reflections at night

My admiration for the Chinese Poet Li Po grows with each year.  I am reading this poem in a spartan 8x10 room.  Li Po wrote this 1400 years ago thinking of me.


Quiet Night Thoughts

Before my Bed
there is bright moonlight
so that is seems
like frost on the ground:

Lifting my head
I watch the moon,
Lowering my head
I dream that I am home.

Li Po

translations

When a soldier says, “Too easy” he is referring that there is a good chance your problem can be fixed. I first heard this at Ft. Benning and repeated all the time over here. It is always said with a clipped upbeat tempo. Underneath the radar, he is thanking God he caught a break with something that is solvable.



When a soldier says, “It is what it is” he is referring to his current situation as being hopelessly fucked.

Petareaus on Karsai – “It is what it is.”

General Stanley McCrystal on Rolling Stone – “It is what it is.”

Any soldier on his first, second, third deployment …, “It is what it is.”

winning the hearts and minds

Almos and his band of Afghan handy men still clean certain areas of Cherry-Beasley.  Almos wears a sports coat that looks like a K-Mart knock off.  He leads with a swagger, a little panache and a touch of verve.  Sinatra in his  lean years come to mind or Bobby Brown on a high.  Almos has discovered the American smoke break.  He now smokes a pack day while at work.  He and his henchman go to the designated gazebo for smokers, light up and pontificate.  Marvelous.

What's Goin On?

This is Afghanistan outside of the wire.  The Russians mined most of it.  Today, Afghans clear the mine fields.  The bad guys can get a little closer.  What's a bad guy?  Anyone that launches a rocket or fires a mortar in to your neighborhood. Keeping it simple.

   "What's Goin On?" the Marvin Gaye song that summed up the 60's for me still sings true.  "We have got to find a way to bring some lovin here today."  Then like now we have to find a way out of the madness.  And then like now I listen to music, read literature and gaze at art which gives me hope.  There is no hope in politics it is nothing more than a prescription for despair. You can put your faith in Mozart and know that he touches the sublime.  Or you can listen to Motown feeling the hope of gospel, the energy of jazz and the street poetry of Marvin Gaye.  Or like myself you can stake out a small piece of a trout stream where you can find an interior world of delicate mayflies and soft currents that beckon to thee.  Maybe, its just keeping the faith in the things that are true: art, the creation and a fly rod.

The Good Guys

The 1st Sgt. is a huge man. He has what used to be called a crew cut, a thick neck and a slight limp. There is kindness in his eyes that dart everywhere while he talking to you. When he is sitting down his legs are always moving you feel the nervous energy unbound and relentless. You would have to be half crazy to fuck with him. There is too much of him. This is his seventh deployment. He has done time in Iraq and Afghanistan. War is his profession.
Sgt. Sugar looks like Woody Strode in the movies. He is 6’3’’ and moves with both power and grace. I first saw him shooting baskets outside the Red Cross office. He shoots the ball a little above his head his wrist cocked releasing the ball with a high arc. The ball sails through the hoop and you hear the crisp sound of the net snapping.
Big events are the basketball games on the broken concrete court. When the Sgt plays it is a man with boys. He drinks coffee with his sugar. He has both a calm and an interior ferocity. He is always measuring you with his eyes after your released he will give you an easy that’s cool smile.
Sgt. First Class is tall, lengthy and country. He could be Gary Cooper. He never raises his voice and has a naturally warmth. Like most of the soldiers with Task Force Bastogne he has been deployed multiple times. Somehow he kept a quality of innocence about him. How you do that is beyond my imagination.
SSGT. Ladyday is from the Caribbean islands. She handles the Red Cross messages that can flood into to TF Bastogne. She knows where all of her soldiers are at all times. She never gets testy over the messages. At the gym with her headphones on she sings Oletta Adams songs and swings her wide hips with an insouciant freedom.

snap shots

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humorless men

Only a humorless man could look at Afghanistan and see hope.
Exhibit 1 – Karzai who has an affable smile and would be an excellent game show contestant is the leader of Afghanistan. He is whom we have pinned out hopes and treasure on. We go to bed each night praying that he is taking his medication for bi-polar episodes. God save us.
Exhibit 2 – Karzai’s brother makes Vito Corolene look like St. Francis of Assisi. When the U.S. money train arrived his brother bought a semi to haul the cash.
Exhibit 3 – The country has an illiteracy rate of 85%. We are sending over teams of lawyers to assist in writing new Afghani law which only 15% of the population can understand, maybe. We are also developing a police force which can’t read the laws they are supposed to enforce. Could it be that the only net gain in Afghanistan after we leave is the country will need more lawyers.