aka  Before It’s Over, I Have to Say Something

     I usually write a post on Veteran’s Day.  Last year, I couldn’t.  I’d watched a friend get shipped off and returned a few days later, and had quite a lot of subsequent conversation with him that left me dry.
     He had really high expectations of himself.  He went through his education and training with honors.  He knew where he wanted to be, what he wanted to do.  He’d planned his entire life around his carreer in the military, and everything was going to be okay.
     When he finally got to Iraq, however, anxiety tooks its toll.  Sent home, he felt like a failure, like he hadn’t lived up to the expectations his family had.  Though all of them were supposed, he felt that they didn’t, even couldn’t, understand.  
     More than that, even, he wanted the respect of the people of whom he’d served, and knew that he’d let them all down.

     Through the course of the conversation with him, I tried to put it in real-life terms, hoping he could get his perspective back.  I told him to think of it as a job, and nothing more. 
     It was a job he was trained to do, and, many times, trained through repetition.  His job, a lower management position, was to manage and train others, often by repetition, as well.  Sometimes, no amount of training can prepare you for the reality of the job.
     I explained that it was like going to McDonald’s and training to be a run the drive through, and being thrown into it busy as Hell on the first day.  Things will happen, mistakes will be made.  People will be upset at you.  Some will even hate you.  But you do the job until you either get better, or you’re laid off, or you quit.  At either of the last two points, you find another job.
     “But you know,” I told him.  “What you tried to do carried with it a lot more prestige than some crappy job flipping burgers, or even selling advertising a company who’ll never last two years.  You were part of something bigger than yourself, and went duty-bound into something that most people are terrified to even think about.  And that, right there, is why you haven’t lost anyone else’s respect.  Not even the guys you served with.”

     It’s one of the things I always enjoyed about Military.  Guys who worked together consider one another friends.  Sometimes, they only see each other in an aeon, but will still have a clandestine beer, perhaps even in silence for the friends they knew and lost.

     That fact was driven home for me even more over the next few months.  Pretty much all of my uncles were in the military, and I just never was cut out for it.  But I’ve worked with and around them in a civilian capacity for quite a while.
     In December last year, a few of them looked for me, found me, and all but twisted my arms.  “Mark, what?  Man, you were right there with us.  Get your ass out of that damn house!”
     I was going through a really rough time a year ago.  If it hadn’t been for them, I was so stressed I might never have left the house again.  I never really told them what was going on, and just took the opportunity to get away, to get out of Knoxville, even, if only for a little while.
     Almost exclusively, it was just a bunch of us sitting around in a hotel bar.  We told stupid stories about each other, making sure to exagerrate as much as possible, smoked cigars, bitched about politicians, drank copiously and laughed a lot.  And then, there was always the silent drink to the ones who weren’t there…
     Philip, Joe, Terry, JD, Nate, John, Larry, Joel, Paul, Tony, Dennis, Neal… and I know there are more, but I just can’t remember right now… You guys don’t even know what you did for me.  And I thank you all.

     Those little road trips always ended the same.
     “It was great to see you again, man.  If you ever need anything, you give me a call.  I mean it!”
     There’s an unspoken rule of mine, and that is that I respect them too much to ever ask them for anything.

     To my surprise in January, “Mark, I’m shipping out for Afghanistan.  You fixed this Xbox for us, so, uh, we won’t need it, figured you’d want it?  And give me your address… we’re gonna send you some games when we get tired of them.”
     So now you know the root of my other time-waster / stress-reliever…

     And so, back to Lt. Cpl. Jared…

     Jared, you didn’t get to serve your entire time, but you were let out honorably.  You did your job as best you could, and I seriously think it was just bad timing.  But for all that worry you did, all that being down on yourself, and all that crazy shit you were thinking back then… look at how you’re doing now. 
     You’ve got everything together, just like I told you you would.

     And those people you crawled through mud and walked on sand with, even the ones you sat at a computer next to, or sat around all night in the barracks playing Xbox with, they are the salt of the earth.

     And I’ll guaran-damn-tee, after they’re back, given a little time, they’ll call you up and wanna go out for a beer…

     Jared … and everyone else … Happy Veterans’ Day, my friends.

     I woke at 4AM this morning for about three hours, did some work, and then fell back asleep until a few minutes ago, starving.  Having not slept in so long, I’m not used to dreaming anymore.
     I had the strangest dreams…

     I can usually tell when I’m dreaming, and have control.  Other times, they’re vivid and real, visions that I can’t shake off the next day.  They mean something, and whether on their own or by my interpretation of them, they come to pass.

     One dream seemed to happen over several courses, continuing every time I’d wake up and fall back asleep.  I was flying like a bird, enjoying myself, feeling the wind on my face, pockets of hot and cold.  I went east, across the ocean to the Mediterranean, further over the middle east, across India, and plunged into the water.  I swam up the Krishna River, where I finally came to a small village where people beckoned from the shore.  They offered food and water, and asked that I go to their temple.
     Inside, I sat center floor in the large room, a floor made a large, uneven, squares stones which were as cold as they were uncomfortable. I waited.
     “Not all things are as they seem,” said a voice, as a mysterious apparition appeared before me. He was a small man, with blue-grey skin, four arms, and the head of an elephant.
     “Vishnu?” I thought. In Hindu, Vishnu is the representation of the Supreme Soul.
     For hours, he disserted poetically about how ignoring Love would only bring failure and misery, how the hand of a good woman can kill a man’s demons and how I, myself, know that fear can motivate people instead of making them so terrified of failure that they won’t try.
     “And here is your journey,” he said, as he touched my forehead…
     …and I awoke, soaking wet with sweat.  It was strange, and too familiar.

     In the next dream, I was like Billy Pilgrim from Slaughterhouse Five, a time traveler of sorts, flipping back and forth and living my life out of sequence.
     I was old, sitting in a front porch rocking chair, my unseen wife in the kitchen, humming music as she cooked.  Next, I was ten years old, aiming my Crossman pellet rifle at the stripes of an arrow, stuck in the ground twenty feet away — I used to do that frequently to improve my marksmanship.  Forward to the morning I realized the foreign news wasn’t reporting 9/11, my shock and awe in watching it all.  Forward, I was older, in the hospital, have my knee replaced.  Backwards, watching two men lead a burro to drink from Lake Titicaca.  Backwards again to the trailer I lived in until I was three years old…
     On and on, it went for what seemed like weeks.

     And so it was more than a little freaky that this morning, I was asked to convert these Sanskrit passages into UTF-8 so that they could be embedded as text layer into an image.  I found him an easier way:

यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यंते रमंते तत्र देवता:।
यत्र तास्तु न पूज्यंते तत्र सर्वाफलक्रिया:॥

Where women are worshipped, goddesses dwell
Where they are not worshipped, all actions are fruitless

विषादप्यमृतं ग्राह्यं अमेध्यादपि काञ्चनम्:।
अमित्रादपि सद्वृत्तं स्त्रीरत्नं दुष्कुलादपि:॥

The elixir of life is to be accepted even if poison
A piece of gold is to be accepted even from impure
Good conduct is to be learned even from an enemy
and a good lady is to be accepted even from a bad community

गते शोको न कर्तव्यो भविष्यं नैव चिंतयेत्:।
वर्तमानेन कालेन वर्तयंति विचक्षणा:॥

One should not regret the past
One should not worry about the future
Wise men act in the present time

     Dreams can be powerful.

     And when reality mimicks the dream, even moreso…

     Whenever I think, “I have no heart,” something always comes along to prove to me that I do.

     My immediate thought is always to be skeptical of Internet Chain Letters and such, but with this one, I dug a little deeper and found that it’s totaly legitimate…

Why the one million friends challenge? I get asked the questions, Why 1 million friends? What will it achieve? on a regular basis. So I thought I would try to explain. James and I used to come onto myspace to listen to music and look at the videos just before he was diagnosed and added a few friends.

When James was diagnosed and we came to terms with the fact that his cancer and its treatment was going to take over our lives we needed a distraction and the “James and Daddy” page was born. I asked James if he thought we could get one hundred friends and then one thousand and the ten thousand. When we reached ten thousand friends I asked James to set the next target. James said ONE MILLION.

We will gain nothing financially from this page but have gained friendship from people around the world and we have shared our story with you all and in return shared your stories. This page has helped us as a family deal with the tough times and share the good times. Now as a father I feel I have to achieve this challenge as I made a vow to James the day after he was born that I would never let him down and I would only make him a promise if I could keep it.

So there you have it, the reason for the challenge and why I need you to help me get more friends. We have tried the celebrity route with minor success so all we can do is keep sending out the bulletins and searching out the profiles that have loads of friends and big hearts.

     I mentioned a while back, I can’t have kids… Rather, not healthy ones, anyway… I always say I found my peace with all of that a long time ago.
     But then again, maybe that’s why stuff like this tears me up so bad… Like it did with Ambriel… Like it does with someone else even closer who went through a bout of it herself (I love you, baby girl, I miss you, and I’m proud of you).

     There’s the futility factor, wishing I could do something to make it better, and I can’t…

     And then, of course, I see their faces they’re smiling right through it most days.

     That…

     …is one of the few things that I glean hope from.

     And I know damn well that despite everything else, those kids are toughter than I will ever be.

     If you’ve got MySpace, be sure and add him as a friend.  Spread the word.  Make a donation.

     http://www.myspace.com/bizwiz68

     You certainly can’t make anyone happy, but you can try and be there when they need you.  Depending on how much you care about them, you may even do it when it’s detrimental to yourself.  At some point, people around you may tell you how unhealthy that is.
     But the bigger sin to me is to ignore their pleas for help, to come to a point where you have no intention of trying when you’ve made your vows to a person, for better or for worse, in sickness and health.

     Extraordinary things can happen…

     Yet sometimes, it might take every iota of Faith that you have.

     And just when you feel like you’re out, you find a little more…

      “I’ll bet in High School, they voted you ‘Most Likely to Die Laughing…’”
      “Yeah, you just didn’t know they meant AT YOU, eh?”

     I’m gonna take Fracas’ queue here … I hate all this damned negativity.  Negativity SUCKS!    And besides, it’s just not like me to be this wound up.  Thpft!  Hyper, laughing, twisted, yeah… *snicker*

1. The Misanthtropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate adore.

The outpouring of love for the daughter of a friend really goes to show ya how supportive people can be.

2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus true, honest and good.

Acquaintances comes and go, but true friendship is forever.  My friends … they are my family.

3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.

I’m really happy with the way my weekend turned out given a horrible beginning.  Hanging with friends and making new ones is always a good thing.

4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.

Check out this blog post… That’s the true meaning of a “devoted mother.”

5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.

No matter what happens, I’ll get through it.  I’m a tough little bastard like that.  And when other people need me, I’m right there with ‘em.

6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.

Even when my give-a-damn factor is bottomed out, where circumstances are completely beyond my control, sometimes I wish there was something I could do to help.  Like now … I wish I could wave my hand and go, “All that stuff your going through?  It’s over.  It never happened.  Neat, eh?”  Unfortunately, cancer just isn’t one of those things.

Instead, you do what you can in your own way.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

Now it’s your turn.

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