Harboring unforgiveness

There are just a couple people in this world I still need to forgive.  Until the other night, I think there was only one, a bag of scum who thought that leading a gang rape of someone (who later became my close friend) was an appropriate course of action in response to the wholly unacceptable situation of women being in a service academy.  I can't believe I've forgotten this man's name, but that doesn't diminish my need to exercise forgiveness toward him.  If we were ever to meet and those synapses fire again, I would need to respond to him in the way that might foster what's best for him, not the way that best gives release to my fury.

The latest one was not nearly so malevolent, merely very wrongheaded.  He was an Army colonel in Afghanistan, and here's what he's done for which I need to forgive him:

A platoon was sent from Combat Outpost (COP) Charkh on a mission to locate and rescue a lost unit of snipers from another NATO country.  The mission took them into the mountains that the Taliban has used as an effective defense and launch platform throughout our operations in Afghanistan. After a far lengthier search mission than they'd been sent out expecting, involving a higher than anticipated amount of aerial support, they finally located these allied soldiers two days after the platoon had exhausted the limited food and water with which they'd been provisioned; after all, this was supposed to have been a much shorter mission. Calling in for transportation back to the COP upon accomplishment of their mission, rather than being heralded for their tenacious execution of their orders, they were informed that since they'd blown through their budget of air support for this mission, they'd have to walk back through the enemy territory they'd traversed.  In fairness, it was an area in which air activity carried its own risks.  A truck was dispatched to pick up the NATO personnel, though.  In gratitude toward and solidarity with the determined men who'd rescued them, these allied soldiers refused to board it.  The truck was then ordered to return to the COP empty rather than provide transportation to the soldiers who had accomplished this dangerous and difficult mission, but had used up too many resources in the process.  Twelve hours later, these brave and determined soldiers arrived back at their outpost, hungry, exhausted, and, I imagine, more than a little angry.

So I find that I must forgive the number-crunching colonel who placed his budget and his need to drive home his point ahead of these men's safety.  I understand the need for budgetary concerns, even in times of war.  But putting my son-in-law, a husband and a father of four young children, and his fellow soldiers at risk as a result of his and his platoon's determination in accomplishing a more dangerous and difficult mission than anyone expected it to be seems narrow-minded and short-sighted, at best.

War is hell

When your enemy arms young children with grenades and instructs them to throw them at you, how do you do what you must without remorse?  Is there any solace in taking care of your fellow soldiers whom you must protect, who are counting on you doing your job to protect them from the enemy?  Or any in knowing that it is not you who have made that child a threat to which you have no choice but to respond?  And when, in your dreams, those children's faces become those of your own children, how do you battle the demons in your own mind?

Today's word

bildungsroman - a novel about the main character's growth

Changing colors

Things have gotten pretty out of whack when I don't have time to write beyond the new vocabulary!

Entering my traditionally melancholy season.  The long line of significant autumn events in my life goes back to at least junior high, and includes some pretty memorable and significant experiences.  The first that I can recall was my dad's big accident, which I've always seen as the beginning of the end for him.  There have been many since, that I don't see the point in chronicling afresh.

Somehow I relish autumn in spite of the worst of them, and there have been many warm ones, as well.

Of course, I'd like it a lot more without all the rain we've been having!

Today's words

Tutoyer - to address familiarly. I can't believe I'd forgotten this on already, which I thought was such a cool word when I first read it on WOTD.

Ruction - disturbance, uproar.

"The commoners rash decision to tutoyer the king sparked a ruction in the gallery.

Today's words

Preprandial - of, relating to, or suitable for the period before dinner.  Misspelled without the second "r" on the MW home page.
Pelf - money, riches (actually a recent WOTD I'd not internalized).

Today's new words

Anserine - of, relating to, or resembling a goose
Soigné - well-groomed; elegantly maintained or designed

Mixed feelings

I'm amazed at how feelings can mingle.  For instance, in a mixture of abundant joy and deep longing, we're having a great weekend in MD with family, and yet wish we could be in LA holding our newest granddaughter.  So too, compassionate understanding and personal frustration.

It seems to me the trick in dealing with all that is to just let ourselves recognize and accept the entire gamut of emotions that life brings us, and not try to force them into some logical pattern that we think represents what we should be feeling.

New words today!

haruspex - a diviner (specifically, one who looks at guts, WOTD)
ochlocracy - mob rule
guayabera - a Cuban sports shirt
parfleche - rawhide soaked in lye to remove the hair, then dried, or an item made thereof
spondee - a metrical foot consisting of two stressed syllables

The last four were from the Dictionary Devil game.  No wonder it's my favorite.

Ten years ago

I was at work.  Our cubicles hadn't gotten downsized yet, so I occupied then a little over half of my current office space, with my desk and computer facing in the opposite direction from how my space is currently configured.  I don't remember how I first heard of what we first assumed was a terrible accident at the WTC, but was soon following the events on line.  The hole in the side of North Tower, billowing black smoke, left many questions lurking behind the obvious tragedy that had already unfolded.  We were ignorant of how much more terrible it was about to become.

When the second plane slammed into the South Tower, it removed all doubt that we were observing an accidental event.  I felt disgusted by the brutal attack on these civilians in the planes and the towers.  None of us knew its exact nature, yet, aside from knowing it was pure, unfeeling evil.

The sequence of the remainder of the day blurs together through the intervening years.  My good friend Steve was assigned to The Pentagon, and it took a couple hours for us to learn that his office wasn't located there.  I think this day may have been the first time I grasped how big that building is.

The South Tower went down first, presumably because its plane hit significantly lower, so there was much more weight bearing down upon the weakened structure.  I remember hoping that maybe the North Tower wouldn't fall, too.  I wasn't so concerned for the building itself as the people within.

The weeks thereafter were filled with more prayer than I ever remember the country being united in.  I've never forgotten the words of the Rabbi who spoke at one of the services, in New York, I think, who warned us that the greatest danger was not what the terrorists might do to us but what we might become in response.  I wonder if the rest of the country heard that warning.