Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Random Notebook #9: Transitionals, part 002

I’ve had the strange sensation that despite the fact that I have thrown away a magnificent amount of time, the fact remains that I have also done a great deal of work; all of this, despite the fact that there are other things that beg for my attention.  I’ve been lucky, more than lucky, to understand the same rigmarole of the days that go in and out of my life.  I know that the feeling that my end is near is just that, a feeling.  There are times, however, when I see all of it quite clear in my mind, and I can’t get over the fact that life is good aside from all this.  I don’t know what mechanisms are at work in my mind when I ultimately believe it may all end soon, but factors that led me to where I am today I understand all too clearly.  And if all of this leads me to lose myself by creating these fictions, these stories, these plots that go nowhere, then at least I am keeping alive by means of those words of my imagination.  Like, for example, how did I predict these events on that plot I came up with in 1995-1996 but never followed through?  I wish I had had more insight, more vision to pursue that plot when I originally struck the vein.  No crying over spilt milk, really.  What I will do now is continue to think about those men on that isolated post and their questioning (not challenging) of their leadership.  What good would a post like that do?  So far from the rear, clearly out of artillery range, impossible, even at times, to call in air support?  What good, really, is the sitting around, going out on patrol, taking the casualties they did?  What good are the replacements straight out of boot camp?  One hundred years from now, when all of us are gone, who would remember this post, these hills, and these fighting holes we dug?  Fifty years from now, when whatever we leave behind rusts to deformity, and all that is left are the faint scars we carved upon the earth itself, who would really care about what we did here?  What consolation is it to the men that died, to their families?  Certainly, this is a mission, and the mission is more important than any of our opinions, or worse, our own feelings and lives.  I would like to believe that there are things more important than the mission, but the idealism that goes behind believing what our superiors say to us leads me to believe that all of that is obligatory rhetoric, a form of appeasement.  I believe it infinitely more believable and productive to listen to the rest of the men when they speak genuinely, that meaning when their words are the meaning they all hold close to their hearts.  Ironically, it is these young “boots” opinions that one must listen to the most.  Coming back from patrol, whether or not we had made contact with the enemy, the look on the faces of these young “boots” makes it clear to us, men who have been out here for the better part of a year, that this post is madness, that the patrols are simply nothing short of suicide runs, and that the only reason why are here is because this relentless enemy doesn’t fear us, but rather seems to find meaning in simply toying with us.  Imagine if the enemy, in their clear capacity to overrun this post, wiped us out of the map completely?  They couldn’t possibly do that, could they?  In reality, they could.  Conceptually, for the enemy to overrun and take over this stupid hill would be to simply invalidate the meaning of their so-called jihad.  One comes to a very awkward realization—the Taliban needs us here more than our own high command does.  But these are things one writes down and speaks not of.  This was something we all secretly agreed upon, and woe be unto the man who broke this silence.  “Keep it bottled up, Jack… no real need to talk about it.”  Deep inside the absurdity of the mission became a joke we all enjoyed, perhaps sadistically (especially when we take wounded and they die in route to the rear).  I know I wasn’t far off the mark when we captured a man walking barefoot and half naked on ____ valley one fine afternoon in the month of October (description here).  ×  And this was only 30 minutes.  I wanted to write for a longer time but the lack of focus was terrible. 

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