Waiting

The rains here at Bagram have postponed the flights coming and going. People are getting edgy waiting to leave country. You put in your time and right before you exit - you wait. The deployments last about a year unless you are Air Force which is six months or the Red Cross which is four and half months. They seem longer.


Guy goes to the Doctor. The Doctor says, "You have six months to live."
He asks, "Can I spend it at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan?"
The Doctor says, "Sure but why there?"
"Because it will seem like an eternity."

Black history month

WE STAY COOL

THE POOL PLAYERS.

SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.



We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Suicide Bombers

A suicide bomber looks like a 14 year old kid that can barely shave. He comes out of a madrass in Pakistan that is funded with Saudi money. He shares one spoon with the other 30 or 40 students in his class at meal times. The chances are he comes from poverty and the only hope he knows is in the afterlife. For entertainment he sings to Allah with his class until his voice is hoarse. This is what Al Queda or the Taliban gives it’s children a quick release from life.

Today, he has two soldiers guarding him while he is in a hospital room with tubes coming out of every orifice. The soldiers look like giants. The fluorescent lights are harsh an unrelenting. This isn’t what paradise is supposed to be.

http://www.lewisandclarkexpeditions.net/

Sunday Inventory

The soldier in the space next to me is on a 12 hour Family Guy marathon. Soldiers watching cartoons. What ever happened to Sands of Iwo Jima and John Wayne?


What is right with life:

Sting of Pearls by Glen Miller.

Being on any trout stream at dawn or dusk.

Floating feeling the first release of pine in the air. The first expelled breath of spring.

Having Matisse’s watercolors in my head.

The entire medical staff at Craig Joint Command Hospital at Bagram Air Base.

Being with my girl Laura anytime anywhere.

Italian food and Michael Chierello recipes.

Montana anytime any season.

William Faulkner for showing me how to read in between the lines.

Shelby Foote for writing our Iliad.

John Steinbeck for understanding the underdog.

Freddie Hubbard for playing notes that have stuck with me for 40 years.

Antonio Carlos Jobim where there is love there is hope.

http://www.lewisandclarkexpeditions.net/

Nefarious War

Nefarious War

Last year we fought by the head-stream of the Sang-kan
This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road.
We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake,
We have pastured our armor horses on the Tien-shan’s snowy slopes.
The long, long war goes on then thousand miles from home,
Our three armies are worn and grown old.

The barbarian does man-slaughter for plowing;
On this yellow sand-plains nothing has been seen but
blanched skulls and bones.
Where the Chin emperor built the walls against the Tartars,
There the defenders of Han are burning beacon fires.
The beacon fires burn and never go out,
There is no end to war!

In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails.
Carry them up in their flight, and hang on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over the dead grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.

Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms
Were so seldom used by the benign sovereigns.


Li Po

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Snapshots

A soldier waited an extra four days to get out of country concerning a child abuse case because a social worker in Utah couldn’t get verification before going on a three day weekend.
At Ft. Benning in Georgia we couldn’t get the proper clearance to deploy. Part of the hold up was the Department of the Army was closed for Veterans Day.
Red Cross messages need to be verified. If it is a medical emergency you better hope it happens during office hours.
Odd way to fight a war. Weekends and holidays take a priority over soldiers.

The Devil never takes a day off neither should we.

end of millineum signs

Celin Dione is returning to Las Vegas.

http://www.lewisandclarkexpeditions.net/

can't sleep when you are in nuristan

October 3, 2009 eight soldiers from Task Force Warrior were killed in action in Afghanistan. In the New York Times they referred to this part of Afghanistan the Hinterlands. My friend, Johnson thought of the whole country as the Hinterlands.




Johnson talked non-stop there was too much information and too little time to get it all out. There was his Russian wife in Colorado Springs, his three master degrees and his anger management class on Bagram Air Base that could trip his switch. On Monday, he was going to law school. Tuesday, he was coming back to Afghanistan as a contractor. Wednesday, he was going to re-enlist. Thursday he was going to build a cabin in the mountains of Colorado. Friday, he was getting written up by his Commander. Saturday, he ripped his television off the wall throwing into the street in pieces. Sunday, he was back in Anger Management. If October 3 came up he would talk around it but never to it. Johnson had something to say and something to hide. Maybe this is why he couldn’t sleep. If he talked in his sleep it might come out.



Johnson like to laugh which is why I liked him. He laughed easily and often which made me feel good. He was from the Bahamas where he was an alternate to the Olympics in judo. I didn’t know if the Olympics gave medals in judo and didn’t care. Johnson looked the part. He moved with the relaxed self assurance of an athlete and you never felt threatened. He would thank God he never killed anyone here. He was with Task Force Warrior and they were trigger pullers.


http://www.lewisandclarkexpeditions.net/

foreign policy

“A people prefer to beaten by their own stick.” In conversation with an Israeli General.

http://www.lewisandclarkexpeditions.net/