Saturday, December 31, 2011

Per chance to dream...

"You spend all of your days just waiting for the nights..."

So goes the lyric in a song, funny how it reminds me, better yet, provides parallel to thoughts in my head. Despite what the posting time says, it's now edging closer to 3:15AM and I am yet to sleep. Sleep, in all of it's multitudes of benefits both physically and mentally, brings dreams. Or nightmares. Or bitter realities and memories. What a strange, uncharted area, the landscape of the mind where dreams gestate and live. To some they find their Fiddler's Green, to others it's a Dante inspired circle. To soldiers who've seen real war it becomes another place we tend not to go.

Last night beget another wonderful night of repressed thoughts/memories bubbling to the surface. Being sick, I foolishly took medicines which while providing cold relief, also rendered me from the usual defenses against the visiting ghosts and all the baggage they provide. What's worse is my inability to recall the slightest details from these "episodes". Is it because my mind is attempting desperately to keep me from reliving it in a constant loop? Or is it because I already know what everything is about and I am merely in acceptance of it? I wish I had a God damn clue to what is going on during these moments. Other than apparently my Iraqi Arabic is perfect, I haven't an idea as to the depth and scope at all.

I wish I could offer some clarity to this. Like my other posts before, I would love to deliver my usual soliloquy in a humorously clever, smug fashion. But I can't. Instead of lying in bed sleeping, I'm typing away to a non-verbal laptop hoping to have answers like a gift from above delivered to me. Does it make any God damn sense? If I were to live forever, would it make any God damn sense? I feel like Roy Batty, clutching a dove on a rooftop in the rain saying "I've seen things you wouldn't believe...". Humans for centuries have fought wars. Killed in the name of Gods, kings, countries and beliefs. Why does it seem as though we still haven't found another way forward? Centuries and we still can't figure it out. I know how naive that is to think that. I know the necessity of wars and the actions therein. I just wonder at what cost humanity? Sanity? Personal sanctity?

As a soldier, I stand firm in my beliefs and what I do with and for my brotherhood. I am resolute. It's all the God damn repercussions I have trouble with. I don't want to look at my children and think of children there who were caught in cross fire during a fire fight or lay dead on the ground from bullets and/or blasts, children caught under vehicles while pushing through areas of hostility. I don't want to always sit with my back to the wall in a restaurant. I don't want to scan crowds and have my alert not falter. I want to not smell a smell or hear a sound that brings me back somewhere I don't want to be. I want to see the the world in a way other than as something you have to grab by the throat and force to make sense. I want to believe in God and his wonders. I want to not defensively react to sudden movements by those I love. I want to sleep, like I did before I was a veteran soldier.

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