Yeah, I still haven't figger-ed out how to put a link embedded in my blog. Anyhow, I'm including this one that you may get a listen to what I'm talking about:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSH0eRKq1lE
OK, so here it is. Scottland the Brave on the Bagpipes. Now what could I POSSIBLY have to say about this little ditty? Well, here goes. So this morning, I was listening to some Johnny Cash. As you are well aware is one of my Sunday rituals. The guy just knows his hurts and pains and he's more than willing for you to take a listen. Anyhow, whilst he was givin' his love to Rose, and she was wearing that long black veil I was doing ok. Then the Balad of Ira Hayes came on:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmNKspKUaTQ
So, I gotta be honest with you, and I'm going to look like a total dork, but this song really gets me. It's so poignant. I dont know if you've seen the movie or read the book, "Flags of Our Fathers", anyhow, it gives the account of how Ira Hayes just can't make peace with people making him a hero when 6800 Americans died and another 20,000 were wounded. They paraded him and a few others around selling war bonds and some other stuff to help propagate our successes in WWII. Anyhow, this guy really hit the bottle hard.
So what does this have to do with Scottland the Brave? Well, when I was in Iraq there was a guy who would play the bagpipes from the top of the Al Faw Palace. It was incredible. It would blanket the whole FOB (Forward Operating Base) of Camp Victory with it's incredible power to spur you on. Something about bagpipes does it to me. Maybe it evokes visions of dead fire-fighters and police officers back East where they all dress up in their dress uniforms and dark sunglasses and send their compatriots off into the great unknown. I dont know. But this particular song for me now is one of my favorites on my ipod. I listen to it once in a while when I just dont want to run that fifth or sixth mile. It helps me dig deep. Dont get me wrong, I'm not doing it for Scottland, I think that's the one ethnic background I dont actually have in my quiver to be honest. But when you're running along...sucking wind...not sure if this is worth it, and knowing you have 2 miles toward home, it just sort of picks you up.
I think for me, it's the remembrance of that guy on the top of the palace. Presumably he was one of our coalition bretheren. See, we had a large contingent of Aussies, Britts, and other sundry pasty types in our midst there. So, I think about it as a counter to, Call to Prayer. It can be pretty disheartening to hear the Muslim call to prayer as an American fighting man. Here you are, running around some lake, just trying not to think about your wife and kids. Trying not to lose focus. Knowing that you're going to hear about some kid turning into pink mist in the wind today, just trying to get by and get home. I worked harder in that year than I have ever in my life. I dont know that I'll ever know the difference I made if any. I do know that I sent divers off to recover two kids that had been ambushed on an over-watch position over a bridge. I know that I helped organize something called the "Ring of Fire" for the Third I.D. by getting them excavators from an adjacent division. I know that I took part in something so big that I'm just not sure what impact or footprint I left. I know that I lost a year and a half of my life. I know that I had a couple of video teleconferences with my wife and my kids. I know what it's like to have a delay on a telephone and the heartache of not being able to dial through to Hill Air Force Base when you just know something is wrong at home.
I know what it's like to sit in the middle of a convoy while E.O.D. blows up an I.E.D. three hundred meters in front of you. I know what it's like to have your finger on the trigger at 3 in the morning painting the balconies above you with your mag-light on the bottom of your M-4. Your thumb on the safety and your finger immediate the trigger. Knowing that some idiot could have something that looks like an RPG in the dim light and that I'm going to put two or three 5.56 rounds right smack in his chest before he launches it. I know what it's like to know that under this next pile of garbage you're going to find little red wires taped to a soviet make artillery round and the next thing you're going to experience are clouds and harps and grandpa there to bring you home.
So I guess what I'm saying is that when I hear these stories and these accounts, the haunting sounds of the bagpipes, I'm transported back. I'm buttoned up in a HUMWVV with six foot cattails thirty meters to my right. I have a .50 cal gunner above me ready to wax some idiot in a van 100 yards to our left.
I guess I feel lucky, but those things really affect me. When I'm on my run, sometimes I'm back in the Box. I'm running down some invisible Hadji. The one that planted that I.E.D. I've got the jump on him and I'm bearing down on him. A K-Bar knife in my right hand and I'm gaining ground. I know this sounds a little nuts. OK, maybe a lot, but I dont really apologize for it. That's what Soldiers do. We have prepare for war. Our chief export is violence and we're good at it.
But when you hear those bagpipes, sometimes saddening, sometimes encouraging, it evokes inside you emotions you're just not sure other people have. Maybe you're different? Maybe the 4th of July is no big deal. Maybe the story of some drunk indian is interesting but..ah...no biggie. I guess to me these are things I can relate to. War to me is not fun. Video games about it have absolutely no draw. These are things I'd rather not dwell on but are facts I have to deal with. I've seen the darkest side of humanity and I choose not to relish in it.
However, it's part of me. These accounts, these remembrances that transport me back also in a way define what it is to be a Soldier. Things others can just never know without having been there. So now, when I hear the bagpipes, there are two options. I can recall the death and loss, or I can envision the promise and the new dawn awakening.
Just as I ran around Lost Lake on Camp Victory day after day. The sun breaking, the Call to Prayer coming from the mosque adjacent and the young men in watch towers at points along the way. When I hear the bagpipes, of course my first initial reaction is one of sadness I sometimes linger in. But the flip side of that is stiring, and moving. A counter to the oppression, the promise of freedom but at a terrible cost.
Anyhow, pretty sure I've made little or no sense today. I'm ok with that. I know what I meant. Plus my beautiful daughter Olivia is here in her little flowered church dress and trying to play with the Barbie laptop. She's a doll this one. I tell you. I feel lucky today. I feel free. I feel happy and sad simultaneously. Sadness for those brothers that have given this price for me, but happiness that I too have paid a little dues along the way. I appreciate all this. It is not without cost. It is not without sadness that I stand for the anthem and realize that someone's phone call next to me is more important than recognizing those who have given their all for the freedoms we enjoy.
Anyhow, I better go. I think I have the lesson today for the Sunbeams. I should really crack the book open and see what it's about. Enough of this blah blah blah. You guys just enjoy this beautiful Sabbath morning. Enjoy the promises inherent in His plan. Love your family and try not to flip out over a run in someone's hose or two kids that just can't make peace on the bench. This could all be worse. Trust me.
I gotta go. Olivia is unplugging the computer and has begun to help me type now. She's cussing me out for not getting dressed and ready to go.
You kids be good now.
All the best,
J
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