Update [2005-8-4 16:5:32 by Militarytracy]: It sounded like too much to me yesterday. For me it was too much WRONG but the Yahoo story about the families and the community brought to its knees today found here is a lot tougher to read than I could have ever imagined it could be. What a tangled web of brothers and sons and people who grew up next to people and people planning to go to one Marine’s funeral only to see those very well dressed military officers who show up to tell you that death is now visiting your household.Update [2005-8-4 16:5:32 by Militarytracy]:
I ought to be happy. The bedroom paint is turning out exactly how I wanted and I have great ideas and advice from friends on it. My little chick dog is very close to a very special breeding, going to happen on Friday and fingers crossed. This mating with the dog McKinley is an enormous gift and if it is successful then his once upon a time owner has told me that his frozen semen is going to get pricey. Not many frozen semen doggies born yet because it just hasn’t been done enough for people to be willing to give it a shot.
I have so much going right at the moment, but fourteen dead is too wrong today. Too many dead this past week, this past year, the year past that one. It is just too many and my heart is breaking and the tears come down. It is always such a relief after the cry when it hurts this much!
I don’t know if anybody can understand how confusing the veneer on all of it has been for the average military family. So much flag waving and tanks flying across the desert with reporters on board broadcasting live on CNN. Everybody said that they were so proud of my husband and me and my family and there were so many bands playing and so much confetti in the air. The antiwar movement did put up one really good fight in Colorado Springs, one really good protest complete with blood covered children. Somehow though, when the troops went anyhow, everybody stood pretty quiet after that. We were all told that we were hurting our own troops by acting the way we were and we became subdued, drugged into silence by the guilt that they foist on all of us.
As a military wife I carted children back and forth to school and doctors, paid the bills, fed the dogs, and every time I returned home I ushered my family into the house and firmly closed the front door behind all of our faces. I saw myself doing it and felt myself doing it and I couldn’t figure out why. I felt lonely but it was survival so it continued on and on day after long long day. No wonder I saved so much money that year, I went no place I didn’t have to and didn’t see anybody that I didn’t completely want or need to see. Now I understand why I did it all that way too.
My home with that heavy front door was the only honest space in America that I had. It was mine and you could not violate it! I wouldn’t be challenged and nobody could call me names or tell me what a loser I was or how much I was letting our troops and my country down when I sat alone in my bedroom and cried on that day or that night or that week or even that whole fucking month. I could have my moment alone with God when I told him/her/it that the whole world had gone mad, and the whole world was on fire and nobody could or would call me unchristian or a traitor. I was so fragile deep down inside I couldn’t have taken too much of that. I needed to survive and my kids needed at least for me to be safe, so I closed our front door on the world day after day after day.
Every time I opened that Mother Fucking front door there was all that disgusting fucking veneer. Rictus smiling faces and people patting me on the back and smiling down at my daddyless kids like they were such good little troopers!! And if daddy eats lead they will tell us all again what good little troopers we are until they tire of it and want some new entertainment! When and if we military families of dead soldiers begin to talk about still hurting though over lost children and spouses and daddies and mommies they will call us annoying and looking for sympathy or wanting a hand out. They will tell us that we are in need of an antidepressant. They may even dole out the $70.00 or so a month for the antidepressants so that we can act normal to them and stop fucking whining about all this shit from the War on Terror that will become the Struggle against Extremism until it disappears into the fog of war in their small fucking abstract little minds along with our loved ones.
The heart never forgets a healing caress, or the gentle wiping away of tears and Bactine on knees, or the full bodied hug of a son or the touch of a father or the voice and the feeling of the palm of a spouse. The soul never forgets who we were born next to, or who brought new souls into this world with us, or who contributed to our soul arriving here. The heart and soul can evolve and grow new areas and explore new branches and spaces but they never forget! So don’t eat the veneer, it has lead in it and it will kill in the end!
P.S. Since all fourteen Marines were from Ohio it also appears that Ohio has suffered a heartaching loss twice along with the Marines these past hours.
I can’t address the CONTENT because my spirituality does not support me in the face of the insanity and loss of war.
But I can address FORM, and that is that you are my idea of a great writer. Did you ever hear the expression, “The true report is the loudest.”?
Report is also means the sound of a gunshot.
From the first, from the very beginning, there has never been anything more powerful than the true story, told true. And the way you write your story is so powerful, that you must continue to write and write and write.
Sorry to be the first one to comment here, but it blows me away, and my heart and soul only know their limits through compassion and pain.
This story should be published, of course.
My brain, not so good at it. Susanhu’s brain very good at it!
Your heart is a great writer, and your writing is a unique voice… You are something to celebrate… not stifled, not powerless….
I can’t impress upon you enough that this has never been written before, and that only you can write it (and have written it). I must go fetch a quote about the most subversive truth of all… that the individual is not powerless.
Send your story around, or let me help you to send your story around. It helps alot, believe me, to get stories out and get them read. It helps to get the next one started while the current one is being read. There is greatness in you, and you are so close to the source of your greatness, I don’t think you can properly assess it yourself.
OK, it took awhile. This is in the context of the war in Kosovo… There was an incident where 70 civilians in a convoy were bombed from above, and machine gunned from the ground. And the person who decided they were a military convoy, and a military target… was just one US pilot, who made three passes over them, and decided that because of the trucks, and how things looked… they were military and not civilian… (shades of de Menezes) The head of military operations was one Jamie O’Shea… (sp) Now the story first appeared and the pilot said what he saw and how he decided… But within two days the story had been scrubbed, overwritten and disappeared. At that time the most accurate reporting of what was happening in the war were children’s crayon drawings of what was happenning.
Anyways, here’s what I wrote about it at the time:
So
“The True Report Is The Loudest” even when it is children’s crayon drawings of executions carried out in their villages. The true report…. that is the only thing that matters… and yes it is the language of the heart, the eyes, the mind. It is the eyewitness report. It is the real story from the inside of the story….
Sorry to go on so long… but there is more still. I have to go fetch some more. It has to do with Point Of View. It is called POV in editing news stories and photographs and propaganda…… Must go fetch it.
Has caused soooo many pilots who care to get very serious about their jobs and has caused more than a few fights…..I only see this from my husband’s perspective daily though. He teaches Target ID of all things, but even before he began teaching it he was pretty nuts about it. My brother-in-law though is an F-16 pilot with an enormous ugly American ego that makes me retch! He has never seen the whites of their eyes so the huge fight between my husband and Dave that I witnessed was an angry spitting soldier and a composed, arrogant, picking lint off of his shirt, Air Force Academy graduate. We don’t talk to them much anymore. I just can’t even go there personally. Dave has never come to terms with the reality that his own arrogance will not save his own children from the next arrogant lint picking pilots decisions. He still lives in some fairytale setting where he is more special than the average person and therefore so is everything that he touches.
And that’s why you MUST write. Your point of view is so important here. Your husband and your brother in law cannot write it… only you can.
You see, Militarytracy, the true report written by the language of the heart CANNOT BE SCRUBBED, it cannot be manipulated, or spun. That’s what’s so very important about your story and why you must write write write.
Of course, it is, like painting, therapeutic…. But in these times it’s a way for all the scrambled and frightened people to begin to put their pieces together… If I could give you any glimpse of an idea of how your story above can help people deal with their feelings of rage, powerlessness and unexpressed bereavement, grief, guilt…..
We are all scrambled and frightened, and made quite ill by NEWSPEAK… it is a mental as well as a spiritual illness. But mothers putting Bactine on scraped knees of children brings the focus back to what’s really important. And this mother who wrote this is a person of immense courage and soundness… and intelligence, wisdom and humanity. The mother who wrote this is very strong and angry, too. That’s why the mother who wrote this MUST continue to write. Only she is she, and we’re not, and can’t be.
In photography, as in editing, it is called “Point Of View” or POV. This is a photo from Iraq 2003. It is not an official White House photo, but an accurate report. If you take the child’s point of view, you get one picture, if you take the soldier’s point of view, you get another picture, if you take the reporter’s point of view, you get this picture.
POV should be factored in when reading any news report. In a crime story there is the doer, the enabler, the victim, the eyewitnesses, and the reporter. Behind them are the editors and the managing interests.
Questioning POV is THE critical capacity of any intelligent reader. POV is also a propaganda tool. No war could be waged without propaganda. The war in Iraq is no exception to the rule.
Graham Greene the novelist made the point in 1977 that at some point during the Vietnam war there was a shift in editorial policy of the newspapers in the US, where photos of the atrocities of war no longer carried captions that expressed the paper’s horror at the horrors of war. This, again, is why you MUST write. Because your true report is the loudest.
I suppose another reason you MUST write, is that as you do, I will stop telling you you MUST write. Then I will try to find out why I MUST write, as well.
Beautifully written and well said, Tracy, just keep on keepin on with whatever you have to do.
Thank you for your new website. Looking forward to putting up some before and after photos of the bedroom if that goes with your flow?
Heck yes, that would go with the flow of my site, just saw this comment, so sorry I didn’t respond sooner.
Matter of fact this diary also could fit on my site if you care to copy it over there.
Can’t wait to see your pics….I have some diaries on my site right now you might be interested in..check them out and do post.
for your openness, your compassion, and especially your willingness to speak the truth that to many try to hide.
Peace to you and yours.
For taking the time out of your day to read the words of a military spouse in the midst of trying times. Thank you for the effort you have made to reach out and dare to make contact with another who occupies the space that I do right now in the middle of all of this STUFF that is going on currently. I feel the contact of you, and through that I can feel my own human presence during some of the scariest moments I have ever lived, and because you are willing to walk here with me I am not as afraid and I can see a future beyond all of this and I can know a bit of peace! So thank you!
I’ve been to Colorado Springs and I can’t even imagine an anti-war protest happening there at all. I’m sure it’s a great place to live, if you love the smell of testosterone in the morning. It’s a strange town: beautiful, austere, jingoistic. But, we also had very well attended anti-war protests in Oceanside CA, which was pretty astounding. More astounding was the odd handful of Marines, who weren’t already deployed, walking by giving the protesters the thumbs up. Whatever… I’m with ya, babe. I’m sick to death of all the flag waving and self-serving military worship. So many of these folks love the symbols, not the people.
I can only speak for my spouse, but for him his job has always been about people. He loves this country and he loves its people and he is overly protective and he knew that there will be times that the nation will need protection. Don’t we all get paid for sharing with the world what we have an over abundance of? After knowing you I would suspect that you married a guy much the same in the people department.
All these things you must be, for I have seen them in your words, and listened to them in your tears.
Your words are not invisible, for they are being seen written on the walls of life more each day.
Your tears are not silent, for the growing numbers of tears is like the sound of a rain storm that is sure to rage.
Your mournings are the wail of the wind in the storm that surely is upon us.
Your heart is the eye of the storm that calms in the midst, before the worst is over.
Your hope, is the light that warms when the storm has passed.
All these and more, a beacon of light, are what keeps us together in this troubled storm in our life, a Lover, a Mother, a Woman, a Wife.
Help guide the lost through this storm we are lost in.
Much Respect
Peace be with your and yours always.
These words must find their way to the printer and to my refrigerator, to occupy a space next to the other finest works of art known to womankind! Thank you for your gifts of you and your love.
-to reach out
-do something creative
I did not learn it from any self-help book, it just
seemed to become a natural pattern in my life.
Tracy, you sure know how to reach out! and you are being creative too in your home. Congratulations on the
courageous way you are coping with your situation.
Oh Tracy…my heart aches for what you are having to live through. Yet, you continue to cope and do the best you can from moment to moment. You found an outlet for your pain and grief through writing. You are making that space behind that big heavy door a warm, comforting safe place to be, where you can be who you really are, feel what you really feel. You have my deepest respect for you are a magnificent human being. I don’t think I could do it quite frankly.
My son was a corpsman in the Navy, based with the Marines in Okinawa when the first Gulf war broke out. I was sick with worry everyday. Thank the Universe he was never sent in but had he gone he would have been right there on the front line attending the wounded. So I just want you to know I guess, that I understand somewhat. Know we care and are here for you.
I want to pass this quote from a beautiful little book a dear friend gave me many years ago called “Angel Voices”
“Home is not far away and hard to get to. It is the place underneath your own skin inside your bones, behind every dream and song in your own heart-the place you discover when you are not afraid anymore: where you are always safe and protected: where there is an infinite playground for your enjoyment with no hidden agenda. Home is a place not of boredom, but of tranquilty-not of blindness, but of clear vision where one can see, without reacting: a land of deep faith and beauty.”
May that peace come to you my friend.
To have son in active duty during any time of war has got to have been pins and needles. When they are active they can get the call at any time and the rest of us may only find out about it later. Thank you for the quote from “Angel Voices”. I do look forward to the day when it is easier to reach those beautiful internal places and just hang out there for a length of time.
The only 2 good things came out of his service. 1) he met his wife who was also in the Navy 2) He earned alot of college credit on their dime. Hang in there honey and Suskind is right…you must keep writing, for all of us.
My nephew was supposed to leave Bagdahd yesterday and we have not heard anything yet about him. He’s a Marine from Ohio, so the news has been making me jumpy this week. He was stationed at the Bagdahd airport, not the area where the bombings occurred.
I’m on the tail-end of the Viet Nam generation. I opposed the war because I knew that bad things were going to happen, and families were going to suffer, and the people responsible for it would walk away with their power and their money, and the people who fought it would be forever changed.
I enjoy your diaries. I’m glad you have a place to vent. Sometimes it’s all you need; sometimes not, but it’s good to have a sympathetic ear.
from your nephew. Military transport to and from can be so unpredictable and too many places where communication can’t be obtained. I keep your family in my prayers today and the moment his feet touch down near his family I thank God that one more Marine made it home to his family’s loving embrace!
Stunningly, beautifully written. Don’t ever stop writing. I agree with Suskind, you are the real deal and this and your others like it should be published.
Thank you for letting us in to share you.
Brava!
Someday in the near future I hope that my days become more boring and my writing is dull. Years from now I hope that going through and growing through such things gives me more to give back to others. I hope that I too can hang out the safe warm beacon to others as you guys frequently do for me during these spiritually trying times I find myself in.
I definitely can’t compete in the poetic department with these guys. I think you are like a lovely flower that has opened here and that open heart of yours has attracted all us butterflies and bees. Flitting back to the paint – in the eastern countries, yellow is the color of peace; which we all wish for you.
Good luck with the dog – puppies, yay!
Certainly with so many good puppy wishes cast to the universe we will have some in 64 days. I didn’t know that Yellow was the color of peace in the east. Maybe that is why I feel so much better surrounded by the colors of the room. They are not any wall colors that have normally been on my color palette, but normal is overrated most of the time!
You’re a good one, Tracy, and it’s great to be reading you here, as well as on the green-and-yellow blog where you sometimes comment. Hang tough, know that we are hainging tough with you, write as often as you can, and best of luck with the puppies!
MilitaryTracy, your writing is gripping. It can’t be easy, putting all of these things in your life out there in the open — but you’re doing something we need. I for one am grateful. I’m grateful for your writing. I don’t know how to be thankful enough for everything else.
Sometimes I feel my words reaching way out there for a miracle. What if the soldiers and the insurgents and American families and the Iraqi families all spoke the truths……..what if somehow even the dead could manage to get their truths out there…..and what if all of the weeping and gnashing of teeth from ALL OF THESE PEOPLE caused us pause? What if all the loss were laid bare and we stripped off all of the veneer and after we were done screaming in horror we all swore to be at peace with one another forever!
PEACE, such a beautiful thought. Where are the hippies, and flower children; when you REALLY need them !! :>) EtJ
WHERE ARE THE TRUE PATRIOTS ?!?!?
I was thinking about you the other day. Saw a newsbreak where the military wife was all done up in red, white and blue and talking about how proud she is…
They rarely show the wives that are pissed off because they haven’t heard from their spouses or the ombudsman. They haven’t yet recieved their husbands pay due to some glitch. Their oldest is acting up and staying out late at nights, they are worried their youngest is smoking cigarettes now and your mother in law is being hyper critical…
and every muthafucking time the door is knocked on you stand and say a prayer that it isn’t “them”… in the beautiful black government car with the base chaplain.
Proud?
It’s called trying to live your life while shitting razor blades every 3 minutes.
I’m proud of you. You give me hope that there are others out there just as angry and just as vocal.
Maybe one day we can share phone numbers(?) Let me know. Cause you have family out here in California and all over the world, darling. 🙂
Oh, Tracy… outstanding diary! Thank you for letting us inside that big ‘ol front door. You have opened your heart to us and I will never ever forget your message. Because of your words I will never look at military families the same ever again. What a gift you have given us!!! Suskind is right on the mark. Please, whatever you do, keep on writing.