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

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

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.