What a shame, What
a shame
It’s one AM, lyrics to a Shinedown song are playing over and
over in my head: “What a shame, what a shame, to judge a life that you can’t
change.” Tonight I remembered the dream that woke me from my slumber. For once
I’m not covered in sweat, bonus. I obviously won’t be returning to sleep, none
bonus. I remembered this one, that means it’s not the nightmare, none bonus
again. This is going to crash my day tomorrow.
I can lie in bed and wrestle my thoughts and demons the rest of the night or I can start recording them. Ray says this helps our brains process things, so we don’t get stuck on them. We verbalize, process, and move on, otherwise they tend to get stuck on repeat and play over and over. This can be maddening, this can lead to all sorts of bad things, I don’t have time for bad things. Ray’s a smart guy, one of the smartest I know. It’s obvious what my subconscious was telling me tonight, the remembering and lack of sweat means this was not only just a dream as opposed to a nightmare, but that it was a message.
At first we were on an airstrip, waiting to load up on a C-130. I was laying on a pile of gear that belonged to me. I look around and everyone else is doing the same. I don’t recognize these people, but in the dream most of them are familiar and I am at ease. Then we get word, you better have your Protective Masks, they’ve been using rudimentary chemical weapons. Shit, even in my dreams I’m by the book, can’t call it a gas mask. Anyways, next thing I know we’re on the bird. I look around and realize my gear is absolutely 100% Ate The Fuck Up. This is no good, I begin to panic. Pro-mask, they said we needed our pro-mask, I start digging through my assault pack and find mine. I’m slightly comforted when I look around and see that other people are doing the same.
As the bird begins to move I try to convince myself I have time to get things in order before we jump. I quickly realize that’s bullshit and I frantically try to adjust the waist strap on the pro-mask case, then the leg strap, then I see that my body armor is in pieces and start messing with it and my MOLLE Vest. Next my assault pack tips over distributing its contents onto the floor of the bird. Could this get any worse? When we begin to take off the guy next to me pulls me down into the netted seat and tries helping me get strapped in. Don’t need to be flying into the ceiling of that thing if we take fire and the pilot has to start flying a little more “aggressively” or god forbid we’re hit and drop from the sky. About the time I’m getting control of the seat belt and wondering how in the hell I’m gonna pull this one off, the dream changes and we’re on a combat patrol in the back of an MRAP.
While I’m trying to process this, the guy across from me starts telling me that this is the turn we almost always get hit on. There’s a giant pile of trash and scrap metal in the middle of the road the engineers haven’t cleared and the insurgents love to set up IED’s there. Sure as shit, the back passenger corner disappears in a ball of flame and smoke, we’re hit. As we try and check the guys in the back to see if their still alive one starts yelling three of the most terrifying things a Soldier can hear: “GAS GAS GAS!” Terror, adrenaline dump, tunnel vision, slow motion, and the silence, the deafening silence. Pause. Muscle memory, thank God for muscle memory. Hold your breath, close your eyes, reach down to open the pro-mask case. What THE FUCK is it doing on my lap and not the side of my leg? Oh yeah, my gear is Ate The FUCK UP. Shit, this is deal with-able, adjust fire, drive on. Open the case, remove the mask, place on face, tighten straps, exhale, check the seal, good to go. A wave of relief rushes over me. I look up and see another Soldier trying to run upwind from the smoke. Somehow at this point in the dream we’ve exited the vehicle. Oh yeah, the MRAP tipped over, we exited through the gunners hatch.
FUCK ME! Soldier without a mask! Oh, I’ll just share mine. Wait, this isn’t regular smoke and we’re not fire fighters, this isn’t a scuba mask that we can each take breaths from. A wave of devastation hits me as the gas cloud overtakes us, he’s fucked, there is nothing I can do. And I open my eyes, calm as can be, I am wide awake. “What a shame, what a shame, to judge a life that you can’t change…” It’s one AM. We’ve come round full circle.
This is a brief, chaotic, and slightly vulgar summary of my life as of today. The other night at an OEF/OIF Veterans meeting I heard a saying that stuck with me: “You can climb a mountain, you can’t sit on a tack.” It’s the little things. Sure, climbing a mountain may be no easy task, it may take a while, you may fall down a few times, scrape some elbows, get a little dirty. But with the right gear, proper preparation, support, guidance, and a planned route to follow, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get to the top. Now, if you decide not to climb that mountain because sitting on that tack, although painful, just seems a little easier, then you’re just gonna keep sitting on tacks. After a while, all those tacks are going to leave a lot of little holes in your behind. Now all those little pricks have turned into one big problem. An incredibly sore ass that is now preventing you from sitting down at all, sitting on any more tacks, or climbing that mountain. You’re stuck just standing there, too sore to sit, too sore to walk, too sore to climb that mountain, too sore to do anything but wallow in your own misery. It’s the little things that add up over time. Whether your tacks are fear, bottles, cans, pills, powders, anger, violence, or you name a thousand other things, they are not good. Soon they will become everything. And then one day you’ll look around and see that all your friends, your family, children, acquaintances, everyone and everything are gone, sick of telling you to stop sitting on tacks and then just watching you do it over and over again. Now all you have left is a bloody sore ass.
Do what must be done, break out the hydrogen peroxide, neo-sporin, band-aids, hell, use an adult diaper if there isn’t enough gauze. Stop pricking yourself and start planning your route up that mountain. I guarantee you’re friends, family, kids, even complete strangers will come back down that mountain and show you how to pack your gear, suggest the routes they took, advise you against spots that they struggled with, and help get your bloody diapered ass up that hill. But it’s not going to happen over night, maybe not even next week, or month, it’s going to take time, planning, and coordination, it’s going to seem overwhelming, like you’re sitting on top of a pile of gear that is a mess and ate the fuck up. But the people that truly care will be there, to help organize and fit your gear, to pull you down into that seat and get you strapped in. People you don’t even know will come out of the wood work to help you in ways you never dreamed possible. There are Sherpas that will help carry your load as you take your first steps towards healing those wounds.
Don’t be the one who decides to sit on tacks and winds up overcome by the gas cloud because you chose the easy route. We've seen that happen too many times already. If change were easy it wouldn't be worth it, and anything worth doing is going to be a challenge. Think of how your decision whether or not to sit on a tack, and your actions today will impact the lives of the people around you. Do you want to be there when your kids grow up? Do you want your relationship or marriage to still be in tact this time next year? Do you want to be there for the ups and downs of life? We want you to. That’s why we started CSTA.
Oh yeah, and before you even come close to reaching the top of that mountain, enough time will pass that you won’t wind up on top looking down in triumph wearing a bloody diaper. Those wounds will have healed, they may leave a few scars as reminders, but at least you’ll be standing tall in jeans and next to the people who really care.
I can lie in bed and wrestle my thoughts and demons the rest of the night or I can start recording them. Ray says this helps our brains process things, so we don’t get stuck on them. We verbalize, process, and move on, otherwise they tend to get stuck on repeat and play over and over. This can be maddening, this can lead to all sorts of bad things, I don’t have time for bad things. Ray’s a smart guy, one of the smartest I know. It’s obvious what my subconscious was telling me tonight, the remembering and lack of sweat means this was not only just a dream as opposed to a nightmare, but that it was a message.
At first we were on an airstrip, waiting to load up on a C-130. I was laying on a pile of gear that belonged to me. I look around and everyone else is doing the same. I don’t recognize these people, but in the dream most of them are familiar and I am at ease. Then we get word, you better have your Protective Masks, they’ve been using rudimentary chemical weapons. Shit, even in my dreams I’m by the book, can’t call it a gas mask. Anyways, next thing I know we’re on the bird. I look around and realize my gear is absolutely 100% Ate The Fuck Up. This is no good, I begin to panic. Pro-mask, they said we needed our pro-mask, I start digging through my assault pack and find mine. I’m slightly comforted when I look around and see that other people are doing the same.
As the bird begins to move I try to convince myself I have time to get things in order before we jump. I quickly realize that’s bullshit and I frantically try to adjust the waist strap on the pro-mask case, then the leg strap, then I see that my body armor is in pieces and start messing with it and my MOLLE Vest. Next my assault pack tips over distributing its contents onto the floor of the bird. Could this get any worse? When we begin to take off the guy next to me pulls me down into the netted seat and tries helping me get strapped in. Don’t need to be flying into the ceiling of that thing if we take fire and the pilot has to start flying a little more “aggressively” or god forbid we’re hit and drop from the sky. About the time I’m getting control of the seat belt and wondering how in the hell I’m gonna pull this one off, the dream changes and we’re on a combat patrol in the back of an MRAP.
While I’m trying to process this, the guy across from me starts telling me that this is the turn we almost always get hit on. There’s a giant pile of trash and scrap metal in the middle of the road the engineers haven’t cleared and the insurgents love to set up IED’s there. Sure as shit, the back passenger corner disappears in a ball of flame and smoke, we’re hit. As we try and check the guys in the back to see if their still alive one starts yelling three of the most terrifying things a Soldier can hear: “GAS GAS GAS!” Terror, adrenaline dump, tunnel vision, slow motion, and the silence, the deafening silence. Pause. Muscle memory, thank God for muscle memory. Hold your breath, close your eyes, reach down to open the pro-mask case. What THE FUCK is it doing on my lap and not the side of my leg? Oh yeah, my gear is Ate The FUCK UP. Shit, this is deal with-able, adjust fire, drive on. Open the case, remove the mask, place on face, tighten straps, exhale, check the seal, good to go. A wave of relief rushes over me. I look up and see another Soldier trying to run upwind from the smoke. Somehow at this point in the dream we’ve exited the vehicle. Oh yeah, the MRAP tipped over, we exited through the gunners hatch.
FUCK ME! Soldier without a mask! Oh, I’ll just share mine. Wait, this isn’t regular smoke and we’re not fire fighters, this isn’t a scuba mask that we can each take breaths from. A wave of devastation hits me as the gas cloud overtakes us, he’s fucked, there is nothing I can do. And I open my eyes, calm as can be, I am wide awake. “What a shame, what a shame, to judge a life that you can’t change…” It’s one AM. We’ve come round full circle.
This is a brief, chaotic, and slightly vulgar summary of my life as of today. The other night at an OEF/OIF Veterans meeting I heard a saying that stuck with me: “You can climb a mountain, you can’t sit on a tack.” It’s the little things. Sure, climbing a mountain may be no easy task, it may take a while, you may fall down a few times, scrape some elbows, get a little dirty. But with the right gear, proper preparation, support, guidance, and a planned route to follow, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll get to the top. Now, if you decide not to climb that mountain because sitting on that tack, although painful, just seems a little easier, then you’re just gonna keep sitting on tacks. After a while, all those tacks are going to leave a lot of little holes in your behind. Now all those little pricks have turned into one big problem. An incredibly sore ass that is now preventing you from sitting down at all, sitting on any more tacks, or climbing that mountain. You’re stuck just standing there, too sore to sit, too sore to walk, too sore to climb that mountain, too sore to do anything but wallow in your own misery. It’s the little things that add up over time. Whether your tacks are fear, bottles, cans, pills, powders, anger, violence, or you name a thousand other things, they are not good. Soon they will become everything. And then one day you’ll look around and see that all your friends, your family, children, acquaintances, everyone and everything are gone, sick of telling you to stop sitting on tacks and then just watching you do it over and over again. Now all you have left is a bloody sore ass.
Do what must be done, break out the hydrogen peroxide, neo-sporin, band-aids, hell, use an adult diaper if there isn’t enough gauze. Stop pricking yourself and start planning your route up that mountain. I guarantee you’re friends, family, kids, even complete strangers will come back down that mountain and show you how to pack your gear, suggest the routes they took, advise you against spots that they struggled with, and help get your bloody diapered ass up that hill. But it’s not going to happen over night, maybe not even next week, or month, it’s going to take time, planning, and coordination, it’s going to seem overwhelming, like you’re sitting on top of a pile of gear that is a mess and ate the fuck up. But the people that truly care will be there, to help organize and fit your gear, to pull you down into that seat and get you strapped in. People you don’t even know will come out of the wood work to help you in ways you never dreamed possible. There are Sherpas that will help carry your load as you take your first steps towards healing those wounds.
Don’t be the one who decides to sit on tacks and winds up overcome by the gas cloud because you chose the easy route. We've seen that happen too many times already. If change were easy it wouldn't be worth it, and anything worth doing is going to be a challenge. Think of how your decision whether or not to sit on a tack, and your actions today will impact the lives of the people around you. Do you want to be there when your kids grow up? Do you want your relationship or marriage to still be in tact this time next year? Do you want to be there for the ups and downs of life? We want you to. That’s why we started CSTA.
Oh yeah, and before you even come close to reaching the top of that mountain, enough time will pass that you won’t wind up on top looking down in triumph wearing a bloody diaper. Those wounds will have healed, they may leave a few scars as reminders, but at least you’ll be standing tall in jeans and next to the people who really care.
I do get stressed out, and stuck in my own head, and I do
push myself too hard, and I never feel like I'm working hard enough. I think
that's why I had this dream. It's me reminding me that I do have Sherpas and
guides, and I'm not going to be able to have all my ducks in a row or get my
gear situated properly in a matter of minutes. It's going to take time and the support
of the people I surround myself with. And to those people I cannot say it
enough, Thank You. Keep me in check, even if that means telling me the hard
truths that are never easy to say.
Phil
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