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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! June 29, 2007 Fathers' DayBy Greyhawk Just finished reading Virtual Light, an early 90's sci-fi book by William Gibson. Gibson is credited with creating the "cyberpunk" sub-genre; I'd read his Neuromancer trilogy some time ago and enjoyed it. Virtual Light is the first book of another trilogy, but I don't know if I'll bother with the rest. It's not bad, but the setting is the "near future" - and that future is now, or close enough to now that it becomes obvious that the future was not quite so bleak as full enjoyment of the story would require. That of itself provides interest - but of a sort that wasn't the author's intent. I suppose there could be another sub-genre of science fiction: the bleak future that didn't happen. Watch almost any pre-Star Wars sci-fi films of the 70's - Silent Running, Soylent Green, Logan's Run, et al - and you'll see examples what I mean. Of course, one can't consign such stories into that category ahead of time, right? And anyhow, perhaps the authors were just off by a few years in timing. We still have a future in which any number of things can happen. For instance, did you know the Earth was getting hotter? In 1967, Gibson went to Canada "to avoid the Vietnam war draft", appearing that year in a CBC newsreel item about hippie subculture in Yorkville, Toronto. He settled in Vancouver, British Columbia five years later and began to write science fiction. Although he retains U.S. citizenship, Gibson has spent most of his adult life in Canada, and still lives in the Vancouver area. This reduces my enjoyment of his work not one bit. I read Virtual Light by flashlight over several nights, just before dropping off to sleep here in my tent in Iraq. I don't get enough sleep, though. Mostly that's due to long hours. But some days aren't so busy. One Sunday I almost went to bed early - it was Father's Day, in fact. I'd already read and replied to the emails from the kids who really aren't kids any more, and was about to log off and call it a day. Then into my inbox popped a message from my brother in the states: I'd been invited to view an online album of photos from our niece's wedding. The event had been planned for a year, at least, and even when I first heard of it I knew I couldn't go - knew I'd be in Iraq on that day. Our family scattered around the country, my parents' generation and my own. None are left in my hometown, and that wasn't my parents' hometown anyway. Since the third generation is now starting out on their own, we'll see if the trend continues. "Where are you from?" I'm asked from time to time. If you're looking for a place that defines me, the answer is "I'm not sure." But from time to time the family gathers, and this time the gathering wasn't far from the fictional setting of Virtual Light. Sometimes I'm there, this time I wasn't. But here was my chance to be there in a virtual sense, after the fact. Who'd have thought such things were possible, just a few short years ago? So I clicked the link in the email, and waited while 200+ thumbnails made their agonizingly slow appearance on my screen... Who are these old guys hanging out with the beautiful girls I've known for years? And who are these young adults who look so much like the kids who used to visit Grandma's? ... I'd have to click through for the full version for answers. Those loaded slowly, too. So much for sleep. I wouldn't miss this for the world. "Indirect fire" means rockets or mortars, launched in the general direction of camp. Most land in the middle of nothing, others don't. Here was one that didn't. I did not know this person, who was on a base other than mine. But like all the faces, hers looked familiar. Like family. The first picture I saw from the virtual wedding album was one of family at a table. My older brother, the father of the bride, was not among them. But on a shelf in the background, I saw his picture. A picture in a picture, small, visible only upon clicking the thumbnail for the larger image, and waiting and waiting for the pixels to make their way from California through the lens of a digital camera then through cyberspace to me in Iraq. Though his photograph in the background was small it was recognizable to me because it was a college yearbook photo, a copy of which hung proudly on a wall in my parents' home in my hometown, when it was there. He was in college through the last few years of the Vietnam war. I can remember my being concerned he could be drafted. That was a possible future, but it didn't happen. Instead he graduated, got married, and got a job doing something with computers out in some place people started calling Silicon Valley... Years later and years ago, I visited him at his home in California. I was returning from two years in Korea, on my way to an assignment near my hometown where one member of my family still lived. Our younger brother, who was getting married a few months later, to a girl who looked the same when I saw her in photos on Fathers' Day this year. A couple years later the three of us got together in California. Good times. On one of those visits out West he gave me some paperback books he'd finished reading. Among them, Virtual Light, by William Gibson. I can't recall if he'd given me his opinion of it - probably not. But years later and a few months ago I was packing to come to Iraq, and grabbed a couple of books off my shelf for the trip. That was one of them. And a couple months later and a couple weeks ago I clicked through pictures from my older brother's daughter's wedding, sent to me by my younger brother via cyberspace. No matter how many works of science fiction prove faulty at predicting a disastrous future, people will eagerly consume the next pronouncement of doom. There's a market for such things. There are people who thrive on imagining a future hell. In the 70's it was nuclear war, overpopulation, pollution, and numerous other threats to all mankind that distracted our attention from that which was truly important. By the early 90's it was the economy, stupid, that was going to bring us down. Sacrifice: some of us miss family weddings and other big events, others die from indirect fire. Others get to leave early: Him: You've been stationed in Germany, right? He was worried about his future, he knew I'd been in Germany, and he needed my advice: "So, what's there to do over there?" He's heading your way, MaryAnn. I told him to say hello for me. So, on my last trip out to California - unbelievable to me now it's been over ten years - I had a conversation with my older brother and his then teen-age daughter. "She wants to ask you something". He said. She was quite solemn, and quite serious. "When the time comes and I get married, if Dad can't do it, would you walk me down the aisle?" She wasn't just worrying needlessly about the future. Her father had cancer, and though he preferred to say he was "living with cancer", he was also dying from it. Such things matter. Such things are non-trivial, and not to be taken lightly. I am the father of two daughters myself, and I know. I told her I'd be honored. He died on Christmas Eve, 1996, and left a wife and two daughters. From her wedding pictures I saw in Iraq on Father's Day, 2007, the wedding held on the weekend that included his birthday, they are all quite beautiful, and he would be proud. May you sleep well tonight, wherever you are. Elsewhere rough men ride, and tomorrow will be a fine day indeed.
Posted by Greyhawk / June 29, 2007 6:20 PM | Permalink 6 Comments |
July 19, 2010Dawn Patrol 07/19/2010 [Greyhawk]
Welcome to the Dawn Patrol, our ongoing roundup of information on war and other topics - from the MilBlogs and other sources around the world.
Always updating - refresh for updates.
AFGHANISTANProspects for stability in Musa Qala: challenges and possible solutions -- [Bill Ardolino /Long War Journal - in Afghanistan] Exploding Culverts -- [Kandahar Diary - in Afghanistan] Arbaki -- [Free Range International - in Afghanistan] Weather -- [A Major's Perspective - in Afghanistan] Fête Nationale -- [Field Notes: One Soldier's Perspective - in Afghanistan] Goodbye "FaST" Food (and good riddance) -- [FaST Surgeon - in Afghanistan] IRAQOn The Iran, Iraq Border -- [J.D. Johannes - in Iraq] WAR ON TERROR /TERRORISMSenators Look For Smoking Gun In BP-Lockerbie Link -- [AP] No Link Between BP And Lockerbie Release: UK Envoy -- [NPR news blog] UK's Cameron: Releasing Lockerbie Bomber Was Wrong -- [AP] U.S. AND OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLDAs Cameron and Obama Meet, BP Will Be Top Issue -- [NY Times] Afghanistan tops agenda for British PM's visit -- [Washington Times] WELCOME HOMEHomecoming -- [Rajiv Srinivasan - home from Afghanistan] STRATEGY & TACTICSISAF, SCR Address Military ROE and Tactical Directives -- [ISAF] SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYRaytheon's pain gun finally gets deployed in Afghanistan (update: recalled) -- [Engadget] Pain Ray Recalled From Afghanistan -- [Noah Shachtman/Danger Room] The Active Denial System: the weapon that's a hot topic -- [The Telegraph (UK)] World's Fastest Helicopter Boosts Battle Against Insurgents -- [ISAF]
POLITICSIs it time for a real GI Jane? -- [CNN] HUMOR/SATIRE(Need more? Dawn Patrols Archives are here.) Iraq, Afghanistan, War, Terrorism, Military, Politics, Media, MilBlogs, dawn patrol Mudville |
The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2009 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  |
OK, I feel like I spent half of that weekend crying, and now you've got me doing it again. Thanks a lot, little bro :). I love you.
P.S. You were both sorely missed.
Well, you made me bawl, but I sure do miss your writing so was delighted to see a post from you. Take good care, GH.
Next time start with "Get Kleenex". Lovya, Mom
Damn, you're one hell of a writer. 'Sacrifice' seems to simple a word, 'Thank you' too flaccid a phrase. But it's the best I can do. Thank you, and congratulations to your neice. She's blessed with a fantastic Uncle. May she and her new husband be blessed in their new life together.
Like others, I'm never sorry to see a post from you, but I'm really sorry you missed the wedding. Still, I bet your niece is unbearably proud of what her stand-in dad was doing instead.
Take care, Lisa
Damn. Missing that wedding must have been tough.
Hope your guy looks me up while he's here.