Summer Reading

I recently found out that my blog has been assigned reading for junior in high school English homework.

I was asked the question by a student the following in an email:

"What do you feel is the driving emotion behind the blog entries and why?" I felt that you felt guilty for killing so many people and devastating their families, while also feeling guilty for leaving yours at home. But truly I would like to know what was your driving emotion behind these blogs"


I thought I would share my response since I haven't written here for some time. I took a bit and reflected on why I did write so much...

Hello XXXXXX,

I am glad that you found my writing interesting. It is an odd feeling to have your experiences and writing read as summer homework but I am honored all the same. As to your question regarding my driving emotions behind my blog entries...

You mentioned guilt for the death I have caused. I suppose that there is guilt there, but if I had to go back I probably would have made many of the same choices. It is war and in war you fight or you die. you return fire or you are killed. That is the black and white of it, I am simplifying things a bit, there are so many gray areas because of the cities, the civilians and such but you still must understand that aspect.

When you do have to go to war, however. When you do have to kill or witness death and sorrow. When you can't look away because it is a child who was killed and you are the only one who speaks Arabic and must go comfort the family who just lost their little boy. Those memories seep into your soul. I began to dream about those things all the time. You see I have what is called PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It is what happens when you have seen or experienced something so traumatic that you mind has a very difficult time dealing with it. There are many symptoms (nightmares, insomnia, hyper-alertness...) I chose to write about those events. For me it
was my attempts to put my daemons to rest. I still can't sleep very well and I think back to those days often, especially the day I had to see the boy killed.

I don't really know what else to tell you. Take care XXXXXX

Zach

New post

I have a new post over at www.nevadog.com

From Poland For Valentine's Day

A reader of my blog and also a VERY talented photographer (see link) would like to wish all of you a happy Valentine's Day

Motorcycle Wreck

So, I got a new bike, it was a 2007 Honda 919. Were you sharp enough to notice the 'was'? Yeah, I also got into a wreck with it. Gravel and curvy roads don't mix, I am ok, my knee is a little bloody but other than that I am good. My helmet and armored jacket saved me from some major damage and just might have saved my life. Both took a beating. I had on my boots and gloves as well. I was drug for a bit then thrown from my bike when it hit the curb, did one or 2 somersaults (not sure on the exact number). My insurance company determined that the bike was a total loss. Yeah, 5 days after getting her... I suppose some of you are like, yeah, that happened to me once, and others are probably calling me an idiot. There was no excessive speed involved, just gravel strewn across the road where trucks had been entering the main road from a construction site, the gravel (it was night) and the curve did me in.

There wasn't any need for medical care or anything, but what I wished I had known was about gap insurance (yeah, I didn't even know what that was). Apparently it covers that difference in what you pay for a new vehicle (in my case my Honda motorcycle) and the depreciation that happens when you drive that vehicle off the lot.

So... I'm out about $1000. I know you probably will think I'm a jerk for this, but if anyone feels like donating for my cause I'd be grateful. If you don't donate I'm ok with that too, but please keep visiting me on my site, I do love the hits. Those of you who know me personally know of the other thing I am going through as well, so you know how much every bit helps (See 'A fork in the road' for an idea). All that being said, if you feel like donating just click on that Pay Pal donation button to the right of this (you might have to scroll up just a little).

Oh, and yes, that was the bike (just below this post)... She sure did look good didn't she...

My life as a Metaphor

My life is a metaphor for something, I just don't know what that metaphor is... Swirling and floating along all the while connected through the type of work I do. Drifting from one experience to the next. I'd be lying if I told you that I was hitting every high along the way, lows are as frequent during my journey as those beautiful cliff top peaks. You have to learn to find beauty in that darkness as well, the darkness of those valleys.

Even the lowest marshlands serve their purpose. Looking out the window I see multiple worlds staring back. My eyes are one pane of that realm, a window (mostly one sided) from my head to the physical world. I sit in front of an actual window right now, looking at a homeless man sitting on a bench down there by the road. His world and mine are miles apart however right now unbeknown to him we are sharing something even if it is only one way in a voyeuristic sense to me and he is unknowing in his role.

Next comes the life around me, the people colliding in their words, their bodies, and their thoughts. Some collisions bring union as one person finds a connection with one another. Others bring conflict as personalities clash over things that are mostly nonexistent. Mere thoughts in one's head, inflections of the voice and the posture of the body.

I play a game in times like this. My head harbors secret thoughts about those around me, ideas and stories about who they are and what kind of life they live. That man alone at the end of the bar, he keeps checking his phone, texting with someone and drinking his beer oblivious to the game going on next to him. He appears as lonely as I feel right now.

The three friends at the bar next to him look like they are mixing the secrets to the universe with the friendly banter of the young. They stack their empty glasses into pyramids and look serious as they try to hold back their smiles, the smiles of the young and naive who (as I said before) believe they know some secret to the universe. I know this because I too once believed I knew that wise bit of knowledge which seems so allusive to most adults. It is merely the ideas of youth. Age and experience bring wisdom. I have seen 20 year old men in Iraq who have lived lives more tattered and worn than old men I had met.

My thoughts for today, take them with a grain of salt or take them to heart...

Eyes

In my head are swirling memories and thoughts, things that I cover up with my charisma and my freakishly large ego. People look at me and figure I am an ass hole or someone who is amazing to hang out with. Little do they know that in my head I harbor secrets that scare even me, the keeper of them. Secrets about how I feel about myself, secrets about what kind of person I see in the mirror when I open my eyes and actually look at myself...

Go ahead all of you who have read my blog and decided that I am someone you'd like to meet, tell me how wrong I am, or how I'm a good person, but you are not me, you don't really know what is in my head or what my eyes have seen. I write and tell you of the things I have done, of the death I have born witness to and of the death I have caused. I feel no shame for my actions, regret for some, but shame? No. For that I may burn in hell, and perhaps I deserve to, but fuck anyone who dares judge me.

When I look in the mirror I see the cold dark eyes that I use to mask my thoughts, or at other times I see those warm friendly eyes that belong to a handsome man who is a good father and a good provider. Regardless of those eyes, I know what lies behind them... Maybe I look at my eyes to make sure that they are opaque, that none of you (those who know me, or those who read my writing) will ever see even a glimpse of what lies behind them. I do not like looking into my eyes. It makes me sad to see what is behind them. I pull my slight of hand with those in my life so that they are focusing on the carefree unembarrassed fun individual I bring to them, as opposed to the monster or the hurt soul with all of it's cracks and wounds. A soul that is amazing to me because of the fact that it is even there at all.

My soul... My inner being, that is so flawed that I don't even know what to say. I can tell you all of this because I still do not lead on as to what is behind my eyes. I merely tell you the symptom of it all. So... My soul, it was once some marble statue created by God to be a beautiful form of man. What I have now is a cracked thing who's glory has long since passed. An unpolished broken and deformed version of what you have inside of yourself.

My soul is strong, yes, behind all those cracks and behind exactly how horrid it is, it still maintains its strength. It is like the scars on a shark. They were all wounds that have healed, and while the body is a disgusting mass of healed flesh the shark is more powerful because of its wounds. Each one of those brutal lacerations have taught it a lesson and it is where it's at because of them.

I am that shark. Judge me if you will, I may even deserve it, but I will always hold my head high, I will not ever let you in. As I said before, behind my eyes are things that can still make me cry, those things are only for me to see; even then they belong hidden away from all but the deepest chasms of my memory.

Stream Of Conscious

The sum of my existence is not Iraq. It was simply one of the most influential experiences I have had. I must do better about being a good father and husband and I hope and pray that I’ll do well speaking this weekend at Randolph-Macon College in VA.

Life can not remain always in the past however when one becomes a soldier, a warrior, then perhaps that is all they know. Taking life and seeing death changes you; no longer do you fit in with civilian society. Police officers who shoot someone are placed on leave while soldiers on the other hand are commended and encouraged to become better at it. That change is why I think we feel so out of place when we get home. On some level we remain in that place of war trapped by our memories and their stubborn refusal to accept that we are once again in a safe place. That we are once again home.

New and Old Thoughts

Slowly I assessed the situation; my gun was near and I know that it can feel so nice having that cold lethal steel pressed against your body, reminiscent of war in desolate sorrowful places where things seem to only become broken. In THAT place my body was perfect, my mind was not however, it was bitter and un-amused with the daily carnage of ‘peace keeping operations’. Money is nice but the purity of thought can become even more addicting especially when you know you could die in the next instant.

That rare rain becomes so beautiful to you because of its simplicity as it brings life to such a dead place. The sun both harsh and incredible shines unrelenting on you and your bristling weapons as you ride under it with the thoughts rattling around your head of your own death or that of another.

There are times when I feel broken from my experiences, times when I can’t conveniently sweep them into that black hole inside me where I send memories to be buried for a while. For some reason they always resurface and with them my retrospection brings both immaculate recreations of war as well as regret and a sick longing for a place where people like me can be. A place where you could die and where it would be so far away that even the land you live and walk on feels like it want’s your blood.

Some times I remember only colors. Then there are things like a night with another soldier who I have long forgotten, we sit and drink a beer we bought on the black market during a trip to Baghdad from our home in Falloujah. I talk about my family and children as he talks of his. This soldier whom I have forgotten, I make him a promise that we will get our families together, he is from another unit, but in war we were brothers. As we get home I hug my children and he searches the crowd of family members for his wife and kids. His kids he sees, they are with his mother. His wife has left him and his kids as well. We never have that promised barbeque and we are no longer brothers because his loss reminds him of that hot Iraqi night drinking Egyptian beer with me.

Those empty promises add up and in my head I find myself remembering them and tallying them up as defeats of my soul. Maybe I could have been a better friend, maybe I could have remembered his name, and maybe we could have kept our promise. Everything revolves around that phrase, ‘when we get back we will…’ perhaps we will be better dads, or we won’t ever argue with our wives, or perhaps we will simply cherish every moment.

I haven’t kept those promises I made in my heart. I have had fights with my wife, I have been short with my kids, and I haven’t cherished every moment with my family. In fact I have at times become just like everyone else. Iraq is a land far away and home is here and now. Home is stressful, home is bills, home is work, and home is uneventful as we forget all we learned on the foreign soils of war and her spiteful malice which was such a harsh teacher. I am sorry, not only do I try to bury those thoughts; I failed to completely learn from them…