And For What?

This is an email I received today from my friend John* currently serving in Iraq. I relate to this experience, though not the particular circustances - certainly the death of a friend is close in my memory. I'd just like to share it with you, lest we forget people are still dying for no reason. I guess CNN thinks a comatose anorexic is more pertinent to our world today...and for that matter so do 50-odd million Americans. Before I go I'd just like to give a big shout out....to the Masters of War and the people that put them in office, please accept my heartfelt and hearty....FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I lost a friend last week. We were on a security escort mission leaving Baghdad when his truck was hit by a roadside bomb (IED). I was gunner in the lead truck and he was gunning two trucks back in the rear of our three truck convoy. The IED that hit us was a platter charge. I platter charge is a very strong explosive, like C4, that is packed with ball bearings and designed to explode in a certain direction for maximum lethality.

I had known Hudson* since the first day of Basic training. Over time we became friends and were eventually stationed together at Ft. Hood in the same company. About a month ago I moved to his squad. It was pretty cool because we shared a lot of good times. He was a funny guy that would always cheer you up.

When it first happened I wasn't sure how bad it was. I was facing forward when I heard a tremendous explosion behind me. I won't go into details, but it was an experience that will never be forgotten. I can still see and here everything like it just happened. The destroyed Humvee, the fuel spilling onto the road, the chopping of the rotor blades as the dust off (medivac helicopter) lifted off. My father was a Vietnam veteran. I never understood why he would look a certain way when he told a story to me. It was like he was staring straight through the floor. I understand now. Some things stick with you.

The following day, they put my squad back out on mission. It may sound heartless, but that is the best way to get over things here. Continue mission and drive on. It didn't work however. I was useless in the turrent. I couldn't focus. I didn't speak. My mind was still going a hundred miles an hour. The next day they took me off mission. I spent the day trying to piece together my thoughts. I felt guilty. Guilty because I was the lead truck. My job is to see things before we get to them. Of course, I had to realize that it wasn't my fault but sometimes it's easier to blame yourself. Next were about a thousand what if's. What if this happened? What if we took another route? I drove myself crazy the rest of the day.

Come the following day, I was back on mission. My stomach was in knots before we left the wire (camp). When the Humvees started up my heart began racing and my palms were sweaty. I was scared. I've always been concerned with what happens, but this was pure fear. Fear of what waited for us. The attacks here are so random that at any time it could be you. You get a briefing at the beginning of the day before mission. It tells you about all the attacks in the past 24 hours. You listen, but that's about it. Those briefs have taken on a whole new dimension now. Each attack was on a real person. Just because I didn't know them doesn't mean it didn't happen, you know?

Anyway that day, I was still in a daze. Until a suicide car bomb detonated about 60 meters from my truck while I was downtown Baghdad. It's target was an Iraqi Army base. The bomber detonated in front of the Gates. My squad was stationary at an Iraqi police station. Chaos unfolded as shrapnel from the blast rained down on our trucks. A captain I was escorting wanted to go over and assess the damage. I hopped down from the turrent to pull security for him. We ran over there several minutes after the blast. I saw people crying. Iraqi soldiers carrying other soldiers. People yelling and shouting running everywhere. Several were killed and about a dozen were wounded including a little girl. The bomber himself was in pieces scattered in a large radius around the blast site. We had our medic help treat the wounded as the captain got information from an Iraqi officer. The re was a second car bomb on the way, but it never made it.

As bad as this whole ordeal was, it helped me out a lot. It snapped me out of my daze. It made me realize that no matter how you feel, you are still in Iraq and people are trying to kill you. It sounds pretty straight forward, but it really is that simple. I was numb when I walked through the scene. A saw everything, but there was no emotion. I was afraid of becoming some crazy war vet, but now they don't seem so crazy anymore. I've realized that shutting off emotion is a survival mechanism. I just hope I can turn it back on later. I hate this place. Not because of the people, but because of the person it forces you to become. Granted I know that this is no Vietnam, but some aspects of combat are universal I suppose. I have fear every day now. I've realized that it won't go away. Their tactics are getting better and there weapons are stronger. Last year a platter ch arge was barely a myth. Now they are becoming commonplace. It was inevitable. It's probably a good thing I'm afraid now because now I take zero chances. If I get a feeling, I react. If I'm wrong I'll deal with the consequences. The saying around here is, "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six."

I know that this e-mail isn't the most cheerful one I've written, but it helps me to write. Kind of like therapy, I suppose. Also, I don't think that people back home realize what it is really like. Believe me, you can read a thousand e-mails and you still won't know like we do, but it helps. We don't want sympathy. We want empathy. Hudson* was a good soldier and a good friend. For those of you can't relate to the losses felt, remember Eric Hudson*. A great guy who passed before his time.

*Names Changed

Aegipan and the meaning of tattoo's....

Below is a picture of my second tattoo and here is what it symbolizes to me. The other tattoo, I have decided, will have to be finished before I can properly convey its significance.

Greek mythology hold that Aegipan, the half man/half goat god was a lover of merry noise. Through wooded glades he wanders with dancing Nymphai who foot it on some sheer cliff's edge, calling upon Pan, the shepherd god (Theos Nomios), long-haired, unkempt. He has every snowy crest and the mountain peaks and rocky crests for his domain; hither and thither he goes through the close thickets, now lured by soft streams, and now he presses on amongst towering crags and climbs up to the highest peak that overlooks the flocks. Often he courses through the glistening high mountains, and often on the shouldering hills he speeds along slaying wild beasts, this keen-eyed god. Only at evening, as he returns from the chase, he sounds his note, playng sweet and low on his pipes of reed: not even she could excel him in melody - that bird who flower-laden spring pouring forth her lament uters honey-voiced song amid the leaves. At that hour the clear-voiced Nymphai are with him and move with nimble feet, singing by some spring of dark water, while Ekho wails about the mountain-top, and the god on this side or on that of the choirs, or at times sidling into the midst, plies it nimbly with his feet. On his back he wears a spotted lynx-pelt, and he delights in high-pitched songs in a soft meadow where crocuses and sweet-smelling hyacinths bloom at random in the grass.They sing of the blessed gods and high Olympos and choose to tell of such a one as luck-brining Hermes above the rest, how he is the swift messenger of all the gods, and how he came to Arkadia, the land of many springs and mother of flocks, there where his sacred place is as god of Kyllene. For there, though a god, he used to tend curly-fleeced sheep in the service of a mortal man, because there fell on him and waxed a strong melting desire to wed the rich-tressed daughter of Dryopos, and there he brought about the merry marriage. And in the house she bare Hermes a dear son who from his birth was marvellouse to look upon, with goat's feet and two horns - a noisy, merry-laughing child. But when the nurse saw his uncouth face and full beard, she was afraid and sprang up and fled and left the child. Then luck-bringing Hermes received him and took him in his arms: very glad in his heart was the god. And he went quickly to the abodes of the deathless gods, carrying his son wrapped in warm skins of mountain hares, and set him down beside Zeus and showed him to the rest of the gods. Then all the immortals were glad in heart and Bakkheios Dionysos in especial; and they called the boy AegiPan [derived from pantes meaning 'all'] because he delighted all their hearts.

So, that is the official legend of his birth and life. Aegipan is also the god represented by my zodiac sigh, Capricorn, as seen below:

Capricornus represents a son of Zeus named Aegipan, who fought alongside Zeus in his battle against the Titans. Before battle, Aegipan discovered Conchas, the horns of the sea, and had their army use these horns in battle instead of their trumpets. Hearing these great horns of the sea, the Titans became frightened and fled, thus giving victory to Zeus. Zeus, in return, placed him among the stars to honor him -- half goat to signify Aegipan himself, who was similar in form to a wild goat -- and half fish to signify his discovery of the Conchas. Pan, the god of woods and fields, of flocks and shepherds, dwelt in grottos, wandered on the mountains and in valleys, and amused himself with the chase or in leading the dances of the nymphs. He was fond of music, and in one story, Pan was pursuing a chaste female named Syrinx. Just as he was about to catch her, her sister nymphs turned her into a reed in the river Ladon. When Pan couldn't figure out which one she was, he cut several and made them into his trademark instrument, the panpipe. Pan, like other gods who dwelt in forests, was dreaded by those whose occupations caused them to pass through the woods by night, for the gloom and loneliness of such scenes dispose the mind to superstitious fears. Hence sudden fright without any visible cause was ascribed to Pan, and called a Panic terror. As the name of the god signifies all, Pan came to be considered a symbol of the universe and personification of Nature.

Pan's imagine has been used since early Christianity as the face of the Devil or Satan. The reason for this is complex and as I disagree with the most of the dogma of organized religion I found this god to be particularly fitting for me as a person. I do not worship him (obviously), nor do I believe he really existed, but the very idea of him and the things he represented are fascinating and very appropriate for me. Perhaps more than any other mythology. Especially as it is evident that his originally pleasant legend was warped to serve the uses of the church, something I have been privy to on many occasions in the form of countless debates over dogma that convey guilt on us all, thereby keeping the pews and the coffers full. I believe in an all powerful God, but I do not believe he is to be found in a fancy building, nor do I believe another (such as a priest or pastor) must act as an intermediary for me. God is in nature and nature is in God. The God I believe in would get one hell of a kick out of Pan and I imagine his displeasure at the events described below.

Pan represented freedom of spirit, natural instincts, sinless love. In some parts of the world, prior to the advent of Christianity, women were free, untrammeled by rigid rules of moral conduct, and therefore, when the new religion made its debut, women were called sinful. "The Christians found the women of Europe free and sovereign," says Elizabeth Davis in "The First Sex" (p 229). "The right to divorce, to abortion, to birth control, to property ownership, to the bearing of titles and the inheritance of estates, to the making of wills, to bringing suits at law, all these and many other rights were attrited away by the Church through the Christian centuries." We must remember that the leaders of the early church were Jews, bred in the Hebraic tradition that women were of no account and existed solely to serve men. Orthodox Judaism of the time, like Saint Augustine of Hippo, taught that women had no souls. Now we draw closer to the reason Pan might have been viewed as Satan, why the figure of Satan as handed down to us consists of goat's feet, horns and black hair. (The statue of the god Min, the Egyptian Pan, was daubed black.) Pan came to represent the freedom of spirit and love of Nature which could be viewed only as works of the Devil. Pan and women were allies, friends, lovers. All were guiltless, without shame. As some scholars have it, guilt is the cornerstone of the early Christian faith. Woman was guilty by virtue of being woman. Saint Clement announced that "Every woman should be overwhelmed with shame at the very thought that she is woman." Here we have it in a nutshell: pagans had no guilt, no shame, no sense of sin. Thus Pan became the paragon of guilt, the embodiment of sin, and the patron of that horrendous human weakness - sex. Obviously, like gods and goddesses, and rites and ceremonies before him, Pan had to be either syncretized, suppressed or subordinated. True to form, the Christian Fathers incorporated Pan into their pantheon - as Satan. Pan could not be annihilated for too many people loved, adored and worshipped him. He could not be extirpated from the hearts and minds of men and women. So he was simply 'evilized'. This Christian act was felt everywhere; the repercussions were wideranging. The Christian God was said to have killed Pan.

Aaah, Spring

Below is a picture of one of my many landscaping projects this spring. I should have taken a before picture but unfortunately foresight eluded my in that respect. Anyways, its still great, I enjoy designing things like this though I would prefer someone else do the planting. Can't have it all I suppose....oh, well at least I have created a peaceful place for someone to enjoy. Lord knows they're few and far between around these parts. If anyone is interested the vines are Jasmine, the large flowers in the corners are Calla Lilies, the green bushes are Gardenias and the purple, yellow, and red flowers are Petunias. Petunia's are great for small patios because their fragrance is wonderfully strong and they literally explode with growth, provided the right fertalizer is in place.

A Hint of Nature 

1966 Impala