Procrastination silliness . . .

Yes, I spent all afternoon working on this.

If you follow the link to the one on my flickr site, I’ve posted my source of inspiration as well as my tool to build it.

I know, I know, I’m taking forever . . .

Yeah, it’s been a while since I got back from training, but after driving for 17 hours, I just wasn’t up to writing for a couple days. I’ve got a good long entry rolling around in my head, a synopsis of everything that I did in my training and what I thought about it and all that, but for the moment my computer time has been spent uploading all my training photos onto my Flickr account. I told my squad that I’d put them out so that they’d be able to see them, too. (Which is why I put up almost all the pictures I had, instead of sorting them out more thoroughly.)

The picture above is me in the humvee, ready to head out to our first day of training in the field. I’m fully geared and I’ve got my (blank-adapted) M-16 with me, though you can’t see it in the photo. This was how we spent quite a while during the week there. I also enjoyed, however, spending time in the turret of the humvee, whenever I could talk my way into that spot.

I promise, I’ll write more soon . . . just as soon as I finish getting all my photos up (and my laundry done, and my stuff together, and my lists written for what I need to do in my last few weeks in the States . . . aaaaaaaaaaack!).

Quick update about training

I don’t have long to write this–in approximately 8 minutes I need to meet my squad (for training we’re arranged into squads of 13 people) and head over to the lecture hall, but I thought I’d write a brief note . . .

The drive went well, although at 17 hours it was much longer than I would have chosen, though still 4 hours shorter than what Google predicted. (3 more than I hoped for, however–but I wasn’t factoring in the fact that there was relatively constant traffic all the way up the eastern seaboard from DC on . . .)

Training has been pretty good so far. One afternoon out in the field, and I’m already bruised nicely around my knees and elbows, but I did a good job yesterday and didn’t embarrass myself. It’s funny–the bulk of the people here are JAG or chaplains, so I don’t stick out as much as I thought I would. Yes, I am the only resident “math nerd,” but at least I’m not the only person who’s not used to doing heavy-duty hands-on military stuff.

We have CQB coming up in a couple days–this is up-close urban warfare with “simunition” rounds which have paint at the tips but are a touch more solid than paintballs. Apparently you tend to sport some pretty bruises after this round of training . . . we shall see. Today, though, is going to be lecture-hall stuff, which works for me . . .

OK, I’m going to be late. I’ll try to update more later.

*Note (as of 5 October 2006): I’m turning off comments on this post because it’s attracting a continual spamming of various pharmaceutical products for disfunctions that I cannot ever have, due to a quirk of biology . . .

Packing once more

Seems like I’m spending a lot of my life doing this! Anyway, I ran all over today and got all my pre-training errands done. All the non-Air Force ones, that is. Technically, I should be traveling today–as it is, I’m going to drive all the way up to New Jersey tomorrow, which will necessitate me leaving at some horrific hour in the morning. Sigh. Too bad I didn’t get things done with more time to drive!

It took me two days of blood, sweat and tears to get all my AF errands done for this training. It didn’t help that it’s all mixed up with my deployment paperwork. I did eventually track down all the critical equipment, got my medical clearance signed (which meant an appointment and an, oh, by the way, you’re overdue on your pap smear so let’s just do it right now–good to get it out of the way for my deployment, but . . . ugh), got my GOV drivers’ license, and lots of other paperwork signed, and I think (fingers crossed) that’s all of it. Anyway, I’ve gotten what I could do done.

Man, when I get back from this training (at the beginning of October), it’s just going to be more of that, times ten. Because then I’ll be getting immunizations (smallpox and anthrax shots, anyone?), doing even more paperwork, and getting all the desert-specific equipment issued to me. What doesn’t help is that the orders that I finally arm-twisted out of the readiness flight now aren’t valid . . . apparently, since it’s October and part of the new fiscal year, the fund cite that’s on them isn’t good. I have to have a new ‘07 funding citation put on them, but oh, by the way, Congress isn’t going to sign the Department of Defense budget into action until sometime in October. “What, October 1st?” asked the airman who was wrestling with Finance about this on my behalf. “Oh, no, it’ll be later than that,” the finance officer said. “Maybe a week or two later . . . ” Which is all well and good except I need those orders to get the stuff done that I need to have in place, and I have to leave here around the 20th in order to be in place in time . . . Arrrrgh! Actually, for all it’s a headache, I figure it’ll all work out. I’ll probably be running around like a crazy person at the last minute, trying to sort things out, but really, since when is that new?

So, today was a bit of a hassle, but this was all brought on by my own airheadedness. I was doing my shopping for all the supplies that I was going to need for this training (the ones I needed to provide), and I picked up three sets of DVDs: Lost, Desperate Housewives, and Grey’s Anatomy. These are going to be deployment entertainment in the few spare hours that I have, played on my laptop. Anyway, in all the rush to get all my bags, I managed to leave that bag up at the counter . . . and then didn’t realize it until I was sorting out my stuff about two hours later. I ran back to Wal-Mart and the sweet lady who’d been there at the checkout counter was just getting ready to leave and leaving a note for the person after her to give me the stuff that I’d left. Apparently she, the man who was in line after me, and several other people that she’d enlisted had combed the parking lot for me when I left the first time . . . but all to no avail because I left out the back (I’d brought my car in for an oil change).

Anyway, it was a moment of panic but also, on the other side of it, a reminder of how wonderful people can be. I feel so blessed to have had a bunch of people trying to look out for me like that!

OK, I shouldn’t write much more because I really do have to pack, if I’m going to get any sleep at all tonight before heading out at 0-dark-30 tomorrow. (I also need to print out driving directions.)

I’m going to try to keep updating things here, but I have no idea what my Internet connectivity status is likely to be for the next two weeks. If worst comes to worst, I’ll write up a bunch of entries on my laptop and upload them all once I get back. So if you don’t hear from me in a while, this is why. So, wish me luck (or pray for me) as I drive up to NJ tomorrow and embark upon 2 weeks of “contingency skills training”!

Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs (woof)

I found this courtesy of lgf. The whole article is great–read it here.

If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero’s path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed.

[. . .]The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.

Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn’t tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, “Baa.”

Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.

[. . .]Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?

Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.

Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, “Thank God I wasn’t on one of those planes.” The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, “Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference.” When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.

Hmmm. I know I’ve heard that phrase “I want to make a difference” before. Or was it “I just want to do something!”? This theory would explain things for me, though. Every now and then, not even enough times for me to count on the fingers of one hand, I have been in a situation in which my essential nature was roused. How to explain it? I guess I feel like I must have inherited a touch of Viking berzerker blood or something, because when, that very few times in the past, someone was attacking part of “my” group, my friends or my family, or even people in my school who couldn’t defend themselves, I got to the point where I was literally seeing red. Like a red haze that obscured my vision . . . and I knew that if I didn’t hold myself back, I would hurt someone. I think it was having what this author calls my “sheepdog” instincts tapped. It wasn’t a desire to hurt someone, nor a desire to inflict pain, simply a switch turned on my nature when one more act of violence on “my flock” would have made me have to attack the wolf in order to protect mine.

I probably sound like a scary violent person–but I’m not! I’ve never acted on those instincts, because I’ve never had to. But I know they’re there, well under the surface in ordinary circumstances but ready to bubble to the surface if I need to defend the people who are entrusted to me. Perhaps this is why my reaction to 9/11 was that focused anger that translated into deliberate action–taking steps to join the military, on this day five years ago. I’m glad I did it, even when the military sometimes seems more trouble than it’s worth!

How did we get here?

A poll lately showed that nearly 3/4ths of Canadians say American foreign policy was the root cause of 9/11. At NRO, Tom Nichols addresses this:

The real problem here is that the Canadian poll results are just another example of a kind of denial that has set in among certain people, both inside and outside of the United States, over the past five years. These people desperately want to find some reason, some issue that can be solved, as the mainspring behind Islamic terrorism. Otherwise, they would have to confront the terrible reality that there is nothing we can give the terrorists that will stop the killing. We can change our policies, but we can’t change our culture or beliefs—or at least change them enough to suit the Islamic fascists who would turn the world into one big Taliban-run Afghanistan if they could. And so rather than face the fact that we’re at war with a relentless enemy with whom no negotiated peace is possible, such people retreat into fantasies about how the whole thing could be settled somehow if we could only figure out how to stop doing whatever it is they don’t like.

His analysis would explain something that bothered me from yesterday. I was watching CNN, and they showed the results of a poll that showed that a majority (or at least a plurality) of young people were inclined to blame the Bush administration for 9/11, while older generations leaned slightly more in favor of blaming the Clinton administration or no administration at all. OK, first of all, I think it’s a rather idiotic idea to blame any American administration for 9/11. But if you had to blame one, how could you blame the Bush administration, which was barely 9 months old by 9/11? In government terms, that’s definitely not enough time to achieve anything!

Personally, part of me would kind of like to blame the Clinton administration, but I think that’s also ridiculous. The culpability for 9/11 rests solidly, surely, solely on the shoulders of the Islamic terrorists who plotted it and the Islamist organizations and administrations that supported them doing so.

What Americans did in the 90’s, including the Clinton administration (who had enough information about what was going on that you’d hope they’d have been able to see things a little more clearly), was deny the reality of the war that was being waged against us. I think that what really happened to us was that we weren’t able to see what was going on. The perspective as of 9/10 was that America was invulnerable to terrorist attack, except overseas (or perhaps by locally grown nutcase militia-types).

So many red flags were raised during the run-up to the 9/11 attacks–the hijackers on one of the flights were actually considered “suspicious” but all it meant was that their bags were kept off the flight until they’d been confirmed as passengers. Collectively, no one understood that these were suicide bombers–it took us years, I think, to conceive of the fact that there’s an enormous faction within the Islamic world that would die to kill us. We simply were not equipped, as of that morning of 9/11, to understand what was happening.

I remember hearing (or reading) that the first denizens of the post-9/11 world order were the passengers of United 93. These people had enough time to figure out what was happening, and took the sort of actions that were necessary to prevent bringing down the Capitol or the White House. Conventional wisdom with hijackings was to give ‘em what they want, cooperate and do hostage negotiations with them. (Hmmm–that term “conventional wisdom” again.) But no one planned on hijackers who wanted nothing more than to be killed while killing as many Americans as they possibly could. The passengers of United 93 processed this information remarkably well, and did what they needed to do to prevent the disaster becoming greater than it already was.

This is the same sort of initiative that ordinary Americans showed when they took down the Shoe Bomber when he was attempting a suicide bombing of his own, and what we expect to see should terrorists attempt something similar in the future.

Now terrorists have to escape not only governmental notice, but also the notice of the ordinary people around them. Their plots, accordingly, have to have a much greater level of sophistication, and because at all times people are attuned to look for these sorts of plots, the terrorists are much more likely to be caught. Witness, for instance, the recent barrage of arrests for people who were buying suspicious numbers of untraceable cell phones–even though these apparently weren’t what we thought they were, it’s good to see that they were flagged.

Yes, the terrorists only have to get lucky once, but their odds have diminished exponentially since their own success on 9/11. It’s like a computer virus exposing a hole in a popular program–the first virus might cause a massive problem worldwide, but they also help the software developer to not only patch the hole that they exploited, but also to watch for similar holes in the future. With each successful attack, the developers learn how to create more robust security measures. I think that the defensive side of the War on Terror is going to work this way, because even though we’re back to navel-gazing and sniping at other Americans, we’re attuned to security risks as we travel and go about our daily lives. And simply put, we weren’t attuned to these risks before 9/11.

So do I think it’s right to blame any one administration (even one that I think was off-base in many ways) for us being so vulnerable to terrorists on 9/11? No. We were unable to process information correctly to see what was happening, from the highest levels of government on down. The few people who were warning about the possibility of a devastating terrorist attack on American soil really were considered little more than paranoid conspiracy theorists. I guess that we needed a reality check–and did we ever get one.

Do we need another reality check?

I’ve started to wonder if we’re due for another reality check. It seems like a growing part of the American public really believes that there is some solution that we can turn to, some set of incentives that we can hand over to Islamists that will make them go away and leave us alone. They’re not agreed, I think, on what that solution might be, but they persist in believing that there is such a thing.

However, I’m pretty sure that there isn’t a solution to it. These people believe in the axiomatic truth that the West, all that it produces, and all that it represents are evil and must be eradicated. And how do you negotiate with someone who believes that the greatest good would be extinguishing your nation and your culture? I would argue that it’s impossible. I think the greater portion of conservatives (and a smaller portion of liberals) agree.

If the political currents really are trending the way that it looks like they are, with netroots activists advocating a widespread political trend toward anti-Americanism (considered “dissent” against “the system”), I doubt that continued conservative leadership is going to do anything but further enrage that faction and inflate their numbers. Perhaps it would be best, if they are becoming as widespread as it seems, that they get their own in power.

I shudder to think of the consequences if this does happen, because I believe that it will mean that we busily go about burying our national head in the sand again, leaving ourselves vulnerable for something new on the scale of 9/11 (or worse?). But sometimes people refuse to learn by example or secondhand, and it appears that this younger generation, particularly, along with the growing portion of radical leftists, learned a weird set of lessons from 9/11 and its aftermath, particularly the Iraq war.

Do you think that a horrific terrorist attack which happened on the watch of their own administration would suffice to convince the hardened deniers-of-reality that we’re dealing with a real foe that has no other goal but destroying us and all that we stand for? Then again, maybe they’d just say it was all the fault of the previous administration (Bush and the Republican Congress).

I’d hope that we can eventually come together as a people, and realize that we should defend ourselves against our foes. It seems weird to me that one has to rely on wishful thinking that one’s own country would decide that it should defend itself. It seems like there are a whole lot of people out there–that is, American and European people–that would like, with the Islamists, for the American nation and culture to be exterminated. Am I wrong?

9/11/2006

I’ve found myself glued to the TV and the radio today; particularly when I was getting in to work and the ceremonies commemorating 9/11 and “this is what happened at this time five years ago.” It brings tears to my eyes, and I’m not even sure why. It’s not simple mourning over so many lost lives, nor fear or sadness about our national “loss of innocence”. I think what affects me so deeply is remembering how it felt that day. I had forgotten (and I didn’t think I had) how profoundly confused everyone was about what, exactly had happened. For days I was certain that the other shoe was about to drop. I took up turning on the TV for a few minutes each morning and listening to the news on a hastily-purchased portable radio on the bus into work–that’s where I heard President Bush’s State of the Union and his memorable “axis of evil” phrase.

Do you remember how it took us months to know how many people were killed in the attacks? Do you remember that we didn’t hear for years what, exactly had happened that brought down the towers? I’m glad that ABC is airing their controversial miniseries showing some of our failures in the run-up to 9/11–it’s something that we’ve had to become aware of in the military, and I read many books detailing the history of the Islamist war against America in the course of research for my thesis earlier this year.

Where were you when it happened?

I was living in Tacoma, Washington on 9/11. It was my habit to get up around 5:30 a.m., get ready, make my way to the bus stop at the Tacoma Dome, and take the bus to downtown Seattle, where I worked, arriving around 7:30 to my office in the second-tallest building in Seattle, on the 49th floor.

I started a little early–I’d taken my car into the shop for some maintenance on the day before, and it meant that I’d worked shorter hours on September 10th. (Which we now remember the last day of “the way things used to be”.) I left the house around 6:15, got down to the bus stop–it was still dark, in my recollection–and had a fairly normal ride in. I do remember the woman in the seat beside me talking into a cell phone. What I distinctly remember her saying is “And they fell? They both fell down?” with a voice filled with shock and disbelief. (I wish she would have told the rest of us on the bus what had happened.)

At the time, I thought that she meant a “jumper” from a bridge. You see, not long earlier, one fairly big news item in Seattle had been a woman who was standing on one of the bridges, threatening to jump. Well, she did this during rush hour, which is pretty awful anyway, and so people were very angry. “Jump, *****, jump!” screamed one exhasperated motorist out his window–people were justifiably horrified. Anyway, it was a big deal and that’s what I thought the woman on the bus must have been talking about.

But when I got to my building in Seattle, I noticed that something was off. There was a subdued huddle of office workers in the lobby, and the elevator bank was almost deserted, which was absolutely unheard-of at that time of day. When I got to my office, my supervisor came out of his office and told me what was happening (I think that the second tower was just about to fall at that point). I looked it up online, until the news server overloaded, and then logged off my computer (they were evacuating the building as a precautionary measure).

And I rode home on an overcrowded bus . . . much like the day 7 months earlier when we’d had the earthquake in Seattle and we all got sent home early. I got home, watched the TV coverage with unbelief, wondered what was going to happen next, and then went over to my cousin’s house and spent the rest of the day with her, watching the TV and feeling . . . numb.

One thing I do remember distinctly was all the speculation that our economy was going to fail because of this. I actually went to a store and bought a pair of shoes (that pinched horribly and I got rid of a couple years later) specifically to “bolster the American economy” and “do my patriotic duty–buy something.” Later on that action struck me as a very strange reaction. I suppose it was a lapse of judgment brought on by shock.

I went back to work the next day. I had gone through shock to anger–seething, gut-wrenching, overwhelming rage. How could someone do this to us? How could people perpetrate such a horrible act against people who were clueless, vulnerable, and who bore the perpetrators no real antipathy? I wanted to be able to do something, and yet here I was stuck on the other side of the country, all planes were grounded, and I was stuck at my office, where nothing real was happening (it was a law firm and understandably, most people weren’t concerned with matters legal for a few days). I was sitting on my hands and real life was happening 3000 miles away, and all I wanted was to go out there to Ground Zero and do something.

It didn’t help that this was Seattle and Bush-bashing headquarters and Washington State tends toward a certain Pacific Northwestern isolationism . . . so within even that first two days I was hearing a certain amount of whining about how if our government did something about this (that being taking on Afghanistan), it would be “another Vietnam” and they all started mouthing these “violence begets violence” platitudes that infuriated me further. It was like being on a playground, watching a kid get beaten up, and all these onlookers standing around saying that they didn’t want to intervene because then they’d be condoning violence.

So I talked to the Air Force recruiter on the 13th, and my life has taken a distinct turn as a result of that fateful day 5 years ago. I know for certain I would not be where I am now had 9/11 not happened. But then, that’s probably the case for lots of people.

M9 Training

I qualified for the M9 (9 mm.) this morning. It wasn’t a particularly impressive showing (I get excited and don’t concentrate on actually aiming the pistol), but for only the second time ever that I’ve handled (and shot) a gun, I guess it’s good enough. And if I’m in a situation where I have to use it–well, let’s just say I hope I’m not in a situation where I have to use it. But it’s good to know I could.

This picture is from the last time that I did M9 training, four years ago–it should look familiar from the banner at the top of this page.

Funny stuff from the past

I’ve been going through all my books this weekend, cataloguing them into LibraryThing–I mentioned this earlier. As I look at all of my books (in order to put their ISBN into the search, unless they’re old and don’t have one), I’ve found all sorts of interesting things stuffed inside them, particularly in the older ones.

Well, in probably my very first Bible, I found the following snippet of writing–one of my earlier stories. I think this probably dates from late middle school . . . that’s about when I started to have notions of becoming an author someday. At any rate, I liked stories. However, much as Anne (as in Green Gables) found later on in life, this writing becomes, at first, embarrassing, and then hilarious!

. . . I sat down again and thought about my father. Then, suddenly, all the grief which I had not felt before came rushing up. I started feeling tears in my eyes, and then I was sobbing, letting out all the grief which had had no outlet for a year. Racking sobs shook my whole frame as I slipped slowly to the ground from the bench.How long I was there, I don’t know. Time did not exist for me. As I gradually became aware of my surroundings again, I realized someone was holding me. I looked up quickly. It was a man. I did not recognize him, for the lighting was poor.

“Shh,” he said, “don’t worry. Everything will be all right.” His speech was heavily accented.

I pulled away and wiped my eyes, straightening my gown, trying to regain a sense of control. “I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t usually do this.”

“I think you have been needing to for a long time.” Again that strangely accented voice.

I stared. But the stranger stood up. He was extremely tall. I didn’t even reach his shoulder, and I am tall, for a girl. He took my arm.

“Shall we dance?”

We walked back into the halls. When we reached the lighted area I looked curiously. He was the man I had seen by the fountain.

When we got in, he turned to me. “I am sorry. I have not introduced myself. I am Pavel.”

“And I am Angele-Marie.” I replied.

“So fitting. . .” He said as we began to dance.

The night passed quickly. In a state of total exhaustion I fell into my bed.

As I recall, this is a snippet from a retelling of Cinderella, where “Angele-Marie” (it had all the relevant French accents over the e’s in Angele, too!) was the good “evil stepsister” of a rather wanton Britney Spears-esque “Ella”. Implication being that by marrying the sleazy prince (because who else would go for someone without any substance?), Ella got all the control over how the story was “spun” to the public.

I love that there are no interruptions by common sense. After all, isn’t it usual to fall apart completely when you’ve quitted a ball temporarily, and be so anesthesized by your anguish that you don’t even notice that a strange man picks you up? Then there is the utterance of heavily-accented platitudes from this aforesaid strange man, and what about the problem that, if she’d been crying that hard, she’d hardly want to go back into the ballroom again with her face all swollen? But none of that impinged on my fevered writing . . .

The Fish-Eaters

I found this article today. I’ve never actually put these ideas together, before, which shows that I’m either slow or just have never read them in the same context. One more strike against conventional wisdom?

After all, “everyone knows” that:

1. Everyone should, in their best interests, eat more fish and less of the other meats, especially red meat. Fish is packed with Omega-3 fatty acids and all sorts of other wonderful nutrients, and all the cultures that eat fish with regularity are healthier, smarter, and better across the board.
2. Commerical fisheries are depleting our oceans of fish, creating a situation where many species of fish are rapidly vanishing.

It’s fascinating that we don’t see these two common-knowlege items positioned together. Instead, we’re led to believe, it’s our evil gluttonousness as a society, and the nefarious commercialists of Big Business who conspire to deplete our oceans of fish. How interesting if it’s really because we’re all trying to be nutritionally correct and health-conscious, and that increasing demand is placing too heavy a burden on the fishing industry?

Hmmm. Makes you wonder. Well, it makes me wonder, anyway. Funny, you never hear anyone crying about depleting the world of cows or pigs, do you? Perhaps, as a wild flight of fancy, this might be because it’s natural for we humans to eat things that we’ve domesticated for the purpose of eating . . . and when we eschew domesticated foods in favor of wild ones, the meagre resources of wild species that reproduce naturally aren’t enough to satisfy the needs of human population. Intriguing . . .