The Gorge

 As the landscape behind me dissolves from existence. It would take me too, if I did not keep taking steps forward. Here, now, I stand at the gorge, the one that I have feared. There have been many of these. I have walked some and run some. Sometimes I was concerned, other times, not so much.

I hold back, taking a look behind me, the land and all of its essence steadily fading behind me. I have to go now, or all is lost. I step forward, and the weathered wooden slat pops beneath my foot. Years of neglect and storms have made the wood seem like styrofoam, and the ropes feel almost like mere ash.

I step so lightly and transfer weight to my leading foot as though I could somehow will in my heart to withhold some of my weight by holding my breath. I touch the ropes lightly. Somehow, I need to walk on this bridge without actually walking on it.

Denial, a brand of torturous peace, the armistice so many signed in the blood of freedom, oh, to see you from the top of a mountain. What is better? Fire, wind, or war? I saw your pain and your tears, and I hated myself. How could I?

Do we compete in measuring our pain, or are we soldiers carrying that together, keeping watch upon the land of which we live? A safe home. A safe life. Is the alternative true? Do we out-pain each other so that we don't have to hear the rest? If there is anything I can do to help with anything you see on this multiple-choice list, let me know. I am here for you.

The old, tattered bridge keeps popping and swinging in an unhealthy way. I have only taken three steps out onto it, and in the mist at times, I cannot even see what is below me. I know, I am never going to make it. There may have been a day when I could, but others would have fallen off because of me. There was just no way that I was going to do that. 

I wonder what the silent protesters and the oppressed picketers are thinking. But the canvas sacks that cover the signs they are carrying are not so easily removed. Deep in my heart, there is a spark of something that says the puzzle is solved in ways that seem contrary. I know that is right. Sail on, Sail on, Oh mighty ship of truth. It is the only way that we are not swept away from existence. It is the only way across this gorge.

Stealing

 It was a promise of getting ahead. It was a whisper that you could put some things to rest. It was a dream that you could be just like the others. It was a lie upon which you acted.

So I rose so determined before the dawn touched the sky. I was going to make it matter I was going to take it high. There was no reason to think that I could fall short. But then again you know better.

You were walking along so much the wiser or so you said. You were not going to fall victim to all those yesterday’s and all those losses. Then came something shiny and I caught your eye. This could make things better so you had to try. 

That old familiar feeling when trying to do something simple and the gravity becomes three times stronger and the wind is head long in your face. You know better than to keep going, but you still do, don’t you?

Where is your sense of learning? Where is your common sense? You have burned days and days and days upon a fire that never gave you anything except sadness.

So the fool falls again into the loss, into the valley, freefall. You did the thing you said you wouldn’t do. What would it be like? Had you done the opposite?

Is this your cycle? Is this your future? Is this all you know? Will you never learn? Sadly, I watch you run the course of the causality loop that is your reality.

Which way are you going? Don’t you ever learn? What are you doing? Can’t you see that every time you try to undo a mistake, another day is stolen from you. You said you would not allow that to happen anymore. But here you are. What are you doing?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

The Bravery in out of Range - Part 7: Time Has Come Today

 The morning dusty desert light came, and we were told that we needed to harden our vehicles. Hardening a vehicle involves covering it with sandbags in the hope of making it more bullet- and shrapnel-proof. Sandbags were placed on the fenders to protect the engine compartment from live fire. Sandbags could be stacked inside the truck doors to create a rolling bunker, which a soldier could duck down behind to take cover from rounds being fired at the truck. Sandbags on the floor protect from landmines.

Dennis, the person I was initially assigned to ride with on the day we pulled out of Claremont, New Hampshire, and attended a ceremony at Hillsboro, followed by the trip to our new home at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, before we finally shipped out to Southwest Asia, was a bit more passionate about hardening than the rest of us. That included his partner, PJ, as well. Many attempts to assure Dennis that enough was enough when it came to how many sandbags to put on a truck were ineffective. Dennis was not having it, and, much to PJ's dismay, their vehicle was significantly heavier than ours. 

Dennis was concerned; we were, after all, going to be part of a ground offensive in just a matter of hours. We were all concerned. Something about the sandbag issue nagged at me a little. I thought back to that day at the Hillsboro Armory. A giant ceremony sent us on our way, saying goodbye to our families as we filed out of the drill hall floor. As we walked out the side door to mount up our trucks, there was a friendly chaplain handing out the Cliff Notes version of the Bible, by which I mean Psalms, Proverbs, and the New Testament. I took one; Dennis, on the other hand, held up his right hand in a "stop" gesture. "Oh no, thank you." He said it as if he'd just been offered magic beans. There was almost ridicule in his declining the offer.

Once our vehicles were hardened, we were sent to the staging area to hook up to the trailer that we would be connected to for this engagement. Our trailer consisted of MLS (Multi-Launch Rocket Systems). Typically, these are never transported with all 3 main components on the same vehicle, but this was war. We had the rockets, the armor-piercing 155 millimeter projectiles, and the primers. As the story goes, our mission is to haul ammunition in and body bags out. Uncertainty reached a new high for me on this day. These are records I keep breaking. Jeff and I took some photos as we prepared our faithful truck 32. Czech Brothers Trucking was prepared to go. 

We were moved back out onto MSR Dodge and then north, further than I have ever needed to go. We drove for a while, then we were pulled off the road to the west. We learned that we were in a 110-truck convoy. We were supporting the 1st and the 3rd Armor Division, who would be hitting Kuwait by flanking it, invading the southern Iraqi border.

We held on tight to our Czech Brothers personas; it made the uncertainty more palatable. When we parked, we were given very little instruction. All we knew was that we were 110 trucks from mixed companies and that the word would be given at any time to move north into Iraq.

The hours at the staging area took forever. Jeff and I were following Dennis and PJ. Every now and then, we would see a sandbag get thrown off their truck by a fed-up PJ who was literally surrounded by them. At times, it was so intense that it was nothing to see a very animated PJ, fling the door of the truck open, and throw a sandbag out into the desert as far as he could. 

As night fell, I was talking with Dennis, who was almost paralyzed with fear. I told him about how I believed there was a creator. I told him how only a year and a half ago, I should have died from where alcohol had put me, but someone reached down and pulled me out, back up into the land of the living. Live or die, I knew somehow, some way, I was good.  Dennis had no spiritual base. It was like I was speaking a language he could not understand. He was a man without a god, and for the first time in my life, I saw what that looked like. Selfishly, I was thankful it was not me. There but for the grace of God, go I indeed.

Jeff was actually an incredible comfort to Dennis, and he took the time to reassure him that he was among friends and to point out many reasons why Dennis could be confident. Jeff and I always approached everything from our own unique angles, and in doing so, we were an excellent team. I had a great deal of respect for this friend who had become my brother. He was nothing like me, but we met on common ground somewhere that worked well for us.

As the hours passed, we stared down the barrel of our uncertain future. There was no reference known on the face of the earth that could tell us what came next. The only foundation, the only static structure, was the faith within us, whatever that might be. The hours seemed to drag on for years, slowly taunting us, making home seem lifetimes away.

After dinner, "that one MRE" (so much for a steak dinner the night before the invasion), we changed the configuration of our trucks, and we assembled into a single line formation. I knew that sleep was critical at this point. Jeff climbed into the truck, and I onto the hood. It was the most blissful place for slumber that I have ever known. 

I was worried I might not be able to sleep. On my Walkman, I scanned the night stratosphere for the BBC World Service out of London, and Voice of America out of Africa, trying to get an overview of what was happening with us. As I listened, I let the static of the amplitude modulation slowly drift me off to sleep. It was thankfully a lovely sleep, one of those in which, as you drift off, you feel the waves of rest and relief overtake you. I could ask for nothing better.

Minutes later, I was blasted out of my sleep by the sound of missiles incoming. Scud missiles were coming in. Here! In the desert! Since coming up here, we have not had to deal with these!  Now, Saddam must be scraping the bottom of the barrel, or he knows hundreds of thousands of us were staged just south of the Kuwaiti and Iraqi borders. Angry Patriot missiles exploded into action. 4 explosions per unit, taking off in a fury of earth-shaking, internal organ-rumbling spectre. The subsequent detonations in the sky as the Patriots took down the SCUDs and debris fell to the earth. Slowly, the earth quieted again.

I pulled the sleeping bag over my head: "Stupid idiots!" I thought. "Can't even get a decent night's sleep before an invasion!" I suddenly saw myself from outside the situation, and it made me laugh. I was such a different person from the boy who experienced my first SCUD missile attack back in Khobar. 

Une enfance détruite

 She longed for what she did not have,

So she said she would get better.

But then they asked about her hero, the most important person in her life,

That was off-limits, which meant getting better was off-limits.

It was her mom who committed a crime too great to count.

But now today, she picks up her mother's sword and continues damaging herself.

Photo by Josh Withers on Unsplash

When the light lit the landscape, everything was already there.

How could she know what was normal and what was not?

If she could just win this one contest, 

she could buy her mom's approval.

Make mom happy.

Nothing else exists in the universe.

The damage done reaches far beyond the life of the one causing it.

Her mom saw this as care and direction.

It made her feel absolutely alone in her shame that she did not cause.

How could someone be gone and have this much control?

She second-guesses every outward thing she is about to do, 

She clings to her darkness because it is the only thing that defines her.

Legacies come in many colors.

It is a mess to walk among the living and yet be dead inside.

The strings extend far away into a dusty past and are pulled by a person no longer alive.

She will take arms and fight against anyone who challenges this.

She has no idea why.

And all those people living in ivory and chrome, 

they see what you have, never knowing what it is really like to be you.

If they could, it would tear out their hearts and rewrite their entire reality.

Fall, fall, fall like you must in your little fairy tale world.

Everything she ever knew was wrong.

It was never wrong to her.

It was not supposed to be her who carried everyone around her, but she did.

She was born, trained, and coached to understand that it was all hers to carry.

She was their beast of burden, never knowing anything else.

Raised on scars and not lessons.

How do you undo years of psychological manipulation?

Living for someone else. A childhood stolen.

How do you give back all that was rightfully hers?

In death, her mom escaped accountability.

No price can reconcile the losses.

Where is the hope?

It is her story that just maybe will prevent others from following her tragic life.

In that comes the light.

In that she finds her strength.

Lead with your weakness, 

And you will prove yourself stronger than you will ever know.

***

He knew nothing but his life west of the tracks.

Her stern judgment and brazen violation became a part of him.

Ordered to get out, then demanded to say where he'd been.

Irony, paradox, and hypocritical judgment were just another day.

Day after day, he bounced with the rhythm.

He was indifferent outside, and others labelled him.

He would poison their lives, their home, their everything just by inviting him in.

So he lay quarantined to the streets, where the rest of us could keep him out.

Compared to her, he seemed pretty innocent.

But the parents around would take no chances.

Just like his mother would do, 

They would put him out if they found him inside.

He was inconsequential, so he could find a new life.

As the new day dawned, and hope on the horizon, 

A girl who could love him and show him what is real.

There could be hope, there could be growth, there could be an everyday life.

He turned around and screamed for his captor to save him now.

Help me, Mother!

***

"Mother, do you think they'll like this song?"

The Good Year

 If I could sit on top of the hill and observe my actions without knowing, without attachment, what would I think?  Would I understand? Would I judge? Would I sympathize? Is that your choice, or responsibility? 

Photo by Roman potrait on Unsplash

If I could observe my own navigation, would it be the long way around? Would it seem like I was exhausting myself cutting shortcuts through the brush and brambles, where, had I just stayed on the beaten path, I would have already arrived?

These are questions I ask because I found that this year I tackled things I thought I would have knocked out in no time, only to find, six months later, that I was still trying to beat a square peg into a round hole. I looked back along my path, the blood of time, lost, accenting struggles in the snow-covered landscape.

Is this enough? Is the fruitless exhaustion spent sufficient to bring wise discernment to the road ahead? Or will I relive the same twisted experience in which the names and places change, but are still all the same?

In my frustration, when I realized the same point in the trail, I turned to the side and ran hard, until I had no more air to breathe. There was no way the falling timber could find me this time, and I had a new outlook that I would be making better choices on things I could have an effect on, leaving behind the quicksand-like endeavors that would never allow me to escape.

I got some distance and thought I was in the clear, when the very tree I had cut finally came down upon me. I had never escaped. I only dreamed it was possible. I wonder where the benefit of hard education comes from. I could not get clear of the shockwave of the many bad investments.

Somewhere, I know there is a plan that says to cut my losses, but I remain tough, hoping to salvage my choice, which could pay off in the long run. But I am clinging to an I-Beam 80 floors up, and my grip is weakening. I really don't know how much longer I can hold on.

This is a little about a lot, or a lot about a little. Insignificant to say the least. A whiny little annoying story about trivial decisions, made incorrectly. I know there are real things out there, and that I need to keep in mind. Therein lies the key, perhaps. It could have really been there all along.

Echo: III

 The raids were the worst.

They bore deep into my linear consciousness like nothing else ever could.

Indeed, love, lies, bleeding all over me, and there was nothing I could do.

The minutes on the clock ticked away from the nine o'clock hour,

and as it got closer to ten, it was like watching the last of the sand fall in the hourglass.

I hated what came next.

The sound of boots on the old wooden stairway and the creaking of the door. 

Photo by Julian Reijnders on Unsplash

No ceremony, no warmth, no heart, nothing.

The execution commences, announced by Lala, and her music I could never buy.

Ten o'clock arrived, and it would last until the end of time. 

The bindings on my wrists and ankles hurt, but I was used to them.

The paintings on the wall would melt, and their colors would run.

Saddness, anger, vengeance, damage.

Eternal night, Wednesday.

I would be imprisoned here forever, and no one knew.

Why?

Was everything this blurry and distorted?

Did you know what it meant? 

Did you know you were inflicting wounds?

It began so long ago.

Of these faces, I could only imagine the self-absorbed pride they felt.

A stupid grin, confirming in their simple brains that they succeeded somehow.

Pleading, just not this one.

But it did not matter.

You would live your life the way you wanted, dying a thousand times.

You knew it.

But you did not see it until much later.

You know that you were richer than anyone you have ever known,

But that fact escaped you for a lifetime.

As I search the corners of my heart and soul, I see fragments of broken glass.

The raids came and went, over and over again throughout the years.

They changed us.

Who would we have been?

Who could we have been?

If only

You knew what you had.

Echo: II

 It always seemed more significant to me, but only to me.

The ride was becoming unhinged. 

An old mahogany console sat on orange indoor, outdoor carpet and sang out tales of Cathy.

Her wonton acts drive the author crazy and carve a groove in all of our lives forever.

In just a blink of the cultural eye, she would tear a beloved away from all of us.

In the mirrored house, which during the cold days only one side of the mirror lived, 

things were happening that I thought I understood, but couldn't.

It was the summer of awakening.

Clapton sat on his porch on Ocean Boulevard, picking a reggae tune.

Michael was my twin at every turn that summer.

Photo by Niels Baars on Unsplash

I easily jumped into that yellow '65 Mustang convertible and did not look back.

The days passed on Davis Drive and felt like months were flying by, 

this mostly because when you are eight, summer lasts about 3 years.

At night on Davis Drive, I could hear the zombie apocalypse raging downstairs outside the front door.

By day, we discovered the music that would shape my later years.

Water made me feel like I was defying gravity, and it made me weak.

I longed for Echo and the comfort she could only provide.

My mixed cultural horizons were greatly expanded during this time, but I could not help but wonder, 

was this really happening by my choice? Or was it someone else's?

Riding high atop a pile of furniture and carpeting on a speeding car with the voice of 

Reginald Dwight pleaded to not be rejected, begging for the sun to stay just a bit longer.

I felt lost.

So, I went home.

And

that

is 

when 

something

incredible 

happened.

Echo: I

There were so many times it did not make sense. 

Other times, everything was crystal clear and played out predictably. 

It was like needing a high and looking for it in unusual places. 

Distraction and numbness to squelch out something here today?

Or was that yesterday?

The lines were blurry in the losses and the losses that were not yet manifest.

I remember an energy that could socially affect my incomprehending heart.

It filled me like the wine that I did not even know the taste of,

providing a sweet, intoxicating wave to ride in a part of my life that stands alone.

It was good for me because I had a friend there.

It was better for her because her friend took her to a different time, 

When denial could still thrive, and she did not have to push back so hard on the pain.

People there talked differently; it seemed so foreign, somehow, making me thankful.

In the corners of my mind, I see the dining room, table legs, stairs, living room, and kitchen.

My associative memory keeps sounding an alarm claxon, but I don't know why.

It is more ingrained in me than another afternoon in which a fatal accident happened, 

just feet away from the porch, 53 years ago.

The outside of the house, too, I see in my daily thoughts. Why?

These are the questions that I need to ask.

Somebody somewhere has to know why.

The Unquiet Earth

 There are so many moments when you pull back the expectation, 

after not seeing the lights approaching from around the corner for what seems to be an eternity. 

The breaking of the elevated self over and over. 

Punches, self-inflicted. 

Overconstruction, self-inflicted.

 The question no one can ask, 

Do we break their spirit when they are young? 

Or do we let them fall?  

I am all for the fall.

I was expecting results that cannot exist in reality.

So were you.

I wanted to shake you from your delusion.

The walls we make for ourselves

The reality is, the fall comes with so much more flavor.

It is the spice of barriers lifting, fences falling, chains falling away.

What will you do when you are left out on the lonely road?

There is no light to see the way.

The wind is there, more fierce in the darkness, but is it really?

The pieces, spread out upon the surface, rise from the dark.

The orchestra builds to a beautiful introduction.

Photo by Joecalih on Unsplash

The aromatics begin weaving through the kitchen, finding all breaches.

They will sell you out.

Good or bad, they have called you.

Your days are numbered, and here in front of the fire is your moment.

What will you do?

The silhouette stands before the light, wondering what to do.

Lost dreams and broken thoughts, he wonders why that is.

He grips his awareness, swearing to himself that he can turn and burn.

Oil, aromatics, and vaporization join at the crossroads.

He stands before it, conducting as he is consumed in the wok hei.

The momentum builds, and he gives thanks for his mise en place.

The dance begins, and it must not stop.

One misstep and it feels like he will plummet to the ground far below, 

The reality is that he has a few tricks that he does not know about.

The striking of metals grows louder;

another night's nourishment is born.

On the surface, before this dance, no one knew, and the land was quiet.

Something deep within was awakened a long time ago, 

and although hidden, it could do nothing but be known.

You gave away your position, 

You sold yourself out.

It never matters because you know,

You will do it again and again.

The Bravery in out of Range - Part 6: Darkness Falls

Upon returning to Log Base Echo, things were different. No one was to leave, and the super-tight, tent city-like unit configuration felt like being bound with ropes and held down. Something was definitely up, and tension hung in the air everywhere. That night, it felt very strange to leave our trucks in the motor pool. For Jeff and me, truck 32 was our home. It did not feel right to be staying in a tent, under the hand of our leadership.

The next day, the tension in the unit seemed to increase even more. Something was going on, and rumours of the ground offensive were swirling constantly. Our leaders disappeared suddenly, and shortly after their return, we were informed of a mandatory gathering. We all congregated outside in the cramped space between the tents. Captain A, our company commander, started to speak. "I just received some distressing news." My brain instantly took a more whimsical, shielding turn. I filled in the rest of his statement: " The Iraqis have surrendered, and there will be no ground offensive." But that is not what he said. What he was about to say would probably be the most difficult words he would ever speak.

Private Todd and Specialist Wade were killed last night in a Humvee accident." A wave of shock moved through our company. These two young comrades were travelling to the remote tent site in the desert where large satellite dishes pointed to the sky, allowing us to call home. The desert was treacherous at night since it was active wartime; blackout, and drive lights could not discern significant drop-offs in the terrain. 

Photo by Zhivko Minkov on Unsplash

The news was devastating. This is something that happens to people you don't know, not people in your unit, your friends, your community. Instantly, I could feel the impact this would have at home. I knew Wade casually. He had been walking a foot off the ground in the months leading up to our deployment. He was engaged and as happy as I have seen anyone. He looked forward to coming home, getting married, and starting his family. He was not only gaining a wife, but an 11-year-old stepdaughter. Here now, I could not imagine how they would feel when they got the news.

Todd, I had never interacted with. He was in First Platoon, and I was in Second. I had heard about him, though. He was selfless. In fact, just a few days before this happened, we had heard that he had tried to save the life of a Saudi Arabian man who had been involved in one of those terrible fatal accidents that happened every day. Todd never thought twice; he jumped and did all he could. 

All over the United States, families were dealing with news like this. I wanted it to stop, not for me, but for them. If something happened to me, this would just cease to exist from my perspective. I thought about the loss and heartbreak of parents, children, spouses, and siblings back home. The emptiness ate me up inside. I could not stop thinking about their families. I wanted to rewrite the outcome, and I could not.

Darkness fell upon all of us. We were together, but loneliness crept up on all of us. Mortality has a way of making you feel alone even in a crowd. We were not being given time to process what happened. We were told that we would be pulling out tomorrow. This was nothing like the footloose and fancy-free lifestyle we had been living for the last few weeks. We were locked down to specific groups, orders, and missions. Something big was happening tomorrow.

Night fell over Log Base Echo. Ever since I had gone Advanced Party up to TAA Henry, we did not have to worry about SCUD missiles. They had been aimed at the cities down south; now, something was different. Either Saddam was aiming at the upper desert, which, despite the buildup, was sparse when you are trying to blow something up. SCUDs were crude, point-and-shoot technology. More likely, the missiles coming in now had less of a range and therefore fell in the desert where we were. Once again, we were playing the SCUD Missile Attack Game.

As I drifted off to sleep, I hoped I would wake up in the morning and that some —or maybe even all — of this would be a dream. Hawkeye was right. Who really does go to bed at night and dream up this nightmare?

The Bravery in out of Range - Part Five: We Are Two Wild and Crazy Guys!

I try to keep my head inside my sleeping bag to filter the fumes. When living in a GP Medium tent, with a nasty old kerosene heater that had the wick burned down too far, that was now running on diesel, waking up in the morning felt similar to the feeling of waking in a tent on a mountain top, in subzero temperatures, wrapped in an extreme cold weather bag. There was nothing good to look forward to if I got up, by which I mean being cold, dirty, with no coffee, and having to lie down on the cold desert berm for Stand To for the next 40 minutes. I can hear Hawkeye Pierce yelling, "Who goes to bed at night and dreams up this nightmare!"

This is the one thing that being in the military has taught me. You can make yourself do things that you would absolutely never do, and you can get through them. As awful as every moment of that has been in all its versions, it has come in handy at times.

This particular morning, the sun rose on the Martian landscape, and amazingly, we were not overrun by enemy forces. It was time for coffee, so bad that there should be an award for being able to destroy its core generative properties the way they did. Breakfast was not much better, but this was never about taste; it was only designed to ensure that Army property did not go to waste.

We received our mission. To my delight, we were headed back to Log Base Alpha to move containers for our favorite Chief Warrant Officer. Yes! Another change was made to the driving teams. Today, I would be driving with Jeff, a Staff Sergeant in the unit, with whom I had only had minimal interaction.

Jeff had a brand of directness about him that some people found off-putting. None of that mattered to him. In reality, people were a bit jealous of him because he moved through the ranks faster than most. He couldn't care less what people thought of him because, despite the digs, Jeff had earned everything he had. His focus was unbreakable. Behind his back, people who did not apply themselves nearly as much, but somehow felt they should be allowed the same privilege, called him "Pretty Boy Floyd," which was a shot at the fact that Jeff's uniforms were always pressed to perfection, his jump boots like mirrors, and his hair always seemed to be the exact same length.

He always seemed like he could not be bothered with more than a couple of words, and it was what it was. Being in the truck with Jeff, I was greeted with the same passive attitude as always. He did not appear to allow people to get close to him. I was becoming known for being able to drive with anyone. I have always given people a chance, and that chance always came with the opportunity to let the other person be themselves and be seen for who they are, with no preconceptions.

Running the Log Base Alpha run was a great first mission for us. We received the same great treatment we had the first time we were there. Warm tent to sleep in, gourmet meal, hot pressurized showers, and movies were as close to a stay at the Holiday Inn as you could get on Mars. On this mission, we supplied 7 trucks. How long would it last? 

Conversation flowed nicely between Jeff and me. We were definitely not alike, but we were a combination that complemented each other. It was the easiest truck partnership so far, but you never knew how long things would last.

Before I knew it, some sort of wall dropped between Jeff and me, and we were talking like I had not talked with anyone I rode with before. It actually brightened up our time in the sand. Our leadership must have seen the positive effect we had on each other, to the point that we were actually improving others' morale. We created an irrelevance that took ownership of our presence in the desert, which felt like it took authority away from the Army, and we were just driving around.

We quickly developed a label for this. Back in the 1970s, the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, a.k.a. the original Saturday Night Live crew, specifically Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin. SNL fandom describes it as this:

  The Festrunks is a sketch performed by Dan Aykroyd and Steve Martin, debuting on September 24, 1977. The recurring sketch follows Yortuk (Aykroyd) and Georg (Martin), two brothers who emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the United States. Culturally inept, they went to various social hangouts (bars, art exhibits, dance clubs) trying to connect with attractive American women ("foxes"). However, their obnoxious behavior was almost always a turn off for the women they approached. They were often referred to by their catchphrase "We are, two wild and crazy guys!"

There was a numbing effect of these alter egos for Jeff and me. It took this baby-power desert sand and made it slightly more tolerable. We spoke in public almost exclusively with Czech accents and poor grammar, and walked with exaggerated swagger. We told everyone we were "Two Wild and Crazy Guys, just Crusin' for chicks in the desert." Our method brought much happiness and levity to a dismal place. People would shout out to us, "Hey!  How are you doing?" Often in bad Czech accents. We monogrammed the outside of our truck doors with our alter names, Georg (Hoar-Gay) Youtuk (which, thanks to bad memory, we pronounced as Yor-Gay). The rhyme made it funnier, so all the better.

This synchronicity between Jeff and me put us in step, so we could almost read each other's minds. There was no clash, no abrasiveness. We were a smoothly operating machine, which was good for us, the unit, and the military as a whole. The news of our team made it all the way back home across the world, and our families started spending time together — wives and kids — as though they were assigned together.

We were running missions back and forth from the port up into the desert. We were living in our truck. The sleeping arrangements were that Jeff would put some bags between the truck seats and sleep across them. I would put my sleeping bag up on the hood and sleep under the stars. It was the most comfortable place I have ever slept. Don't ask me why. Having slept on those marble floors in Khobar gives one a unique perspective.

These days were all a blur. We felt like freelancers. The roads in Saudi Arabia looked like something from a Mad Max movie and were almost as dangerous. It was nothing to see many fatal accidents daily due to the multinational coalition of military forces overwhelming an infrastructure that was rural at best.

As the weeks passed, we could feel an escalation of everything. More hardware was moving north; we were the ones doing the moving. The last night we were ever at TAA Henry, we ate steak. There is an old tale in the military folklore canon that states that if you eat steak for dinner one night, combat is inevitable. Kind of a last supper rite of passage.

We left the next morning and headed down to the port to retrieve more of our trailers. It really felt like we were pretty much on our own. I slept on the deck of a trailer, under another trailer that was backed onto it. I was awakened by a very bossy Colonel very early, who was yelling at us that we needed to get those trailers up into the desert to Log Base Echo. I complained, "What is that annoying noise?" Got up reluctantly and made coffee. I had bought a Chinese cookstove in Hafar Al Batin for $4. A basin, mop strings, and a double-layered barrel with pinholes throughout. That is what it really was. We burned diesel in it, and it worked well.

When we got up into the desert at Log Base Echo, we noticed that our company had moved and they were now there. Echo was cramped like a city. I hated it. By the configuration, I was sure that Stand-To was no longer happening, so there was that. Oddly, our entire leadership structure was nowhere to be found. They were somewhere else, having a meeting or something.

My squad leader, Bud, was mixed on what to do. I said, "Let's grab some clothing and food and head back to the port. There are more trailers to get." He did not like that idea without orders. This was where I shone. I told him that if orders were what he was concerned about, then we HAD to go get trailers.

"How do you figure? Bud asked. "General Order Number One, Bud! 'I will guard my post and not leave my post until properly relieved.' Our post, or assignment in this case, was to go pick up trailers; the job is not done, and we have not been relieved of it. In fact, if we do just stay here, I think we ARE leaving our post without proper relief!" He looked at me for a moment and said, "You know that is not what that means."  I smiled, "Isn't it?" The next thing I knew, we were hammering down MSR Dodge back south towards the Port of Dammam for another haul of trailers. That is the 2nd time since arriving in theatre that I used General Order Number One to suit what I wanted or did not want to do. You never know what that and a pair of gray Army sweats can get you.

(Photo courtesy of the National Archives)

On this run, we really had this maverick style down; we would find odd places to park and sleep, away from military brass and their annoying orders. We were self-sufficient, living in our trucks. We had favorite stops, a routine, a click of people in our convoy. We were creating our own version of the Saudi Arabian dream. We would slide into Log Base Alfa, where the hot-pressurized showers are, get cleaned up, and then hit the road again. We were riding high, and I felt that I could live like this indefinitely.

Every now and then, other than the millions of weapons around us, we were reminded that we were in the middle of a war. Jeff and I met a female MP at Log Base Alpha one night after taking showers. We talked with her for over half an hour. She told gruesome tales of what it was like on the roads each day as a Military Police Officer. One of her unfortunate tasks was to respond to the countless fatal accidents that happened constantly. As she told the stories, she had a strange detachment that was laced with a lethal dose of pain. The longer we listened, the more we could not imagine what it would be like to live her life. Jeff and I walked across the compound to our truck. Jeff said, "There are not enough years in that girl's lifetime to have enough counseling to undo the things she has seen.

We turned left onto MSR Dodge with our latest run of trailers. Things were about to get real. 

The Fall of the Music Makers

 I was walking down the trail with a group of friends. We were talking, singing, and sharing stories of truth and hope. The day was mostly sunny, even though there were rumbles of thunder heard now and then in the distance. I was not worried. 

I noticed that those on the camp's outskirts vanish without explanation. With them, only their art remained. Some would become even more famous as the years passed, while others were awkward and did not fit well in the modern psyche. 

Towers of song as far as the eyes can see hum with indiscriminate sound. A band of millions all playing a different tune.  Those left standing, voices stripped of them, they go on even though it is all gone, the ship is sitting on the ocean floor, and yet, they stand on the deck holding their little bouquet.

Our exodus from one world to another has been going on all of our lives, every moment since we awoke. Our closest ones are spreading the news, letting everyone we encounter know that things are not what they seem. In the misinformation age, people talk, people listen, but just like always, they cannot hear. 

Some give so much that they become our rock. It never comes to mind that we are just people. We live and we die, no one does anything else.  I wake up on the turntable. The red label below me. I am too small, too close, to know what it is. I am in the midst of greatness. I did not know. I did not know that it had a thousand heartbreaking expiration dates. 

The construction of the towers was well on its way on the day I was born. There was fire, there was energy. All of the hope, all of the dreams. We skipped along the sidewalks, ears covered with music, kindness being our vintage clothing. If I were lost in the moment, another dancer on the path steadied me and smiled. I smiled back, and then we bounced off into our respective sunsets. We never thought demise was around the bend. 

The valued artists all around me, who defined every moment of my existence, public and private, were being picked off by the sniper that no one wins against. The early ones were absolutely shocking and were the exception, not the rule. Today, I stand in the ruins of nuclear creative annihilation and cry because now, it is so normal, so inevitable, that we lament over our lack of sincerity about everything. Just selfish little children, playing in our mud puddles and sand boxes. We were too stupid to understand that a summer day is but a blip seen out of the corner of one's eye.

Give it all back to me, and I will show you! You want to see appreciation, yeah, I got that. People talked to me and I answered. I was numb and did not know it. My inattention was indeed a crime of ignorance, of selfish distraction. I walk in the burning wasteland of a billion cried tears, knowing that no matter what I did, we would still be right here, in this mess. On the edge of the city sit more towers than I could ever count. A million voices sing to me as I listen. A whisper, a cry, a memory of those who no longer live. I hear them every day, every minute, and always. Someday I will be gone, and the towers will continue. They will sing in the wind, always.

Our Last Days in New Orleans Village

 The summer of summers had faded into fall. Trouble was everywhere if I wanted it to be. I was breaking the rules in so many ways as I stepped out of the shoes of a child and into a place where I felt shiny and new. 

The winter cold kept me close, and the old steam radiators tapped and banged, producing heat and a cadence, just like they did for the last 68 years. We were mobile again after being stuck for two years. I turned to the nighttime stratosphere to find my friends, and there they were, although it was clear that the times were changing, and the tide was going out.

Our house and the one before it have been a hub for many years now. It was nice to have people around us. It had been four years since we moved to this town nestled in a valley in the northwest hills. In the 1700s, it was called Mast Swamp. In the 1800s, New Orleans Village and Wolcottville. In 1887, the village was incorporated as Torrington, a name given to it back in 1732 after Great Torrington, England. In the 1970s, it was impossible not to have the robust history of this naturally quarantined town seep into your pores.

At first, we did alright, but a year and a half in, the wolves found us. They moved in, coexisting with us, making life somewhat of an amusement park ride. It was bright and fun. I thought I was old enough to understand everything that was going on, but really, I could not. Spending half a decade here implied we would always be here. Nothing else seemed possible. 

It was at an age when someone like me had to play the hand I was dealt. The people around me molded me into who I was, who I wanted to be, and who I might become. Tied to a table in the kitchen, taking in the vices of others with a healthy dose of smoke, and living on the wrong side of everything. I was still who I was, and I could say, weren't we all.

We fled in the winter to our third home in the city in the valley. It would be our last one here. It is funny how the world can be so different when you just cross the street. Now childhood was essentially ending. Morning conversations in the presence of a red aluminum percurelator and the sweet kiss of fall, new love, music, and affliction. It all came together like a congealed central explosion of textures.

As the early sun set, I knew my friend would be flying over the houses in the valley in the darkness. I spun the rope of a lasso and pulled her down into the light of my hibernation. I could tell she had aged, too, even though I had considered the whole timeline of her life; our relationship was a small moment. I didn't know this was the swan song of the things I'd taken for granted.

 I was understanding everything, or so I thought, but adulteries were burning like little fires all over the perimeter. Some I witnessed painfully, and others were hidden just beyond the lens of my youth. 

The winter had been long and hard. The spring in the final year had just begun, but something happened. We were riding high on the wave when something stationary, just below the surface, contacted us, throwing us into the cold depths. The storm troopers knocked on the door and told us it was time to evacuate. There was nowhere to go. We were falling, and there was no rescue.

As I look back on this, I have questions. The one prominent question was: What happened to the foundation of our family that allowed this? There was a relationship happening at this time, a pretty serious one, and yet, we were allowed to fall. It took me 46 years to figure this out. To say I thought I knew is ridiculous.

We stayed tight. A great woman stood up tall with the power of her blood, sweat, and tears. I wish I could tell her today how much that meant to me. So many years had to pass before I could see how incredibly strong she was, and the bravery and tenacity of what she did. I hear echoes on the wind. She was thankful that this was in her power. But I know that she always had this power because it was a flame within her heart she could never extinguish. No matter what the world was or what it could deal, she would do what she needed to do. 

It is funny how everything that starts with me or someone else in my family can be traced back to my Grandmother's incredible strength. What a human being she was. Like all of the things we lament today. The world used to be filled with giants. These were wonderful people who always put others first. When they got cuts and callouses from giving themselves fully, they were grateful to be able to do so. I have no words but only to say: Thank you. It really made a difference in our lives. Any success we see today finds its origins in the love you showed. 

Twilight Time (Season)

 Old friends, indifferent to my feelings, barge into the room as I stoke a fire that I am not prepared to make. The auditor stood like storm clouds over me, calling for dues, making the clocks in my house spin faster than everyone else's. 

Photo by Vlad ION on Unsplash

I walk the gauntlet that turned out to make my day what it has been. I stop, one by one, look my captors in the eye, and dismiss them. Maybe rain, maybe snow, but you know it can't balance or last. As I kneel over my ambition with the desire to resuscitate, I catch my reflection in dirty glass and feel like I need to call it.

I know that is not an option. I hear a bird overhead, sadly singing a song indigenous to her. I stand and meditate upon her flight in the parasitic sky. I try to piece together her journey. There are many gaps because I couldn't possibly know. Then I find an incredible and devastating clue left by her brood. Not only had the worst happened, but it had happened some time ago, and I was unaware.

As I turned the pages of the news, the tears of people I once knew fell into a private resolve, telling no stories, but leaving evidence of their love and respect. As for me, they have no idea the impact this one had on the course of my life. There is no way that I would be where and who I am without that treacherous meeting one cold October night thirty-six years ago.

It feels like a betrayal of the laws of physics. This would-be assassin, who became my true friend. Nothing could shake him. He was a rock. Then, gone. As I let the news sink in, I opened Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9, Verse 11: 

"I have seen something further under the sun, that the swift do not always win the race, nor do the mighty win the battle, nor do the wise always have the food, nor do the intelligent always have the riches, nor do those with knowledge always have success, because time and unexpected events overtake them all."

I pay my respects to a man who was who he was and nothing more, and certainly nothing less. He will always live in my memory and heart as the man who gave me direction when I did not know if I could ever walk again. He helped me fly, and he never intended to motivate me; he had no such intention. Was it his contrast from what I was told that he was? Was it just the good man of heart that he was? I know that the details do not matter. I can still hear his voice, and because of that, he lives every day. Those who love him do not even remember that I exist. That too has to be alright.

I shudder a little because I just had a thought. November is turbulence for me. If October is like this... 

You Haven't Lived Until...

 For the last year, I have been taunted. I have lost sleep, tormented, and confused. In the words of the great Arlo Guthrie,  I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things, over a decision that I made last September and October. That is, to not order a particular dish containing potatoes at my favorite Thai restaurant, Taste the Thai and Sushi House in Littleton, New Hampshire.

Potatoes are controversial, being that they are from the Axis of Evil. For a glimpse into my turbulent past with this lifelong adversary, read Please Don't Pass the Potatoes, from this blog from a few years ago.

The first time we dined at Taste the Thai and Sushi House restaurant, we were in for something good. Sometimes, you can walk into a place and feel the satisfaction of those dining, as well as the attention to quality among the staff. This was that kind of place. They are the winners of the Best in New Hampshire Awards.

We ordered the crystal dumplings, which were small and delicate, with a robust, thick dipping sauce. Truly a starter, and I was sure of this because had they brought me a galvanized maple sugaring bucket full of these, I would have eaten them all. The six we had was the preparatory note for a great dinner. We also had the pan-fried pork dumplings, sipping on the beautiful and mysterious Butterfly Pea.

Judy, our waitress, stood before us asking what we were going to have for the entrée. Donna chose the Tom Kha soup, just knowing it was going to be wonderful.  

Tom Kha Soup

When it came to my turn, I did something I often do. I asked Judy, "What is the meal that people keep coming back to this restaurant for?" For any good restaurant, there is a signature dish that brings people in, a must-have meal that the chefs have perfected and has become the heartbeat of the establishment.

You will know you have made a mistake when the server simply points to the most expensive thing on the menu and has no compelling story to tell. Sometimes I ask what their favorite is, but asking what the patrons' favorite is almost always gives the best recommendations. 

Judy did not hesitate: Masaman Curry. She pointed to it on the menu and said it is the most ordered item on their menu. People really love it. I noticed on the menu that CNN actually reported it as the #1 best meal in the world in 2017. I was in for an experience! As Judy described the dish's composition, I followed her words down the menu, and I hit the wall I just cannot breach. Potato! Why would they put this thing in the most delicious meal on the planet? It is so wrong! 

I told Judy that I could not do the potatoes and asked if there was another very popular item on the menu. She instantly directed me to the Ginger Stir Fry. 

Ginger Stir Fried Beef

Anyone or any restaurant can make a recipe, but there is an art to making a composed dish. The ingredients take on a new identity altogether and cease being what they were. This was that. I am grateful to our server, Judy, as I probably would not have ordered this dish and would have missed out on the experience.

About 5 weeks later, we were back in Littleton, and now it was the last couple of days of October. On our way in, we stopped here at Taste the Thai. We were very pleased to find that Judy was once again our server. Donna loves soups, and this time she took it to the next level by trying the Tom Yum soup with seafood. 

Tom Yum soup with Seafood

Again, I put my trust in Judy and asked her to order for me. She started to offer the Massaman Curry, but I reminded her about the potatoes. She knew who I was instantly because she then said, "Well, last time you had the Ginger Stir Fried Beef. I think you will really like the Thai Basil, Pad Kra-Prow." This dish came with my choice of meat (by which I mean beef) stir-fried with basil sauce, garlic, onions, green beans, bell peppers, and basil. (The mussel was actually from Donna's dish.)

Pad Kra-Prow

I am traditionally not one to order soupy dishes with broth, but I am getting better after this. It was superb in every way. The Jasmine rice, soaking up the warm flavors of the broth, was heaven. 

Ten months have passed since we last ate at this gem of a restaurant in Littleton. I realized that I had thought many times about how I did not order the Massaman Curry. It was a weight on me. Maybe even an old wound. We returned to the area in late August and early September of this year. As the week went by, I waited with great anticipation for the day when we would return to Taste the Thai and Sushi House. This is when I noticed something. The idea that I was steering around what CNN called the best dish in the world was disgraceful, or at least that is how I felt.

It made me feel babyish. For a kid who hated EVERYTHING in food, I eat everything now, except the ever-evil potato. This, to me, was a weakness. I struggle with weakness when it comes to myself. I have no tolerance for such insolent behavior. I have beaten the vices of my younger self with a fierceness that seemed to stop at this starchy threshold. Was I going to let this stop me from trying the #1 dish in the world? This question was burning me inside. I needed to do research.

First, what about this claim, made on the restaurant's menu about CNN? An exaggeration, perhaps? No, in fact, it was worse than that. CNN had been doing this since 2011. In 2017, Massaman Curry took the #1 spot. Through 2021, this dish held the top spot. In 2022, it shared it with 2 others and currently shares this seat with the Indonesian dish Beef Rendang (remind me to find that one!) OK, so it's not an exaggeration.

I turned to the authority on authentic Thai cooking, Thai-born Canadian Chef Pailin Chongchitnant. She is well-known for her YouTube channel, "Hot Thai Kitchen." Pailin is a factual and authentic authority on all things Thai food. I watched her make Massaman Curry, and I knew what I had to do. I needed to order it, and if I really liked it, I could make it myself in the future. I paced and deliberated internally, as one does when about to undertake a perilous mission. Potatoes were on the menu, and I had to have the full experience. No shortcuts. No substitutions. When something is labelled the best dish in the world, you do it.

When we arrived at The Taste of Thai and Sushi House, there was no sign of Judy. Tenish months had passed. Perhaps it wasn't her shift, perhaps she had moved on; we didn't know. This did not stop the restaurant from serving up the same warm, interactive experience as it had both times previously. The waiter, whose name I unfortunately did not get (something I try to avoid), was extremely helpful. I knew I was going for the Massaman Curry, and I was relying on him to make the choices for the best experience possible. 

There were options with this dish, and I wanted the most authentic. I asked what protein highlights the experience the most. Our waiter recommended the chicken. Excellent. He did not pick seafood just because it was the most expensive protein. Had he recommended it, however, I would have trusted him and accepted it. There was a three-dollar add avocado option. I asked what that does for the dish and whether that heightens its overall composition. He said no, it just causes you to taste avocado, but does not add to the Massaman Curry experience. So, again, I followed his recommendation.

I knew I could do this. After all, as a child, I had been forced to eat potatoes at everything just shy of gunpoint. I ordered, and there was no turning back. I was going to eat the best meal in the world.

When it arrived, Donna could not help but video me eating a potato, as others would not have believed her if she told them. 

All I can say is that Massaman Curry is a beautiful dish and absolutely my favorite curry out of all the ones I have tried so far. I love them all, of course. I could write an article about each one, respectively. This dish is like a warm blanket, with the right heat, silky, and designed to play the very notes of your senses.  

Massaman Curry

The dish here definitely had differences from Pailin's dish on YouTube. This one, had I chosen beef, had thinly sliced beef strips. Convenient for a restaurant. Pailin's beef was thicker, browned, and braised, and looked quite tender after gently braising. The potatoes here were not cooked thoroughly. Pailin's were cooked more for sure. The flavor was exquisite. Yes. I need to make this. I, of course, will be making Pailin's as I will be able to virtually cook it right along with her.

Like anything that I make, eventually I will make it "my way." I know what you are thinking: Will I omit or substitute the potato?  I could see myself doing it. However, this experience is making me look at things in a different light. It is not just about me. The adolescent, low-key, tantrum-like refusal to eat something or include it just because I don't like it is starting to lose its form. Maturity is settling in, and perhaps, for my family, friends, and diners, I can put aside my petty, self-absorbed phobias and make this meal the right way.

Evening: The Sunset

 The clarity of the sky as the last ray of the sun disappears over the horizon brings clarity in my mind. The questions asked, the struggles fought, all come into focus without the static that daylight causes. Were the answers there all along, and I just couldn't hear them, or was I just not ready for the answer, and time had to wait?

When I arrived at the courtyard, I was welcomed as though I was expected. I always felt that I landed on the floor as if dropped from the sky, in a fog, like I was hungover. In my mind, I got to my feet and brushed off my clothes, immediately sharing the message that I was commissioned to carry.

The reality is that my fragmented existence is not seen as pieces in other lands. Better for me, better for them, yeah, but I grow tired of holding that vessel together. I recognize that my special gift is taking a path that did not exist. I get down, dirty, and torn along the way. Is it good? I still don't know.

Nine years ago this month, I embarked on a quest to bring it all together. Sometimes I feel that I have accomplished a great deal. Other days, I feel like my foot slipped from its hold in the rockface, and I fell thousands of feet to the bottom. 

As I lay there, the sky was a symphony of strange signs we can now see. There are visitors from other galaxies, and radio waves are sending signals that we do not understand. Neighboring planets are birthing moons by the hour, and yes, life did exist on Mars. I contemplate this advancement, and in comparison to all of creation, it does not even move the needle. The result, I feel small. I am moved by the fact that my voice can still be heard in the vastness of it all.

Soundless shadows grow, then disappear, allowing me to see everything in a way that I could not before. The great scapegoats of the day, like those shadows, disappear quietly, giving no fight as they are put away and into the place that they belong, nowhere.

I cannot lament all of the excuses of the past; they are shown to be nothing and not unique. "Mister, can you tell me, please, who I am? Do you think I stand out? Or am I just a face in the crowd?"  I know the answer. Even the noise in my head cannot be used. I set the baggage on the path, not looking back, and stepping forward. Evening has earned its place today. 

I never realized that Evening started on Tuesday afternoon. Sweet denial, you can be such a cunning host. You have stirred me up, and I have performed just as you wanted. You pulled the strings, and I have obeyed to a fault. It is a virus, and I have walked in its thoughts as if anyone cared. We all perform to some degree, always knowing we are nothing more than the person we feel we are while lying in bed at three o'clock in the morning during the most significant thunderstorm we have ever seen. 

I guess I am most surprised by the wonder with which I welcome the evening. I have worked hard in futility to get here, and hopefully towards something worthwhile too. I don't want to go back, that much I know. I brace myself, getting up off the ground, and walk on the trail at sunset. Evening has certainly earned its place today. I am good with that. 

(Evening) Time to Get Away

 I was digging my heels into the dirt. The unstoppable police bodily pulling me anyway, steadily, as though my efforts had no effect. Of course, they didn't. No one wins here at this club. I kept telling the patrons around me that I did not belong there. They said nothing, probably because they knew I was wrong. They did it too, or will in their own way. 

With anger and bitterness, I want to show them. Deep down, I know that I am no match. I internally slap myself for even letting myself think about worthless things. Grow up, really, and a lot. Who am I? I'm 24, running the ups and downs of Winter Street on a crisp and frosty October Saturday morning. I got this. But to show the impervious nature of how I roll, I slam myself down on the hood of that one 1980 Datsun 310GX. The message was missed; however, they made it about me, not the car. Oh well. I still have a thousand years.

Years later, I run the two miles at Morningside, again defiantly lighting a cigarette during the last half mile. There are no rules about this. This does nothing but say how foolish I am. The older men know that my time is going to come, and no matter what, I cannot outrun it. No one does.

I have defied the setting sun and the turning of seasons with great enthusiasm, but there is strength in the wisdom of understanding what is immovable. I, of all people, should know this. From the Thursday nights up on the hill all the way back in 1988 to this day, the physics are the same. I am exchanging my cards, staying in the game, and not leaving the table.

Forgive me for my oversight. I kept singing "Forever Tuesday" and perhaps even "Peak Hour." Oddly, when I was there, I smiled and shook my head, acknowledged, and then did not care. The waste, oh the waste with which I have lived. Youth could be many things, but shackles are not what I saw.

Evening falls, and echoes of the day begin their translation. Some of them are bold, while others are not. Realizing that you've won, but winning doesn't feel like a win when you have been fighting yourself. I have cried under the efforts of my toiling and for the things that others said I should have.

Seeing where I am really does no damage because, of course, the damage is done. Just live, and just do, because the evening is advancing and there is nowhere to run. I want those in my house to thrive, so I advise and intervene, and it never has the intended outcome, and I should remember why. I lift my glass, declare with deep introspection, "Here is to all of you, who will not hear me. Here are the most important things I can never repeat. Here is to the vacuum, and its twisted game. I want to say something irreverent because I feel fairly certain that it will transcend the boundaries of time itself.

It is a time of great change this evening, the time to get away. The evening feels like surrender when I always thought it would feel like justice. I was just floating on my little leaf, thinking it was so much more. I brought amusement, but not much else, to the party as I distracted the masses in their respective electric chairs.

There is a lot of time devoted to evening and its companions, and I should be good with that. Something stated but not spoken, but real for those of us who made it to this side of the canyon. I can have nothing but respect for all of it. The good old days were often mixed in with very obscure places in the earlier part of the day. I always expected to be told that this is what they were, but it turns out there is no such tour guide. The conclusion came about through storms. It was then that I knew where all of the gems were.

Evening time, you have been the most crafty part of the day so far, but I have a feeling that I have not seen anything yet. 

The Bravery in Out of Range, Part Four: The Early Missions

 As we got used to living on our little spot on Mars, we were there to do a job. We actually started missions about a week before the rest of the unit arrived at TAA Henry. Toxic, diesel-filled kerosene heaters, stand-to cold showers, and T-Rations were all easy to leave behind and head out onto the roads. This allowed us to actually do things, see things, and avoid having to stay behind to burn trash and human waste. There was no downside to this.

Photo by Sanjana Laddha on Unsplash

I was paired up with Dan, a staff sergeant who was a good guy but known for having a short fuse. But he was easy to ride with, and we hit the road for our first real mission. We never knew exactly what we were doing for the mission; we were simply given orders on how many trucks to use, where to drive, and when to be on site. We would then be loaded, told where to take the cargo, offload, and then return to TAA Henry at night, where we could freeze to death under the clear desert sky while pulling overnight guard duty. The next morning, we'd be out on the berm for Stand To.

We were summoned to Log Base Alpha. It was an established freight point that was south of Hafar Al Batin. 3 trucks were requested. We met up with a Chief Warrant Officer there, who said that they would have 21 more 3-truck missions. They loaded our trucks with 40-foot shipping containers after a couple of hours. They told us where we were going to take them, which was in the direction of TAA Henry, so that was convenient.

The Chief Warrant Officer was a robust and generous man, very friendly and talkative. You could tell he always got what he wanted, as his presence was larger than life, but he treated others as his peers rather than riding a power trip that some in his position are so famous for. We thanked him, assured him we would be on our way, and asked him not to worry; his cargo was in good hands.

"Wait! Where are you boys going? It's late." He held up his wrist, looking at his watch. "1430. The day is just about over." That is 2:30 PM. We didn't really see that as the end of the day. But this man was not having it. He told us to park the trucks and pointed to three different tents. "First, you boys head over there. Sergeant Reyes is our resident gourmet; he is making stuffed pork chops tonight. That tent over there offers hot, pressurized showers. When you are done there, that tent is for the helicopter pilots; they have VCR movies, and you all can sleep in my tent." Needless to say, we NEVER wanted to leave.

Sergeant Reyes was an artist. He had a small GP tent, complete with an old log-burning wood stove. It was still cold in the desert at night, so cooking in the tent was fine. He used this stove in ways I have never seen anyone use one. He managed the fire just right, cooking with the door open in a pizza oven style. He was making stuffed pork chops. They were amazing. I like to think of this moment as a foreshadowing of my culinary future. At this point, I could do Durkee Rib over cooking bags, Shake 'n Bake pork chops, and Hamburger Helpless, but there was something here that caused the needle to jump in appreciation for food prepared with skill. This would not be the only time this would happen to me in Saudi Arabia, either.

This poor guy had so little light in that tent that he was just about cooking by the light of the fire itself. We went out to our three trucks, stole a dome light from each, obtained some wire, and strung the lights across the ceiling of his tent on the wire, hooking them to the battery of his Humvee outside the tent. Light was now not a problem. We reasoned that this misappropriation of government property involved stealing dome lights from the totalled trucks when we were next at the port of Dharan.

When you haven't seen a hot, pressurized shower since Fort Devens back in the States, it gives you a strange perspective on how spoiled Americans are. Standing in a crowded GP Medium tent with steam all around you, washing the last few weeks of desert off you, is a strange definition of paradise, but it ranked high on the scale.

After what was probably the best shower of my life, we retreated to the helicopter pilot's tent. These individuals appeared to have been here for a long time. They most likely were called up last August when Saddam first invaded Kuwait. They had developed a living space that not only offered numerous comforts, such as delicious food, television, VHS movies, stoves, and other electronics, but they had also devised very clever methods of maximizing the use of their tools. One super clever thing I noticed was their toaster. They had a Chinese cook stove, which I would eventually have too. They connected some 550 cord to a small wire rack and hung it from a metal crossbeam of the tent. When they wanted to make toast, they took the rack down from the beam, where it then hung suspended just above the Chinese cook stove. They would then light the stove, place a piece of bread on the rack, and gently pull it to one side before releasing it. This caused the rack to swing slowly back and forth over the flame, like a pendulum in a grandfather clock, toasting the bread without burning it. I have created a few of these over the years in honor of this simple yet ingenious idea.

As we were watching a movie, a couple of the pilots came in. They announced that they had taken some enemy fire up on the border. The way they spoke of it was not laced with adrenaline, but with familiarity. It happened all of the time. It was just another night.

As we approached the Chief Warrant Officer's heated tent, we were informed that with our three trucks, they had enough containers to keep us working for the next 21 days. We were fine with that, and it wouldn't have hurt my feelings if we had just stayed in our unit, which was freezing and choking on diesel fuel from the kerosene heaters, with its T-rats and that stupid Stand To. This was home. As transportation experts, it was our job to transport goods, and as far as I was concerned, by gosh, that is what we were going to do. Yes, my little, pathetic, lowly PFC, E-3 rank said so.

The following day, we were off and running, and the containers were delivered in the morning. I wanted to go again, but my voice held no responsibility when it came to taking the heat for things that we did. So we went back to the unit. TAA Henry was just as terrible as ever: Bad food, low morale, no backbone to stand up to the Battalion and tell them to leave us alone with their stupid rules. 

We received orders the next day to move some cargo, but it was not for our favorite Chief Warrant Officer at Log Base Alpha. Dan and I picked up a trailer somewhere and moved it to another location. We were headed back to Henry when I could hear air escaping from the right front steer tire on the tractor. He had been driving hard and fast through the desert, and a sharp rock had cut the side wall. We stopped. I pulled the jack out from under my seat, and we managed to get it under the I-beam axle before there was no room left to fit the bottle jack underneath, as the clearance was closing up as the tire deflated. I suggested that we get the jack under the truck before it got too low, before loosening all the lug nuts.

Changing one of these tires is no picnic; there are like 100 lugnuts torqued to what seems like three thousand foot pounds. The tire and spare tire themselves weigh slightly more than a Volkswagen and have to be winched on and off to the catwalk behind the truck's cab. As strong as Dan was, it took both of us to break the lugnuts and to torque them back on afterwards.

Why am I talking about changing a tire? That's boring. It is how Dan's telling of this mundane event in the years that followed that is so noteworthy. At first, the story would be told as it happened. As the years passed, however, Dan became a maverick star. A hero taking decisive action in dramatic ways to save the day. By the time this story had its complete upgrade, Dan would tell it like this.

"We were speeding through the desert on our way back to Henry when I heard this hissing noise. I pulled the airbrakes on the tractor, jumped out, and ran around the truck, flung Jackson's door open, tore open the toolbox, and grabbed the bottle jack. I leaped under the truck just in time before the tire was too low for the jack to fit under. Jackson did not know what I was even doing. He was like, 'WHAT???'" 

This story got more action-packed as the years passed. So to poke a little fun at the exaggerations, I would say back to Dan things like, "Gee, Dan, I really do not recall the snipers shooting at us." Or, "I don't recall the part about the artillery rounds."

Just when it looked like Dan and I were a permanent truck team, it changed. The following day, I was paired up with Bob, our assistant platoon sergeant. It was always fun to ride with him. He was a state legislator at the time. In fact, thirteen months from now, I would meet the president, George HW Bush, with him. 

Bob and I had the task of picking up medical supplies for a CASH (Combat Army Surgical Hospital) unit that was not too far from our own company area. We picked up the supplies down at LBA and headed back up MSR Dodge, then west on MSR Sullivan. There was a giant Saudi Arabian military installation called KKMC (King Kalid Military City). It would be a detour off our path. I needed smokes. I had exhausted all the books I had, and we were passing around reading material, but most of it wasn't appealing to me. The last good book I had read was The Beans of Egypt, Maine by Carolyn Chute. 

Bob, being the assistant platoon sergeant, always had more responsibility on his shoulders than the rest of us. We, the people of New Hampshire, saw a sign pointing south to KKMC, expecting to see it within a couple of minutes. Still, it was actually about 15 miles off the route, meaning we added 30 miles to the mission and had not delivered the medical supplies. We had no radios and no way to communicate with the other trucks behind us, except through hand signals and pulling over, which was not always easy in the desert. 

The whole way out to KKMC, I kept my foot to the floor, trying to pacify the guilt that Bob had for making the decision to allow us this detour. It seemed to take forever to reach our destination, and Bob kept lamenting, "I think this was a very bad call." He said this a lot. I did feel bad for him as I was feeling the weight of it too, but he did outrank me by double, so if anyone was going to take the hit for this, it was him. I also needed cigarettes. It was a critical deviation.

When we arrived at KKMC, a giant PX was set up. Everyone in our group was able to restock on personal items, whatever those were. I picked up a couple of cartons of Newports. I was smoking menthols back then, eeeew! Newport was the Lucky Strikes of the menthol world. A harsh punch of a flavor reserved for those who are probably criminals or assassins.

I also found a book written by Tom Bodet called "End of the Road." Tom was well-known at the time for being the Motel 6 "we'll leave the light on for you" guy. He had an innocent humor to him that would not be seen as sophisticated. But his perspective was lovable in a two-dimensional Mayberry sort of way. Let's face it, when you are in a war, you need all of the Mayberry you can get! Mister Bodet's characters were people that I wanted to know. A story of the quaint residents of a small, unknown town deep in Alaska called End of the Road, the folks were painted with emotional primary colors. They bore a small likeness to the folks from Cicely, Alaska, whom I met this summer during the Thursday night 10:00 PM hiatus of Knots Landing. Although Northern Exposure and End of the Road were written about mismatched people in a remote Alaska town, they did have similarities in how they made you want to come back to them. They were like a warm, soft blanket in a barren wasteland all around us.

On the way back, I got to see the power of this book. Whenever there was a sandstorm coming, you could see it far off. Once it was upon you, you stopped moving, set the brakes on the truck, and just waited as little shapes of sand pyramided on the dashboard by the windshield. As the sand blasted the outside of the truck, I read. What a feeling it was reading about how Kristy Storbock should look around for her Chevy Blazer a little more since the last snowstorm. The chief at the public works department explained that they have passed a few Subarus through that giant highway snowblower, but he thought the guys would notice if it picked up a Blazer. Yeah, these End of the Road people were transporting me thirteen thousand miles away to a land where things were not so heavy. I needed this.

KKMC and the sandstorm made us late, so we decided to pull into TAA Henry and get supper before continuing onto the CASH unit with their medical supplies. You could almost see the CASH unit as somewhat of a speck on the horizon,  so what could possibly go wrong? 

After a tragic dinner, Bob and I got back into the truck with our friend Kenny, who was driving one of the company's Chevy Blazers to lead us to the CASH. Because he could alledgedly see the unit, we drove diagonally accross the desert to that unit. We did not follow the colored barrell roads that would have been 2 and a half times the distance of the way we went. 

We left the trailer and headed back to home base. Now it was dark. For all of the civillians reading this (if you exist), you cannot just turn headlights on in a war. So we were in the desert, in Blackout Drive, a second set of lights all military vehicles have that are almost subliminal pinpoints of light, that disappear in numbers the further you get away from them. This clever method actually allows convoys to follow each other in total darkness while maintaining an exact distance between vehicles at all times. For all of the stupid ideas I have seen in the military, this invention really makes up for most of them.

We wandered around for what seemed like an eternity. At one point, Kenny stopped. For a second, he turned on the headlights, and there in front of him was a 4 foot drop off. That would have been a disaster had he driven off it. As for the headlights getting turned on, let's just say thankfully the Iraquis had no superiority in the air. 

Bob was smart, he had signed out a portable radio when we left and we established contact with the guard post at our unit. They were able to guide us in eventually. The lesson we learned was, those barrel roads were there for a reason, and now we knew.

It was clear to me that life was changing. Honestly, I would have been much happier permanently on truck missions, sleeping where ever as opposed to going home every night. The one thing that needed fine tuning was actually my partner. I had now had 3 driving partners in Saudi Arabia and one in New Hampshire. That needed some work to really feel like home. I did not know it, but that was about to happen.