I've thought a lot about what to say to this. I have thought about why someone would post this. I generally have thought a lot about things. First off, I would agree with you whole heartedly, I crave attention, negative attention or positive attention. Either one makes me feel a little more whole, a little more accepted by the group. I have been this way for quite a while, but yeah, Iraq has made me crave more attention and acceptance than before.
Why is that? Is it because I don't like what I see in my own eyes? Yeah, there are soldiers out there who have gone through more and there are some who have gone through less. Pity? Yeah, I would love some pity, I would love to make a million on my stupid donation link on the page, but of course that won't happen.
Pity? I also would reject your damn pity. Pretty two sided of me isn't it? I guess you should call me out on that too. I told someone I respect very much that regardless of what I am in my life, regardless of whether I am a good or bad person, regardless of whether I am rich or poor I want to be a good father. I have my issues, and YES they are huge. Heaven forbid whoever decides to be a friend to me in my life because they take no normal person, they take a piece of brokenness to befriend.
So you want to talk pity? Lets talk pity. I have pity, pity for those I have hurt and pity for those who are hurting from others. Lets play holier than thou. Ok, you win. Judge me. Find me guilty and fucking judge me.
Where to now? You going to find someone to carry out whichever sentence you see fit? Good luck with that. I know hurt, I know let down, I know pain and I know loss. Tell me about those things will ya?
So, maybe my readers thought I was some hurt lost soul who did no wrong. Ok, I want you all to know that I have done much wrong in my life. I have caused hurt and I have caused pain. I don't have any malice in my blood, but no, I am not innocent in what I have done and I have no special reasons or logic to make up for the wrong I have caused. I am just me. Zach. Take it or leave it.
10 comments:
Hey Zach, remember last Summer...when we all played mafia a few games too many and drank a few beers too many...remember when I had that blow out with that one guy...remember our talk after? It does take a lot to admit our faults publicly. It's hard, scary, it bends our pride all out of shape, but it's also necessary if you are someone who wants to grow and change and be healed. I've been thinking of you a lot and am very thankful that you wrote this. I've found myself wondering about your "donation" button. I've also been wondering how you've been. This post shows me that you're okay. You're willing to be honest with yourself and honest with the people who have developed a relationship with you through this public forum. You're willing to be vulnerable because, like we talked about, you understand that's what it takes; whether it's to be a "bigger person" or grow or change or heal or all of the above. You're there. Keep working it out for yourself. Remember the people in your life who know you and love you. Remember who you want to be to those people and especially your kids. Pray, keep being honest with yourself, but also be freed by that grace only God can give. Love you friend.
Is it Iraq? is it your addiction to alcohol? Is it both?
Zachary--with the sincerest apology to you only for maybe the tone that came out of my posts, I also want to say this is all I wanted...to awaken your reflective side again. It seemed as though you began to float in a shallow pool aimlessly toward something destructive--to you and those around you. It wasn't to force you to be descriptive and explicit about specific mistakes. But to awaken you once again and encourage some realization [in that what you've lost in yourself would continue to grow only more]. It sometimes takes "tough love" and, quite honestly, conflict to accomplish that--to gain responsiveness to a situation. Sorry if it angered you, but I'm glad it awakened your thoughts. I never meant to discount your service or even your disturbances as a result of that. I do understand the process of PTSD and I equally understand the importance of facing things head on in order to be able to put them fully behind you, and if not fully, enough to function the most normal and happy as possible.
Stirring things up a bit...it can sometimes cure stagnation and promote proaction. I'm glad that if even in the least, you got it. And you did, because you thought about it and was able to reflect. Had I been more elusive, you might have not given any of it much thought. Admittance and acceptance is a part of the healing process. And while some disagree this was not the place to do it, I believe it was the one place it might actually be heard. Best of luck to you and I hope you can continue to let your mind turn around things that will only improve your life and enrich it.
Tuff love...stirring things up a bit...bull shiat. The term I'd use is kicking a man when he's down. Unless you have your degree in PTSD treatment updated in 2008 then leave the therapy to the professionals. & to do the unconsionalble act of kicking a brother in his forum for all the world & his brothers to see frankly smacks of someone with issues himself. Sometimes all a guy needs is a nod of the head to know his buddies understand or a full blown "man hug" to show we understand [not held too long because that would be gay] & we're glad each other is still alive & healing. Anyway, I've got my eye on you buddy & to quote someone we know & respect, don't make me stop this truck.
Buzzy
Tough words Zach, but don't be so hard on yourself, we all have stuff to deal with and you more than most. Take it one day at time and deal.
Get back to your writing, you are such a great writer and it would be a shame to waste that. Your posts from the war have always stayed with me and had me coming back time and time again. Take care!
Bytw, my motto is "It is what it is" and if you keep repeating that then that helps you in moving on....
Things fall apart, but there are connections that will always be there and that is why if you ever need me you can call and I'll be there, hell or high water.
You know that already though, and I love you for knowing that, no words need to be spoken about it anymore.
I know you'd rescue me if I needed rescuing, understand me if I needed understanding, help put me back together if I was broken. I am not sure exactly sure how this happened but I also know I wouldn't change a thing.
I like that there is understanding that happens out of nowhere and that the real world would barely even know that we are friends.
"Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength"
Zach, I hope you haven't been too bothered by that comment though I'm sure you have been. People who sincerely want to help don't make anonymous accusations in public forums... they don't play with your head. I'm guessing there are other motives behind their post. I'm sure there are a lot of things you don't share about yourself here and you shouldn't. We all present the face to the world we are most comfortable with. You, like me, and even like the anonymous commenter, are all works in progress and none of us has the right to judge. I just hope the next time they have a concern about your life, they will find the balls to talk to you privately, face to face instead of in this forum.
Hey "Anonymous said"
I'm in no mood to be diplomatic nor tactful.
You're a piece of Shit, a Coward, a Liar & without doubt a sick Freak who has an Axe to grind with Zach or perhaps just People who've achieved in their lives by merely doing their jobs a level of unwanted heroism a word they tolerate hearing from we won simply can't call them anything less, with their teeth gritted for embarrassment of it you moron, not basking in it. To a Man or Woman, they HATE that word. But you must eat your liver watching someone who is living under such circumstances and getting this attention that I'm guessing you for some perverse reason envy.
If I had you by the scruff of your neck right now. I'd be choking you blue for a laundry list of what it is you've done to come to any person's blog, not exactly just any or completely public forum unless you're very new to or clueless to the alternate universe that is the Internet.
Only a typical stalking Freak, a "Hater" or a stupid Kid would go on any long established blog & throw graffiti on it under the veil of the cowardly moniker "Anonymous" behind which you hide cowering yet smarmy in your unctuous & phony excuse of concern for Zach which is enormously belied by your harping on the fact that you "wonder" about there being a Donate Button on the blog. You're an Imbecile!
There has for a very long time been a widely written, talked about & clearly understood standard of etiquette. "Internet Etiquette" by those who frequent & those for whom the Internet is a familiar place where they spend a large portion of their life & you my dear boneheaded fool have given one & all a glaring example of an egregious breach of that etiquette.
If you are ignorant of that fact & of the points of the Internet etiquette to which I refer then I would say you deserve only the slightest, minimal pass but as I call you out with no doubt of being wrong as being full of crap in your claim in your last pathetically transparently lame entry...or rather stain on this blog's comments section.
Essentially what I'm saying is that I'm thinking perhaps you're an older person. I myself am in my forties, a late Baby Boomer & I know that largely only my parent's generation. People in their late 60's & older. It's understandable that those may be & are usually those who've pushed themselves to learn the technology of the Internet but are too old, disinterested & simply by happenstance of age not always mindful of tact in such settings as they would know to be in physical face to face settings but naturally, uninterested in the pop culture aspect that is so integral to all things Internet, understandably not likely in the cultural loop to get "it", to understand that you just can't grasp the finesse of what is & is not "cool" to do in any public Internet forum where you are essentially dropping in on a person's open yard party.
Merely because it's "Open House" & that there were no rules or dress code published on invitations that you did or did not get, is not a statement of an open invitation to walk in, look the host up & down & in a loud, obnoxious, tactless & most off all boorish manner give your loud, crass, unsolicited opinion of the state of the Host's life. Were this indeed a public party in the physical world inhabited by any decent caring men let alone any who've walked in shoes similar to Zach's...you would be on your way to a hospital black, blue & bleeding.
If you've known Zach all your life & have had an up & down or tumultuous relationship or one during which he's either frequently or occasionally hurt your feelings, neglected your relationship, failed in your eyes to keep a satisfactory level of two sided balance of give & take in your relationship.
Were all that the case here; You would, in my opinion be an even bigger Ass then I actually first thought. But at least just an Ass for airing the dirty laundry of a real relationship between you & one about whom you supposedly care.
Rather, what you are is a completely, socially & morally clueless Slob.
I'm taking a guess that in all relationships of your life, in all circles where your presence is tolerated, you are the dreaded Blowhard who never knows when to just stay out of a discussion because you really don't know what everyone is talking about or really have anything of interest to add or that is germane to the discussion. The kind of guy who walks up to a group & instantly causes it to disperse in all directions.
The guy who thinks that because he's standing there must grace the discourse with his completely obtuse, irrelevant & utterly inappropriate gas propelled two cents [which in your case would be two fifths of a rotten wooden nickel].
Now I presume that you're unaware that most blogs no matter what the financial standing of the owner has a "Donate" button, you JACKASS.
That includes those of professional Journalists, Politicians who are not running for anything but just keeping a courtesy, community blog for their those who would like to keep up with what they are up to.
Celebrities nearly ALL utilize the ubiquitous (LOOK IT UP!) Donate button. I can assure you they're not using it to collect for charity unless they indicate it. When they are they're sure to post the fact.
IT COSTS MONEY TO OWN A BLOG DOMAIN YOU ASSHOLE! GOD FUCK YOU! You stupid Son of a Bitch!
I don't have the presence of mind to maintain my own blog aside from the idiot proof Facebook page. I'm too fucking busy trying to find a home in a world where assholes like you say "Tough luck, You're not the only homeless person on earth who's got a terminal illness, suck it up & don't go on-line whining & seeking attention. DOH! I just did. Damn. There now pick on me. Just make real sure to stay anonymous you Cocksucker.
If you ever find that one of your testicles drops low enough [Oh I'm presuming you have one] to come out from the bushes of "Anonymous" you can write & ask me for a list of blogs longer than your pea brain could ever concentrate long enough to read, all of which have a fucking Donate button! You Bottom feeding Son of a Hog.
Perhaps Zach should look into moving his button to a place where it can't be seen. Oh shit now I'm sounding as stupid as YOU!
What this is really about however is, You know Zach & Zack knows you. OR you've been a Reader/Stalker & perhaps you actually have enough gray matter to know that you've made a complete Ass of yourself, advertised to one and all here what a completely insensitive, bloviating, tactless Boor you are so now you come up with this;
"Ah...there! You see my dear friend Zach. I accomplished just what I set out to. I wasn't being an insensitive Boob, no no! I was merely doing it to get your attention & shake you up for your own good Son. No, no please get up, no need to kiss the hem of my pants in gratitude Zachary. It came from my heart, from my uncontrollably magnanimous nature. Merely to save you from your self indulgent life of passive self indulgence. You are most welcome my dear close "friend", tut tut".
You big bag sack of sewage! Go whistle up a rope. Not only do you insult him you rub the faces of us all in your crap. Spare us & catch the next big wind out.
Up an Alley you little shrew before someone finds out who you are & shoves your head up your ass so it gets a tad closer to your brain...stem. Whatever it is you're getting by on.
I have known a broader span of classes & types of people from the lowest shadows of humanity to some of the most famous.
I worked with people all my life & I have always been a person who ends up everyone's sounding board & free psychologist.
I come from such a heinously vicious & sick family while having been blessed to be warmly enveloped into all sorts of fine, decent ones from the average to the exceptional and I am more than averagely intuitive & I am positively sure of this;
The faults & character flaws, the, I'm betting little, wrongs committed & perfectly common acts of a sometimes flawed person I.E. a HUMAN with it's natural imperfections that you have now made Zachary sit & dwell upon due to his innate drive to be hard on himself now has blown up perfectly natural quirks & character flaws that no one in his boots could be free of short of Gandhi or the Dali Lama.
Those things so nearly meaningless to anyone but his immediate family & oldest & dearest friends who's lives are directly affected by his well being or lack there of.
I'd bet there's little more he needs to work on that any but the most boringly quiet, dull & inevitably most bland, over grown Alter Boy types who may never offend but also never be exactly be at the top of anyone's partly list for fun, good times & an occasional two or four too many beers fueled antics.
I could kill you for making him ponder the need to pour more salt on his self inflicted wounds. Correction. His Criminal Bush Administration assigned wounds
Damn you & anyone who lectures him or any GI unless you've been where they've been forced under threat of court martial, forced to do, what it is that now weighs down their spirits with guilt they have no business even faintly lingering upon.
You dirt bag. Go away! Please let your fumes be sucked through the cracks in the walls through which they seeped.
He is doing job one. Being a better Father to his two small children clearly as well or better than most single fathers who've never had a more traumatic event in life than a flat tire on the way to the office.
Above all I'm sure better than whatever any Troll like you, who'd even bother to lurk around the blog of a Veteran who's seen combat to lecture him with your unwanted exhaust fumes.
He is holding down a job. Are you? I'm not...Oh wait I'm not the one criticizing his progress.
Any progress he makes, which I truly believe he is not that it's any of my business besides wishing him well but he won't if he keeps reading crap like that which you spew & listening to idiots like you & the hand wringing sob sisters all over the world of the Internet & Media who try, spinning their wheels, to make our young Veterans think that everything in their lives that is not the picture of a perfect home life the likes of which only exists in fiction, must mean they are more damaged by the after effects of war rather than what is more likely.
Normal, painfully thoughtful & sensitive human beings who don't yet get it that it wasn't even them over "there" at war, making the memories that now haunt them.
They where the bought & paid gloves on the filthy hands of criminal politicians & a traitorous President, Vice President & their inept pack of thieves squirreling away the spoils of war for when they escaped after raping a few countries especially our own then absconded sure that they won't be dragged back in shackles...so far. Though there are many of us who are still working on that and won't quit until those in a restored government under a legally elected President if & when we decide we can if ever trust them.
When you've been used as like these young men & women have their healing is going to be & probably, to be thorough & complete, should be a slow process of trying to figure out how to forgive themselves for things they didn't really do & the necessary forgetting or at least packing away on the highest shelf in the very back of the mental closet the images they must stop re-running in their minds & somehow stop from entering their dreams...I think that takes a little while. Along with feeling like you're old self ready to just jump up & join a party any old time based on how others tell you to feel.
Like all people who have, by virtue of their commitment to duty be they police who have had to kill more than once, or Firefighters who have had to, many times make the decision to not go back into a falling building before standing down knowing that someone was going to die because of it. They would be missing a serious gene of conscience if they just got over it. Sorry if that's not good enough for you. But then you're clearly a shithead. So...I will get over that
Zach will fine. He will be a better Man for having seen what he has, done what he has & had the conscience to erroneously try to punish himself for everything.
And he will be fine not because of people like you but despite people like you.
I curse you and all that you touch for your coming to a man's "home", not only embarrassing him in front of his friends for merely letting it be known that it would be "cool" with him if any one wants to "BYOB" which is all it means to have a donate button on ALL websites & blogs.
If I didn't care to stand up for someone who has more tact & restraint than I so therefore chose to waste an entire evening of my time trying yet again to hammer your head if not with knowledge then in my fantasies into a bloody pile of skin & skull fragments.
What I wouldn't give to have you alone in a room with a baseball bat you Cockroach.
Now go find that crack you seeped in through, blow away & stay away with your foul breath full of lies, jealousy & hate. Go before someone exterminates you.
Jerry,
Well that's another missive for my gouge book. Guy musta really pissed you off. Sure all of us appreciate your passion in our defense [know I do] but as amazing as freedom of speech is, it cuts both ways & we understand that not every moonbat in the world is on our side, which is fine, it's part of what makes the USA tick & @ times xciting. Xciting is good but this isn't 1 of those times. Tuff to confront somebody that lurks in the shadows & won't give his/her name & operates in "insurgent mode", there are all forms of terrorists out there that like to knock a hero like ole Zachy off his pedestal.....Anyway, life goes on. This isn't a perfect world, where everyone is an honest trustworthy loyal boyscout & if nothing else has come of this, some of us realize & are honored by the fact that we have some passionate frinds out there that we've never met. We'll be ok, we've been tempered by worse things than this but it's time to stop letting this lurker waste everyone's time.
Thank you & now back the daily grind of routine.
Buzzy
what do you do for work? is it a stressful job?
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