have been many things I have done in life solely because that is what you are supposed to do. I don’t feel it. I never have. I do not want to perpetuate something that for me has always required a grand deception. I need to face life without the mask.