2007-10-28T21:54:00.002-04:00

Introduction
It's been fifteen years and my memory is getting a little blurry about a lot of things.
Just a few weeks ago I was laying in a hospital bed giving some thought about how I came to be there. Most people don't last this long. I had suffered a "acute rejection episode" where, simply stated, my body decided this transplanted liver is a foreign object that must be removed. This was my third time with one of these episodes, each one bringing me a little closer to finding out the truth about God.
This is for my Dad.
This is for my nephews who idolize me for all the stories my Dad told them.
For my Mom who doesn't understand.
And for the rest of my family and friends. Maybe now you'll understand why I leave the room whenever you bring this shit up.

The first four years
of my service in the Navy were pretty uneventful. Boot Camp. Apprentice training. An eighteen month tour of duty aboard a submarine tender stationed in Italy. Destroyer service was cool. Saw alot of the world. Got to shoot a few tons of artillary shells at Khadaffi.
Then my break came. Was ordered to attend Small Arms Instructors School. Did really well there. So well in fact I was asked to volunteer, then ordered to attend Sniper school and try out for the BUDS (basic underwater demolition school) program. Yeah, fat chance skinny-ass me is going to get through that. Swim a ten minute mile. Didn't quite make it. Got through the sniper program with ease though. Next thing I know I'm a Rangemaster at BUDS. It was a lot of fun. Not many people get the opportunity to teach and yell at future and present Navy SEALS.
When my four year enlistment was up, I wanted to join the Navy Absentee Collection Unit. Go and round up deserters. But as a Gunners Mate I needed two more years of sea duty to be eligeable for shore duty. Things were just starting to heat up in the Persian Gulf in those days and the minesweepers needed Gunners Mates so I volunteered for a few six month extensions aboard a minesweeper. Not being a big fan of 100+ degree salty sea weather, I decided to give it up.
I reinlisted for a six year hitch in the ready reserve. Time to go home for awhile.

November 1990
Stupid ass Saddam Hussein. WTF?
Now I've got to get a haircut, go thru and get all my uniforms together, put a shine on my shoes, get on a goddamn airplane..I hate fucking flying..and go to goddamnbumfukt Saudi Arabia.
Jesus H. Christ! I'm working a decent job. I have a beautiful woman who adores me. I'm actually getting somewhere in a nice normal life.
Then again this might be fun.

Waiting
This isn't fun. While Prez Bush and James Baker and Tarik Aziz and the U.N. and all the other players are doing whatever it is they do, me and my compatriots are at some Air Force base training and drilling and drilling and training. My job is to make sure that the Navy and Marine snipers are at their best. Live fire drills. Dark ops. Repel border/sneak attack drills. No beer. Seems the Saudis have some aversion to alcohol consumption. Some here are old timers, guys who were in Beirut or the Panama Invasion or both. Even the division officer is a Viet Nam vet. Looks like Col. Klink. Reminds me of my Dad. Dad looks like Col. Klink too. But most of us have never been in such a place or situation and it's not too difficult to see the difference in the ones who have and the ones who haven't.
We're not told much about the political situation. What we know comes from CNN and AFR.
Passed my test. Got promoted to CPO while I was here. Wearing khakis around the camp now. Dungarees and OD greens were much more comfortable.
'Nuff reminiscing.

Killing
The flyboys had done all they could. The orders seemed simple enough. "Seek, capture or destroy enemy combatants within (coordinates here). I'm to accompany a seven (including myself) man team, find adeqate firing positions for the three two man sniper teams and stay and spot fire with the last team posted while the Marines did whatever it is that Marines do.
Note: I know what it is that they do, but one of them can tell their own damn story.
After about a half hour of waiting a platoon sized group of Republican Guard came down the street in clear view of our position atop an office building. They were zig-zagging around and trying to be sneaky, completely unaware that all three of us had easy beads on them. We would wait until they were in between us and another team before we would open fire or offer them a surrender option.
Too late. They spotted one of the other teams and opened fire on them. Brian took a bead and fired the first shot. This was the first time I've ever seen a man die. Imagine dropping a Raggedy Ann doll. Thats how he fell. I took a breath and held it for a second and squeezed off my first round. Dave and Brian looked at me for a second. I looked at them. They started laughing. I missed. Badly. God that was fuckin embarrassing. I never missed after that.
You have probably heard that you never forget a mans face after you've killed him. That's not entirely true. I couldn't see his face. He was leaning over a car hood taking aim. I put my bead under his armpit. I fired. The recoil from my M70 was enough to to lose target. When I looked he was already starting to turn blue. Funny how fast people do that when they're dead.
Remember how everything seemed to change the first time you ever got laid? It was sort of like that, in the sense that my whole outlook on life changed.I remember the first thought that entered my mind. "Holy shit yer in it now." Since then I've spent a lot of time trying to find a word that describes my feelings at that moment. Guilt. That I've taken a life. Pride. That I've come through as was expected of me. Piety. That the poor bastard doesn't go to Hell. None of these really work.
The second and the third were easy.
The fourth one still haunts me a little bit to this day. I thought I had a clear head shot. He must have moved just as I squeezed the trigger. It knocked his little Republican Guard hat off and he came stumbling out into the open street holding his hands to his forehead. There's no telling how many bullets he took. Then it seemed everything went quiet for a minute. I saw him laying there in his pool of blood. He started crying. He convulsed. I drew a new bead to put him out of his misery. I didn't have to take the shot. He stopped moving.
The firefight lasted all night and into the next day. When it was over my team of seven had thirty four confirmed kills. Only one of us, some kid from Oregon was wounded. He took a bullet through his chin I think.

The most often asked question is Were you afraid?
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: Not so much for myself. After some point, after seeing so many die, I just figured sooner or later I'd get mine. I'm already dead. No, most of my fear was for those I was serving with. In a selfish way, I didn't want to lose anyone under me if for no other reason than I don't think I could handle that kind of guilt. Who am I to lead these men? All were younger and stronger and better trained than I was. I just had the stripes.

Over the next several weeks, there would be more skirmishes, death, prisoners taken, wounded comrades. Thankfully, the war would end quickly.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

___________________________________________________________

UNOSOM II

The mandate of UNOSOM II was to take appropriate action, including enforcement measures, to establish throughout Somalia a secure environment for humanitarian assistance. To that end, UNOSOM II was to complete, through disarmament and reconciliation, the task begun by the failed UNITAF for the restoration of peace, as if there ever were any, stability, law and order. It's main responsibilities included monitoring the cessation of hostillities, preventing resumption of hostilities, as if they had ever stopped, seizing unauthorized small arms, (making the hopeless helpless), maintaining security at airports, ports, and lines of communication required for delivery of humanitarian assistance, continuing blahblahblahblahblah.

Italics mine, if you haven't already figured that out. Count on the U.N. to fuck up anything.

HELL and Mike

Good Lord. How do people live like this? There must be a hundred thousand flies per capita.
Need to take a shit? Crap wherever you like. Wipe your ass with a rock. Of course in order to shit you have to eat. Not much of that goes on here. From my vantage point I can watch the Somalis line up and and get their daily bucket of rice and beans, and when the Powers That Be allow it, a cup of dried corn. All while I enjoy the lip-smackin goodness of a hot dog and potato chips washed down with a Pepsi-Cola. Mmmm. A Somali will trade anything for a Pepsi. It never takes long for the line to turn into an all out riot. The U.N. staffers will take their goodies and go home. Happens everyday. I just watch, me in my powder blue beret, and wait for some warlord underling to come along and try to steal the stuff. It doesn't happen much, but when it does, the Pakistanis that are still here will take care of it. It's pretty much the care free life for me. In the evening I'll get on a john boat, head back to the crews barge, have a nice meal in the air-conditioned mess, watch a movie we've all seen ten times and hit the rack.
Forgot to tell you about Mike. He's here. I worked with him on the destroyer in the early days. We were never like..bossom buddies, but godamn it's good that theres someone here I know. He took a pretty similar career path that I did. When I left the destroyer for small arms school, he had taken over my duties in the ships armory then went to sniper school. He had reinlisted regular Navy and wound up with the Beachmasters here.

2 OCTOBER 1993
There has been some political fallout. The theft of relief supplies has become much more brazen and brutal and militia attacks on U.N. personnel have brought relief efforts to a near standstill.
As I'm walking to my post that morning an elderly gentleman stepped out from an alley. He raised an AK-47 and gave me a spray of machine gun fire. Mike shot him dead.
I saw my right hand blow to pieces as the bullet passed through it. Another would shatter my left shoulder and a third would go through my liver and stomach. At first I didn't know how badly I was wounded and I got up and kicked a used a a few words on the Somali. You stupid fuckin nigger. I feel kinda bad about that.
Either I crawled into the alley, or Mike put me in there, I'm not sure which. As I layed there too weak to move, seeing my own blood seeping through th emergency dressing so many things ran through my mind. Was this what I had always heard? Is this my life passing before my eyes before I die? I wondered what would happen if a Somali militia came along before a corpsman arrived. I'd rather do it myself. I put the muzzle of my rifle under my chin and waited. I've never known such peace as I knew at that moment.
Mike would die in fighting the next day.

Bethesda Md. 22 October 1993

Time to wake up, Chief

UhOh. You're in a hospital man! I can smell it...okay..be cool... Car wreck? Don't think so (?). Oh God..don't be o.d.'d please don't be o.d.'d. Naw haven't messed with that sort of thing in years. Ok, let's do a quick check...toes..yup we have wiggle...legs...I can feel 'em. Equipment...oh crap...catherterized...hope there's no pretty nurses here! Seem to be in good spirits!..Yes, we have narcotics...Fingers..Ok, there's some pain there..right one...Arms...Damn. Can't move the left one...soooo stiff...Eyes...we have light. Oooh a lil lightheaded. Yup, hospital alright..Wake up, Chief...

Mom is here. Dad is here. Some guy from the government is here. The Deputy Assistant to the Chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee on Dumb Shit I think he said his title was. He brought me some medals. I thought that was awful nice of him. Starting to remember...

Damn I thought I was dead.

I never really suffered any real pain during all this. Lori had left me sometime during all of this, and if anything really hurt, that was it. By the time I woke up, most of the wounds had at least healed over. They had kept me in a chemicaly induced coma for 20 days. Got a whole new ball and socket assembly for my shoulder. It looks really cool in the x-ray! My hand is all wrapped up about the size of a football. It will take some time and a few more operations to get it all put back together again. It looks pretty normal now, the hole is all filled in and looking at my palm, you'd never know there was ever anything wrong. Except for a few numb spots I have full use of it back. The new liver...somebodys old liver... I like to think it's Mikes. With the logistics that would have to be, it's about impossible, but I still like to think it. It gives me some trouble from time to time, I have to take immunosuppressants every day and sometimes steroid shots to reverse the effects of the immunosuppressants. It can be a real pain in the ass sometimes if things get a little out of balance.

Dying

I had a whole big outline ready to follow in writing this. Looking at it now it really seems self serving, petty and a little pathetic. What do I know about dying? I've never died before. Came very close a few weeks ago. Bloody substances coming from every orifice on my body. Body temp of 107. Delirium. Doctor tells me to have my affairs in order. Priest reads Last Rites. I panicked. To those of you who saw it I apologize. I wasn't afraid of dying. I didn't want to die there in that hospital bed.

I want to put it away now.

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,

what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again

in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,

smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches

and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing

under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,

and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment

my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars

and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(What Do We Know)

Killing And Dying