To the Iraqi People..

Many things have come to light for me in the last several years that were not so apparent as a young man. I love my country and what it is supposed to stand for. I, and many others like me, was lied to, trained and used as a tool to oppress others. Many of these things were not my fault, but I was there to witness. So, like the man I want to be:

To the people of Iraq,

     I’m sorry for helping do to you, what I would never let happen to me or my loved ones. I am sorry for having hate in my heart; bringing my horrible skills to bear upon your brave men is a saddening thing for me in retrospect. I feel guilt for terrifying the people who I was supposedly protecting. I’m sorry for having had the drive to be better at tracking people in my scope, when I should have been opposing the occupation. I’m sorry that I was skilled and able to deal death at extreme ranges; what was once impressive is now repulsive.

     Although I will never deserve or receive your forgiveness, know that I am sorry for helping give my people a bad name. We often helped, but more often hurt people. I have joked about the death of others, but cried over those we suffered; no humans should have lost lives on either side. I am sorry for allowing spite, revenge or rage to fill me up and flow over. I’m sorry for being another invader into your sovereign land and removing your civil liberties at gunpoint. I’m sorry for using superior technology and deception to take away your family members. I’m sorry that we removed innocent men from their homes, without cause, in the name of security.

     I’m sorry I took away your guns. I’m sorry that your land has been ravaged by war and that men like me and my brothers were your enemy. If we had been born on the same block, we would probably been friends. I’m sorry that my friends glorified me for my successes in battle and boasted about their own. I’m sorry also that the common condition in wartime troops is to dehumanize their opponents to make them easier to mistreat; I am just as guilty of this. I’m sorry for being a part of something our Forefathers fought against.

     I’m sorry that I, at one time, thought that the ability to take a life was power. I’m sorry that my country is plagued by young men and women who suffer with guilt over things they did. I’m sorry that we had to kill to ensure the safety of others. I’m sorry that war is ironic at times. I’m sorry that the man in Tal Afar who guarded the bank, who treated us with such kindness, is not able to live in peace. I’m sorry that the Christian family in Mosul, who showed us love, has to live in hiding from sectarian violence.

     To the children, I am sorry that you had to witness young American men as monsters. I’m sorry that your childhood was filled with explosions, gunfire and large, armored men kicking in doors. I’m sorry that your soccer fields became a danger zone. I’m sorry that your kindness and wonder was not able to be spent in peace time. There was an old man and a young boy in the car that was hijacked by another man and all three had their hands up. I shot the hijacker when he pulled out a pistol; I am sorry that boy and old man had to fear for their lives.

     I’m sorry that it took nearly a decade to leave your land. I am sorry that thousands of peaceful people per year were killed by ordinance, stray bullets or carelessness. We accidentally killed a woman and went to pay reparations to her family; I’m sorry to that husband and those children that his wife and their mother died. I’m sorry that there were so many dinner tables with families waiting for their loved ones to come home, who never did.

     I’m sorry that it was “us versus them” and that you paid that price by proximity. I can say that I never targeted an unarmed person with lethal force, but some of my peers may have. I’m sorry that communications get confused, descriptions are vague, maps are not marked clearly and that our judgment is not always sound. I’m sorry that I thought my squad leader was a coward for leading us away from the fighting when he could.

       All these things and more are ones I and tens of thousands of military vets get to live with. We all have the chance to make good lives and we have an obligation to work hard accordingly. I saw the error of my ways and now try to teach my friends that respecting others is the only way we will ever evolve as a species. My son asked me “what’s a war?” and it broke my heart. I am glad though, that he has no clue about the horror so many children experience daily.

Wrong number... awesome!!!

So I had a friend, who grew up with me, was in my wedding and we even both joined the military after high school. He was a Marine Infantryman and I, an Army Infantryman. After two tours in Iraq, he got out and joined the masses of weak, mostly-helpless folks that make up our society. I did one tour in Iraq, doing the same stuff as him and got our a few months after he did. At my 24^th birthday party, he showed up and brought me 200 rounds of .45 ammo; that was a great gift.

Well, at said party, I got drunk as I tend to do at gatherings and began to rant about all the junk I do. The war was a hot topic for me at that time, since I had only been out of the Army for about 5 months at that point. I stressed the fact that is was unjust and that the men we fought in the streets were the same type of people as us. I made the point that we would do the same things to repel invaders in America. We love our country and they love theirs; it is pretty simple.

Well, my buddy didn’t much like my views (probably in part because I lose all sense of tact or kindness when taking vodka shots) and we didn’t speak again. I kept in touch with his dad, but never got details on my friend. We had been close since I was 12.

Well, last night on the way home, I was using my headset on my awesome new phone and thought I’d call his dad to let him know about my business. He has always been a hunter and firearms enthusiast so it is right up his alley. I heard an unfamiliar voice answer and ask me to hold on. Then my friend’s voice came on the line and I was momentarily speechless.

It was suddenly all okay. Four years had gone by and we hadn’t spoken; now he was totally different and speaking just like I had years prior. He apologized, but I told him not to; we all have to take whatever time is needed to heal. It’s just really awesome to, once again, have one of my best friends back. I should see him in the next month or so when he is back in town so that will be great.

It took me arriving home, with him still on the line to realize that I had mistakenly dialed him instead of his dad. Another factor is: I had been transferring contacts all day to the new phone and actually considered not transferring his. I am glad I did.

Home Stretch

While I am certainly not super close to being debt-free, I am very close to paying off the bike. If not the whole thing, then most of it. The APR jumps to 29% next month and I have known the whole time it was coming. Luckily, my better half is being cool whilst I work 6 days a week to make it happen and dodge the big black shaft of interest. 

My impulsive nature is also difficult to justify, if not impossible, and yet I am still overcome from time to time. A prime example is right now; I have a Amazon.com cart full of parts to finish off one project which I know damn well can wait. The reason I didn't just check out is because it is primarily my impulsiveness that got me to the point of needing to work this much (which I am glad to be able to, don't get me wrong) in order to save my own ass.

I would be a fool to fall prey to the allure of the Amazon monster at this point. In a couple months, the ATF will hopefully grant me my Federal Firearms License (FFL) so I can finally begin to get customers and make some money. Anyway, it has been great so far. The bike more than pays for itself when I ride it. I get to make it home faster due to carpool lane and also save 5 bucks a day in gas alone. It's damn cold though.

Lucky Dogs

By now, nearly everyone I know has heard this story in varying levels of detail. I basically about wasted two dogs who were running amok in my neighborhood. You know if you’ve read anything here that I am a peaceful guy nowadays and want to keep it that way. Here is the video and the first bit is my neighbor lady after her scary ordeal with having been chased inside.

The animals were taken from the owners as this was their third strike. During the incident, you can see me dip out of the way (dog teeth will ruin my pretty pistol) and I wanted to give them every chance I could. I never got the adrenaline response associated with being chased by monsters like this. I knew that I had ten little friends on my side who could outrun them. Skip to 2:00 to see my stupid ass....

Hill Holder Fail

This little spring here is the return spring (or what was left of it) for my wife's Subaru. There is a mechanism in some manual Subies that keeps the front left and right rear brakes locked when the clutch is in and the car is stopped. This is so awesome in Seattle on the horrendous hills and whatnot. It is not so cool when it fails.

 

I had no way of getting just the spring from the dealer, so I went into third world engineer mode. I grabbed the rear brake return spring of my 1988 Honda dirt bike mentioned on here a few months ago and with the help of some Boeing surplus aircraft steel wire I secured the spring in place. After the spring went in, I added two zip ties for flair and attitude.

 

I shan't fail to mention that it was pissing epic rain the whole time I was doing this. That made things a lot more fun because I was soaked. Anyway, I'll go the Tacoma Screw and see if they can, once again, save the day with my projects. Fun times, but at least I got it to work and didn't have to lose functionality of the awesome feature.

 

Now He's An Expert?

*Stupid dream alert*

Yesterday I was reorganizing my safe to make room for all the new junk I’m acquiring and ran into a relatively-new (to me) WW2 era Japanese Arisaka rifle I got from a friend. So here is the short story…

Somehow in the dream I was still working on arranging all the rifles, pistols and shotguns with David. Who the fuck knows why he was there, but he was. Anyway, he pointed out the Arisaka and said, “Oh look at how the (insert Japanese word) is on the bolt. See that? That is a symbol of (insert some dynastic term) emperor”. Even in my dream, it was weird a hell.. then I realized he was a history buff and not a closet weapons expert. I am no expert, but I like guns a little bit. I would have no clue what the rifle was in the sporterized state it is in.

This is very similar to something I came across the other day; just because you are well-informed on something, does not mean you support it. I have a deep understanding of war and do not support it.

Bloodlust

This post is one I have put off for years, but decided that people need to know about. I can happily say that in all my years on this planet, I have only run into a few people who were like the one in the story to follow. It is a very small percentage… very, very small.

August 2005, Mosul, Iraq: The gravel of the company housing area crunched loudly with each step. I walked down the aisles of small buildings towards the sheet metal “hootch” I was staying in. My 3 roommates were getting weapons torn down and cleaned after the day’s mission and were getting ready to go eat. I had been trying to find my platoon sergeant to get some information about my scope that had been in the shop for many weeks; there was no conceivable reason it should take so long to get it.

I was the designated marksman (SDM) in my squad and was the only one in the company without a scope. I had a bone-stock M4 carbine, where the rest of the SDMs had free-floated barrels, match-grade triggers and specialty gear costing thousands of taxpayer dollars; mine was $383 dollars according to the accountability form. At this time in my life, I was unafraid to tell others what I felt about my abilities and that sometimes landed me in hot water; having a big mouth and the ability to back it up only pisses people off. I was a master at pissing people off.

Well, now that the situation is set, here is the actual part that’s interesting: While taking a lap one row down from my usual digs, I passed the room of a former squad-mate. As I passed, he yelled loudly for me. “Jack, come here man!”. Whirled around at the familiar voice of the Staff Sergeant and ran back to his room. I snapped to parade rest and sounded off with “Yes, Sergeant?” looking straight forward to the rear wall of the small hut. He waved his hand at me saying “Relax brother, come in and shut the door”. I relaxed and did as directed.

I walked into the dim room, lit by only the light let in from the slightly-ajar blinds. The strong man who called me was like a brother to me at many times, but we had been apart for several months since he moved to another platoon. He had taught me so many things about saving lives over the years. He was the only Infantryman who knew more about emergency medical procedures than our medics; we all trusted him implicitly. This conversation took a dark turn immediately, though as the look in his eyes were unfamiliar to me.

“It’s me and you, brother. We have the most confirmed kills in the battalion. It’s a contest now.” he started, gesturing to a pair of bloodied gloves and a large Stryder knife hanging on a wall. He had, only days earlier, been involved in an ambush where he stabbed an enemy with that knife. The gruesome trophy on the wall hung there as a reminder of his devotion to his job. We had been fighting the forces of (insert your preferred term for other humans who resist invaders here) in Mosul for months and he and I were the most prolific of the soldiers making a dent in enemy forces.

I raised my hands up in a manner to show I was not enthusiastic about it and told him “I’m not here for blood, man”. I really only wanted to go home, but that was not on the list of options. He pressed me for my compliance and insisted that we have to compete for the most kills. I was actually fearful at that moment. I was in a room with a man who was a hunter like me, but his resolve was overriding his morality. I am not without sin in that respect, but I was certainly not looking for a contest counted in human lives.

The horror was that his eyes told me there was no exaggeration in his statements and that there was a genuine bloodlust. Only the previous week, he and I were on separate ends of the same ambush where two of the original four enemy were killed in the initial contact and the other two were dispatched by myself and the Staff Sergeant at opposite ends of the city after a chase. The man in front of me was killed where he stood out of necessity to protect my life and those of my peers. The man he gunned down had his body violated as an entire magazine was fired into the corpse as to make the point stronger or to make him even more dead (?). It begs the question: Is it more wrong to kill someone and then continue to shoot the body out of anger or rage than it is to kill them and do nothing?

This whole mess of words I managed to throw together only illustrates that there are a select few people who really want to take humans’ lives and that is sad. We need more people who resist war or learn to resist it so that we as a nation can thrive.