The Morning After the Night Before

I'm at work.
Where else should I be?
I'm doing my usual sentimental ramblings thanks to music, a rainy day, and two letters I have sitting on my desk.

The first letter says

"You are to report to said unit on June 24, 2004.."

The second letter says

"..thank you for your service to your country..

The first are a set of orders placing me back to Active Reserve Duty. The orders I have been waiting on.
The others are my discharge papers.

The music is The Ataris spoof of Don Henley's "Boys of Summer"

I'm a music focused person. Have been for years. My life reads like a bad Hollywood script on LSD. Just add mood music.
So I do. My wedding of the weekend went good. My father showed up. This was a bit awkward I think for both of us. He was nothing like the man I have known for the last 20 some odd years. He was quiet, with drawn, and in pain. They have him on new anti biotics again. The Staph infection is back. Not that it will ever go away.

My step mom loved my dog. She likes Domestic 6 (yeah I know Doc, I stole your monikar [sp?] but it fits! :-) )as well.

On the 26th I have to find a way to make time and money to go to Texas to see my daughter again.

A month ago I saw her for the first time in almost 4 years.

I had the first nightmare of Ground Zero/Africa that I have had in almost 6 months. For a while I had them every night, lately they have dropped to non exsistant. Last night was bad though. Very bad.

It started with me being in a vent duct. The next thing I know I'm crawling in to a perfect hallway. A teenager walks right past me with grenades roped to his waist and an AK. Meanwhile I'm covered in dust and sweat from head to toe. I can't breathe. And then the hallway collapses.

Charlie Sheen had a line in Platoon that I think sums everyone up. Military or not.

I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us. The was is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days. As I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rah called "possesion of my soul." There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of those two fathers. But be that as it may, those who did make an obligation to build again. To teach to others what we know, and to try with whats left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.

At home we say You Have Devils Chasing You.
Last night I chased them the only way I know how, with a bottle.

Fortunately my new bride knows this, and works with me. Shes supportive that way. How she ended up with a basketcase like me is still beyond my comprehension.

So today I leave my house in the rain. Its hot. Humid. Jungle Humid.

I wonder to myself where it all went. The time, the adventurers, the memories, the friends, the money, the cars and the girls.
The rain slacks off. It starts to sunshine, just a little, not alot, but enough to let you know its there.
I light my cigarette and pull over by Beaver Lake on my way to work.

I use to work on a lake like this when I was in High School. At a popular Marina. The mornings would be cool when we arrived. By midday it was hot. Humid Hot. Jungle Hot.
I loved that job.

WHen I arrived in Hondoras it was the same way.

I lit another cigarette and think to myself as the music finishes.
Those days are gone forever...I should just let'em go but..

Its that but that gets me in trouble. I hold tight to the things that make me who nd what I am. Sometimes its all I have is to compare the worse times of my life to what is currently happening in order to pull through.

Perhaps, one day, I'll let the past go. But the past is what educates us, is what tries to tell us what can happen again. I try to learn from my mistakes, I try not to burn too many bridges any more. Used to be I walked away from every job I left with a gallon of gas and a lit match.

I'm older now. I question myself a lot more than I ever did when I was younger. I have had many jobs, and many career paths have been laid before me. I own my own company but I often sell myself to other companies as well. The company I am currently on project with has hinted they want to hire me directly, but I see no proof. Hardwork does not pay any longer. Ability gets you no where and honesty is practically a liability.

I'll belive it all when I see it

But I refuse to go quietly, in the mean time.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain-
(Confederate surrender at Appomattox...)
...On they come, with the old swinging route step and swaying battle flags. In the van, the proud Confederate ensign. Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood; men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond; was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured? On our part not a sound of trumpet more, nor roll of drum; not a cheer, nor word, nor whisper or vain-glorying, nor motion of man, but an awed stillness rather, and breath-holding, as if it were the passing of the dead!