A Fire of Life

Anyway the army thing moved along with Stevey getting into the p.t. (physical training) as was his wont to do anyway possible. The challenge was not in the classrooms, which was elementart rubble but ohh… the scoring od a 100 in the physical tests inexorably drove Stevey on. He missed it by a second in that darned shuttle run; 98% out of the possible perfect 100% was to be settled for and for that reason it figured that stevet was more into this a match making of young man and that a being an armed force for the country he lived in. WRONG!! But hold on pardner; said a John Waynes’ voice in the background, as I started doing that Stevey thing again… that is I liked at all the mumbling numbers of dots and how they didn’t really connect when it came to putting me into the equation. If I had the consciousness and understanding of the situation… would I call this action and actions thereof, righteous? I deliberated after much thoughtful deliberation on it; I thought of… thoughts like… the morning feeling I has as I was listening to the Battle of Evermore inside my total inner voice; ‘looking at the sunrise chasing the night away,’ as if it was the first morning ever created and I was gifted to see it as it was gloriously intended to be. I saw it with tears overflowing my heart whilst sitting on the back of my “gamma-goat” armed personnel carrier in the middle of a southwest desert. I cried to the injustice of unfounded inequality and the use of force to control this injustice to humanity. I cried that we as humans forces these atrocities of biasness based on race, creeds, political stands, religions, or any other reasons of differentiality that are not the same bent of those with the power of force. I cried to the fact that now I could see the thoughts inside my heart and soul as I was on this war machines scaly assed back, although my alter-eyes were viewing the reds, blues, greens, rusts, golds, and oranges of the eastern sky rushing toward my aforementioned seat in hell as if I was falling with the Archangel himself out through heavens gated lights. The sky was only a backdrop to the scene of horror inside my third eye of life. That vision was more real than the warmth of the sun and it gave me chills like death. It was more real than that the picture of the battalion of vehicles and soldiers and guns. It was more real than Life. At that then – I was innocuously and intrinsically connected to its’ (the visions) reality and It made me Real. The peoples of the earth were as real and neither them, or I should be part of, or be snuffed out by the machine or the process I was on or that which another brother of life was on in another far reaching sunrise of time and place. Enhancing a political scheme was not a good enough reason for this action – if there is one at all. So I was in the army, knee deep in its shit, and what was I to do? I didn’t feel an obligation or need to go back to my blind allegiance to the American flag or any other flag; and it seemed like such a long time ago in my mind anyway. How then, should I go forward in the day-to-day of army life, as for a day like this, it was. I had been cow-downing to their wants (barely) and I was driving a once again gamma-goat on an exercise in a pretend military picture in Kentucky fields of late spring or early spring (it didn’t matter) and it was wet all around the landscape and the scene unfolded as thus… We sat there on a rolling road, on a curve at the bottom of one of the hill rolls and “Duke,” the joker from Chi-town, and “Duck” the “uumph” also from Chicago, and sergeant Scranton back from ‘Nam by way of steel city land Pennsylvania and “Wally,” aka Jim Harness, the resident expert junkie, who taught us our lessons of how far we could go, and “Doc” the medic back from Germany – all sat laughing and waiting, and then we looked up at our “leaders” du jour. There they were: the two of them, sergeant Williamson, hard-nosed, tough as hell, back from his second tour of ‘Nam; black, proud, and to say the least, anti-hippie and/or anti-peace-nick; and “lieutenant squirrel,” I don’t recall his real name because it mattered very little or naught to our incursion on the hierarchy of real life; but none the less; this bespeckled peachy faced red-headed second Louie was up on the top of the distant hill top with the aforementioned sergeant Williamson and as we sat with our feet up; me in the drivers’ seat and Scranton riding shotgun, “It” unfolded, as I said, it was a wet path, we were on a road next to a great muckity-muck; a cesspool of mud it was next to and in front of us and it was probably fifty to sixty feet long by thirty to forty feet wide and there the two “leaders” were as the crow flies; up the hill maybe 200 or so meters away. Now get me straight – there were a couple of options thrown at me as the wave came down to us to progress forward to the command up the hill. One, go around the muckity-muck and ease up the backside of the hill to the point whereon they stood – and two – to take a direct line towards the two of them. In my mind now I had the juxtaposition of my army experience in the palm of my hand; I could take their stance and obey verbatim – that is, go directly forward as “commanded” and not to think of outcomes; or I could “think” and use my intelligent intelligentsia. Funny now – to show my understanding of this juxtaposition and to have fun at this expense I was praying/playing to the army’s stupidity of only following command without thinking. I turned my wheels straight towards the two on the top of yon hill – and with sergeant Scranton wide as a wide a grin could be grinning, because it was the drivers’ call of where to go, by virtue of chain of command (his, the drivers, vehicle) – I started to rev the diesel into a pawing, snorting, raging bull of anti-military jesterring of energy. Now the two of them on top were still waving but somewhat slower, with a perplexed look of “what the?” coming on their faces as the back flap of the gamma goat opened behind me in the scene. Duke, Duck, Wally, et al, lit up another joint and listened with laughing ears as I gunned again and again and… I pit the beast into first gear and with the two clowns characterizing in fill comedic disbelief on top of the hill; I let out the clutch in full ejaculation and roared into the muckity-muck with a sickening muffled groan as it buried itself and its towed cannon package up past its’ gunnels and into the cool, wet, quick-sand-like Kentucky mud. Oh my; the tears of laughter came rushing down everyone’s cheeks in that gamma goat and we laughed tears running wet until the two characters from up top finally fell-stumbled down the hill to us and in anger, disbelief and exasperation questioned my way and I finally blurted out through tears but… but… you waved me up and straight away… what else could I do but follow your command. So straight away it was! I had em trapped in their own Catch 22 they (the army) was. I also was trapped in my own military Catch 22 existence. But this was it – “the how I got ‘em” – it was, in fact, that they couldn’t punish me or hold me accountable for fault for following “direct” command; even as it was straight forward to go, sideways laughing – I did. After they go a couple of infantry platoons and heavy tanks to pull us out and after much digging (and gigglings) they – the sergeant and lieutenant and other oh-so-very-important members of the cadre figured out in their infinite wisdom that indeed I had them by the short hairs of my wits. And to which; laughing all the way back into the drivers’ seat I went with only an angry look from sergeant Williamson as my punishment and – I dealt with him on that matter later. And now before I leave my moral choices ad how I could or couldn’t extrapolate myself in or out of the army; I’ll just say I resented a problem to my Captain, O’ Captain; who deferred to my dilemma as a quagmire of list choices because of where I already stood. As I couldn’t consciously object to a choice I’d already made and thereto back out gracefully in a timeline compared to getting out on my army’s’ paths own accord… he in fact relinquished my rights to me, although he put a rider (caveat) on my acting out. But at least I could wear my badge of honor with no action forthwith in walking of the aforementioned tightrope. So I didn’t play their game and I didn’t speak or shout out lout in my own regards, but indirectly I did try at times to make my point of moral amplifications. I couldn’t give blind respect – but I only assumed a person earned respect; not by what he or she wore on his or her garments, but respect was earned by what character was shown from the inside out – that above all else – that was and still is the matter. I gave a look-see to all the peoples and allowed their goodness to show-shine through itself firstly and foremost but sadly, indeed reality showed the too-bright dark side of life in a smack down of that idealism much too often. Nevertheless, if you can imagine, was the background of a totality that was a “trip” to the El Paso Zoo on the behest of clean blotter acid; and then everything started to rush into my all senses as we were approaching the outskirts of that far western Texas city. For a long moment I said to Wally that this was uncomfortable and it was as if to scare me because so much was coming into me and it was at the speed of past my sensory acceptability… but his wisdom of having been here and there before, his calming voice echoed as he said to just relax, be not afraid but let it be what it will become to you and we will stop to let that absorb into your oh so virgin mindset.