"I can feel the bullets flying from automatic guns behind me...shells falling to the dirt road from aerial combat...the stench of dying men arouse my senses, disgusting my heart. My soul wears itself thin, crying for the loss, but begging for the future. I force my fingers on the cold steel, fear in my eyes, a brick in my throat, as I kill the natives...the enemy. Someone's brother, someone's son, falls to my bullet...and I wait for the one with my name engraved on the shrapnel to be left in my head. The only intelligence left would be my personal self destruction...to save another from my fate - yet, a soldier will follow behind me, in my footsteps."
"Either way I take a life. Mine or his, either way, a man is killed. Either way a life will end, as two more are born. And, as I run through mud, carrying a heavy pack upon my back, I wonder if the weight of death is worth the price of life...or if mass suicide is all we'll ever make of it. I'll probably never know...most of us won't make it through the might. We're all playing Russian roulette with five chambers full. One of us will survive, but at what price? At the price of five hands, or will it be ten? Five sons, five brothers...the band still plays on...the funeral still occurs."
-----
"Dirt rained down upon us like hail in a hurricane, drenching our already soiled faces with a new layer of blood, guts and mud."
"A few of us having trouble remembering our names. They don't mean a thing out here until one needs to be identified for shipping or discharge. One soldier, who's been here since I have, has 5 or 6 sets of tags...lost soldiers dog I.D.'s now carried on without them. 'After all', he says, 'they're dead, so why should they care?' He has a point. Still, most of us don't care when we're alive...for in some way, we're still all just lost souls in a foreign land of destruction."
-----
"Today I thought I felt a bullet slam into my back...it was only a sharp pain. Nothing hit me, except maybe fear. Possibly the truth coming from behind...I know it's not reality. You can't be real and fight for your life. You can't succumb to sanity without first realizing the sane - and we are far from instruction. We are the foot soldiers of doom. We are wide awake in the soul of a nightmare."
-----
"As I come upon a city full of lights...I realize it's set up for us, by the army, for our entertainment. A small carnival in the midst of complete destruction. We are the puppets being played by larger puppets. We are the end result of a circus gone awry...they sent in the clowns, here we are. Let us entertain you. Let us make you cry."
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Mark, chunk #1
Words from Mark...please note the ------ separates sections of given pieces - these indicate they came at a different moment in time...
"Many have found their emotions becoming callous from grief...becoming numb to the killing spree we've been accountable for. These many, these soldiers of pain, have found it necessary to appoint themselves as vindicators of rage. To force their frustrations deep into the wombs of village women...and even a few men."
"We are becoming heated savages. We are turning into rapists and killers. We're in the army now."
"For Some, we'll never leave this place. Our burden shed in the heat of dark huts over thrown. Our internal anger towards life left at the feet of those villagers to sleep upon, in their death...so no one shall ever forget we were here. These, the same people that wished us to come and save them, now they wish us gone. Still, none of us, on either side, ever expected to turn into the men we'd fought against all our lives...to turn into the men who's lives were lived out in the dark prison cells of concrete and steel. We have become those men....we ARE those men...only we weren't sentenced to death row for a crime. Our crime came long after our given sentence to death. We are the ones fulfilling the crime to match the punishment."
-----------------------------------------------------
"The humid air of the night promises to make us sweat for our sleep. We silently pray for some peace to our war...if only for five, single minutes...just to be able to breathe again."
"Sounds tear at our minds, and this is only the second day we felt the action of disgrace. The termination of bodies we've seen...most of us new to this type of killing spree. New to this idea of a jungle of blood...and this is only the beginning. For some of us, luck will take us early on. For others, hell shall pay us back before we die."
"Our feet hurt from boots too heavy for the weight we carry with us. Yet, still we understand, somehow we know that no amount of physical stripping shall ever prepare us for what we are to carry upon our minds in the days that shall see us through...that shall emblazon our lives with tattoos of war and devastation. The only thing that could save us now would be God...and many of us are believing in something we've never given a second thought about before...as that's all that we have left to cling to, Faith."
----------------------------------------------------
"As I scream for Illinois, my home land, I wonder, in this salty jungle air, if I'll ever see the light of day again...or if I shall perish by the light of the moon and smoke and gunfire."
"Drugs make their way through these skulls we have...these brains have become nothing but mush, as have our once patriotic thoughts turned into skeletons baked in the midnight sun."
"Some of us were drafted, we had no choice. Some of us chose it ourselves, this fate. Those that picked this hell for themselves seem to be the weakest of the lot. They thought they'd do their patriotic duty by fighting for a cause, no left realizing they're killers of hundreds. Their life is their only payment. Death row is right here...right now."
-----------------------------------------------------
Air attacks. We hear them. Shells drop all around us. I watch my fellow soldiers get their pink slips by bullet. Sometimes a limb will blow past me, in the air, landing far from the body itself. The hand, arm, leg never to be recovered...the funeral to be less a piece of the solider - still, no one will care."
"Many have found their emotions becoming callous from grief...becoming numb to the killing spree we've been accountable for. These many, these soldiers of pain, have found it necessary to appoint themselves as vindicators of rage. To force their frustrations deep into the wombs of village women...and even a few men."
"We are becoming heated savages. We are turning into rapists and killers. We're in the army now."
"For Some, we'll never leave this place. Our burden shed in the heat of dark huts over thrown. Our internal anger towards life left at the feet of those villagers to sleep upon, in their death...so no one shall ever forget we were here. These, the same people that wished us to come and save them, now they wish us gone. Still, none of us, on either side, ever expected to turn into the men we'd fought against all our lives...to turn into the men who's lives were lived out in the dark prison cells of concrete and steel. We have become those men....we ARE those men...only we weren't sentenced to death row for a crime. Our crime came long after our given sentence to death. We are the ones fulfilling the crime to match the punishment."
-----------------------------------------------------
"The humid air of the night promises to make us sweat for our sleep. We silently pray for some peace to our war...if only for five, single minutes...just to be able to breathe again."
"Sounds tear at our minds, and this is only the second day we felt the action of disgrace. The termination of bodies we've seen...most of us new to this type of killing spree. New to this idea of a jungle of blood...and this is only the beginning. For some of us, luck will take us early on. For others, hell shall pay us back before we die."
"Our feet hurt from boots too heavy for the weight we carry with us. Yet, still we understand, somehow we know that no amount of physical stripping shall ever prepare us for what we are to carry upon our minds in the days that shall see us through...that shall emblazon our lives with tattoos of war and devastation. The only thing that could save us now would be God...and many of us are believing in something we've never given a second thought about before...as that's all that we have left to cling to, Faith."
----------------------------------------------------
"As I scream for Illinois, my home land, I wonder, in this salty jungle air, if I'll ever see the light of day again...or if I shall perish by the light of the moon and smoke and gunfire."
"Drugs make their way through these skulls we have...these brains have become nothing but mush, as have our once patriotic thoughts turned into skeletons baked in the midnight sun."
"Some of us were drafted, we had no choice. Some of us chose it ourselves, this fate. Those that picked this hell for themselves seem to be the weakest of the lot. They thought they'd do their patriotic duty by fighting for a cause, no left realizing they're killers of hundreds. Their life is their only payment. Death row is right here...right now."
-----------------------------------------------------
Air attacks. We hear them. Shells drop all around us. I watch my fellow soldiers get their pink slips by bullet. Sometimes a limb will blow past me, in the air, landing far from the body itself. The hand, arm, leg never to be recovered...the funeral to be less a piece of the solider - still, no one will care."
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Mark, #2
This is called "Mark #2" - Mark has a story, and it was told through me...and I've got all the words I wrote for him somewhere in a large binder (I know where it is...) and I should really post all this stuff, as it's important in many ways.
Mark came to me in 1993 (I think), and I wrote many short pieces from him...he was a Vet in Vietnam who died there; the writing showed he was from the IL/WI area (forget which, exactly) and towards the end, I got his full name.
In 1995, my (then) partner looked him up on the Vietnam Wall Memorial list...he was there - and I found out he was from that area of the country (the opposite of the one he wrote as) - and that he died about a year before I was born. Damn...that hit me pretty hard.
I don't hear much from Mark anymore - I think I got his story mostly out, but in 1999 he gave me a little more, just to remind me that he's still with me, always:
"and
if anyone shall ever forget what it meant to send their men to war, if anyone
shall ever forget what it meant to leave their mothers, wives, children and
parents alone, waiting by the phone, by the t.v. for some glimpse of possible
returned death - for some hollow face to wave back at the cameras...wondering
if your son would come back in a body bag...if anyone shall ever forget these erroneous
ways of the world, these horrid manslaughter ideas that spouted upon the refuge
of idealism that we turned upon ourselves with loaded guns - bullets flying -
death mounting...if anyone shall ever forget let it be me, let it be my
sacrificed ghost that walks upon the graveyards...like so many others, let it
be me, please let it be me who forgets, the one who died, the one who's
gone...the one who's writing."
6/16/99 – Mark…
I do think I'll work on adding in his pieces to this blog, as they are truly impressive to read - even to me, to this day, they're haunting. I took these pieces to a Vet who I befriended at a trade show I was working one day in Portland - as he asked about them once we started talking about his tours of duty in the war, and my writing this "piece" about a Vet. He brought them back the next day, and said he had never read anything like this from someone who wasn't there, who didn't live the war - that it was not just impressive, but amazing. I hope, if he's still alive, that he still has that memory, as I do. To a writer, this is the best form of flattery - but, to someone who has been given the gift of telling a story from the past, it's more than that...it's acknowledgment for us both.
-AA
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Fate or ?
I'm sitting here wondering about people, today...about what makes us click with them, think about them - become part of their lives and want to stay in their lives.
I'm not necessarily one of those folks who believe in fate to the fullest extent, but I think there must be something to it...something in the tapestry of life that makes us fall into the patterns of people that we sometimes do - or go after those that we feel we need to be connected to. There has to be, otherwise how could you explain it? God? Maybe. Reincarnation? Sure, why not? "Fate" as an entity? That makes sense, actually. Maybe I believe more than I let on...that's entirely possible.
I have a lot of "exes" and I have a lot of "acquaintances" - some of my exes are acquaintances and some of my acquaintances used to be friends. I can also say that some of my friends are my exes and we are friends for the better, and I'm very happy with that. AO is someone that I'm grateful to have in my life as a friend, and I don't take that word "friend" lightly. She came down all the way from Washington two years ago to help us move 2.5 hours north. Now THAT is friendship to the umpteenth degree. Of course, this was also a vacation of sorts for her - but, seriously, I can't ever remember jumping on a plane to go and help a friend move! I don't know that I ever told her just how much her trip meant to us, but she saved us, literally. This gets me to my point...if I hadn't dated her over 20 years ago, and we hadn't stayed in contact (fallen out, gotten back in) over the years, obviously she wouldn't have been here helping us in our time of need, correct? Is it fate that had this pre-planned? Or, is it just simply determination on my part that got us back into contact? If so, WHY? I guess it doesn't really matter in the long run, and I feel blessed to be able to call her my good friend of 20+ years, even though there's been big spots of time where we didn't know each other or where we were at - but, it didn't matter. We came back together like puzzle pieces that were needed to fill in that field of flowers, just like in the picture on the box; 2 of 1,000. Impressive, isn't it? I think so.
I think about my friends, and people who used to be good friends but are now more or less stuck in the back of the closet behind the shoe boxes of old pictures...I know I can dig them out if I need them, if I think about them, and maybe we'll reconnect, maybe we won't and those pictures will go into storage. I think about my exes...people that I got involved with on a weekly, monthly or even yearly basis. I think about the ones that I know where they are but they want to have nothing to do with me - and I'm okay with that, too. If you don't feel like I fit into your life, so be it. No harm, no foul. I don't want you in my life if I'm not a fit for you, because obviously it wouldn't work.
My previous ex, of 9.5 years, (my previous ex...as opposed to my current ex? No, she's my current ex, LOL), my EX, we met when she was a mere 17...and I hate to admit it but I was 26. We were together for a good chunk of time, but things changed. I'll also freely tell you that I know things were changing, and not for the better. Things in my current relationship, by the way, are changing on a regular basis, but this is for the better - we are growing together, but my ex and I were not. We didn't see it until more time had passed as I think we both wanted it to work in some respect - we were, after all, the perfect lesbian couple. We were that couple. The one everyone looked up to, thought was amazing, etc., etc. Ya, not so amazing. Don't get me wrong, we didn't fight all the time or do anything wrong - we just didn't have much more going for us than the artificial front. Sad, but true. But, I digress...my ex and I got together, and we learned some things about each other - and it makes me wonder if Fate had a hand in that one, too. Or, reincarnation, maybe? Let me explain further...
When I met my ex, she refused to talk about WWII or the Holocaust or anything related to it - it freaked her out. Now, for most this wouldn't be an issue, but I, my darlings, I am one of those folks that is in love with Germanic Sociology from the WWII (mainly Hitler) era. I have a whole bookshelf (tall, Ikea bookshelf) of WWII books on these subjects (and some Genocide reading scattered in for good measure), I even have the entire Nuremberg Trials in paper form, including the books of evidence (which are just as big as the trials). **Side note, for anyone interested in this, a good chunk of the trials can be found here: Nuremberg Trials (Harvard Law)
One day, the Ex and I were sitting in a park downtown and talking about things...and I asked her, what was it about the whole WWII thing that freaked her out? She told me about something she'd always envisioned, and that freaked me out a little bit. For back story, I had always had this odd "vision", if you will, of a Nazi soldier talking to a young woman in a cell of some sort...that was about it - but it was more the feeling I got from it that always resonated with me. I don't recall if it came to me as a dream eons ago or what, but it had always been with me, and I just let that be, as well. I never talked to anyone about that, as it never seemed like something that people would "get" or understand...and I didn't want to come off like I was a "Nazi Sympathizer" from that time period, as that's far from the truth. That night, the Ex told me that she had this vision of a young woman who was in the throws of the Third Reich, she was in a prison cell, and a young Guard was being very sweet to her - making sure that she was okay...before he was called away. That's all she really could remember about it. Okay...freaky. I ask you, is this "reincarnation" at it's best? Is it her reading my mind? My reading hers (before we ever met), or simply Fate? Who knows...but, honestly I think from that moment on we both understood, somehow, that while we were together and seemingly happy, there was something underlying that shouldn't have kept us together - something wasn't quite right, and I know that I never really shook that feeling. It's like I was getting a second chance at fixing something - and, maybe I was. Maybe in a previous life I was that Nazi Guard...maybe she was that young woman? Who knows...I really don't, and can't say that I do, but I do know that we were thrown together in some way, shape or form as to connect, and we connected on another level - one that makes us interconnected even though now we rarely talk and we had a pretty rough breakup (I'm not surprised if you counter in this story, but it never really came up again).
This stuff just makes me think...and, the ex before "The Ex", who was my first long term relationship, that's another story but I'll say this...when we were "dating" or "courting" or whatever you'll call it, and I still lived in Oregon (I moved to Florida for this ex I speak of, as I didn't want her to have to move to Portland - she was young as well and it just didn't seem right to me to displace her, especially with such an amazing family), I was writing pieces at that time about a man named Mark, who lived in the Vietnam War. I almost felt possessed when writing these small pieces - I'd get them at random times and just be compelled to write them down...these thoughts. My ex was on the phone with me a few times these came to me, and being a writer herself she didn't think this was strange at all. I got a last name towards the end of these pieces. Mark is another story, and one I might share more in depth in the future, but suffice it to say, it was a huge piece of my writing history and a good year of my life. I met a Vietnam Vet at a job I was working once, who did a couple of tours and lived to tell about it, and I mentioned this writing to him - he said he'd love to see it so I brought him a copy. He told me the next day that he'd never read such compelling, and accurate, writing about the war in the sense that this was written. THAT was not only a compliment, but a truth - I never read Nam stuff, I was never that interested in it - sure, I'd seen Apocalypse Now, but I was only around 23, I didn't know enough about that part of history to really understand it...Mark was writing through me. Mark...I got his name, as I mentioned. One day, about a year after moving to FL, I came home and my ex had told me she found something for me on the Internet. It was a website with The Wall names and information on them. She found Mark, his full name. He was born/raised in Wisconsin, and in my story pieces Mark was from Illinois. He died in the War approximately a year before I was born. I wondered...could it be some past, or some piece from a past that my soul had hung onto before being brought into this world? Was reincarnation even possible? Is it selfish to think that we are our only true selves and that we don't re-process? I think there's got to be something to it...and, this brings me full circle to people in our lives. If dead people can touch you, then there's got to be something to people in the present day coming in and out of your life and having some sort of "fate" interacting with us...maybe Fate with a capital F is the best way to look at it. Some would call it God. Concrete Blonde would call it Love.
I'm not necessarily one of those folks who believe in fate to the fullest extent, but I think there must be something to it...something in the tapestry of life that makes us fall into the patterns of people that we sometimes do - or go after those that we feel we need to be connected to. There has to be, otherwise how could you explain it? God? Maybe. Reincarnation? Sure, why not? "Fate" as an entity? That makes sense, actually. Maybe I believe more than I let on...that's entirely possible.
I have a lot of "exes" and I have a lot of "acquaintances" - some of my exes are acquaintances and some of my acquaintances used to be friends. I can also say that some of my friends are my exes and we are friends for the better, and I'm very happy with that. AO is someone that I'm grateful to have in my life as a friend, and I don't take that word "friend" lightly. She came down all the way from Washington two years ago to help us move 2.5 hours north. Now THAT is friendship to the umpteenth degree. Of course, this was also a vacation of sorts for her - but, seriously, I can't ever remember jumping on a plane to go and help a friend move! I don't know that I ever told her just how much her trip meant to us, but she saved us, literally. This gets me to my point...if I hadn't dated her over 20 years ago, and we hadn't stayed in contact (fallen out, gotten back in) over the years, obviously she wouldn't have been here helping us in our time of need, correct? Is it fate that had this pre-planned? Or, is it just simply determination on my part that got us back into contact? If so, WHY? I guess it doesn't really matter in the long run, and I feel blessed to be able to call her my good friend of 20+ years, even though there's been big spots of time where we didn't know each other or where we were at - but, it didn't matter. We came back together like puzzle pieces that were needed to fill in that field of flowers, just like in the picture on the box; 2 of 1,000. Impressive, isn't it? I think so.
I think about my friends, and people who used to be good friends but are now more or less stuck in the back of the closet behind the shoe boxes of old pictures...I know I can dig them out if I need them, if I think about them, and maybe we'll reconnect, maybe we won't and those pictures will go into storage. I think about my exes...people that I got involved with on a weekly, monthly or even yearly basis. I think about the ones that I know where they are but they want to have nothing to do with me - and I'm okay with that, too. If you don't feel like I fit into your life, so be it. No harm, no foul. I don't want you in my life if I'm not a fit for you, because obviously it wouldn't work.
My previous ex, of 9.5 years, (my previous ex...as opposed to my current ex? No, she's my current ex, LOL), my EX, we met when she was a mere 17...and I hate to admit it but I was 26. We were together for a good chunk of time, but things changed. I'll also freely tell you that I know things were changing, and not for the better. Things in my current relationship, by the way, are changing on a regular basis, but this is for the better - we are growing together, but my ex and I were not. We didn't see it until more time had passed as I think we both wanted it to work in some respect - we were, after all, the perfect lesbian couple. We were that couple. The one everyone looked up to, thought was amazing, etc., etc. Ya, not so amazing. Don't get me wrong, we didn't fight all the time or do anything wrong - we just didn't have much more going for us than the artificial front. Sad, but true. But, I digress...my ex and I got together, and we learned some things about each other - and it makes me wonder if Fate had a hand in that one, too. Or, reincarnation, maybe? Let me explain further...
When I met my ex, she refused to talk about WWII or the Holocaust or anything related to it - it freaked her out. Now, for most this wouldn't be an issue, but I, my darlings, I am one of those folks that is in love with Germanic Sociology from the WWII (mainly Hitler) era. I have a whole bookshelf (tall, Ikea bookshelf) of WWII books on these subjects (and some Genocide reading scattered in for good measure), I even have the entire Nuremberg Trials in paper form, including the books of evidence (which are just as big as the trials). **Side note, for anyone interested in this, a good chunk of the trials can be found here: Nuremberg Trials (Harvard Law)
One day, the Ex and I were sitting in a park downtown and talking about things...and I asked her, what was it about the whole WWII thing that freaked her out? She told me about something she'd always envisioned, and that freaked me out a little bit. For back story, I had always had this odd "vision", if you will, of a Nazi soldier talking to a young woman in a cell of some sort...that was about it - but it was more the feeling I got from it that always resonated with me. I don't recall if it came to me as a dream eons ago or what, but it had always been with me, and I just let that be, as well. I never talked to anyone about that, as it never seemed like something that people would "get" or understand...and I didn't want to come off like I was a "Nazi Sympathizer" from that time period, as that's far from the truth. That night, the Ex told me that she had this vision of a young woman who was in the throws of the Third Reich, she was in a prison cell, and a young Guard was being very sweet to her - making sure that she was okay...before he was called away. That's all she really could remember about it. Okay...freaky. I ask you, is this "reincarnation" at it's best? Is it her reading my mind? My reading hers (before we ever met), or simply Fate? Who knows...but, honestly I think from that moment on we both understood, somehow, that while we were together and seemingly happy, there was something underlying that shouldn't have kept us together - something wasn't quite right, and I know that I never really shook that feeling. It's like I was getting a second chance at fixing something - and, maybe I was. Maybe in a previous life I was that Nazi Guard...maybe she was that young woman? Who knows...I really don't, and can't say that I do, but I do know that we were thrown together in some way, shape or form as to connect, and we connected on another level - one that makes us interconnected even though now we rarely talk and we had a pretty rough breakup (I'm not surprised if you counter in this story, but it never really came up again).
This stuff just makes me think...and, the ex before "The Ex", who was my first long term relationship, that's another story but I'll say this...when we were "dating" or "courting" or whatever you'll call it, and I still lived in Oregon (I moved to Florida for this ex I speak of, as I didn't want her to have to move to Portland - she was young as well and it just didn't seem right to me to displace her, especially with such an amazing family), I was writing pieces at that time about a man named Mark, who lived in the Vietnam War. I almost felt possessed when writing these small pieces - I'd get them at random times and just be compelled to write them down...these thoughts. My ex was on the phone with me a few times these came to me, and being a writer herself she didn't think this was strange at all. I got a last name towards the end of these pieces. Mark is another story, and one I might share more in depth in the future, but suffice it to say, it was a huge piece of my writing history and a good year of my life. I met a Vietnam Vet at a job I was working once, who did a couple of tours and lived to tell about it, and I mentioned this writing to him - he said he'd love to see it so I brought him a copy. He told me the next day that he'd never read such compelling, and accurate, writing about the war in the sense that this was written. THAT was not only a compliment, but a truth - I never read Nam stuff, I was never that interested in it - sure, I'd seen Apocalypse Now, but I was only around 23, I didn't know enough about that part of history to really understand it...Mark was writing through me. Mark...I got his name, as I mentioned. One day, about a year after moving to FL, I came home and my ex had told me she found something for me on the Internet. It was a website with The Wall names and information on them. She found Mark, his full name. He was born/raised in Wisconsin, and in my story pieces Mark was from Illinois. He died in the War approximately a year before I was born. I wondered...could it be some past, or some piece from a past that my soul had hung onto before being brought into this world? Was reincarnation even possible? Is it selfish to think that we are our only true selves and that we don't re-process? I think there's got to be something to it...and, this brings me full circle to people in our lives. If dead people can touch you, then there's got to be something to people in the present day coming in and out of your life and having some sort of "fate" interacting with us...maybe Fate with a capital F is the best way to look at it. Some would call it God. Concrete Blonde would call it Love.
I'll leave this entry with a piece from Mark from 1999. Over the years I got a few more tidbits here and there - this was one of them, and I think probably the last:
"and if anyone shall ever forget what it meant to send their men to war, if anyone shall ever forget what it meant to leave their mothers, wives, children and parents alone, waiting by the phone, by the t.v. for some glimpse of possible returned death - for some hollow face to wave back at the cameras...wondering if your son would come back in a body bag...if anyone shall ever forget these erroneous ways of the world, these horrid manslaughter ideas that spouted upon the refuge of idealism that we turned upon ourselves with loaded guns - bullets flying - death mounting...if anyone shall ever forget let it be me, let it be my sacrificed ghost that walks upon the graveyards...like so many others, let it be me, please let it be me who forgets, the one who died, the one who's gone...the one who's writing."
-AA
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