Shadow on the Sun

[MikeF]

I'll probably withold any other post until CH One is complete, reviewed, and edited...

"Breakdown"

May 31, 2009, Santa Cruz, CA.

Sitting along the western shore watching the waves crash and retreat in perpetual flow, I look up and down the beach. Moments just combusting as I attempt to crawl my way back towards the present, families descend onto the sand in picnic and celebration. Kites dance against the wind competing with the seagulls advancing up and down in concert with prevailing winds. Children run up and down the beach playing games wrestling in constant confrontation of when their parents will allow them to venture to the amusement park and roller coasters and boardwalk. Their youthful enthusiasm is never exhausted. The smell of hot dogs and hamburgers permeates the senses. Even though I'm standing there, it seems so far away from me.

I glance down and pick up a seashell. For a moment, I'm engaged in the beauty of the weary lines drawn from its beginning. My feet, carrying my Rainbow flip-flops, are covered in sand. Flooded in contradiction from the tides, this shell once sheltered an oyster securing a new life. Now, it sits along the sand in a broader moment.

I stand perplexed knowing today is supposed to be a day of remembrance of those that sacrificed all for the nation. As I gaze, in some ways, I stand confused and confounded by the lack of sacrifice asked and demanded from my countrymen. In other ways, I'm glad that they will never experience the horror that I witnessed. Even as I stand absorbing the beauty of this moment, I'm drawn contemplating my boys still fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The sense of peace and closure that I spent fighting for seem so far away. Sometimes, I walk back there.

In another moment, many moons ago, I was that child running up and down the coast with no care or worry. During our summer trips to Wrightsville Beach, Atlantic Beach, and Ocean Isle, nothing seemed to matter. Growing up in Charlotte and Raleigh, I was protected from the realities of the world nestled deep within the comforts of the success towards modernity of the Research Triangle Park. Capital injected into the southern piedmont, traditional farms collided with technology, the small hamlets of Cary and Apex expanded overnight into tremendous suburbs of the burgeoning the new economy. My father served as one of the armed social-cultural reformers. Armed with capital and political clout, my dad reshaped the landscaped of Cary helping to expand the area.

I didn't know it, but change had come to the piedmont. In that day and time, the world was simple to me. At the half-time of the Sanderson football game, we were down by twenty. I was so mad at myself for a missed past in the first quarter. Coach Mike asked us to step up. In the second half, I caught two touchdown passes from Clay Stoneman followed by the game winner from Sean Ray. We won the game. Looking back, I suppose that role of the underdog defined my early beginnings.

Time shifted, sweet tea intersected with IBM and SAS, and the landscape of North Carolina changed as Van Morrison and Jimmy Buffett jam in evervescant southern rhyme. I grew up surrounded in this predesecer to globalization. Ascending to the top of my class, excelling in sports, success seemed but a step away. For Haloween, I could still venture to the farm to grab my pumpkin from my second-grade teacher. Life seemed a simple equation until the war started.

I'm no longer the innocent god-fearing prodigy from North Carolina. Many moons ago, I left home for West Point. My childhood and expectations ended when the planes hit the World Trade Towers on 9/11. Everything changed or so we thought. Everyone has their share of battle scars in life. Everyone deals with their wars differently. Today, I accept that I am alive. Today, that's good enough for me.

My thoughts overwhelm. I can't fight the tears that ain't coming, and I can't control the tears that flow. I grab my long board and jog towards the water preparing to breach the icy depths of the northern pacific ocean. The world didn't end that day. I'm still here. The realities are just a bit different than what we assumed. Time to venture back to reality.

Slliding into the gloss, I plunged into the icy cold waters paddling through the surf. The tide is strong, and I'm swept off my board several times. Tumbling down, water fills my eardrum, and I'm unnerved in an imbalance of equilibrium. Fighting through the ringing in my ears, trolling to gather my breath, i'm forced to face the reality of the here and now. Emerging through the plane of water and air, I gasped filling my lungs with oxygen. I pull the cord of my tethered board and continue to breach. This is here. This is now. Everything is different. I'm forced to confront time.

Evil, good, and self-determination are an after thought as I paddle. Survival reigns prevelant. I sort through my thoughts as I recover my board and paddle. My wife left me. I paddle harder. Taylor loves me. I paddle even harder. The bifurcation of the past and present collide. Everything intersects in this world. I paddle. Eventually, I work my way past the break. For a moment, everything is calm. For a moment, I am in the present.

This calm is only my perception as I observe from above. Below the surface, another world exists. Within each wake, below me, chaos assumes into three levels. On the bottom, sea creatures and plants live in a mostly calm world. In the middle, they cope with continual friction and chaos derived from perpetual chaos of ascending waves. Those that learn to learn to survive in this arena learn to adapt. On the highest level, those that survive learn to accept the chaos. This orderly conduct stemmed well before man.

As I sit on my board, I accept that I'm just a grain of sand along the beach. For whatever reason, I survived the war. As I sit waiting for the next set of waves, I'm drawn back towards Bragg and my life as a paratrooper. I don't even know where to begin...

[slapout9]

Hi Mike, great stuff man....don't worry about all the editing and stuff, just tell the story. Just Let It Be by the Beatles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDlCcGBtGd0

[John T. Fishel]

Mike, just keep on writing.

JohnT

[MikeF]

Just a start...

Halloween 2006. The rumors started to spread like wildfire amoungst the local Iraqi populace. We were demons; we were ghosts. We were everywhere. My paratroopers were omnipotent and omnipresent. My boys were immortal. Even the darkest Al-Qaeda martyr thought twice before facing us. The plan worked better than I ever dreamed.
************************************************** ******
Barney led point. Working our way through the worn, ancient farmer's trails, our five-man team navigated through the grape vineyards and palm groves traversing back and forth through the maze towards our observation point. The full-moon waned a terminal glow as it entered into final descent preparing to give way to a new morning's light. After sixty days of gathering intel, night after night of sneaking in and out of these farmlands, patiently watching to develop the situation, recording every enemy action, playing football on a rugby pitch, we were all dressed up in full kit for this trick-or-treat adventure waiting to give the enemy an American surprise. It was time to take charge.

The last team tapped out on us in frustration, overwhelmed with their additional responsibilities of controlling the suburbs of Baqubah. At the time, we were all overwhelmed. Higher command sent nine battalions to tame Anbar Province, and we were stuck trying to manage Diyala Plus with a brigade of three battalions. As a supporting effort to a supporting effort, our operations were deemed expendable. I sought this losing venture as an opportunity to come from behind. We were far removed from LTC Poppas and the rest of the squadron. We would not fail our mission.

I was tired of losing. Ever since we assumed control of the Abarra Nahiya, eventually dubbed the Diyala River Valley (DRV), we were losing the battle. The loss was a slow fade that began a few months after LT Nate Ficks's Recon platoon and the Marines assumed control of the Diyala Province following the Thunder Runs that toppled Baghdad back in 2003. American units cycled in and out, and we refused to occupy in the hopes of giving way to a utopian transformation of democracy, something so far outside the bounds of what the people were prepared to receive. As we neglected to occupy, sectarian, tribal, and religious divides exploded towards a full-blown civil war of competing interests struggling for absolute power.

Chaos consumed the area. The Shia factions, ranging from the neighborhood policemen of JAM to the Iranian-backed BADR movement, consolidated efforts and gained control assuming the the government after a no-fault election, and they absorbed the reconstruction money pouring in from the Americans. The Sunnis, ranging from the Ba'athist to Al-Qaeda, armed from the past regime, merged to defend themselves from the coalition. Everything was a mess.

We were losing fast. I needed a game changer. Zaganiyah was the final stronghold in my small part of the bigger fight. It was time to go to work. The only advantage that I had was that both sides were conditioned to American units conducting daily drive-by meaningless patrols on the main roads. They had no idea that the Airborne Recon had arrived. They had no idea who we were. I knew my boys were stronger than this problem. I just had to determine how to effectively deploy them.

Most certainly, this fight was not a game, or maybe, it was the most important of games. In the most simplest terms, my boys just needed to take a walk around and see what's going on. We acted as cops trying to resolve a domestic dispute- the husband holding a gun, the wife a rambling, the children in shock, and all the crazy sisters rambling about who's right and wrong. We sought to regain the peace.

I exploited my enemy's weakness. After I accepted this reality, I was quick to understand that we were headed into the fourth quarter facing a huge deficit. It was time to shake it up a bit in order to change the game towards our favor. We would start by regaining control of the night using our core competencies of recon- walking through the woods not driving to watch our prey when they weren't expecting. It was time to put some points on the board and level the playing field. I was tired of allowing the enemy to control the game through sporadic IED attacks and ambushes. Our reconnaisance efforts would pay off; it was time to attack the enemy and regain control of our own destiny. Simply put, it was time to kill. Operation Shaku-Maku (arabaic for "what's up" was in full effect).

In the past two weeks, shots rang out, thirteen insurgents were killed, and four of my boys were wounded prior to this effort. We entered determined to settle this conflict through force assuming the role of the arbitrator and negotiator between the factions. As the government evaporated, we aimed to assume and administer some calm to the chaos.

As we continued to march to our objective, branches scraped across my arms as we moved quickly and stealthily through the night. The moon's remaining glimmer sparkled enough reflected light from the sun, and my night vision goggles to project a clear picture; however, as we walked, my Revision ballistic googles, the protective eyewear designed to shelter my eyes from any attack, began to fog consumed by the reaction of my body heat to the ambient temperature. Despite all the protection, I could not see so I removed my glasses. The command sergeant major would be appaled in my lack of discipline, but I determined the need to see far outweighed any obligation for uniform standard.

We continued our maneuver working along the Diyala River. Finally, Bernie stopped the column.

"Sir, we're here. Take a look. Where do you want us?"

It was my time to take charge. I selected this Omega team from the best of my company. Barney, SGT Barnes, was a ranger school graduate. Paddy, SGT. Justin Patterson, was my school trained sniper. Bernie, SGT Joshua Bernthall, was a shining junior leader with excellent marksmenship skills. Timmy, SGT Timothy Tolliver, was my head medic. He followed me everywhere. Timmy considered his primary job to care for the commander
(your's truly). On any patrol, we often competed with carrying the most loads as he would hump an emergency room on his back while I attempted to step with every radio known to man for communications.

I took a peek, and I emplaced my sniper team. Typically, this role would be served by one of my lead scouts. One of the hardest decisions a commander must face in combat is to determine where to be. In this case, my lead scouts felt that I did not trust them because I took their position. In actuality, it was exactly where I needed to best see the fight and control my indirect fires, rotary wing aviation, predator UAV's, and my ground troops.

MTF

Mike

[John T. Fishel]

Hooah!!! Keep it coming.

JohnT

[MikeF]

That last part needs a lot of work, but I started to write it to answer Slap's questions about the Marines in the Frontline A'stan video. There are other ways to do business.

Slap asked:

"Don't know if this can be answered but has anyone ever tried surrounding the village and watching it for several days before they go patrolling through it?"

"Where is the Afghan Political Cadre that would follow the village elders everywhere they go 24/7? I say forget all this doctrine stuff......fight like a Guerrilla. Where is the Afghan Revolution? Where is the PSYOP Radio stations that should be broadcasting White Propaganda through the radios you handed out. Where is the Afghan Puff Daddy and The Real Slim Shady? You goota have some MoJo going on or ain't nobody gonna follow you anywhere"

The story I'm going to tell is an unheard of tale of decentralized operations during the Surge- Little Groups of Paratroopers using our Mojo to breakthrough.

Mike

[slapout9]

That last part needs a lot of work, but I started to write it to answer Slap's questions about the Marines in the Frontline A'stan video. There are other ways to do business.

Slap asked:

"Don't know if this can be answered but has anyone ever tried surrounding the village and watching it for several days before they go patrolling through it?"

"Where is the Afghan Political Cadre that would follow the village elders everywhere they go 24/7? I say forget all this doctrine stuff......fight like a Guerrilla. Where is the Afghan Revolution? Where is the PSYOP Radio stations that should be broadcasting White Propaganda through the radios you handed out. Where is the Afghan Puff Daddy and The Real Slim Shady? You goota have some MoJo going on or ain't nobody gonna follow you anywhere"

The story I'm going to tell is an unheard of tale of decentralized operations during the Surge- Little Groups of Paratroopers using our Mojo to breakthrough.

Mike

You go Boy!!! I waiting to read it.