Hopeless Memories

I didn't want to write about Memorial Day again... not for a while. But I've been mentally exhausted since Saturday. At first I didn't know why, but then the dawn of realization crept up on me. Blinded me, really. I should've known better, but I can honestly state that even with awareness of the encroaching "holiday," it took me by surprise.

The old (and dishearteningly accurate) cliché is that ignorance is bliss. Memorial Day was a far better weekend back when there was no one to remember. But those days are long ago, never to return. And the fucking list just keeps getting longer.

Sure, I can bitch about the wars, the politics behind the wars, the politicians behind the politics, and the seemingly ignorant voters (blissful voters, perhaps) behind the politicians, but that's never been and never will be the point behind being in the military. Not for me, anyway. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, whomever... they don't care. It's a job. And as blasé as that may seem, it's how most active service-members and veterans view it. There are no politics at the bottom levels. Only co-workers and friends.

Some of these men and women will continue to spend Memorial Day the way they've always spent it. With friends and family at the beach, or at a barbecue, or at an amusement park, or wherever it is their own personal traditions dictate that they go. For many, the status quo is a safety net... their way to cope. For others, it's a preservation of something. But they'll notice something different. They have no other choice.

Me, though. I'll be somewhere, lost in thought. It is a strange biological clock that reminds someone that it's time to be a little depressed and more reverent than usual. There's no point in fighting it. I'm already mentally exhausted, after all... why add physical exhaustion to the fold?

My time in the military - both the direct and indirect involvement - is now safely over. This newer status is likely never to change again and, for that, there is a small modicum of gratitude. But memories of names and faces remain, along with questions both hypothetically useless and hyperrealistically hopeless. Still, for one day at least, I'll allow them to be asked... and offer responses that have no answers.

Just Another Day Among Days...

A few years ago Memorial Day was, to me, simply another excuse for the Army to give us a four-day weekend. Good for a quick trip to the beach, a barbeque, maybe an alcoholic run or two. Its significance was lost on me, as it remains lost on most Americans. I mean, Memorial Day, right? A day where disgruntled Vietnam Vets and geriatric World War II Vets gathered together to remember the glorious or not-so-glorious days. That's all it was. All I had to do was wave a couple of American flags and I had done my part.

Then Omer Hawkins died.

Still, Memorial Day remained just another day among days. I was out of the Army when Hawkins was killed, and I had yet to feel any sort of nostalgia for my time as a paratrooper.

Last year, though, it all changed. Four more people that I had known were killed. Not all at once, mind you, but somehow in one of life's little ironies, I found out about all of them on the same day. Four people. None that I had known well, but four that I had known. Add to that a close friend, Greg Robinson, losing a leg, and I had quickly gone from a good day to one of the worst in memory.

And so, here I am on the first Memorial Day since I found out Webb, Flores, Rafferty, and a fourth whose name dishearteningly eludes me (how fucked up is that? I can't even recall his name). I could go to the beach like everyone else, I suppose. But I'm mysteriously sick, and have been for a week now. I guess I'm meant to stay home, in this strange house, and actually observe Memorial Day the way it shoud be observed: in silence, with nothing for company but memory.

After all, it's just another day...

Afterthought

As I'm typing this in my rented room in Wilmington, North Carolina, there's a strange and constant curiosity floating around the back of my mind. An afterthought of sorts. It's asking me what the fuck I'm doing here, once again in the place that I left not 14 months ago. Strangely, despite the plethora of reasons for being in North Carolina, I can't really answer that question. What the fuck am I doing here? How the fuck should I know?

And that's the million-dollar question, isn't it? How the fuck should I know about anything? The answer to that shouldn't surprise you: how the fuck should I know?

Maybe it's me, maybe it's this place, maybe it's the fact that my three dogs are split up in three different locations, but I really feel like I shouldn't be here. During one of my first days back I was driving down Market Street headed for downtown, and I could've sworn the trees were telling me to leave. No, I'm not crazy (not certifiably, anyway), but that's the sensation I got.

I know what you're thinking and you're probably right. It's just me. Nothing new there, everything I've done right and done wrong has always been just me. This shouldn't be any different. But it is somehow. My whole life I've been little more than an afterthought to most people, but here I'm practically nothing. The person people roll their eyes at when his number shows up on their caller IDs. It's worse than afterthought... it's not being thought of at all.

Of course, again, that's mostly my fault. I didn't really make an attempt to embrace Wilmington when I was here the first time, even though I love the place. Then again, that logic might not work here, since I hate Fayetteville, North Carolina, but feel absolutely at home in the shadows of Fort Bragg.

I've never been remarkably good at anything. Baseball, maybe, but with most things I was merely competent. People say I'm a good writer, but most of that is undoubtedly false encouragement, and until I make a living as a writer, I won't ever make the mistake of agreeing with them. There was, however, one thing that I was among the best at, and that was being a soldier. Now, I never fit in well with the Army system, but nobody in uniform anywhere in the world could tell me that I didn't know my job, and know it well. Whether it was demolitions-related or reconnaissance-related, I knew what I was doing better than most in my field. Jumping out of planes I can't claim such confidence with, but I'm not really confident with anything that you can do perfectly and still maintain a good chance of dying.

The irony here is that I treated the Army much like most people treat me: as an afterthought. It was merely something I was doing until I was ready, financially and mentally, to pursue other things. My dreams, in particular, and we all know how those are turning out.

Still, as Memorial Day approaches and the notifications from the Army become more frequent, I can't help but feel some guilt in not being a soldier anymore. There are friends I will remember this upcoming holiday, though I remember them always, and the burden of not being there when they were killed is sometimes too much to bear. Maybe I came back to North Carolina to fulfill some fucked up destiny. I, with my good-for-nothing left foot and bad attitude, just might wind up back in uniform. Half-unwillingly, of course, but who knows? I have a tendency to leave things unfinished, and maybe this is one of them. This is all, of course, afterthought to me. But then again, it's probably even less to you.

Still, I'd rather be an afterthought buried next to my friends and fellow paratroopers than "that guy" you sometimes hang out with.