Deja Vu: Orlando Was All So Predictable

Remember this blog? I barely did either, but today necessitates its use for, if nothing else, my sanity.

I love America. I truly, truly do. It, in a very real way, was my first love. I've been to 47 of her states; I served in her Army for 5 years. Every political stance I take is predicated on what I believe to be what's best for my country as a whole and not my wallet or some other self serving interest.

In lieu of yet another tragic mass shooting, this time at a gay night club in Orlando, it's time for me to yet again give me thoughts on another tragedy.

There is so much blame to go around. The shooter, obviously, first and foremost. ISIS, who apparently radicalized him and inspired him via the internet, is probably a close second. Homophobia is right up there. Guns themselves certainly have a place. This particular mass shooting, the worst one in America's dubious history of them, is probably a despicable concoction of domestic terrorism with foreign terrorist roots with a side of hate crime and potentially a mental health disorder as well.

All of these elements are worth analyzing, addressing and eliminating. Yet one of those elements to our country's gun violence epidemic is met with a collective shoulder shrug : guns themselves. It's painful to feel compelled to point out that guns are a huge part of the gun violence issue, but we've reached this point.

America makes up little less than 5% of the world's population but owns 31% of all of its mass shootings since the 1960s. We're a first world country with a third world crisis on steroids. But there never seems to be enough political will to tackle the gun portion of the gun violence issue. It's mind boggling.

How dismissive large segments of the population are to this issue is very much a cause of these tragedies. There's no panacea, but people dealing in the reality of the situation and mobilizing the political will to reform gun laws is absolutely a crucial step in curing this national health crisis and not being the best of the worst on this issue.

This is far from a cry to ban all guns and to rescind the 2nd Amendment. I do believe the Constitution guarantees the rights of individuals to own arms. I get the desire to own a firearm in order to help protect your family. (Though a midsize dog is a far better deterrent.) I also embrace the recreational activity of practicing one's marksmanship and hunting animals, especially when population control for the own animal's sake is necessary.

When i was six, I asked my parents for my own gun. They got me a BB gun and my dad spent a whole week training me on how to use it and how to respect it. He instilled in me a belief my BB Gun was no different that a AR-15. I treated it as such. I never shot towards a house or aimed my gun at a person. Why? It wasn't a toy. It was a weapon.

And that has been lost on people. While they can be used for sport and fun they're primary design, their origins are to kill people with ease. Period. End of story.

We let people own drones, but we don't let civilians own drones with hell-fire missiles and other military grade hardware attached to them. Yet we let people own de facto military grade weapons of war that can kill masses of people with ease. Can't we logically accept that civilians shouldn't own military grade drones and weapons?

The AR-15 is not all that different from an M4, what they issued to me to protect myself from the Taliban. To put it more bluntly, they gave me a slightly more jacked up AR-15 to kill the enemy. And the same gun fell into the hands of a known wife beating homophobic ISIS sympathizer. AR-15 and other powerful semi automatic weapons have also fallen into the hands of hateful racists, the deranged and domestic and foreign terrorists.

We're a country awash in private gun ownership and rarely do they protect the population from others with private guns. In a country of 300 million people and probably even more privately, legally owned guns, there's only 260 or so justifiable homicides a year. Thank goodness those people had their guns and protected themselves and loved ones from harm, but if the bad guys didn't have such easy access to those guns would the justifiable homicides have even been necessary in the first place? Oh, and about 11,200 gun homicides happen every year. Basic arithmetic and such.

I've heard a lot of people say that if people in that Orlando gay nightclub were packing heat that shooter wouldn't have killed nearly as many people. Let's just ignore how concerning it is some people feel compelled to have a gun on them at all times just to feel safe. Instead focus on the victim blaming. It's the exact same inexcusable action of blaming a rape victim. "Well, how much did she have to drink?" "Well, she was asking for it by what she was wearing." "Well, if he was wearing his holster maybe he wouldn't be dead right now."

America, I love you, but you've really let me, millions of others and, most of all, 50 precious Orlando lives down. It's not to say you're guilty. It is is to say you/we bare much of the responsibility. Drop the victim blaming, or saying it's a lack of prayer in schools, or that it's just foreign terrorism. Let's just collectively act like adults and admit it: semi-automatic rifles are far too powerful to be left in the hands of a civilian population that has a small minority of whack jobs and evil souls who do a large amount of damage with them. We're not safer because of them. Quite clearly the opposite is, and has been, true.

Memorial Day Memoriam

Not all US military bases in Afghanistan are created equal. Troops in remote firebases often have to live in tough, primitive conditions, a far cry from the creature comforts and decadence of typical American lifestyle.

For coalition troops at Kandahar Airfield, it's quite a bit different. It's certainly not home sweet home, but it's not half bad either. There was a Burger King trailer, something resembling a super market and the Canadians naturally saw fit to install a street hockey rink. Instead of eating MREs, we ate in high school cafeteria style "chow halls." (The cooks who worked them insisted on us calling them "dining facilities.") In some ways we were living in an oasis of Western Civilization.

On a blistering hot late June day in the lowland desert of southern Afghanistan, I joined a Special Forces team in our camp's chow hall to escape the heat and fill our bellies. I loved these guys. I'd been out with several other Special Forces teams at their bases and/or in the field, but these guys, let's call the Team Viking were the cream of the crop. The team's second in command, Nick, was an Army hero of mine I had met two years prior during a first-of-its-kind training mission in Pakistan. Not only was he a mountain of a man, a bad ass, he embodied why Americans are the good guys.

Nick alone would have been enough for anyone to pick the Vikings as their favorite Green Berets, but every soldier on the team down to the man was stellar, as warriors and citizens. They were what us younger guys aspired to be. Plus, we had the added benefit of having their small team on our battalion's camp. They were our heroes and neighbors.

Having been accepted by such high-caliber men and eating meals with them was always a joy and a feather in the cap for me. This was probably my dozenth lunch with them. I don't remember the specifics of the conversations, but it was basically us taking turns ragging on the other, all in good fun.

One member of the team, their youngest, John, always had a hard time lightening up. He was new to the Special Forces world, on his first combat deployment and probably felt like he had everything to prove to his more grizzled teammates. Because of this, he rarely smiled or laughed. His mind always fixated with a laser like focus on the next task. I had a rather high opinion of myself as a young adult and troop, but he was the only one near my age group that made me feel like I needed to step up my game and grow faster. In other words, I respected the hell out of him.

Naturally, I gave him the best ribbing I could, getting under his skin a little but trying to make him laugh above all else, to make him realize he was still young and could goof around too. It took a bit, but eventually the facade cracked just long enough to make him laugh. "Ahh, he can enjoy life after all," I thought to myself.

When there wasn't a trace crum to be found on any tray, we went about our separate business. The Vikings were meeting up with the Afghan Commandos they'd been tasked to train, mentor and take out on missions that deployment. They had invited me the day before to come out and join them for some Commando marksmanship training, but my Officer in Charge refused to let me sharpen my warriors skills "just in case" he needed me for some menial task.

I sat twiddling my thumbs for hours, waiting for my 12-hour minimum work day to end, cursing my OIC's name all the while for not letting me hang with those guys, when the atmosphere on our battalion's camp changed on a dime.

During a night operation, an IED struck a different Special Forces team's Humvee, claiming the life of one of our battalion's Green Berets.

It's part of the Soldier's Creed to "never leave a fallen comrade." It's nothing short of sacred to us.The honored task of gathering the remains fell to Team Viking. After receiving the Quick Reaction Force designation from command, the Vikings drove off in colossal up-armored vehicles known as MRAPs to retrieve their fallen comrade and augment the team that had already been dealt a brutal blow.

I knew having already been on one deployment that you are constantly finding out how much you take for granted being from a developed country like America. I never thought I would add structural engineer inspectors to the list.

As the convoy of Team Viking's MRAPs rumbled down a narrow dirt road to help their beleaguered comrades, the bottom fell out-- literally, I'm said to say. There are no codes or government standards on Afghan roads. They're often former goat paths vehicles have tried to transform into full fledge roads. This time though, the multiton up-armored MRAP was too heavy and the dirt road collapsed without warning, sending the vehicle and four troops, John, Randy, Simon and Chris, tumbling down a hill.

Fate was not on their side on this night. Their vehicle landed upside down in a frigid canal fed by snow melt still clinging to the surrounding mountain peaks. The water rushed in, shorting the electrical system and rendering the hydraulics necessary to open the bank vault, safe like door utterly useless.

Their multimillion dollar mobile battle shield had now become a watery tomb.

Little if anything is known of what exactly happened to Randy and Simon, both damn fine men. It appears likely they were killed when the transport rolled.

Chris was alive but fighting for his life. His seat belt likely had saved him, but heavy ammo canisters that had been dislodged and tossed around after the road collapsed had him entrapped, unable to reach and unbuckle himself. He was surely going to drown.

But then Chris felt a hand come down, unbuckle the seat belt and release his body armor. John was still alive doing everything he could to save Chris. Eventually, John was able to pull Chris up to an air pocket he discovered. John went back under water to see if he could find another, but that simply wasn't meant to be. John returned to Chris and they both waited in that air pocket for whatever fate awaited them.

Their Viking comrades all the while were outside the MRAP, hurriedly doing everything they could to rip the door open. Scores of us inside battalion's operations center watched the live predator drone feed of the rescue efforts playing out before our eyes, praying all the while.

After what seemed like an eternity, they were able to finagle the placement of a winch that pried the doors open. They quickly got all four men out began resuscitation efforts. One by one it became clear there friends were now corpses. But by some miracle, Chris, who had been shot the prior deployment, had an ounce of life left in him and their efforts slowly brought Chris back from the brink, confused, cold and delusional though he was.

The captain on scene ordered some of his men to scuttle their clothes and body armor as well as Chris's, using their body heat to ward off Chris's obvious hypothermia symptoms. Chris would live to fight another day and tell the tale.

Whether it was head trauma, oxygen deprivation, hypothermia or all the above, Chris went in and out of consciousness in that air pocket. He remembered John's life-saving rescue efforts, his vein search for more air and, lastly, John saying repeatedly, "I can't feel my legs."

John sacrificed his life to save Chris's. His youth and relative inexperience would never be called into question. He was the real deal, a true hero. We can now only hope he felt the validation of being the ultimate Brother in Arms. He was more than good enough.

Chris would continue on fighting that deployment. Months later though, while interrogating a suspected Taliban fighter, he saw prick squeeze his hand and heard a pop. Out of pure instinct, he kicked the insurgent knocking him and the chair he sat in over. The pop was the setting off the fuse of a suicide-bomber vest. Because Chris's boot had the terrorist's torso facing upwards and not outwards, most of the blast's force and shrapnel went into the ceiling. Chris survived being shot, drowned and would survive this too. That's not to say he didn't get banged up though.

On a field hospital's bed, he was awarded yet another purple heart and informed he was now solely to work desk duty. I think that, in that moment, bothered him more than what the blast did to his body. I'm sure his wife and family were more than thrilled though.

Years later, I went to Arlington cemetery to pay my respects to John and another man I knew who didn't make it back home from that deployment. Rodger.

I first visited Roger's grave, and even though we didn't spend nearly as much time around and with each other as I did John, I sobbed. Oh God did I sob.

How was I going to manage visiting the grave of someone I knew way better? How was I going to keep composure at the resting place of the one peer that pushed me to be more?

When I approached the grave, the tears immediately stopped. I rendered the snappiest salute I could muster and just stood in awe of the young man, my superior in every way. With all do respect to all the wonderful things Roger was, you just don't cry in the presence of John's remains. No, there's too much work left to be done. I have too much growing yet to do. Perhaps it's just the memories of all that he was and represented to me, but I like to think I felt his spirit, whatever it is that made him so focused and driven, made him forgo his own chance of survival to give someone else just a prayer of a chance.

Even after all these year I find myself wishing I could have chow and laugh with all those guys just one more time in that oasis.

RIP John, Randy and Simon. You are missed.

(Due to not knowing how the families involved would feel about their fallen's names being made public, I have opted to change Green Berets' names. Recounting this event relied heavily on the memories of testimonies from those involved. Many years have passed, but I provided the most accurate retelling of that fateful day I possibly could without asking others to relive it. Thanks for reading.)

Letterman's Legacy

Comedy may be humanity's salvation, at least on this earth.

If you're like me, you find a lot of your laughs on late-night talk shows. Some say the medium's too formulaic and dying, or completely changing, due to advent of the internet and streaming technology. I don't know how much of that is true, but I do know I'm something a late-night talk show junkie. I've spent a handful of days watching the previous night's episodes of every host's show. Yep, all of them. Why? Why not? What's life without laughter?

For a week (for anyone born before 1990 at least), we all knew exactly how empty that felt.

September 11, 2001 stunned America, and we didn't know what was right any more, what normalcy was or should be, if we would ever get back to it and what it would look and feel like. The late-night talk shows, Saturday Night Live and seemingly anything with a laugh track went completely dark for a week. It wasn't okay to laugh, not that anyone really wanted to -- but we surely needed to. My 15-year-old self was chief among them.

No one in entertainment or Hollywood seemed to know when it would be okay to laugh again, to just live life again. It's a president's job to lead and comfort a nation, but even a president is powerless when it comes to determining when it's okay to chuckle while there's a gaping void in your city blocks and your countrymen's hearts. Nope. Only the instincts and astute observation of a seasoned comedian, a court jester, one that had his finger on the American pulse every night for decades, could determine that. Maybe it had to be one who could see the still smoldering ruins of collapsed skyscrapers from his own place of work, his backyard.

After being in the dark for a week, Letterman turned the lights of his, and seemingly every other comedy show, back on. His 9/11 Monologue wasn't particularly funny, nor was his episode. It was thick with grief, anger and confusion with just bits of laughter sprinkled in. In other words, it was the perfect transition into a post-9/11 world, one where it was okay to laugh again.

Within that monologue he gave a quote that rocked me, one of those ten or so quotes that inspires and sustains you for life: "There's only one requirement of any of us, and that is to be courageous. Because courage, as you might know, defines all other human behavior. And, I believe -- because I've done a little of this myself -- pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing."

Picture courtesy of Adweek

It was 2008, and I was flying in the belly of a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter surrounded by Special Forces Green Berets fast approaching what would surely be my first combat experience. I was completely out of my league. These bad asses had infinitely more training than I, a mere regular Army, convention soldier kid. They had been through the most rigorous training in the world. Nearly all had been tested in the conflagration of combat dozens of times over. I was nothing short of a liability; I was the weak link. If something went terribly wrong, surely it would be my fault, warrior blood on my hands.

When that reality set in, I started shaking like a leaf. Luckily it was early morning and the back hatch of the Chinook was open, throwing in a constant stream of frigid wind eddies that chilled us to the bone. One SF Soldier noticed my shaking and gave me the thumbs up/down signal, asking if I was alright. I used the universally recognized "I'm freezing" gesture. He seemed to buy it. I didn't.

I don't know what came over me shortly after that wordless exchange. I started to hear Offspring's "Hammerhead" song playing in my brain. I got amped, pumped the fuck up and suddenly felt every bit of he Green Beret they were, though I so clearly was not. In other words, I played pretend and convinced myself that in that moment and for the duration of that mission that I was indeed courageous. I performed well; I wasn't a weak link.

During future combat missions, for the few I ever went on, I didn't have to fake courage anymore but only because I ever feigned courage in the first place.

That's what I look like when I'm "pretending to be courageous."

I'm not saying his poignant words crossed my mind in that arctic belly. They did not. They didn't have to. I had already internalized them. I felt them. I've been pretending to be courageous in every facet of my life off and on ever since. He's right; it's truly just as good as the real thing.

There's another point in his monologue that has never left me: "We're told that they were zealots fueled by religious fervor... religious fervor and if you live to be a thousand years old will that makes any sense to you? Will that many any goddamn sense?

David, I've only lived just shy of 30 years. But in those few dozen years that include 27 months of time spent in Afghanistan I can definitively say to you, no, it never will make any goddamn sense.

But your turning the lights back on September 2001 and ushering back in comedic entertainment and just showing it was okay to laugh among our friends and family made the world make a lot more sense again. That 15 year old in me will never forget it, it's a big reason I'm a late-night talk show junkie and it's a shame after tonight you'll never turn your show's lights back on.