mTBI, PTSD and Stress (Catch All)

[MikeF]

The Intersection of Congruence


By chance of quest, does my heart not prize my brain?
Of course not, each independent but the same.
This swelling inside, I know not fully through,
All I can do is gasp, I solely want you.

Aroused from introspection, aloof no more,
Intense passion swells, and I know.
Intensity of desire embraces chance,
Abandons reason, takes form in glance.

Passion dances in the breath of bliss,
Awaiting the moment to taste your kiss.
Restlessly I await, patience must persist,
Abandoning pursuit of pleasure for love forever.

My heart races, I no longer think.
Where have you been? Where did I go?
Minds meld; moreover,
we are one.

[MikeF]

“The Second Coming”
William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

[MikeF]

Everything I have is now free, so we can all heal

To Yahweh, for carrying me when I could not
To Taylor, so that you may know your daddy
To my walking wounded, so that you may learn to live
To my fallen paratroopers, I love you, and I’ll see you one day on the big drop zone in the sky
To the children of Iraq, that you may one day know peace
To my fellow citizens, may you find the truth
To Major Aziz, my brother in arms
To Katy, for loving me irrationally
Inshallah

[MikeF]

PROLOGUE

You never really know what is going through another man’s mind or the path that he walks. For veterans, the path is more obscure. He could be your grandfather, uncle, brother, or husband. He could be the homeless guy on the street. He may be the smartly dressed businessman in your office or the art collector downtown. On the surface, he tries to act like you wearing a mask to hide the horror and rage deep within his soul. He strives to be normal in American society, but his heart is numb. Normal is juxtaposed with the pain and suffering he has lived. He does not want his family to know what he has done. He suffers in silence.

I never thought I could heal. After all the killing and violence, I felt that I had a penance to serve. I felt condemned to a life with hope forlorn, faith no more; a life without purpose and without love. I was a shell of my former self drowning in an alcoholic sorrow along the river of the Sierra Nevada Pale ale. Sometimes, I wished that I had died in Iraq. At least then I would have had a hero’s burial.

Instead, I waded through an insufferable purgatory walking through your world but living in Iraq. I would stare at you on the street wondering if you could ever understand. I saw you everywhere, but you never saw me. You were distracted by your IPod and cell phone: measures of self-medication that provide distance from thinking about your soul, purpose, and nature. That is the American condition I suppose. We are so blessed, yet we are so cursed at times. I was angry, and I deflected my anger onto you.

Yes, I am gifted with exceptional intelligence, but so what? My anger thwarted any attempt to be productive. I was emotionally bankrupt. My process was skewed- all goal focused. I did not, could not live. I tried to fit into your society; I tried to conform. I tried to wear a mask of the good soldier, the good student, the good husband, and the good father. It did not work. I thought of running away to homelessness or hiding in an office being nobody. It did not work. I forced myself on a path to resolution. I would either heal, or I would die trying.

After my fourth combat tour and six years of perpetual war, I spiraled out of control. I searched for hope and love, and I found nothing. I tried to eat, love, and pray. I tried yoga. I tried the church. I thought that maybe all I had to do was get smarter. I tried to expand my creativity. I tried painting, poetry, rock-climbing, mountain biking, surfing, and hiking. I found nothing.

I found temporary relief with alcohol. Drinking 30 beers a night, I could forget for a bit. For a few precious moments, I was not haunted by the genocide, the burning villages, my soldier’s faces destroyed, or my soldier’s brains deteriorating. I found relief. I spent several nights in jail for public intoxication, and I kept falling.

The Army was very patient with me. They tried to give me space to sort through my grief, but it did not work. Finally, in a last ditch effort, they sent me to Kansas. What the hell is in Kansas?

In Kansas, a transformation occurred. Magic and miracle are the only words to describe what happened. I watched old, crusty Vietnam Veterans break weeping like young children. I let go. I am not angry anymore. I am alive!!!

Nancy understood. Once, she had walked in my shoes. She knew that I saw the world differently from most. She reminded me I have one of three choices to make: conform, walk away, or voice truth to power. I chose voice. I understand the implications of my decision with regards to the Army. With my voice, I am walking away. I will now be considered too rebellious, too different. I am okay with my decision. Furthermore, I made a decision to pursue my new life with the same audacity that I once pursued al Qaeda. This is my story.

After years of endless trauma, Ralph Waldo Emerson emerged anew. He produced definite works in American literature that defined the American spirit of self-reliance for a century. He challenged us to,

“Be not a slave of your own past. Plunge into the deep waters, dive deep and swim far, so that you may emerge anew. Return with renewed experience and deeper understanding.”

Let us tackle his challenge. Let us strive to be the next greatest generation. Let our children live. Follow me. I will share my story. It is raw, real, and true. It is interesting and important. It is a tragedy, but it is mostly a story of hope, acceptance, forgiveness, validation, and love. As the president proclaims, “The audacity of hope must transcend.”

Thank you for reading this. I am not sure if you are ready to hear it, but it is time. God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America. Tomorrow is a new day. Let us not forget our past lest we are forced to repeat it.

[MikeF]

CHAPTER ONE: ALL ROADS LEAD TO ZAGANIYAH


“Osama, baah! Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.”

-Pakistani General (Ret) Bashir
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time


"Mike, they're miscreants. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less....You call them jihadists, and you don't understand what jihad means. You've just infuriated 2 billion Muslims and given credence to their cause. They’re simply miscreants." -Pakistani Infantry Officer


[MikeF]

The False Beginning

March 19, 2003. In the beginning, we believed that all roads led to Baghdad. The quiet weeping of the survivors’ mourning echoed from the ashes of the twin towers across the Atlantic through the vast expanse of the Kuwaiti desert. The time for retribution had come. It seemed so right, so just. Finally, we would dismantle Saddam and the Baath Party and show the world what happens when the gentle giant is disturbed. It was time to demonstrate the full might of American Power on those that would seek us harm. We conducted the final inspections of our seventy-ton war machines, wrote our final goodbyes to our families, prayed to the God of Abraham for protection, and stormed through the breach.

Hundreds of miles to the east, the sun’s rays pierced through the darkness in yet another display of its endless cycle, and a young boy was awakened by his father. Today would be different for him. He would not work in the fields. Instead he would attend the madrassa for schooling, one of thousands built by Osama with Saudi Arabian oil money funneled under the guise of charity while the rest of the world slept. Unbeknownst to him, his indoctrination into an ideology of hate, a sick, twisted interpretation of Mohammed’s works, would begin. Today this cancer would continue to spread across the Muslim world.

Two thousand miles away, locked deep inside of his basement, a burly American forced himself to sort through the countless pile of correspondences that had accumulated; however, his thoughts drifted on how to tell his story, raise the money, and educate the children. He is not one of us. He is a different breed.

In the beginning, Pandora’s Box was cracked, civilizations clashed, innocence was lost, and everything unraveled.
In the beginning, we were wrong.

[MikeF]

The Americans are Coming

With shock and awe, we stormed across the desert seizing Talil Airfield and destroying the 11th Infantry Division. In the aftermath, LT Aziz assembled his men and launched an early morning dismounted assault against insurmountable odds towards our mechanized forces. His men perished, and he retreated to fight another day.

In Mukisa, young men prayed their morning prayers, said goodbye to their families, collected their blood chits, and moved south to join Saddam’s Fedayeen.

In Zaganiyah, Mustafa followed his family as the Zuharie tribe gathered. Sheik Septar called the meeting to announce that the Americans are coming. He determined that the Zuharies would wait to greet them. All is well. They would wait it out. In time, the wealth would flow as they secured contracts for their trucking company that transported goods to Jordan.

In Janazeer, Sheik Adnon prepared his household for the Tamimi meeting at Sheik Raad’s compound. The Tamimi tribal network successfully collaborated with the Americans across the Persian Gulf from the transportation companies to the dining facilities. Soon, Saddam would be gone. Soon, fortunes would be made. These preparations were essential.

In Baghdad, a truck driver we will call Ali huddled with his family as an artillery unit from the Republican Guard established firing positions in their neighborhood.

In An Nasiriyah, an unknown man we will call Haji was stuck in his shop downtown. He did not know that the Americans would come today, and he stayed in his shop as the bombardments began. He worried constantly over the fate of his wife and three young children.

Eventually, our worlds would collide.