It's time to end this

I've struggled with an ending to this blog.

Truth is I'm tired. I originally wanted a place to put down my thoughts and experience and explore the clash of the different worlds that somehow or another I have going on in my life at this point.

But, I can't seem to reconcile them in many ways anymore and in the end I don't think I will ever come up with any neat tidy answers that I can wrap it up with.

I'm still here, but deployment has come up a couple of times already, and I've been on the list, and then off the list again. So in essence my family has started through the emotional process of that for me as well as my son. My son came home a couple of months ago from what we hope is is his last stint in Iraq, and one day we were talking about me deploying because at that time I still thought I was on the list again, and I must have looked scared because he got quiet and told me not to worry, that it would be ok. And I said back to him it was ok, that I was alright with it.

More than likely I would be fobbitlicous, or its close synomyn, POGallicious, so not to worry. I learned two new words from my favorite infantry guy at WLC. They just roll off the tongue and are fun to say out loud.

My daughter told me she would have signed up too, if it wasn't for her son. She was holding my grandson at the time, cradled in her arms. I told her I know she would, and that it was ok. She probably doesn't realize it yet, but she has already begun to take up the family responsibilities, becoming the hub that we all can call to keep up on everything with. My mom was the main one, but I can see her slowly letting go, and am watching her struggle more and more to cope emotionally with all this. She told me in our last phone call, that she would go to this years DPMO meeting for sure, because we had had another letter, that they are another step closer to possibly being able to recover my father's remains. For the first time ever I heard my ever tolerant peace loving always have a kind word to say about everybody mom use an ugly term to describe the enemy. She's getting tired too, I think.

I am becoming more comfortable in my own uniform, more confident in the skills I have been taught, and even enjoying the feeling of contributing, and looking forward to being able to practice what I have learned. None of that means I have changed any of my thoughts on the politics of this war.

None of that gives anyone, any politician the right to wave a flag and say support this policy because it is supporting this troop.

This is tough to put into words, but I am going to try, because it is very important to me.

As an aside, before I put up the next link, this is explicit and somewhat gruesome, so there's your warning. I erred further down. I find myself doing that with my family now. Sifting through conversations, and watering down paragraphs, because I don't want to distress or worry them. That is condescending, especially to my daughter, and I did that further down in another post and I am sorry Sarah.

The Kitchen Table: A War Surgeons Perspective on Memorial Day

This is a piece written about the death of Marines, and the Doctor who couldn't save one. I don't have a political point to make here. The actions of those involved speak for themselves.

What I do want to say is that there is honor in their sacrifice and in their courage, and it belongs to them. Not to the politicians, not to anyone else but them.

If anything, out of all of this blog, I think my point was to show some of the sacrifice and refuse to allow it to be ok to look at.

"He died for his country"

"He died doing what he loved"

"Thank you for your service"

But don't ask what that death bought the US in terms of defense, or in any real terms, because it is impolite.

Nobody can tell me what my fathers sacrifice meant to him, but him. Nobody has the right to use it as justification to cover their own inadequate arguments.

And I would ask my father, someday when I die, because I do believe in an afterlife, I would ask him why, because the price of his sacrifice was so high not just for him but for us all. We needed him to come home.

Going to war for anything less than absolute necessity is the height of irresponsibility. You can keep all that glory stuff. Glory is a luxury for those who don't have people depending on them. Maybe I come across as bitter about my father's death. I really don't think so. I've had alot of time to think about it. I just have major issues with those who like to use it as a prop for their own selfish ends. To my knowledge my father offered his service in good faith. His government at that time did not make good use of that sacrifice. I don't see any reason to candy coat that, and I don't see any reason not to ask that same question for myself and my son.

"you're fighting for freedom, democracy, and our way of life..."

no, seriously, why are we there....

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If you've read more than a little of this blog, you will notice a dearth of mention of the Iraqis. I am not blind to it. I've just chosen to stay on one side of the argument. When my kids were little and they would get into trouble, I would always ask them about what they did not the other person, because that is what they can change. There will always be bad people, annoying people, dangerous people in the world. What defines you as a person will always be the choices you make when the chips are down, when life is crashing around you. It is easy to be the good guy when things are going your way.

I just can't mentally split myself so many ways. To alot of the peace movement, the Iraqis are 100% victim, and they forget that many of them are quite adept at blowing us up. I am not divinely equipped to sort the right from the wrong and to be honest there is a level of suffering that I can't grasp, not and continue to function.

I still believe that Iraq belongs to the Iraqis and its their business, not ours. I think that makes me an isolationist, but I would have to look it up to be sure. I get accused of being various things sometimes in conversations, and I have to reply define it for me and then I will tell you if I am a liberal socialist communist etc. etc. because I'm not sure what any of that stands for anymore. That goes along in the same vein as the different Iraqi political factions. When I started reading Juan Cole's blog, I would try and keep up with the different groups and their political aims and such. I couldn't do it after awhile. Too damned many of them. Perhaps its my racist version of they all look alike.

I was riding back from the field last week in an FLA (ambulance) with some other soldiers, a couple who had been deployed in a medical capacity. We were in the back, with the doors closed, the fan was on but the a/c wasn't working and it was hot as hell back there. They were swapping stories about deployment and laughing and yucking it up like it was a freaking vacation. One of them asked me if I was alright, since I was so quiet. I said I was, but I wasn't because while they were talking all I could think about was the fact there's a half a million Iraqi refugees sitting on the borders and getting madder and madder and madder about it all. None of which was appropriate in that particular setting.

Later, one of those same soldiers shared a story with someone else about being in another FLA similar to the one we were riding in, in heat about 15 degrees hotter than we were in, with full gear on, unlike us, since it was heat cat 5 and we weren't in full gear because of that, and still doing his work under those conditions.

I was so hot that day, I could feel the constant tugging on my skin from the weight of all the extra magazines and water I had stowed in my cargo pockets. My sweat had stuck my uniform to my skin, but with the added weight in the pants, I had to keep hitching my belt tighter so that my pants didn't fall off my hips. It felt like all the skin on my body was pooling around my ankles. I tried to imagine it being hotter and having more gear on, and still functioning.

How other people deal with their own experience is none of my business. I stay quiet for a reason. And for the most part, I think it has been the right choice in that setting.

But that is there, and this is here.

Thanks to all those who have taken the time to read, or dropped in and commented. I've enjoyed my conversations with you and maybe we will meet further down the road.

Peace,
Valarie