iWar: Yes, Virginia, There Still Is A War On

And some of our soldiers are still writing about it. And they are still young, brave, and altogether admirable: Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal: iWar

I know people care about the iWar. But not enough, given the circumstances. Not even close. Agree or disagree with the war, I don't care - just give a fuck. Be able to find Basra on a map, know that the Tigris isn't some sort of unholy crossbreed found at the San Diego Zoo, try to figure out the difference between a Sunni and a Shi'a even if it conplexes and perfuses your mind beyond repair. I wish I could issue some loud, righteous proclamation here about the repercussions of such continued resounding American apathy, but who are we kidding? The warrior caste is simply too small nowadays, and too proud. There will be no reckoning for all of this. We'll fight the fights not because we necessarily want to, but because no one else will. We were bred to protect. Even if we're protecting nothing more than an isolationistic yawn prefacing the continental slumber history demands occur after protracted warfare.

Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal: House of the Holy

The now of nowness kicks. It fucking sucks carrying half your body weight in armor plating all the time, dripping with sweat and anger and impatience, rifle dangling at the low ready like a forgotten ornament on the backside of a Christmas tree. I know. Why does this country always smell like literal shit? Why can't we use our aforementioned rifles? Why do I get the feeling that the conclusion to this war has already been written, and the soldiers are the only ones who haven't read the ending yet? I do not know. How did I help the counterinsurgency today? God only knows. Those are bitches of the now. They are trivial, fleeting, and banal. And no one cares. Fuck the transient. What really matters is how this moment survives into something beyond time and beyond me and beyond you and beyond this. Hence the clouds. Hence the puff. Hence the horizon.

Hence the holy.

Kaboom: A Soldier's War Journal: iWar

iWar. Fitting, in that succinct, catchy pop culture kind of way. Perfect for this Era of Irony. No LOL-erskates for the whYkids, but they'll get over it. iWar. It's not my phrase, though I appreciate it and am happy to Oscar Wilde it. I got it from an article about blogging in the Iraq War that quoted me in it. Bask in the shameless self-promotion. To be fair, I don't think it was the reporter's phrase either. It begins with "i," so Apple Computers probably has a patent on it. Just like iPod, iTunes, and iRack.

I War. Subject. Verb. Where's the object? We're still looking for it, five years later. How's that for iRony?....

iWar. Mine, not yours. This war. My War. Our War. We War. I War.

You peace. Out.

Here's a secret, though. I'll let you in on it, if you promise not to tell the chickenhawks or Jody or the Spooks. Sand castles can be rebuilt. The surf can destroy the castles, but not the sand itself. No one and no thing can destroy the sand but myself. And that won't happen anymore. I will rebuild my sand castle, someday, somewhere else, somewhere where I think the surf can't find me. In a lagoon where peace is stillness and stillness is peace. Alone, under the red hot moon. Fighting to fight, finding a noble cause in an ignoble world. And tucked away in the deepest dungeon of the castle, where no one will be allowed to go, not even me, will be a piece of scrap paper with the address to this blog site written in smudged ink on it. My link to this iWar, where I finally stumbled into an adventure that I couldn't sleep off. The last link to a life with consequences.

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Posted by Vanderleun at April 25, 2008 2:37 PM | TrackBack
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