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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?
Me: Yes...
Him: Ever been to Landstuhl?
Me: Yes. Shit, you heading that way?
Him: Yes... doc says I've got a tumor.
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.
2007-06-29 18:20:15
Scott Ott emailed me and asked me to pass this around to reach those that would benefit the most.
Faithful ScrappleFace readers know that editor Scott Ott is also director of a Christian children’s camp called Victory Valley Camp, in Zionsville, Pennsylvania.As an expression of gratitude for the sacrifice of our troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, Victory Valley Camp is offering a free week of day camp (ages 5-to-11) or overnight camp (ages 8-to-13) for their children during summer 2007.
This offer applies to families of troops deployed to either of these theaters of operations during the 2007 calendar year. A week of Valley Day Camp normally costs $135. A week of overnight Camp or Outpost costs $335. For these families, we will charge nothing.
We’re doing this as an act of honor and love for these families who have given so much of themselves that the rest of us might live in a nation where we’re free to worship the Lord.
We appreciate that a week of camp for these children will not only provide a joyful time of God’s word in God’s creation, but it also offers a much-needed week of respite for the stateside spouse.
For more information, click the flag of the United States of America at VictoryValleyCamp.org
May the Lord bless the families and the troops who hold freedom more dear than life. We count it all joy, and a privilege to serve you.
Victory Valley Camp has no fund set aside for this effort. We’re doing it because it seems like the right thing to do. People who wish to help, may contribute online or by mail. To learn more, click here. But whether folks give or not, the offer stands.
If you know someone who would enjoy some fun in the sun share this story
Okay, how long have I been gone? These days I glance at my watch as often to see what weekday it is, or what day of the month as I do for the actual time.
There are two ways to roll into Iraq. The first is the most common from the past few years - you arrive, and work side by side with the person you're relieving for a few days, learn the system and all things that matter, and then he leaves and you've got it. This process is called RIP/TOA - Relieve in Place/Transfer of Authority.
But the surge is something new. There is no one to relieve; you build something from nothing, you determine how you're going to do business. You figure out where everything is and how to get anything done. You try to create your part of the system to be as simple as possible, and wonder - as everyone else does - why the hell everyone else but you is determined to make it as hard as possible to get anything done.
Within the first two or three days you realize that "we'll get that to you in two or three days" is a bullshit answer to any request you might be foolish enough too make, and is the same answer you'll get four days later. You learn that "The only guy who can authorize that is out doing _____" is code for "you're never going to get that done unless you do it yourself, even though you aren't authorized". And you do it yourself. And though you'll hear stories about "last time" you'll find no tangible evidence that this unit has ever been away from home before.
But somehow, when it comes time to write a weekly progress report, you'll find that last week's problems have somehow been solved (or rendered moot), and even though you've got a longer list of shortfalls this Friday you actually are making progress. And by week three you'll actually know how to make things work, even though you may wonder if it's because the system is becoming sane or because you are simply becoming one with an insane system.
And then it's week four, and chaos is routine, but deadlines have been met. And things are working, even though you had to stop everything for two days and learn a new system for inventorying all the shit you inventoried before shipping it over - and then inventory it again using the new system here.
And then inventory it again for someone else.
And not only are things working, but backup systems are working too - those had to be ops checked even earlier than you'd planned. And backups to backups are good to go too.
Her: When will you have time to write something?
Him: Two to three days - things should start to slow down...
Near the end of a 16-hour day. A PLAN has been made - the work of many. The work of many, working many hours. Then one guy makes A BAD DECISION without checking first with any of the many. The plan is about to unhinge, and with a simple glance at his output, I can see the future, and the future is bad. But it can be fixed. He awaits my praise for his efforts.
"Unfuck this."
He knew better, he knew the system, or if he didn't it is long past time where he should have. This is not training, this is not practice, this is not home. Ninety percent of his damage is undone within hours, I'm there to make sure of it. No blood, no foul - this time. He gets one more chance.
Back to the tent, alarm set for 10:30, figured 6 hours sleep would be good enough. I set my own hours here - just work when I need to. But someone else had another plan, and a series of loud explosions woke me up about 8 AM. Not close enough to make me worry, but close enough to wake me up. Still don't know exactly what they were. Might have been our guys blowing up captured stuff - too many booms for it to be bad guys (I hope). So I showered (the day before the showers weren't working), shaved, brushed my teeth and came into work. It was too late for chow hall breakfast - if the bastards had struck an hour earlier I could at least have had food.
But what I did have was a rare brief period with nothing to do. So out of curiosity I checked something of which for the past weeks my time constraints have left me blissfully unaware - what sort of news America was getting from Iraq?
The answer? None.
Top US congressional Democrats bluntly told President George W. Bush Wednesday that his Iraq troop "surge" policy was a failure.Which was a pretty effective way to ensure no one in America would learn that a few days after that, we officially finished the "surge" part of the surge - and moved on to implementing strategy.
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi challenged the president over Iraq by sending him a letter, ahead of a White House meeting later on Wednesday."As many had forseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results," the two leaders wrote.
"The increase in US forces has had little impact in curbing the violence or fostering political reconciliation.
The American commander in Iraq says his forces have launched new offensives against al-Qaida insurgents in and around Baghdad during the last 24 hours, making use of the last of the additional combat forces President Bush ordered to Iraq in January. VOA's Al Pessin reports from Baghdad.Unfuck yourself, Harry.General David Petraeus announced the offensives at a news conference on Saturday.
"Literally in the last 24 hours, we have launched a number of different offensive operations in the Baghdad belts in particular," he said, "and we're continuing a number of operations that have been ongoing in Baghdad itself."
General Petraeus says the operations are targeting areas that have been al-Qaida safe havens, and bases for launching car bomb attacks. "A fairly large, coordinated offensive operation, with all of these surge forces, has only just now been launched," he said.
The general said he is taking advantage of the fact that the last of the extra U.S. forces have finally arrived, bringing new capabilities he can use to go after insurgents on their home ground. He would not provide any details of the operations.
Wander into a local higher HQ building near here (and I suspect this is true of more than one) and one of the first things you'll see is a memorial to the fallen, backdropped by a continuously scrolling slideshow with photos and information on Division's latest casualties of war. The faces represent a cross section of America, many are heartbreakingly young, and many of those who aren't leave young children behind. Each day new fathers without sons, and sons without fathers. Look hard enough at the screens and you'll see your own face looking back.
I'll pause on the occassions I visit higher, and I'm rarely alone in doing so. And I'll remain in that spot until I've seen every face, and felt the tearing of my heart from my chest. In the workaday bustle of that place, simultaneously in the midst and far removed from the grimmer aspects of this conflict, it would be easy to forget the far different reality that exists not far geographically away. But there the very familiar faces of the fallen bid greeting and farewell to those who would make decisions that will ultimately result in others joining their ranks.
One needn't wonder what they might say, given the chance. Their actions spoke louder and more powerfully than words ever could.
Some distant sunset, vision fading
Memories remain
And tired eyes gaze 'pon folded flags
While distant drums beat their refrain
Saluting fallen friends whose names
And youth will never fade
Here's to those on other shores,
for them live well, the price is paid
- Greyhawk,
-- Iraq, December 2004
Marcus Luttrell explains how, injured & alone, he got through enemy's hills with Matt Laurer
Most here know Marcus and if you don't I suggest you read this
or better yet buy his book:
Lone Survivor - The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10
Here's exceprts from his book:
p. 203. …Was I afraid of their possible buddies in the Taliban? No. Was I afraid of the liberal media back in the U.S.A.? Yes. And I suddenly flashed on the prospect of many, many years in a U.S. civilian jail alongside murderers and rapists.
p. 206. I looked Mikey right in the eye, and I said, “We gotta let ‘em go.”
It was the stupidest, most southern-fried, lame brained decision I ever made in my life. I must have been out of my mind. I had actually cast a vote which I knew could sign our death warrant. I’d turned into a fucking liberal, a half-assed, no-logic nitwit, all heart, no brain, and the judgment of a jackrabbit.
UPDATE: Not all are happy about his book and even claim some condrictions.
... and the Democratic underground are having a hay day
But to stay on point,
Some of what Marcus and Matt discuss are the ROE (Rules of Engagement).
Can't tell you how many stories I've read in the blogosphere or heard while visiting guys at Kleber about the Fk'd up ROE and how their buddies aren't hear to talk about it.
Now ROE have been around since the Revolutionary War and are necessary but isn't it about time they change these current restrictive rules and let our guys do their damn job?
I'm just saying. T.A.R.F.U.
Col Hunt has some thoughts here
Hunt says while visiting Iraq recently, he observed rules of engagement that required seven separate steps before a soldier at a guard post could engage the enemy. The last step, he notes, states that if the enemy runs away, the soldier does not have to go after him. <...> [The existing rules of engagement] have hamstrung our soldiers to the point where you've got the British, who had to ask permission to fire on Iranians who are taking captive their soldiers, and were told no. ...The Marines have got this problem in Al Anbar Province ... and the Army's got this problem all over the place, from Afghanistan to here. ... We have forgotten how to fight. This is nasty business we're in, and we seem unwilling or unable to do that.
Col. Hunt also has a good read : On the Hunt: How to Wake Up Washington and Win the War on Terror
Hopefully someone in Washington reads it.
Scott Kesterson who blogged while in Afghanistan at KGW sends us a Film Chronology of his time in Afghanistan
A citizen journalist and a former National Guard soldier himself, Scott arrived in Afghanistan in May 2006 to begin a 14-month journey as an embedded journalist with Alpha Company, 2nd Platton, the Red Devils. His film examines the pitfalls and perils of a mostly forgotten war told through the experience of daily living with soldiers.
The work was recently awarded a regional Emmy Award for best photography.
More video here. The final cut is expecedt in October 2007.
Looking forward to it.
