52. The Unveiling (and ForgetBlue.com) is Upon Us
The new site is only a couple of days away from being born – please link into PowerfulPeace.NET in the New Year to see the Grand Unveiling of the new face of Powerful Peace. The spirit will remain the same; the style is much improved.
Please notice also that as we get closer to the final hours, the click count is increasing – we didn’t even celebrate the recent crossing of the “4,000 hits” mark, and now that’s already one hundred viewings past! Messages of support and teaming are rolling in from important figures and places like the brand-new ForgetBlue.com.
I recommend this fresh forum dedicated to world peace. We need to acknowledge that world peace isn’t just a cliche…it couldn’t have become cliche without the burning desire of those who have personally suffered from violence and hate. You can read my initial endorsement in their Forums at: ForgetBlue.com.
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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51. Announcing a new Powerful Peace
The time has come for the next evolution of the “evolved counterterrorism” of Powerful Peace. Please be watching for the January 1st, 2008 release of PowerfulPeace.NET.
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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50. R & R, the Poem
Dedicated to everyone who ever went away to war…and everyone they ever left behind.
R & R (Rest and Relaxation, or military leave)
by Jack Oatmon (PowerfulPeace.net)
I lost a few friends
Just a few days ago
They died in the desert
Now I’m in the snow
They fell all around me
Now I’m in my bed
I’ll rise in the morning
My brothers are dead
I’ll be okay if you’re a few minutes late
Airplane, take your time
Oh, God, how I miss them
Those brothers of mine
My family surrounds me
They pray I’ll be fine
I’m kissing my mother,
My daughter, my wife
This leave’s almost over
It’s back to real life
I’ll be okay if you’re a few hours late
Airplane, take your time
I knew when I signed up
I might go to war
I’m willing to fight, that’s
What freedom is for
It’s just that this time home
Is never enough
I don’t mean to snivel
But damn, this is tough
I’ll be okay if you’re a few days late
Airplane, take your time
I feel so much older
Than friends that I meet
I understand now why
We say “bittersweet”
I’ve been gone for months
I’ll be gone for months more
This respite is precious…
Surreal…back to war
I’ll be okay if you’re a few minutes late
Airplane, take your time
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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49. Congratulations! You’ve Just Put a Down Payment on the Next 9/11!
Do you remember the film, “Blackhawk Down”?
Probably.
Do you remember farther back when the incident first occurred and we lost 18 men, as reported in the news?
Again, probably.
Do you remember the 24 Pakistani peacekeepers who were massacred in the same town just three months before the “Blackhawk Down” events?
Not bloody likely.
If this equally tragic occurrence sounds unfamiliar, it’s not because the reader is heartless, bigoted or self-absorbed. We – including the news outlets – tend to notice those things which affect our own kind. I bring this up because the intent of Powerful Peace is to enlarge the meaning of “our own”. If I’m a person, then my own kind includes all other people.
I arrived in Somalia a month after those horrible deaths, desecrations and mutilations of our soldiers. We didn’t experience any such combat drama afterward, of course. What I want to emphasize is that even so soon after these two similar battles, we too were far more aware of the loss of the Americans than of the Pakistanis.
Do you know who rolled on into the battle to conduct a large part of the rescue of our desperate American forces in Mogadishu? Pakistani soldiers.
Fast forward eight years, and you’ll find me on a mission in Pakistan just a few weeks after 9/11. We were welcomed by the nation of Pakistan, and Pakistani soldiers were responsible for protecting my SEAL platoon as perimeter security while we conducted our business.
We didn’t come under fire that day. If we had, there is a fair chance some of them would have been wounded or killed defending my group.
There is a point to all of this. Please bear with me.
As I entered the DFAC (Dining FACility) for dinner at my large, comfortable base here in Iraq this evening, I was met by three large posters emphasizing the importance of Equal Opportunity. Three, three-foot-long posters were required to express all the material the United States military considers important enough to display prominently and convey to every service member at every meal.
At the top of each were the words, “Equal Opportunity”, and at the bottom were “Dignity and Respect” in very large, bold, and rainbow-colored letters.
The third poster, the one I read, gave definitions for the three bigotries of Racial, Gender and Religious discrimination. Below these, above the ”Dignity and Respect”, it said forcefully, “Not in our Army!”
The promised point of all this is that, once I had made my way to the food line, I had the distinct displeasure of watching an American soldier in uniform as he scowled at the Pakistani food server behind the counter and waited petulantly for his exact order to be followed. He had three Styrofoam take-out containers and had demanded three different meals (probably for buddies).
It quickly became obvious that he was a real SOB. By SOB, of course, I mean Strategically Off Base. These are the shining examples of the ugly American; rude, offensive, and with a chronic sense of entitlement when dealing with smaller, darker people. When given the right opportunities, these SOBs are amazingly capable of adjusting the attitudes of friendly or neutral foreign citizens to hate America.
This SOB stared at the server, whose hopeful and conciliatory smile never wavered, with open contempt. While the confused man tried to make sense of the complicated instructions, the SOB just glared, making no effort to clarify his request. Once the flustered server completed the first two meals and hustled to get a bun for the third, the SOB took the finished meals and walked up the line, causing the server to hasten over to catch up with the third.
As the Pakistani man held out the final plate, the SOB just glared at him again and declared, “I said barbecue sandwich!”
I won’t soon forget that quote. He said it in a manner one might use to speak to an especially stupid dog. His complaint reminded me of some (not all) of the administrative staff in war who will bitch that the DFAC Baskin-Robbins server doesn’t have their desired flavor one day, while US warfighters at remote outposts grind into their thirty-fourth day with nothing but cold MREs (Meal, Ready to Eat).
After the SOB stalked away, apparently satisfied that he had put that little so-and-so in his place, I apologized to the server for the disgraceful behavior and told him that some Americans think they’re kings.
An EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal, or bomb squad) sergeant next to me said, “You got that right,” as he stared after the SOB.
I have two things to say about all of this.
To the Pakistani soldiers who gave their lives, risked their lives, and protected my life with theirs: Thank you. Shukriya.
To the SOB: Grow up. It doesn’t matter how hard the Army tries to teach, as long as you refuse to learn. Act like a man, show some Dignity and Respect – and start contributing to our struggle for real global security.
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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48. I’m Sorry for What We’ve Done to Ourselves
After a particularly valuable engagement with a local Coalition leader here in Baghdad today, I set out for a beautiful, cool-sunny afternoon stroll back to my office at the palace. Walking alongside a shimmering lake, I felt drawn to stop by the mosque I’d noticed en route.
According to custom – and military law – I did not enter the facility (I’ve been accompanied into several others by Muslim friends), but I did poke my nose in around the outside. My buoyant mood was transformed into an anchor.
I’ve always wandered, and I’m always saddened to discover abandoned houses of worship in my wanderings. They represent centers of community and spirituality that simply aren’t doing their jobs any more. Inevitably, they represent a place in which crime, poverty, or in this case, war, have overcome the local population’s ability to satisfy its need to congregate.
Each of these places has seen its former occupants of self-sacrifice, humility and generosity replaced by dust and bird droppings. Most, of course, are not physically scarred by the wounds of war as this is. I can’t know which “side” is responsible for slamming high caliber rounds into one wall of this building and shattering out some of the carefully crafted windows. Probably both sides. (In Afghanistan, entire towns have been leveled by heavy weapons; 95% of that ordnance was fired by Afghans of one group or another. Despite the physical shattering of these communities, the people still live there…simply because that’s where they live.)
I’m reminded that the loss is not limited to this formerly-beautiful site, or this type of damage. Isolated American soldiers displaying very poor judgment have shot bullets through the Qur’an, abused the Qur’an in other ways, and made deliberately antagonistic comments about Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.
The loss is not limited to this faith. Men calling themselves Muslims have pointedly massacred Christian and Jewish men, women, and children. They’ve done the same to the “other” kind of Muslim (Sunni on Shi’a and vice-versa). They’ve even brutally raped women of their own “kind” of Muslim in the name of righteous discipline.
The loss is not limited to faith on faith. Some individuals take great pleasure in attacking a religion not to their liking, such as the late Robert Mapplethorpe’s photo of the crucifix in a glass of urine, compassionately titled Piss Christ. (No, I won’t show that particular piece of “art” in this forum. You’ll have to Google it yourself.)
As you may have deduced by now, the point of this piece is that disrespect of others’ personal beliefs is a harmful thing – ultimately, even to the disrespecter. Is it not possible for us to simply heed the famously common-sensical words; “People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?”
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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47. A Powerful, Peaceful Holiday Poem
My friend sent me this poem yesterday, and I delayed publishing it until I could do it during my favorite month of the year, December. December brings Christmas, which is my absolute favorite time of the year.
I know, however, that for various reasons many people don’t share that feeling. One may have lost a loved one at Christmas, as I did at Thanksgiving. Many don’t celebrate Christmas because it’s not relevant to their faith. Still others just have a rough time during the holidays.
Whatever your particular circumstances, Powerful Peace exists on a higher plane than our personal moments of happy and sad, intent on the basic human goodness that transcends our oh-so-human peculiarities. Whatever your background, I hope this goodness as illustrated by this beautiful rhyme will comfort you and give you pause:
A Different Christmas Poem
The embers glowed softly, and in their dim light,
I gazed ’round the room and I cherished the sight.
My wife was asleep, with her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight.
The sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was Christmas Eve.
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered - perhaps I started to dream.
The sound wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t too near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear.
Perhaps just a cough, I didn’t quite know,
Then the sure sound of footsteps outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone figure stood, his face weary and tight.
A soldier, I puzzled, some twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing watch over me, and my wife and my child.
“What are you doing?” I asked without fear,
“Come in this moment, it’s freezing out here!
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You should be home on a cold Christmas Eve!”
For barely a moment I saw his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts…
…To the window that danced with a warm fire’s light
Then he sighed, and he said, “It’s really all right,
I’m out here by choice. I’m here every night.
It’s my duty to stand at the front of the line,
That separates you from the darkest of times.
“None had to ask or to beg or implore me,
I’m proud to stand here like my fathers before me.
My Gramps died at Pearl on a day in December,”
Then he sighed, “That’s a Christmas Gram always remembers.
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ‘Nam,
And now it’s my turn, and so, here I am.
“I’ve not seen my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he’s sure got her smile.”
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his bag,
The red, white, and blue… an American flag.
“I can live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my house and my home.
“I can stand at my post through the rain and the sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat.
I can carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my sister and brother,
Who stand at the front against any and all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall.
“So go back inside,” he said, “harbor no fright,
Your family is waiting and I’ll be all right.”
“But isn’t there something I can do, at the least,
Give you money,” I asked, “or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that you’ve done,
For being away from your wife and your son.”
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
“Just tell us you love us, and never forget.
To fight for our rights back at home while we’re gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To know you remember we fought and we bled
Is payment enough, and with that we’ll trust,
That we mattered to you as you mattered to us.”
Copyright © 2008 by Jack Oatmon. All rights reserved.
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