(no subject)
We stood formation for forty minutes while the chief of staff read out the career of Col. De C. He has finally packed his desk as so many others have. I said good-bye in classic army fasion to my friend, Master Sergeant D, who is heading off to run security at an African embassy. Standing formation means not locking your knees. It is curious, but you will fall down after a certain time if you do. The G2 section's doors are left open to the breezes. Annotated maps of Afghanistan and the northern frontiers rattle and spin of their own volition.
But the week before, how we looked alive. I gave my brief smartly in spite of the sabotage of a nasty little lance corporal running the computer. He does not respond "yes" when you ask him if he can help. "Affirmative," is how the lance corporal says yes. I went just after a colonel invited down from the doctrine center. He put up all the old tactical diagrams and filled us in. Again. Three batallion commanders just back from lafganistan told of how long it took to shuck the notion of being victimized after the famous ambush that was fought last summer. I messed with one of them to hear what he had to say about the special teams. I can't give you the unit designation--not that you would find public acknowledgement of it if I did--but, translating liberally, he confirmed that they were eliminating enemy leadership at the speed of shit going through a goose. What has changed in me that I do not flinch when he flipped through the kill photos. Anyway, my own brief was much more sunny than this bit of grim. No kills but maps of ethnolinguistic groups. A rallying cry to get them to learn the languages. Last week, I ran two miles in thirteen minutes.
Colonel De C. had made the last combat jump back in the seventies. He had served on a mountaneering expedition while a young captain. We are twenty minutes in. Which map would you rather have? I asked. The topographic one? The ethnolinguistic one? They bought in but not the commanding general. He looks tired by the approach. I have some sympathy for this man, a stone warrior if there ever was one. He feels the ground under him shifting. As do I. In Yugoslavia Major De C held his bridge and evacuated the civilians. And the tendril that chilled my inbox so many months ago is beginning to beckon again. How far, I asked, are you willing to trust your interpreters? How hard, I asked, can we train? My god, the photos. They were awful but the wounds the bodies bore were clean and there certainly was no slowness about their departure.
Lately, I've taken to drinking water out of my "Shit Happens" coffee cup. I stare out the window out at our comms antenna which hisses and signs with satellite code. I'm not far from a sink. I refill and listen to the hiss. We live within line of sight of the antenna and I watch it during storms. I count the strikes and wonders what happens to the code coming off the satellite in that moment. I was watching it the night before we had news of the high valley ambush. And I watch it now wondering where I will be in six months. Will I shed my skin again? Go from the old woodland pattern to the new digital one? Lt Col De C led his batallion into the first armored battle since World War Two. Thirty five minutes in they decorate the sergeants. I can crank out fifty push-ups, no problem.
I have a letter to write. I have a conversation to have. I will file my maps away so S doesn't have to see them. I will deposit enough money for a year in another account. I have an appointment at a pistol range in Houston, another with the eye surgeon in Fort Worth. A stack of forms. If only one goes unsigned I stay home, safe. Slides taken from the summit of the peak above Kapisa. Six languages ray out from there. Master Sergeant D invites us to the embassy party--perhaps my leave will fall on Bastille Day and S an I can be ruinited in, say, Nairobi. Gentlemen, I said, this won't be over until there is no further need of the interpreters. My god the blue. You could whisper in the ear of your lover from four thousand miles away, it is so clear. Or so I say. So full of love and blood. Forty minutes to hear a career. Yesterday, I held her hand at twilight and we walked out onto a wide lawn busy with rabbits.
But the week before, how we looked alive. I gave my brief smartly in spite of the sabotage of a nasty little lance corporal running the computer. He does not respond "yes" when you ask him if he can help. "Affirmative," is how the lance corporal says yes. I went just after a colonel invited down from the doctrine center. He put up all the old tactical diagrams and filled us in. Again. Three batallion commanders just back from lafganistan told of how long it took to shuck the notion of being victimized after the famous ambush that was fought last summer. I messed with one of them to hear what he had to say about the special teams. I can't give you the unit designation--not that you would find public acknowledgement of it if I did--but, translating liberally, he confirmed that they were eliminating enemy leadership at the speed of shit going through a goose. What has changed in me that I do not flinch when he flipped through the kill photos. Anyway, my own brief was much more sunny than this bit of grim. No kills but maps of ethnolinguistic groups. A rallying cry to get them to learn the languages. Last week, I ran two miles in thirteen minutes.
Colonel De C. had made the last combat jump back in the seventies. He had served on a mountaneering expedition while a young captain. We are twenty minutes in. Which map would you rather have? I asked. The topographic one? The ethnolinguistic one? They bought in but not the commanding general. He looks tired by the approach. I have some sympathy for this man, a stone warrior if there ever was one. He feels the ground under him shifting. As do I. In Yugoslavia Major De C held his bridge and evacuated the civilians. And the tendril that chilled my inbox so many months ago is beginning to beckon again. How far, I asked, are you willing to trust your interpreters? How hard, I asked, can we train? My god, the photos. They were awful but the wounds the bodies bore were clean and there certainly was no slowness about their departure.
Lately, I've taken to drinking water out of my "Shit Happens" coffee cup. I stare out the window out at our comms antenna which hisses and signs with satellite code. I'm not far from a sink. I refill and listen to the hiss. We live within line of sight of the antenna and I watch it during storms. I count the strikes and wonders what happens to the code coming off the satellite in that moment. I was watching it the night before we had news of the high valley ambush. And I watch it now wondering where I will be in six months. Will I shed my skin again? Go from the old woodland pattern to the new digital one? Lt Col De C led his batallion into the first armored battle since World War Two. Thirty five minutes in they decorate the sergeants. I can crank out fifty push-ups, no problem.
I have a letter to write. I have a conversation to have. I will file my maps away so S doesn't have to see them. I will deposit enough money for a year in another account. I have an appointment at a pistol range in Houston, another with the eye surgeon in Fort Worth. A stack of forms. If only one goes unsigned I stay home, safe. Slides taken from the summit of the peak above Kapisa. Six languages ray out from there. Master Sergeant D invites us to the embassy party--perhaps my leave will fall on Bastille Day and S an I can be ruinited in, say, Nairobi. Gentlemen, I said, this won't be over until there is no further need of the interpreters. My god the blue. You could whisper in the ear of your lover from four thousand miles away, it is so clear. Or so I say. So full of love and blood. Forty minutes to hear a career. Yesterday, I held her hand at twilight and we walked out onto a wide lawn busy with rabbits.