Song For The Day

After Forever - Black Sabbath

I have fallen into a routine during my brief stay here. I find it impossible to catch up on the months of sleep deprivation I have experienced over the past year. Others are able to sleep for hours even days it seems.

Instead, I stay up all night as has been my routine the past few months. I watch DVDs on my laptop or edit my music library on windows media player. I also grab music and video clips from others with my thumb drive.

Around 0400 I walk to the chowhall to eat breakfast. Most of the time I eat two or three over-medium eggs, four slices of french toast, and some sausage with orange juice. Then I go to the weight room (actually a tent) and work out for about an hour to hour and a half. Then I go back to my tent and try to sleep.

Sometimes Im succesful, other times I just lay there and wiggle my foot.

It doesnt matter to me now. Im used to not sleeping much at all, the getting the chance to sleep a couple hours here and there, or crash for a day if we are able.

I try to schedule what showers I take with how hot the water is from being cooked in the sun all day. If I want a scalding hot shower I go in the evening. If I want just a very hot shower I go in the early morning just around sunrise. There is no such thing as cold water here.

As in Iraq the days revolve around the cycle of hot and very hot, of unmerciful sunshine and heat or darkness and warmth.

Tomorrow we leave for home.

Whatever that is now.

Meditation

Self-Respect Through Sacrifice

At the begining we sacfificed alcohol. We had to, or it would have killed us. But we couldnt get rid of alcohol unless we made other sacrifices. We had to toss self-justification, self-pity, and anger right out the window. We had to quit the crazy contest for personal prestige and big bank balances. We had to take personal responsibility for our sorry state and quit blaming others for it.

Were these sacrifices? Yes, they were. To gain enough humility and self-respect to stay alive at all, we had to give up what had really been our dearest possessions - our ambition and our illegitimate pride.

As Bill Sees It

p 97

AA Comes Of Age

(There, I think Im back in order now)

I think its time that the United Nations relocate their headquarters and all operations to outside the United States of America. And I think its time we expidite that leave.

I also think we stop wasting money funding such a shallow, useless, impotent, and overtly corrupt organization.

They could find a suitor in europe.

Maybe theyll finds things more to their liking in main land China.

Perhaps Russia?

Song For The Day

My Humps - Black Eyed Peas

Meditation

Spiritual Kindergarten

"We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking and find the grace to go on living to better effect. Each mans theology has to be his own quest, his own affair."

*** ***

When the Big Book was being planned, some members thought that it ought to be Christian in the doctrinal sense. Others had no objection to the use of the word "God," but wanted to avoid doctrinal issues. Spiritualaity, yes. Religion, no. Still others wanted a psychological book, to lure the alcholic in. Once in, he could take God or leave Him alone as he wished.

To the rest of us this was shocking, but happily we listened. Our group conscience was at work to construct the most acceptable and effective book possible.

Every voice was playing its appointed part. Our atheists and agnostics widened our gateway so that all who suffered might pass through, regardless of their belief or lack of belief.

As Bill Sees It

p 95

Letter, 1954
AA Comes of Age

(There...all caught up)

After a long trip into Kuwait we arrive at the small base my unit is being staged at. We have gone throught the tedious process of turning in all our weapons, gear and vehicles. The guys in the new unit are smug and dont want to hear any advice from us. They will loose their first man within days which will cause a congressional inquirey. They will want to listen then.

When I walk into the large plastic tent my platton is living in I am unprepared. Chaos seems to be frozen in time. Gear is everywhere, spread out all over the plywood floor. None of the organization that existed on our base or in the field is present. People lay everhwhere in various stages of lethargy and boredom. Some are asleep, some watch movies on laptops, and others play games.

I find a cot only to be told I have to move. I find another and set up my home. I have just come off a mission and am still in combat mode. The red flashing light on top of the antennae outside makes me think I am seeing flares everytime I see it out of the corner of my eye.. I am dirty.

I decide I will will keep my area organized. I do not want to loose my edge. There has been talk of extension and if I have to go back I want to be prepared. I create my little home, then sit on the edge of my cot and look around. I dont know what to do with myself. I think of my wife and children and wonder what they are doing right at this very moment. I wonder if theyll appreciate me being home or resent my authority.

I cant stand it and get up and walk outside . The heat blasts my face. I still dont know what to do.

I go to McDonalds.

Song For The Day

Pilgrim - Enya

Meditation

"In All Our Affairs"

"The chief purpose of AA is sobriety. We all realize that without sobriety we have nothing.

"However, it is possible to expand this simple aim into a great deal of nonsense, so far as the individual member is concerned. Sometimes we hear him say, in effect,'Sobriety is my sole responsiility. After all, I'm a pretty fine chap except for my drinking. Give me sobriety, and I've got it made!'

"As long as our friend clings to this comfortable alibi, he will make so litle progress with his real life problems and responsiblities that he stands in a fair way to get drunk again. This is why AAs Twelfth Step urges that we 'practice these principles in all our affairs.' We are not living just to be sober; we are living to learn, to serve, and to love."

As Bill Sees It

p 94

Letter, 1966

Three gun trucks file through the compound in the darkness, uniformly spaced after months of doing so outside the wire. They are dirty yet have an organized and purposeful look about them.

The crews are silent. There are no greetings to others around them. New people in the area, replacements from another newly arrived unit, stare at them as they pass by.

Theyarrive at a staging area and come to a halt. The crews dismount their vehicles and begin the routine of dissasembling weapons and unpacking gear. They work in silence.

It is their last day in Iraq.

Meditation

When Defects Are Less than Deadly

Practically everybody wishes to be rid of his most glaring and destructive handicaps. No one wants to be so proud that he is scorned as a braggart nor so greedy that he is labeled a thief. No one wants to be angry enough to murder, lustful enough to rape, glutinous enough to ruin his health. No wants to be agonized by chronic envy or paralyzed by sloth.

Of course, most human beings don’t suffer these defects at these rock-bottom levels, and we who have escaped such extremes are apt to congratulate ourselves. Yet can we? After all, hasn’t it been self-interest that has enabled most of us to escape? Not much spiritual effort is involved in avoiding excesses which will bring us punishment anyway. But when we face up to the less violent aspects of these very same defects, where do we stand then?

As Bill Sees It

P 96

(I got out of order somehow. Ill fix that later)

Song For The Day

Come on, come on - Cheap Trick

We are in the rear tonight pulling rear guard for our convoy. I face rearward as I sit in the gunners turret as we pass BIAP, using my night vision goggles (NVG's) to peer into the darkness creating the familiar green world I have come to know so well this past year.

I flip the goggle up in its helmet mount then stand up and turn around to face forward. Up front is a large orange flash in the blackness that backlights a bridge. Its there for an instant then dissapears into the night. A moment later I hear and feel the large thump of the IED that destroys our front guntruck on point. Organized chaos ensues on the convoy net and text book evasive actions are taken. There is no follow on enemy action.

We take action to find the trigger man who is more than likely miles away by now. A friendly patrol in the area comes to our assistance but doesnt wish to sweep the kill zone for secondary devices. We do it instead. I stand in the turret with a handheld light, exposed to any blasts that could go off. Another man in my unit will be killed doing the exact thing the very next night.

No devices are found.

Luckily nobody is killed tonight. The device was small comparitively speaking and the gunner was sitting down thankfully.

In the next two days two members of my unit will be killed days before going home.