Welcome To The Jungle

Today’s flashfiction: “Welcome to the jungle…”

You would think the smoke would be all the impetus you needed.  Okay, so maybe the smoke and the explosions…

How do you miss all of that?

Easy.  All you have to do is decide it doesn’t apply; not to you, anyway.  That smoke, those explosions…those are someone else’s problem.  My passport…my passport is blue.  My passport has an eagle on it.  My passport says no one can ever fuck with me.

My passport aside, the bomb still struck.  My passport aside, the smoke and the fire and the violence, they all still fucked with me.

“One minute!” my friend screamed from a thousand miles away.  Weeks ago, we had worked out our escape plan.  One minute to gather our shit and get out.  One minute to grab everything and run for the one car we had all ensured had a full tank.  “One minute!” my friend screamed from right outside my door…

How do you grab a life in one minute?

My books…

My first editions of Tolkien?  Of Dostoyesky and Tolstoy?  My Shakespeare folios?  Hell, my volumes of Japanese manga, even?  When the building is crumbling, who the hell worries about their Norigami collection?!

I do.

Or…at least…I did.

Then the smoke.  And the explosions.  The sirens, and the screams…

The screams…

My life exists in a pair of boxes, and a lifetime of screams.

p.s.

I have friends in Ukraine.  I have friends I have not been able to contact since the Russians invaded.  I have friends in the Baltics, too.  I have friends that fear — as do I! — that they are next.  The worst thing I have ever had to flee was a vengeful ex-girlfriend.  Falling mortars?  Enemy snipers?  Mines?  Yeah, I top out at the fucking Call of Duty series…

Some of my friends are terrified…

Others of my friends are already refugees…

“…as you have done to the least of these, My brothers, you have done to Me…”

This is not a thing of Trump versus Biden…no matter what FoxNews wants you to believe.  This is not a thing of capitalism versus socialism…no matter what MotherJones wants you to believe.  This is a thing of human suffering.  This is a thing of war, and death, and the threat of far, far worse…

In the years before WW2 we as a society missed the signs of the worst that was to come.  We as a society were far too complacent in our isolation and self-absorption, to be honest.  It took violence and blood to break that isolation and self-absorption.  In today’s world, we have missed many, many signs…

Just how much blood is it going to take for us to realize that we are actually a part of this world?

Just how much blood and violence will it take for us to realize that things are not as we want, but as others demand?!

Just how much suffering will we endure before we decide true leadership is more important than partisan infighting?!

My friends talk to me about their fears.  My friends talk about tank divisions, and speed of advance.  My friends talk, even, of chemical and nuclear weapons.  My friends talk of what is to come in the same way Jamie Lee Curtis talked of Michael Meyers fifty years ago…

My country, on the other hand…

My own country…this beacon of strength and freedom…

We can’t get over Donald Trump’s speeches, or Hunter Biden’s emails.

We are so fucked.

{Musical Note — I looked and looked for the perfect song for this post. I failed. Then I decided to look at the music choice not as a commentary or an appenage to the writing, but as a (pretty blatant) subtext…}

I Don’t Usually Do Silver Linings…

Okay, so I’ve spent the last couple of days deciphering government websites.  And staring at spreadsheets, playing with variables & formulae.  Good Lord, do I need a beer — I wish there was a brewery around here!

Ahem.

Okay, so…I’m gonna switch gears for my own sanity.  My big (first world) problem is that I have two things I want to write about; two things that, I should add, have absolutely nothing to do with each other.  Of course, after spending hours upon hours reading government regulations, thinking about & doing two opposing things at once seems perfectly normal!

Alright, so the first thing…Russia.  And Ukraine.

Yup, startin’ off light, ain’t I?

In 1938 Hitler annexed Austria to the German 3rd Reich in the Anschluss.  The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.

Six months later he appropriated the (badly misnamed) sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.  The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.  There was Peace In Our Time.

In 1939 the first shells started falling at the Battle of Westerplatte as he moved to take Poland.  The rest of the world burned.

In 2008 Vladimir Putin took a large chunk of Georgia.  The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.

In 2014 Vladimir Putin took the Crimea.  The rest of the world worried and fretted and shook their fingers at him.

In 2022 the first shells started falling on Ukraine.  Do I need to go back to my Yeats from a couple of posts ago and talk about that rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem to be born?*

*If you don’t get the allusion, go read some freaking poetry!  Harrumph.

As I write this, the fighting is hottest around Kharkov — for those whose historical perspective is a bit lacking, Kharkov is (previously) best known to history as the sight of the largest tank battle in history.

Now, to counter that dark cloud with something a bit more silver lining-ish…

On February 26, 2022 Christian Eriksen started a game for Brentford in the English Premier League.

Gee, I hear you mutter, that’s nice, but who the hell cares?

On June 12th, 2021 Christian Eriksen died on the field during an international game in Copenhagen.

He died, but the medics started CPR within seconds…

He died, but the doctors got his heart going again…

He died, then he lived.  He had a tiny, permanent device implanted to keep his heart going later that year, but no one expected anything more.  It was a great story, for a world-class athlete to die and then live again, but who could expect more?  How could anyone do anything more than live again?  Hug your kids, watch a new sunrise, and just get on with a new life…

Christian Eriksen just played the first game of that new life in the toughest league in the world.

How’s that for a freaking silver lining?

{Musical Note — because Irish music makes everything better!}

Flashfiction: “He Had A Hard War”

In general, the flashfiction pieces I post on this blog are conceived and written based on something that struck me at that particular moment in time.  Whether that “call” to write comes from an image or a song or a written line, my flashfiction is generally a pretty immediate response.

The piece below is a bit different.  It is different because the line that gave me the “call” to write is one I read many years ago.  That line has stuck in the back of my mind because the pathos it evokes comes entirely from events that are “offscreen.”  The feelings it brings are those of memory, of things hidden and things forgotten.  It touches, also, on that feeling of uncertainty you get when you realize just how little you truly know about those around you.

As ever, I gave myself one hour to conceive, write and post the piece. I also gave myself a “limit” of 400 words, and managed to squeak in just under that with 397:

“He Had A Hard War”

My uncle never talked much about the war.  His only stories had been about basic training, and the trouble he and his friends would get into.  Just how a man so given to practical jokes and petty rebellions could actually have gone on to serve, I never quite understood.

We weren’t close, my uncle and I.  But with no children of his own, and my pwn parents gone, I was all the family he had left.  It fell to me, then, to handle his affairs.

The accounts and minutiae of life had been the easiest, to be honest.  A few calls and forms and the changes were made.  The care home had been harder, a mess of bureaucracy and dead-ends until a helpful worker had cut through the bullshit and pushed the right buttons.

When I asked how, and why, she had gone to such lengths, her answer had been simple and heartfelt, “Semper fi.”

The hardest of all had been the storage unit.  Only after the housing and money and legal affairs had been handled did I work up the energy to deal with the all-but forgotten remnants of his life.  Most of it was sold or donated, until only a few boxes remained.

A photo album, then, buried behind the mementos of my uncle and father as kids.  The first picture was of my uncle in a dark blue uniform, starched and pressed and trying to look as impressive as he could.  Gone was the paunch and the tired face, and in their place…a man impossibly young, bursting with energy.  There were more pictures, of course.  Pictures of him with others, all as young and vibrant and alive as was he in those pictures.

The pictures stopped, however, about halfway through that album.  Page after page, all empty of pictures.  Why?  My uncle had lived a good life before age had caught up with him.  Where were the memories of that part of his life?  I had found other photos, from more recent days, but none of those albums had been as worn and well-thumbed as the one in my hand.

I paged back, then, to study the final photo.  A small armored vehicle in the foreground, about ten yards away — presumably his — and in the background…

In the background an eruption of black smoke, pouring from vehicles twisted and wrecked.

{Note 1 — A real world example of the line I talked about above: I met a man, once, in my old coffee shop.  He was an old man, stooped and slow.  We had never really interacted beyond the normal smiles and morning greetings of those who regularly haunt the same place.  Our acquaintance would never have gone beyond that, except that I happen to be a history nerd.  The man’s car had a license plate that struck me one morning, when I saw him climb out.  That plate bore not a random collection of numbers and letters, but a US Navy hull number.

It was a hull number that I knew*, by the way.  The number of a ship involved in one of the biggest battles in US Navy history.  A ship that, along with her partners in a little escort group, sacrificed herself to shield the big, lumbering, vulnerable assets she had been assigned to protect.  I finally worked up the courage to sit and talk with this quiet, little man…to ask him, with all the fear and hesitation in the world, about his ship.  And he told me.  He told me about the ship, and about his friends.  Over the course of the anecdotes and funny stories, he told me also about that fateful day…

*I knew the ship because I have a picture of her above my desk.  Take a moment, if you will, and click the link to check out DD-533, USS Hoel.}

{Note 2 — Oh, the line in question, the one that spawned this post?  It’s the freaking title.  Believe it or not, that line comes from “Goblet of Fire,” the fourth book in the Harry Potter series.  Now, that book is to my mind the best of the series because it marks the first time you have real depth of emotion and loss in those books.  It is when the series moves beyond the pointless silliness of kids’ books and starts to introduce “grown-up” elements that resonate in ways beyond the grinning nostalgia of “Sorceror’s Stone.”  Although the line itself is something of a “throwaway” from the book’s prologue, I have always found it a fantastically effective bit of characterization crammed into just five words.}

Memorial Day is More Than Pandemics and Politics

Tomorrow is Memorial Day.  It doesn’t feel like it, not in this terrible year, but nor does it feel like the normal facade of cook-outs and three-day weekends and other mundanity.

Even now, even today…

Strike that.  Especially now, especially today, we have to take the time to remember just what this day means.  Just why it is more than tiny little flags someone else stuck on a grave in between hot dogs and runs to the store for more beer.  Unfortunately, I have this fear — more of a certainty, to be honest — that this Memorial Day, and all that it means, will be lost under the cloud of COVID-19, political hatred, and the brewing unrest and discord that hangs over it all.

So I sat down to write a post about Memorial Day.  I sat down to use my own words and knowledge to put a drink on the bar (you can read about the origins of my use of that phrase here) for those we have lost, then I realized I was just repeating myself.  Instead of doing that, I am going to break one of my semi-rules and repost here something I wrote a couple of years ago.  I’m going to repost it because it still works…and it stills carries all the meaning in the world.

I Have No Words

I’ve never heard the drums of war.

I’ve never lived the reality of combat.

As a writer, and as a student of history, I try to learn and to understand, but that understanding is merely intellectual. I know the truth as it has been told to me, but I have no true understanding of the reality.

For this Memorial Day post, I am not going to use my own words. My own words are as inadequate as they are disconnected from that reality. No, instead I am going to use the actions and words of those who know.

From Lieutenant Bob Kerrey, USN — Medal of Honor, Bronze Star, Purple Heart:

“Too often, Memorial Day becomes just another three-day weekend, a holiday that marks the beginning of summer, the opening of public pools, the excitement of children who know that the school year is about to end.
The holiday doesn’t have to be this way. It can be more. And it can be more with just a little bit of an effort. You don’t have to give much to get a lot.
…
If you have not suffered a loss, think of someone who has. Consider what they gave. Consider what they are giving now.
…
In my case, I will take a few minutes to quietly remember the men I knew who died before this day had a meaning for them. They were too young, too free of terrible memories, too unburdened of wondering if they were good men.”

—Quoted from “How I remember my lost military comrades” in today’s New York Daily News. Read the whole thing.

I wasn’t sure how to approach today’s post, until Lt. Kerrey gave me the idea. Below are the formal citations for several Medal of Honor winners, one from each service…every one of them posthumous.

Commander Ernest Evans, USN — Medal of Honor, Bronze Star, Purple Heart
— Killed in action October 25, 1944 in the Philippine Sea

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Johnston in action against major units of the enemy Japanese fleet during the battle off Samar on 25 October 1944. The first to lay a smokescreen and to open fire as an enemy task force, vastly superior in number, firepower and armor, rapidly approached. Comdr. Evans gallantly diverted the powerful blasts of hostile guns from the lightly armed and armored carriers under his protection, launching the first torpedo attack when the Johnston came under straddling Japanese shellfire. Undaunted by damage sustained under the terrific volume of fire, he unhesitatingly joined others of his group to provide fire support during subsequent torpedo attacks against the Japanese and, outshooting and outmaneuvering the enemy as he consistently interposed his vessel between the hostile fleet units and our carriers despite the crippling loss of engine power and communications with steering aft, shifted command to the fantail, shouted steering orders through an open hatch to men turning the rudder by hand and battled furiously until the Johnston, burning and shuddering from a mortal blow, lay dead in the water after 3 hours of fierce combat. Seriously wounded early in the engagement, Comdr. Evans, by his indomitable courage and brilliant professional skill, aided materially in turning back the enemy during a critical phase of the action. His valiant fighting spirit throughout this historic battle will venture as an inspiration to all who served with him.”

Corporal Jason Dunham, USMC — Medal of Honor, Purple Heart
—Killed in action April 4, 2004 in Husaybah, Iraq

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a Rifle Squad Leader, 4th Platoon, Company K, Third Battalion, Seventh Marines (Reinforced), Regimental Combat Team 7, First Marine Division (Reinforced), on 14 April 2004. Corporal Dunham’s squad was conducting a reconnaissance mission in the town of Karabilah, Iraq, when they heard rocket-propelled grenade and small arms fire erupt approximately two kilometers to the west. Corporal Dunham led his Combined Anti-Armor Team towards the engagement to provide fire support to their Battalion Commander’s convoy, which had been ambushed as it was traveling to Camp Husaybah. As Corporal Dunham and his Marines advanced, they quickly began to receive enemy fire. Corporal Dunham ordered his squad to dismount their vehicles and led one of his fire teams on foot several blocks south of the ambushed convoy. Discovering seven Iraqi vehicles in a column attempting to depart, Corporal Dunham and his team stopped the vehicles to search them for weapons. As they approached the vehicles, an insurgent leaped out and attacked Corporal Dunham. Corporal Dunham wrestled the insurgent to the ground and in the ensuing struggle saw the insurgent release a grenade. Corporal Dunham immediately alerted his fellow Marines to the threat. Aware of the imminent danger and without hesitation, Corporal Dunham covered the grenade with his helmet and body, bearing the brunt of the explosion and shielding his Marines from the blast. In an ultimate and selfless act of bravery in which he was mortally wounded, he saved the lives of at least two fellow Marines. By his undaunted courage, intrepid fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty, Corporal Dunham gallantly gave his life for his country, thereby reflecting great credit upon himself and upholding the highest traditions of the Marine Corps and the United States Naval Service.”

Private First Class Anthony Kaho’ohanohano — Medal of Honor, Purple Heart
—Killed in action September 1, 1951 near Chup’a-ri, South Korea

“For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty Private First Class Anthony T. Kaho’ohanohano, Company H, 17th Infantry Regiment, 7th Infantry Division, distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action against the enemy in the vicinity of Chupa-ri, Korea, on 1 September 1951. On that date, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano was in charge of a machine-gun squad supporting the defensive positioning of Company F when a numerically superior enemy force launched a fierce attack. Because of the enemy’s overwhelming numbers, friendly troops were forced to execute a limited withdrawal. As the men fell back, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano ordered his squad to take up more defensible positions and provide covering fire for the withdrawing friendly force. Although having been wounded in the shoulder during the initial enemy assault, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano gathered a supply of grenades and ammunition and returned to his original position to face the enemy alone. As the hostile troops concentrated their strength against his emplacement in an effort to overrun it, Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano fought fiercely and courageously, delivering deadly accurate fire into the ranks of the onrushing enemy. When his ammunition was depleted, he engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat until he was killed. Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s heroic stand so inspired his comrades that they launched a counterattack that completely repulsed the enemy. Upon reaching Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s emplacement, friendly troops discovered 11 enemy soldiers lying dead in front of the emplacement and two inside it, killed in hand-to-hand combat. Private First Class Kaho’ohanohano’s extraordinary heroism and selfless devotion to duty are in keeping with the finest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself, the 7th Infantry Division, and the United States Army.”

Captain Steven Bennett, USAF — Medal of Honor, Purple Heart
—Killed in action June 29, 1972 in the Gulf of Tonkin, Vietnam

“Capt. Bennett was the pilot of a light aircraft flying an artillery adjustment mission along a heavily defended segment of route structure. A large concentration of enemy troops were massing for an attack on a friendly unit. Capt. Bennett requested tactical air support but was advised that none was available. He also requested artillery support, but this too was denied due to the close proximity of friendly troops to the target. Capt. Bennett was determined to aid the endangered unit and elected to strafe the hostile positions. After four such passes, the enemy forces began to retreat. Capt. Bennett continued the attack, but, as he completed his fifth strafing pass, his aircraft was struck by a surface-to-air missile which severely damaged the left engine and the left main landing gear. As fire spread in the left engine, Capt. Bennett realized that recovery at a friendly airfield was impossible. He instructed his observer to prepare for ejection, but was informed by the observer that his parachute had been shredded by the force of the impacting missile. Although Capt. Bennett had a good parachute, he knew that if he ejected, the observer would have no chance of survival. With complete disregard for his own life, Capt. Bennett elected to ditch the aircraft into the Gulf of Tonkin, even though he realized that a pilot of this type aircraft had never survived a ditching. The ensuing impact upon the water caused the aircraft to cartwheel and severely damage the front cockpit, making escape for Capt. Bennett impossible. The observer successfully made his way out of the aircraft and was rescued. Capt. Bennett’s unparalleled concern for his companion, extraordinary heroism, and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, at the cost of his life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.”

Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, USCG — Medal of Honor, Purple Heart
— Killed in action September 27, 1942 near Point Cruz, Guadalcanal

“For extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry in action above and beyond the call of duty as petty officer in charge of a group of 24 Higgins boats, engaged in the evacuation of a battalion of marines trapped by enemy Japanese forces at Point Cruz, Guadalcanal on 27 September 1942. After making preliminary plans for the evacuation of nearly 500 beleaguered marines, Munro, under constant strafing by enemy machine guns on the island, and at great risk of his life, daringly led five of his small craft toward the shore. As he closed the beach, he signaled the others to land, and then in order to draw the enemy’s fire and protect the heavily loaded boats, he valiantly placed his craft with its two small guns as a shield between the beachhead and the Japanese. When the perilous task of evacuation was nearly completed, Munro was instantly killed by enemy fire, but his crew, two of whom were wounded, carried on until the last boat had loaded and cleared the beach. By his outstanding leadership, expert planning, and dauntless devotion to duty, he and his courageous comrades undoubtedly saved the lives of many who otherwise would have perished. He gallantly gave his life for his country.”