When you wake...

Take the ribbon from your hair

Shake it loose and let it fall

Layin' soft against your skin

Like the shadow on the wall

Come and lay down by my side

Till the early mornin' light

All I'm takin' is your time

Help me make it through the night ... a song by Kris" Kristofferson

When you wake and take that first deep breath...is something about me still there? Before I open my eyes I feel you close...that scent...behind you ear at the hairline... that scent that is you alone...but when I open my eyes it fades and remains but a faint memory of night and you. Still I am content through out my day for I know that come night you will...come and lay down by my side for the memory of you will never leave me.

What if relationships never really end but continue to play out in a parallel world. Why does it work there? Maybe we are better in that world. Do we live a continuous cycle of success and failure? Has there already come the day when you passed someone on the street and something stopped you in your tracks...I know this person...but I can't place the face and continue to walk on...big mistake. Why couldn't you at least say...hello? If there are sins the biggest one has to be failing to acknowledge and communicate with others. Being insensitive.

Where do souls come from?

As children we are notorious for asking our parents where we came from to which we get the practiced answer...love made you. WOW wouldn't it be grand if that were true...probably not. That is because we are not so deluded these days. Love has nothing to do with much unless the lack of love is counted as the main driving force in today's chaotic world. Myself, I find it hard to be so detached from my surroundings that I am void of feelings. Too often I feel too much. I love my God, my parents, my friends, my pets and I do ask how did I get to be here with them. Not how they came but how did I come to be here at this moment with them. Was it random chance that we are at this exact point together? Not...completely. David Bohm the physicist wrote of a constantly folding and unfolding universe where "it is possible to comprehend both cosmos and consciousness as a single unbroken totality of movement"and I took it to mean that possibly we are living varied events on different level (not all physical) simultaneously. Predetermined can then take on a different meaning--like continued from a different level of existence. Do many still believe our "mind" is housed in this thing we carry around on our shoulders? Probably. But...what if it is not and it (the mind) like the universe is expanding and we exist and function on another level. Is there a "lay line" human thought follows within the confines of its physical existence. What if our thought intensity is so strong it jumps to another level and we encounter familiarity. Are we really ready on this level to ask and receive an answer to the second most asked question...Why am I here. As babes we ask how then we ask why and much later we ask for how long.

We are connected there is no doubt about that...as a soldier I know I would give my life for my fellow soldier his cry of pain came from my mouth as well as his...we in that moment understood we were one in this universe. How it played out here may not be how it played out at a different level of our existence. I have to come back to this in another blog...parallel existence or reincarnation lets read Maria Rado...collection of thoughts. Maria provokes deeper thoughts about relationships. Where were we when this relationship started do we remember?

The mirror of your soul

You wonder where I came from...how I appeared in your life...why I am here? Maybe this was prearranged--you know--to let us know we are here--for each other. Guides through the darkness of today's troubled world. What do you look like...how tall am I that is not important. What is important is I know your fears and you know mine--together we will ignore the counsel of these fears and accomplish that set out for us. At times we may have felt our lives to be aimless as we wandered from one interest to another never settling on one thing or one person and now volumes of acquaintances and readings later our purpose appears. Are we at the end or the beginning...or is that up to us? Will I let you guide me? Can you let me guide you? That, again, is up to us...

Nuances...matiz

Meaning is not clear cut...it is vague...just an outline until we understand the cultural underpinnings. How does one in this culture arrive at this thought...why do they think about it this way? Can some cultures be more left brain and other more right brain? What does love have to do with it? Passion is not easy to understand in America let alone China, Spain, France or Italy. It has seemed to me that passion in either America or China was usually more political but then maybe love is political in Spain, France and Italy. In the last couple of weeks I have had an experience of a lifetime reading some of the best expressions of life, love and the pursuit of happiness from deep inside of people. These readings have awakened in me an awareness to the nuances to a cultural legacy. What those in my culture mostly or decedents of diaspora. They came here and established over the hundreds of years a discrete subculture to the mainstream American we lived in public. Yes we all spoke English as a primary language and we ate our pizza and burgers in public but within the confines of our houses...we behaved as our parents or grandparents had in their town in northern Spain or Argentina. We ate the food, drank the beverages and celebrated feasts in traditional manners. I don't really think my friends gave much thought to what kind of life I may be living at home. They just assumed it was like theirs. Why did we hang on to those cultural habits? It was a facade a masquerade ball that we played a part in. But still...now it gives me the ability to understand the feeling behind words that a subdivided me must allow to be felt from deep inside my soul. Not long ago I was burnt out...crisp. What my eyes had taken in traveled to my heart and soul and hardened. My heart had the 1000 yard stare...it was void of feeling...flaccid. I had to find an oasis where I could pitch my tent and stay until my life pulse began to beat once more. Words are once again flowing. Flowing in their own way based more on my experiences than anything else. My own nuances are manifest in my writing. Now you can ask why does he say it that way or why doesn't he understand that doesn't fly in my culture. Don't try to understand me just listen to me and let your heart tell you how you are supposed to feel. Words are emotions so let them creep through your ears to what ever part of your body is affected and enjoy. When my skin became accustomed to you caress"do you read the word"sigh" or do you feel it touch you as it is whispered into your ear..can you taste the salt of a tear that graces your lips? Doesn't your imagination work any more? Can't you find yourself wiping your brow when a mental image of someone you share intamacy visits you in the middle of the day? Once upon a time people took time to read poetry...they integrated it into their vocal repertoire. It was our way of bringing emotion into everyday life. Why did we stop doing that?

"Don't be late"

When is the last time you read words that lit the page. The heat coming off your hands combusted the page and the sweat on your brow made you feel like you had just bitten into a habanaro chili. I just did read such a page...the flowing words that held you, caressed you, aroused you crept up into you and you had to go into the another room to cool off. A special person writing to express emotions so beautiful...so passionate, so strong yet so tender. I would give my heart to these words...hang a do not disturb sign on the door and drink this passion each and every night. No, that can't be...I must remain continue to admire quietly.

The day is mine

I haven't cooled off yet. My mind is still locked on what I have been reading. I feel my words changing--thoughts reshaping my vision. What I see is brighter, less complex and I can move around in my space with more ease. I think about how I have been viewing the world as having become so politicized so money hungry that you can't even be in a serious relationship today. "What's in it for me" is the recurring theme...what ever happened to do things for the right thing or good old Karma? Now influenced by what I have been reading my perspecitve has changed. No longer is it the world that I see lacking the cathartic jolt to get ones creative juices flowing but rather I see it as American. Creativity is only good in America if it means a new business. Forget the playwright and poets they just drain off business seed money. Folks these are the people who will expose you as money grubbing fakers when they write you into the running artistic log. These folks define America and leave a history for generations to come to know who we were.

Another world a different language

Me deperte con lagrima que caian a mi labios...sabor de sal...me dices ahi te espera...pregunto adonde...dices en la luna bailando. I enter into another world where a language I am unfamiliar with is spoken. What do I leave behind? Disappointment with myself and my fellow man. Who is this siren that beckons me who creates harmony with words...it matters not. I don't want to know who she is...what she looks like...its her soul that is familiar to me. Often we have bumped into one another never in the same place at the same time...always dancing on the moon. Hope...that life is good and getting better. I once was an incurable romantic but somewhere I let life change me. To return to the table of a once familiar house to share the wine and laughter that has been gone from my life for so long...I leave nothing behind...I am receiving a new gift...and a hope for the next time around.

The party at the top of the ramp

What do you see when you look at a mobile hanging from a string? Does it mesmerize you with it spinning and chiming in the breeze. To me the mobile has faces that never change...smiling faces still alive in that special pocket in time. Ever so often I have this dream...I am running toward something...I know I am being shot at but the rounds just pass right through me and eventually I come to a ramp in the middle of nowhere. I run up the ramp but then there are stairs which I climb and climb and finally a door on a building that looks like an old barracks I open it and inside are all my guys and friends I have lost in times of war and they are having one big party. I have come to believe somewhere in this universe that is going on and on one of these visits I won't leave the party. For the moment at some point someone walks me back to the door. You know they never comment on the fact that I've got some grey and some age lines. They haven't aged a day.
Dreams remind how precious life is. Although I will never forget I would rather we still revelled in our bravado as night came on the first night back at base camp.

Being alone...a realization

De Paso...on the way to somewhere...do we not look to a reflective surface for the image of something or someone? Yet, perhaps we seek the finality of being alone or the realization that perhaps life is one big looking glass reminding us that we alone are responsible for how our life goes. Still, what if I look into that reflective surface hoping to see a reflection of someone I care deeply about. Although they may not be with me my memory fills in the image. But then I panic what if they are not thinking about me? The reflection becomes me alone again. What does it matter. Sometimes you never realize--you have been alone--until that someone leaves you a note saying there has been a change of plans. You feel lonely until "that moment" someone gives you realization you don't have ED and leaving you was freedom to experience life as it once was. Being alone...It really was the best thing that could have happened. How often do we beg those who give us misery to stay...is looking for happiness only a cliche and not a reality?

Al Otro Lado Del Rio

by - Jorge Drexler from Motorcycle diaries. What is it with med school in South America? How does passion come of age? Does it one day say look we gotta move on to find ourselves or are we born with this mission to save the world? We can look into every culture and find those who move down the same path...you know the path marked "I give a damn." A social conscious that is compelling. Are they aware that life is either going to be miserable or its going to be short. Che is not the only person who has piqued my interest recently in the headlines is a young man who gave his football career to be an Army Ranger. Every day we read about others who "pay it forward' to make the world a better place. These are folks who really do not say much but they live a life so powerful that just reading about them moves you. Heroes on both sides of the fence. How does one see the cause. Much like the American Civil War...heroes on both sides long remembered for what they gave to their fellow believers. At present we are on a world stage playing out a very bad production. It is called WAR and people mostly innocent people are dying. My view puts the American soldier in the innocent category. They have no grudge with the folks in Iraq or Afghanistan they only clean up the mess failed politicians left them. The large numbers of dying are innocent folks who just want to go to work, raise a family and enjoy some of life. Instead they never know when a trip to the market is going to be the last. When the soldier and the revolutionary meet they don't die...its the poor kid whose Mom sent him to pick up some rice for dinner. How can be so insensitive...we take for granted coming home for dinner? For us here in America we occasionally reflect on 9/11 but we are oblivious to what los Vascos have done to Spain and more recently what terrorist did to many innocent train riders. We have ignored the fights waged in Ireland, Somalia, Sudan, Colombia. We ignore because it has nothing to do with making money. Corporations today live out of suitcases. No more nationalizing a Corporation they will be on the first plane out before you can down your next latte.

a way with words

Muqtada al-Sadr the fireplug looking firebrand that is a pain in the behind. Give the man his due...words, he has a way with words. He has taken possession of his language and uses it to ease the pain, anxiety and fear faced by the people of his country. Hassan Nasrallah another person with knowledge and command of his language. How they talk to the masses vs how they negotiate or address the outside world differs. Are we able to negotiate with other cultures. I reflect on the early 70's when we were attempting to negotiate a settlement with North Vietnam. I wondered then, what happens when might does not make right. Are we faced with the same predicament in Iraq or the whole Middle East for that matter. Do they understand us better than we do them? If so why? Are we culturally insensitive? Is our only approach to the world through firepower? As I stated earlier--I am reading the thoughts of a person who I share a heritage with. The difference is she expresses herself from within that heritage and I born and raised in another culture am in awe of the beauty of expression from within that heritage. I struggle to grasp that passionate feeling that would allow my words to conger up ideas in others that would move them. I cannot dismiss the possibility that I envy such ability but then God says to each there is a gift.

worm holes

At some point today I watched a reporter from CNN talk about what is going on there. Blah, bilabial same old stuff but I did notice what folks at CNN are missing is that this young man has the most vacant eyes I have seen on a civilian in a long time. A reporter with the 1000 yd stare is probably not uncommon but on CNN news?
He will probably get better care than the GIs get through VA. I can remember coming home after my second tour in VN afflicted with a problem that stuck with me for many years after. I would just spontaneously vomit. No warning it would just happen. Oh they put me in the hospital and did tests then started the Demerol and Thorazine treatment. Talk about one flew over the cuckoos nest. Was I affected with PTSD? Who knows surely the Docs at VA did not. Now a days they tell me that problems I am having can't be substantiated since my records were in a fire at St. Louis. Just recently I made contact with someone who can help me navigated this horrible system. I sure hope the young men and women coming home from Iraq and Afghan are getting better help. Do you know how badly heaving on a daily basis can erode you esophagus? You end up with Barrett's and VA makes you pay for all the meds. Why is it my fault my records burned. One person who can verify what happened is now a counselor with VA so forget the help. Beside, when I was on that tour she gave my name and unit to the Fonda organization and I was mentioned nightly on Hanoi Hannah. Not good.

Sci-Fi freedom

I think it is appropriate to question whether or not we are free. I also think that the majority of Americans now know what fuel runs this country. Green fuel in the form of $$$$--greenbacks. A popular question currently in circulation is who are these gnomes that have found their way here from Zurich? Has anyone read Taylor Caldwell? The real money that runs this country is never seen nor would we recognize names if they were dropped at our feet. Who we know are the pawns that do the bidding of these sequestered, insidious creeps. Granted our wonderful nation took a serious blow on 9/11 but just as we questioned if FDR and Marshall knew in advance that it was coming and let it happen so that we could get into another conflict we should ask who on the hill knew and how long before it occurred? Since that infamous day in 2001 we have surrendered more rights and as we read daily the enemy is getting stronger and bolder and is coming to get us. We have committed ground troops to keep the fight off America' soil but that does not seem to be working. So why have we given up all these freedoms and rights--to give more control over our lives to the worms that used their money to put this administration in power. Look, I don't hold myself free of sin because I supported the "Values" of the neo-con. Of course I wanted a better America with more prosperity but it was never destined to happen. Of course I thought Rumi was going to get the job done but I had a mind lapse and forgot what he was like back in the old days. An old ,micro-managing bureaucrat who was going to bully people to get his way. He did and he was wrong. I keep saying J McCain was used by the administration to move their ideas forward but with their own twist. Their twist did not get the results that Sen. McCain would have gotten had he been running the war. I have no misgivings. Sen. McCain would have had us in this war maybe faster than GW did but with a reorganization and logistics plan that would have made up shortages left by BC' administration. I do believe this would have been the situation. Folks before politics all this guy knew was military and ate it for all three meals. Also I feel that we would not be sending our troops down the new "Streets without joy" and getting them killed because we can't figure out that what we are doing on these mean streets is wrong. Something is wrong with how we are doing math. To paraphrase what was said beginning of the movie Patton "you don't win by giving your life for your country you win by having poor sob...his country." What we have is a CIC who has undoubtedly watched the movie Independence Day too many times. Landing on the carrier and announcing "mission accomplished" was almost as dumb as telling the bad guys to "bring it on." The kids on the Streets without joy have paid the price for his d....a....remarks. Back to who is benefiting form the loss of freedoms. The money men that give transparent new meaning. You can't see them and if you did you would not know it. Lets leave their control of the media for another day. Why didn't America mobilize immediately after 9/11 and get the job done before 2001 was over? Not enough money would be made on a short police action so we must draw it out. The folks on the hill are quibbling over how much money to give the war effort, our boys are dying and the gnomes keep gouging us.

Bad boys

Bad boys...
Yesterday I mentioned an old reading list that included Che and Mao and others. What does that have to do with anything you ask--for starters it indicates you may looking to them either as a friend or foe. Quite frankly we fear these bad boys old and new because they represent change. Change is good you say just not their kind of change. Their kind of change is violent over throw of democratically elected governments you say. So why do we still hang pictures of Che on our walls or talk about Mao like he was a relative of Bruce Lee. Actually they are just metaphors for what we know deep down--that we need to change. We know there is a dark side to our way of life. So much has gotten out of control just the years this current administration has been in office. America must figure out how it can hold out a few more years and then get serious about electing a real leader that may not say all the things we want to hear but will lead us back to the days before fear, before we sold our economic souls for a few pieces of silver. At present their are few that can truly lead America back on the road to health. The right candidate exists we just have to listen and let this candidate make sense to us. Again today Homeland Security issued a strong suggestion that we be ready. European intelligence agencies tell us it is coming. No more gut feeling. But with so many groups and splinter groups where do we look. Paul Revere where are you? The media reports the enemy is getting stronger but then what do we make of the comment UK Gov sources that the latest attack on UK was amateurish? Hey anyone who has read current techno-terrorist novels knows there are fool proof detonators. Must be another reason.

Years ago...
Books no longer in circulation were on the reading list at JFK Special Warfare Center when I was a student there many years ago I was preparing for my second tour in southeast Asia. Che' biography was on the list of reading as was Mao's work on guerrilla warfare. Che was a trainer who actually made house calls to make sure your people were schooled properly. Eventually cost him his hands and his life. Mao wrote well sound tactics that are still used by insurgents today. Interesting is how how the Brits with the SAS dealt with the communist guerrilla in Malaysia. Tactics were evolving and we were having successes because we had folks that could think like the guerrilla and anticipate his next move. Those folks have given us the benefit of their experiences and we now have a lot of old reference stuff out there on how to deal with their tactics. Unfortunately we don't have anyone that can think like the guerrilla or we would not have lost the Rangers in Somalia and we would be having more successes in both Iraq and Afghan. Does anyone remember how Colby achieved success in 1968 in Phu Cuong? No, it was not all operation Phoenix but a combination of actions that allowed for that area to be greatly pacified given that the Great TET offensive had happened just months before. Before that year ended the roads could actually be traveled at night. Earlier today the head of Homeland said he had a "gut feeling" that we were going to get smacked...hard and over the summer. Canada is having sympathy pains and now feels it too is overdue for a dirty bomb and here we are wasting our time trying to deport a bunch of Mexicans who just want to do your laundry, cut you grass and wash you car at the local car wash. Gut feeling is we are so caught up with crap the media is shoving down our throats and we will be so busy yelling at each other on street corners that we will never see it coming. I am concerned about my country and the safety of our people. It is the responsibility of the leadership to lead this country around the hazards that threaten the safety of the nation. Time and again I will say don't expect it form the current leadership. GW and company have lost control of the situation and it is doubtful they can get it back under control. From here out expect to see acts of desperation and forget looking for a plan that will bring both our foreign and domestic emergencies under control. A strong capable leader would stand before the American public and lay out a credible, doable plan and America would rally behind this leader. Not going to happen--at least not in the time the current administration has remaining. The big question is how do we hold on. It is by the grace of God that we have escaped further disaster. Maybe we should listen to what the leaders in Iraq told their people and arm ourselves and stock pile provisions. We have the greatest fighting force in modern times but GW has them so spread out they can't hold the line. Too much is going on and it is obvious more and more people are getting concerned. Is this going to be a long hot summer? Probably.

How/why can he be President?

Politics; currently we find John McCain trying to nail a message on the White House door much in the manner of Martin Luther and the Church. There is a fundamental difference between what he believes and the mainstream Republican Party professes to believe. It is unfortunate but the current administration has within itself a group of people so adept at usurping power by claiming as their own all thought even that which appears to smack of similarity. GW, Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfeld all—well at least Chaney and Rumsfeld were seasoned veteran political infighters. There was no way they were going to let John McCain's support for the war in the Mid-East be construed as anything short of their (groups) camps dialogue on the conflict. Recently Mrs. McCain has spoken out on the fact the current administration has ignored the reality John McCain has tried to bring to the conduct of this conflict. First of all it is necessary that we have this conflict and it is better conducted there than on home soil for as long as possible. It is inevitable that once again America will find the enemy attacking home soil. Secondly, John McCain has been quite sound in his assessment of what it will take to subdue this enemy where we now have it fixed. That is after all a principle we are taught in warfare 101 to fix on and engage the enemy at the most advantageous location. The current administration made some horrendous miscalculations on what it would take to subdue the enemy. I have at times included my beloved military in this costly mistake but only at the highest levels where souls in Olive Drab were sold wholesale to the likes of SOD Donald Rumsfeld. How many sold their souls for a star or two? I remember seeing the lists of names submitted for stars at the onset of the war. At the same time there were those who spoke from the standpoint of their knowledge against the conduct of the war. A soldier is against a war that he knows is being conducted in a manner that will cause him to sustain high casualty rates and lose when the flawed plan never produces a win. Churchill once said something like "you can do your best but at some point you have to get results.) John McCain knew we needed more troops, better equipment and different leadership from SOD to CG. He was listening to the right folks the guys on the ground wearing the boots.
On this note he should soon elucidate on how he would fix this rotation problem that is taxing our system of using NG and Reserves to bolster the ranks of the all volunteer army. Are we going to wait to be attacked again before we conscript? That may be too late. I know that "too late" is debatable but frankly I don't see us doing well going back to 18th and 19th c local militia fighting within states boundaries. We can't presently secure our borders, deal with local disaster relief on the state level. It is a travesty, the state of equipment shortages. I know there are romantic writers who have given us inspirational stories and movies about resistance fighters that will fight to the end. Do we really want to do that or is it not a better idea to put in place a CIC that will get the job done now and where we currently have the enemy fixed. Not wait until the evil doer revisits our homeland.

There was a time when...

The American Southwest is not my natural habitat. Farm county on the Indiana and Ohio line used to be home when life was fun, simple and not too expensive. I dropped out of college and joined the Army in the early 60's and was sent to Kentucky then to Georgia. That was a time of awakening. During basic in Kentucky there was only one maybe two weekend passes but in AIT in Georgia we had more weekend free time and could go into town. I never realized how naive I was until I took that first bus into Augusta and had to sit in the back with my black friends. Looking to the front I remember folks looking back at me with that what are you doing back there look? I stayed in Georgia after my class had gotten their assignments as I had been accepted to OCS and was waiting for a class. On my way home for Christmas that year I took a train north with a bunch of college kids from a local black college. We had to sit in the aisles until we got farther north. Later after lots of water under the bridge and as a young Captain I was back in Georgia the North Carolina and the bus situation had changed but the brutality remained. Often I would have to go into town to get my guys out of jail and more often than not men of color were usually pretty well bruised. God help you if you were mixed anything with Anglo. Now I see Mexicans going being put through much of the same brutalization.
The same fear show in a lot of the dark eyes of young and old. They came here on their own chasing a dream that really was not available to them. They just did not know that. Unlike the slaves brought here from Africa against their will the Mexican continues to brave the brutal desert heat to come here to surrender themselves as service slaves of cheap wages. I have heard it said by some that the southwest belongs to them since it was stolen by the United States. We did pay Mexico for the property but I think there still exists some sellers remorse. I hear many say they don't go out after dark why I ask. No papers they say and its not worth losing the low paying job and being deported. There is still family depending on the earnings sent back to Mexico. Sometimes I just want to go back north and not have to deal with this negative mind set where our immigration issue appears to be couched. For all the great minds that we supposedly elect into office no one can put together a legislation that will be acceptable. Now maybe we should ask how is this possible unless we want to shut our borders and to isolationism. That will last about as long as it takes the sequestered terrorist cells to surface and wreck havoc on our home front but at the moment we are so stretched on troop strength that we could only hold out so long but would anyone come to our assistance? The new PM would he help. No way to know. So we gamble. Gamble that America' fighting men and women will help this great country prevail. Young Patriots on the street fighting the bad guys? Doubtful. Just a bunch of old guys that fought a past war or two in a holding action. One thing about an American fighting man once he/she makes the decision to lay their life on the line for God and country that commitment is there for life. I don't know what to make of all this immigration hype. It makes sense to close our border. Don't know that we can count on Mexico to warn us of anything were to be directed toward us. Securing the border is being responsible to the American public. Keeping the fighting fixed where it is now is also being responsible. Do we really have anyone in the wings that can do the job? How can Americans be made to realize that not since FDR' time has it been so important that we choose the right person.