XXVIII december MMVI
so, the fda is saying it isn't going to require labels telling you the difference between cloned meat and real meat. i'm not sure that i even know where i stand on the issue of cloning animals but i sure don't see a problem with letting the consumer know what they are getting, what do you think?
XXVII december MMVI
President Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006)
daniel webster - secretary of state, senator, statesman
when i read about president ford's passing, i began looking up information on his life and presidency; one thing led to another and i ended up researching daniel webster. i found it interesting/disturbing that wikipedia had absolutely nothing about daniel webster's strong Christian beliefs and values. i dug a little deeper and found several quotes that can attest to his beliefs but not much else on the internet, although i'm sure it's out there if you dig deep enough. i found a lot about his contributions to the country before and during the civil war, his childhood, his selection by the senate as one of the five most important senators of all time, but no one seems to want to remember his Christianity. i think that it's important for us who profess to be followers of Christ and claim to be citizens of this great nation to remember those great founders and past leaders of our country not only for their contributions but also for there beliefs.
i have found some quotations attributed to webster i found compelling and or stirring, here they are for your reading pleasure:
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger."
"The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it."
"The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God."
"If there be any thing in my style of thought to be commended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures."
"Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe, in comparison with the insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot merely be a human production. This belief enters into the very depth of my consciences."
"The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations, the relation between the creature and his Creator."
XXIV december MMVI
i am happy to announce the newest member of our family, "jeep". God has truly blessed us again.
II december MMVI
dead reindeer, bands, and notifications
i know i have not kept up with my blog very well. i hope that any readers still left checking this can forgive me. we will be heading to nashville soon and we are really looking forward to seeing everyone.
driving home from somewhere the other day darby saw a big christmas lights display, and after we had driven by it she stated very matter-of-factly that the reindeer being used in the display were killed and then the lights where hung on their bones. she said it like she had given it some thought and determined that was how they made them. the funny part was that she did not have the least bit of concern in her voice, like this was a perfectly acceptable sacrifice to be made for having beautiful decorations.
i have discovered several new bands since coming home. i know these are probably old news to a lot of you but i have been out of the loop for a year. anyway, the two that i really like are the fray and snow patrol, but hinder is also okay.
notifications:
daniel “g” gaumer a.k.a. “left turn” i have lost your phone number, so please call me back. christian vasquez i have lost your contact information as well, so please if you're still reading this give me a call.
XXI november MMVI
shopping and sandwiches
yesterday we took the van in to get the brakes fixed and spent the rest of the day shopping. let me just say that there is nothing quite like clothes shopping to make one feel human again. trying on new outfits and basically wearing anything that isn't some form of camoflauge has been nice.
we ate at mcallister's for lunch and it was awesome. petra found it amusing that after we placed our order and sat down they came out to verify that my sandwich order was correct before they began making it. i told her that's how you know you've got a good sandwich, when you tell them what you want and they respond with “are you sure?”
just to satisfy anyone's curiosity, the part that left them unsure was two slices each of five different types of cheese. apparently they don't get that request a lot.
XVIII november MMVI
i stumbled across a survey in real simple that caught my attention. i thought i would answer the questions and post them for everyone's viewing pleasure.
life would be simpler if…
i didn't have to work for a living.
i feel most attractive…
dressed up for a date with my wife
the quality i like least about myself is…
my pride
something that no one knows about me is…
i cry watching sappy movies
my guiltiest pleasure is…
reading women's magazines
my favorite possession is…
my laptop computer
when i was little i wanted to be…
a special forces soldier
what surprises me most about my adult life is…
when people ask me for advice
the big decision i'm currently wrestling with is…
what direction to take in my military career
my motto of the moment is…
“fortune favors the bold”
XVII november MMVI
i am home now and it is good. it is such a tremendous feeling to wake up with one's wife in one's own bed. i am very appreciative of all the prayers and support that everyone has offered up and given. i have the next few days off to spend with the family and then it's back to work. although i don't really plan on doing too much work between now and the end of block leave.
the animals that have found their way into my home while I was away both seem to like me. (much to petra 's relief) animals always love me so I had not given it much thought. jacob also seems to be alright with me being around so that's good news. he is a little cutie and my plan is to take his mom's place as his favorite as soon as possible, although that may prove to be no small task.
IX november MMVI
i will be unable to update my blog for the next week or so due to my traveling back home from iraq. i look forward to getting home and putting up blog entries about my boring life instead of this terrible place.
thanks to everyone for their love and support.
XXXI october MMVI
i am sad to say that we have lost another soldier from our company. he was on his last patrol and was struck by an ied. he was airlifted to Baghdad and it looked like he would make it but after surgery, on the way to getting a ct, he died, and they where unable to revive him. he was supposed to fly back home to the states tomorrow. he was one of the other two prior service marines in our company. we were all together before he went out on the patrol picking on his roommate who is a ranger. it is a tough loss, especially this close to going home. he was one of the best soldiers in the company and had won the best team leader event before we deployed.
i have one last patrol to do before i can start to turn in my gear. we have pretty much turned over the ao to the unit replacing us, but the key leaders have been rolling out in a type of advisory role. five of my guys have already gone home and two more of them are supposed to leave on the third. none of my guys are supposed to go out on patrols anymore. it is such a relief to know they won’t be leaving the wire anymore. i can’t wait for us to all get home. it has been a real challenge to keep my guys focused the last several weeks. not too much longer though, God willing.
i am counting down the minutes until i get to see my wonderful family. everyone please continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers.
XII october MMVI
"the war tapes"
i have just watched a movie called “the war tapes”. it was, of course, pirated, most movies here are. anyway, it is an amazing movie! if anyone wants to know what life is like for me here in iraq, then go see this movie. it is a documentary made of actual footage taken by infantry soldiers with the new hampshire national guard. it shows their lives as they operate on some of the same roads and in the same places i’m in now. it also shows the lives of their family at home and the months after their return. it was filmed during 2004, but amazingly, not much has changed here. the film does an excellent job of summing up in 97 minutes, a year over here and what that entails. i found some of it hard to watch due to how close to home it hits, but i highly recommend it.
XI october MMVI
i have been so busy lately that i haven’t been able to update my blog much. we have a lot to do in order to get out of here (iraq). and of course our operational tempo won’t slow down in order to accomplish these extra tasks. we just have to use our ‘sleep’ time. i won’t bore you with all the details of re-deployment. i’m sure you can imagine the army doesn’t make it easy. nothing is easy in the army unless you have direct control over it. i miss my wife and kiddos like crazy and the closer i get to coming home the more they are on my mind. God willing, i fly out on the 11th of november. it shouldn’t be too many more days after that until i get home. i get leave from december 4th through january 5th. so i am really looking forward to the time off. i hope to see as much of family and friends as i can while i’m on leave. petra and i plan on taking a vacation sometime in there. it will be nice to be home.
VI october MMVI
i guess this time out was about the same as any other. a bradley fighting vehicle caught fire and basically burned to the ground. it wasn’t ours though; it was strike company’s. someone is going to have to explain what happened to their six million dollar vehicle; i’m glad it’s not me. evidently the engine caught fire and it spread before they could put it out. once the fire reached where the ammo is stored there was no hope and everyone took cover while the 25mm he (high explosive) rounds cooked off.
the ihp (iraqi highway patrol) found two ied’s while we were out there, both of them we destroyed without them detonating on anyone. one had a decoy ied placed near it, not a very funny trick.
there were reports of two different convoys receiving small arms fire in our ao but by the time we got trucks to where they were attacked at, the bad guys had long gone. the other half of our platoon was shot at by american forces the day before we relieved them out. apprantly they were all retarded. i’m guessing probably national guard. we used to get shot at quite a bit when we first took over our ao but this is the first time it’s happened in a while. the army doesn’t think that kind of thing is very funny so there is, of course, going to be an investigation, which will most likely reveal what we already know; the guys that shot at us were retarded.
one bit of news I left out; we are now the only platoon out there in our company’s ao. our other two tank platoons have been sent to another area, due to the problems there. so what we were barely covering with a platoon and a half we are now covering with just half a platoon. wish us luck.
II october MMVI
kissing the dirt
back home
and kneeling down
to kiss the earth
that i call home
how much longer
until with cold lips
i kiss the dirt
from the other side
looking up at
what i called home
taking care of poetry
first, i tuck a new poem
in clean white sheets.
then i check on it
each night before bed.
whatever it needs i bring it,
a glass of water, pills,
maybe even a bedtime story.
but always one about grandparents
and always one that’s not too long.
sometimes i check on it
in the middle of the day,
but usually it's too busy
and prefers not to be bothered.
if its sick i never bring it soup,
only a big bouquet of flowers,
wildflowers, and only hand-picked.
so i have a good reason
to visit the fields
that lay outside the city.
XXIX september MMVI
good night and good luck
i just found out that in the ao to the north of us, about 7 miles from where our platoon operates, an ied was found and then detonated by eod (explosive ordinance disposal). it ended up containing mustard gas. this isn't the first time we have come across chemical weapons in iraq (despite what you might hear on the tv), but it is the first time that we've seen them used in an ied. of course, like much of what goes on over here, i doubt any of this will be on the evening news. when i first returned from the middle east from the last time i was over here, i was surprised at how far off the news that was being reported was from what was actually happening. i again am blown away by the way things are distorted and omitted. i just watched a good movie about integrity in journalism called good night and good luck. it is based on a true story and done in black and white, and it reminded me a lot of my grandfather, papa carden, for some reason. it has no violence or chase scenes, so if that's why you watch movies it may not interest you, but it had some very good dialogue, good actors and brought up some interesting points.
quote of the moment:
"kip hawley is an idiot" – comment written on a toiletries bag by ryan bird about the tsa director. bird was told “he couldn't write things like that” by tsa screeners and was pulled out of line, searched and harassed for approximately 25 minutes before being allowed to board the plane.
XXVIII september MMVI
giants among men
i have often wondered at the silence of many veterans when it comes to what they have done or experienced in combat. the longer i'm here, the more I understand their silence. i try to give those back home a sense of what goes on here, but rest assured, it is censored. there is so much you don't want to know. there is so much that has happened here that no one ever needs to know. and now i have some sense of what those that came before me carry with them. those that faced far worse conditions than the ones i deal with; those that went off to fight the germans, japanese, koreans and vietnamese, and then came back home to rebuild a country or face rebuke. truly they were and are giants among men. so next time you thank an old veteran for your freedom, know this; that even if he didn't lose his legs or take shrapnel to the face, he still carries with him scars and wounds inside that you will never see.
XXVII september MMVI
rockets and russian roulette
i was sitting in my can today (can is what we call the pre-fab metal boxes we live in) when i heard the scream of a rocket come over and then felt the impact of its explosion. as the blast knocked over things in my room i grabbed my ibas (individual body armor system) and kevlar (helmet) and headed out my door for the bunkers i opened the door in time to watch the plume from the explosion rising up less than 100 meters from my can. after telling everyone without body armor to stay in the bunkers, my buddy and i ran toward the site to make sure no one was injured or killed (me in nothing but shorts, flip-flops and body armor). thank God that no one was hit this time considering it ended up most likely being at least a 107 mm rocket, probably larger. we sat around in bunkers and waited for more, but they didn't come this time. it's great fun being reminded that even in your down time, you're seconds from a rocket or mortar coming through your ceiling. it was a reminder that even when i'm not outside the wire, i'm still playing russian roulette whether i want to or not. i just take comfort in the fact that: “the lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord.” – proverbs 16:33.
speaking of being outside the wire, last night 'a' company killed fourteen insurgents. they were operating in the area just to the east of our ao (area of operation) when they were ambushed. the insurgents attacked them with rpg's, machine guns, and small arms fire. no soldiers were even injured. i'm sure that is not the end result the insurgents were hoping for when they set up the ambush, but every time they try to stand up and fight they are overwhelmed. i can't begin to imagine trying to fight an enemy that had superior weapons, equipment, and training and also owned the sky. it's no wonder that they have resorted to ied's as the mainstay of their attacks.
a friend of mine from church back home (he is in my sunday school class) was on patrol to the south when his tank was struck by an efp (explosive formed projectile). the efp is a nasty little ied that we've seen an unfortunate increase in. conventional ieds have little to no effect on our armored vehicles, especially tanks (with some exceptions). however, an efp is a different type of monster. those wishing to know more about it can look it up online, but the bottom line is they can go through anything we have, including tanks. this efp blew through the armor hitting one of the fuel cells, and the tank, while being disabled, burst into flames. my friend (who was the tank commander) escaped out the top hatch with all of his crew except the driver. the driver sits in a different location which was next to where the efp struck. the driver's hatch was stuck and my friend (whose name i'm omitting to protect his privacy) jumped back onto the burning tank to pull his driver out. everyone escaped alive with only minor scrapes and burns but the sixty-ton tank was destroyed. there are so many heroes here that no one will ever know about.
XXIV september MMVI
sudoku and mortars
this time out was pretty typical. we roll out with a tank platoon for two days at a time and split up the highway we patrol in half. the tankers had the north this time. the northern sector is usually the most active and this time out was no exception. we had an ied detonate right behind one of the tanker’s humvees and they saw some possible trigger-men run off into a group of houses. i sent my two trucks (humvees) down to help clear the houses. we knew it was a command detonated ied due to several factors. i can’t, for reasons of operational security, go into details but we have ecm (electronic countermeasures) on most of the trucks. anyway, we cleared the houses and tested the males with kits we have to determine if any of them had handled any explosives, but the insurgents had fled and no one we found tested positive.
we received mortars on one of the checkpoints the tankers were on, and while they where scanning they spotted the mortar and four to five insurgents. the tank engaged with a main gun round and two individuals fled the spot. the tankers continued engaging the area but by the time air support arrived everyone that was still alive had fled or hid.
on one of our patrols a vehicle came toward one of the humvees and the gunner engaged. we dismounted and actioned on the truck. the driver ended up not being hostile; he had just not noticed the convoy of armored vehicles traveling down the road. he quickly apologized and took the blame, and the medic treated his wounds. he was very lucky to still be alive. the iraqi's all know not to come within one-hundred meters of our vehicles and we rarely have any infractions, but when they drive straight for us we have to assume hostile intent due to the vbied (vehicle borne improvised explosive device) threat.
during my down time out on the checkpoint i was able to beat my record time for a sudoku puzzle. i was introduced to sudoku by one of the guys over here and i’m addicted. for those of you not familiar, sudoku is a puzzle with nine rows and nine columns that is further divided into nine three by three squares. it has several numbers in random squares and the object is to figure out the numbers that go into the remaining squares. each row can only have one through nine in it and each column can only have the numbers one through nine in it, and then each three by three square can only have the numbers one through nine in it. none of the rows, columns or sections can have two of the same number. if none of this is making any sense to you then google it and find better instructions. at any rate, i love doing them and this was a cause of some concern for me. see, i have always hated math, and i do mean hate. so i couldn’t understand why i was enjoying this thing covered in numbers so much. then one day one of my soldiers pointed out that it was not a “math” puzzle, it was a “logic” puzzle. he pointed out that the numbers were irrelevant, that it could be any nine symbols as long as none of them repeated themselves. of course i responded with a feeble “i knew that” and snuck off to a corner to finish my sudoku.
XXIV september MMVI
blog comments
i want to thank everyone for their comments and visits. i will try to be diligent in updating frequently. i would also welcome any comments, questions or criticism of my poetry. i enjoy writing it and would love to improve the quality of what I write. i have found past criticism from those i have been able to talk into reading it very helpful. i have chosen a few poems from each collection as a kind of sample of what is there, in truth each collection has between thirty and fifty poems.
as far as subject matter that i bring up on this blog i am content to just hear what everyone has to say. i probably won’t respond to most of the posts. please don’t think that that means i ’m not reading them carefully. i found everyone’s comments very enlightening. i am just no longer out to convince the world to think like me and that my way is right. i am much more interested in what others have to say. i don’t really have the passion to argue or debate much anymore. i would much rather hear what everyone has to say, file it away in my little brain and then move on to the next topic.
XXII september MMVI
loyalty vs. integrity
i put a question to my soldiers the other day. which is more important, loyalty or integrity? before you get ahead of me on this let me explain. we are in a hostile environment where we have to put our lives in each others hands daily. so these attributes, if I can call them that, are far more important to a soldier than someone working in an office. maybe important is the wrong word. let’s just say these values mean more to us (soldiers) than someone clawing their way up the corporate ladder, due to the dangerous nature of our job. or at least i like to think they do anyway.
i asked the question like this: “is it okay to tell a lie to keep your friend out of trouble?” i then played out several scenarios varying the degree of trouble and size of the lie. all of my guys said that they thought it was okay to lie to keep your friend out of trouble. only in cases of a horrible crime being committed by their friend did they say they would not lie for them. so they all based the “okayness” of their lie on the perceived immorality of the actions of their friend.
i thought i believed that integrity was more important, that the truth always be told, no matter what the consequences. i still think that too. but in practice, where the rubber meets the road, that’s not what i have been practicing. i have on several occasions stretched the truth to save a friend's hide. so can you call it your belief if you aren’t practicing it? i guess that’s a question for another day though.
so what do you think? who are we without our friends? and which is more important, knowing you can count on your friend to have your back, or knowing you can count on them to always tell the truth? even if that truth ruins your life.