Where the Fault Lies

"For all the modern banter about America being a Christian nation, there is not, nor can there be a nation that follows the actual teachings of Jesus Christ. It would have no army, no police, and no one would own property." 



From a review of Armstrong's latest book, Fields of Blood, by John Coats in Consequence Magazine.

“Somehow, we have to find ways of doing what religion—at its best—has done for centuries: build a sense of global community, cultivate a sense of reverence and ‘equanimity’ for all, and take responsibility for the suffering we see in the world. We are all, religious and secular alike, responsible for the current predicament of the world…The scapegoat ritual was an attempt to sever the community’s relationship with its misdeeds; it cannot be a solution for us today.”

Revealing the Trauma of War

More masks and stories at: Healing Soldiers from National Geographic

War Ink

Veterans revealing stories and witness of war through their tattoos. Check out the interactive website at: http://www.warink.org/

Read the complete story here: War Ink on PBS

Watch the YouTube film:

Then & Now

"Remember My Forgotten Man" -  Gold Diggers of 1933 

I don't know if he deserves a bit of sympathy
Forget your sympathy, that's all right with me
I was satisfied to drift along from day to day
Till they came and took my man away

Remember my forgotten man
You put a rifle in his hand
You sent him far away
You shouted: "Hip-hooray!"
But look at him today

Remember my forgotten man
You had him cultivate the land
He walked behind the plow
The sweat fell from his brow
But look at him right now

And once, he used to love me
I was happy then
He used to take care of me
Won't you bring him back again?
'Cause ever since the world began
A woman's got to have a man
Forgetting him, you see
Means you're forgetting me
Like my forgotten man

"Time To Go Home" - Michael Franti & Spearhead, Yell Fire, 2007

Those who start wars, never fight them
And those who fight wars, they never like them
And those who write laws, can recite them
And those who fight laws, they live and die by them

But I know its time
Yes I know its time
It's time to go home
It's time to go home
It's time to go home
It's time to go home

Don't take our boys away
Don't take our girls away
Don't take our boys away
Don't take our girls away

Those who build walls are pretending
That forever they can defend them
Those who dam streams can build fountains
Those of us who just let them run free
Can move mountains

But I know its time
Yes I know its time
It's time to go home
It's time to go home
It's time to go home
It's time to go home

And I say, you whoooo
You whoooo who who who, you whoooo who who who

Doves fly by in the morning light
Leaves fall down on a passer by
Phone call comes and a mamma cries
Tears stream down from a daddy's eyes
Tears stream down from a daddy's eyes

But I know its time
Yes I know its time
It's time to go home
It's time to go home
It's time to go home
It's time to go home

"Light Up Ya Lighter" - Michael Franti & Spearhead, Yell Fire, 2007

It never makes no sense
It never makes no sense
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

Armageddon is a deadly day
Armageddon is a deadly way
They comin for you everyday
While senators on holiday

The army recruiters in the parking lot
Hustling kids there jugglin pot
Listen, young man, listen to my plan
Gonna make you money, gonna make you a man
Bom bom here's what you get... an M-16 and a kevlar vest
You might come home with one less leg but this thing will surely keep a bullet out your chest

So, come on, come on, sign up, come on
This one's nothing like Vietnam
Except for the bullets, except for the bombs, except for the youth that's gone

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

Tell me, President, tell me if you will
How many people does a smart bomb kill?
How many of 'em do you think we got?
The general says we never miss a shot
And we never ever ever keep a body count
We killin so efficiently, we can't keep count
In the Afghan hills, the rebels still fightin
Opium fields keep providin

The best heroin that money can buy and
Nobody knows where Osama been hidin
The press confrences keep on lyin
Like we don't know

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

Some say engine, engine number nine
Machine guns on a New York transit line
The war for oil is a war for the beast
The war on terror is a war on peace
Tellin you they're gonna protect you and
Tellin you that they support the troops

And don't let them fool you with their milk and honey
No, they only want your money

One step forward and two steps back
One step forward and two steps back
Why do veterans get no respect
PTSD and a broken back

Take a look at where your money's gone seen
Take a look at what they spend it on
No excuses, no illusions
Light up ya lighter, bring it home

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

So we keep it on 'til ya comin' home
Higher and higher
Fire, fire, fire, light up ya lighter, fire, fire, fire

Fire, fire, fire, yeah, you know, so light up ya lighter
Fire, fire, fire, fire, no, light up ya lighter

This Ain't Iraq

Sad and frustrated. 

~~~~~

You are right, this is not Iraq.

But this is,

And this,

 And this,

And sadly, sometimes this.

Photos taken during my 15 month deployment from 2006 to 2007.

on Fear

" . . . fear is squeezed out because of lack of space, that slow-motion sense that comes with peril is so vast and can no longer be grasped and so, however briefly, it fades from consciousness. It is the drug of the  combat zone. (142)"

From Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family
by Charles Bowden












"Fear actually can become much more of a problem for a warrior after coming home that it is in the war zone. The fear signal, which becomes almost a sixth sense in the combat environment, and which the warrior learns to trust implicitly for survival, can remain on high alert back home, where there is no longer the same need for it. . . . In the military, terms like fear and helplessness mean very different things than they do in civilian environments. (26)"

From Once a Warrior Always A Warrior
by Charles W. Hogue, MD, Colonel (Ret.), U.S. Army 

3rd Semester Reading List

Well, third semester's in the bag. Here's what I read:

1. A Good Man is Hard to Find & Other Stories by Flannery O’ Connor
2. Collected Short Stories of (by) Anton Chekov
3. Letting Loose the Hounds: Stories by Brady Udall
4. The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek
5. Emperor of the Air by Ethan Canin
6. The Pugilist at Rest: Stories by Thom Jones
7. The Night in Question: Stories by Tobias Wolff
8. Collected Works (Eleven Kinds of Loneliness) by Richard Yates
9. The Night in Question: Stories by Tobias Wolff
10. Miracle Boy and Other Stories by Pinckney Benedict
11. first, body by Melanie Rae Thon
12. At the Jim Bridger by Ron Carlson
13. Airships by Barry Hannah
14. Sometimes a Great Notion by Ken Kesey
15. Give Us a Kiss by Daniel Woodrell
16. Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
17. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson
18. In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
19. The Sojourn by Andrew Krivak
20. The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
21. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders
22. All That Is by James Salter
23. If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien
24. Black Virgin Mountain: A Return to Vietnam by Larry Heinemann
25. Dust to Dust: A Memoir by Benjamin Busch
26. The Long Walk by Brian Castner
27. Odysseus in America by Jonathan Shay
28. Once a Warrior, Always a Warrior by Charles Hoge

Surprises:

first, body was recommended to me by my advisor. If you like'd Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son, you'll like this. Both collection's character's dwell in the same dark places of society, but deserve to be heard, and heard with a sense of lyrical urgency.

The Pugilist at Rest. I can only describe this as being punched in the face and liking it. Shit, loving it.

The Sojourn--a 2011 National Book Award Finalist--is a spectacular (though often tragic) tale of a shepherd boy/man rising from Austria-Hungry in the midst of World War I, becoming a semi-famed sharpshooter then perilously falling from grace and struggling like everyone else to survive the "meat grinder," only to find that the months following the war could still be the hardest yet to live. Read it, you won't be sorry.