February 24, 2001 (idea)

static
"Easy Rider 75 you are weapons hold."
"Lazing…now, now, now."
"Easy Rider, you are advised that if target closes within 100 yards of contact you are weapons release at ATO discretion."
"Roger last."

They're out there in the NAG lighting up a target pursuing one of our Rigid Hull Inflatable Boats, chasing the boat out of somewhere it not should have been at the time. They're armed, 76 mm Bofors, 20 mm cannon, 7.62 mm machine guns. They do not know but there is an SH-60B carrying four AGM-114B Hellfire missiles watching them some miles away and prepared to shoot. My brother is on that aircraft, the closest that I have to family in this land of those that would wish to kill anyone with an American flag on their shoulder. I cannot stop this; I can simply listen to the transaction over the radios in a calmly cooled Combat Information Center aboard the USS Shiloh. I know that 75 runs from the USS Fletcher, I know that my brother sits strapped into a seat some miles from where I am now and plays the hand for what it is worth on this particular occasion. They will eventually break off pursuit after a few miles.

"Easy Rider 75, lazing secured. Target has terminated pursuit."
"Roger last and lazing secure. Green deck set, 75 clear for 1 for 1 and hot pump."

I do not know how to come home any more. After spending 330 out of the last 420 days deployed in an operational capacity, I find the lack of anything to do disconcerting. Not only the lack of a mission, the lack of a tangible purpose seems to find it's way back to where I am now to pervert the simple act of a handshake with a welcome home. I still do not belong here; I am an asset and something to be used for the purpose of making sure that someone falls faster.

'God, grant me forgiveness for the lives I have taken in your name.'

Don't you people get it? Don't you understand? We're shooting at them and they're shooting at us and we've been at this for ten years? Blowing up their radar stations is nothing new. That they're firing off anti-aircraft missiles is nothing new, the subsequent display of 'injured civilians' resulting from an 'imperialist American air-raid' is nothing out of the ordinary. Ten years folks, ten years. A change in presidents will mark no significant policy shift when it comes to where we're going. With the gas pedal full down we're heading somewhere fast, I just hope that someone knows where it is that we're going.

I want to go back. I want the responsibility and the pressure back. Being here at home seems hollow and stupid compared to operating where the difference between excellence and mediocrity is counted out in human lives. The sense of accomplishment has evaporated, the tension gone I am unsure what to do with myself other than consume the remainder of a bottle of Glenmorangie.
Alone and awake at 2:30 in the morning I read the words again to only realize that the homecoming was a hollow one. All of the assertions to the contrary are nothing more than the same lies, she never thought I would find her here. She never thought I was serious when I told her I loved her. In return, I am placed in the care of karma I have created. It is better that I elected to stay. Better somehow that I reenlisted in the shadow of an object of war, the symbology of violence that I have served so well. Carving another scar into this frozen heart seems stupid compared to what I once was. I remember the idealist child walking into the Albuquerque MEPS for the first time July 17, 1993, I just wish I could find him again.