Born on Groundhog Day

I can’t think of another time when I’ve endured over 115 degree temperatures consistently for three months straight. In the haze of this Groundhog Day we keep waking up to I can hardly believe it but it’s the kickoff of football season, my daughter started her first year of high school, and there’s only two more months left before we vote for a new President.

A little more than a week ago John McCain announced Sarah Palin as his surprise Presidential running mate which days later lead to the even more surprising disclosure that her seventeen year old daughter was pregnant. The controversy, if you want to call it that, didn’t seem to diminish the adrenalin shot that her nomination gave McCain’s campaign or change the way her nomination galvanized the social conservative base of the Religious Right within the Republican Party, and the fact that Governor Palin decided not to have an abortion when during pregnancy she learned that her youngest son would have Down syndrome made it clear, to the delight of the Religious Right, that she walked the talk of her Pro Life convictions. But as I listened to news coverage of the Republican National Convention last week and heard a comment made by a woman responding to the question, “What if Sarah Palin were a Democrat? How would Republicans have reacted to her nomination?” I was disturbed when this woman damningly declared, “If [Palin] was a Democrat she would have had an abortion!”

I’m a registered Democrat. I fathered my daughter at age 17, and I myself am essentially the product of a rape. If a person is a Democrat, and thus more likely to be Pro Choice, it’s not fair to assume they would undoubtedly have an abortion when they become pregnant under unwelcome circumstances. Such a position is negligible and trivializes the very difficult and agonizing decisions people are faced with when abortion does become an option in their lives. Pro Choice means having the right to choose and if one chooses to give birth under any circumstances that gives them no right to condemn, or legislate against, those who choose the opposite. The fact that ninety percent of all women abort their pregnancies when they find out their child will have Down syndrome means either female Democrats are cursed with a disproportionate chance of having a child with the chromosomal disorder or not all female Republicans are exactly Pro Life.

The question of abortion produces deeply personal answers and to weigh such resolutions upon the character of an individual is a matter of an equally personal understanding of one’s own character. Evangelicals hold dear the values of confession, forgiveness and redemption. But when prominent figures in their political camp make such comments as the one I mentioned earlier it becomes clear they’ve missed the point when it was written in Luke 6:37 “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned. Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.” – And what ever happened to the separation of church and state? It should be a warning that Evangelicals and Republicans open the door of hypocrisy when they allow their religious assertions to affect our public policy and yet grumble because Iraq’s government established in their constitution the basis of their laws to be derived from the Holy Koran.

I wish Bristol Palin the best of luck because I know having a child at a young age brings its own set of unique challenges. She is fortunate to have a wealthy and supportive family and she should take such advantage as energy to thrive in her own future and give her child the chance at a better life even than her own because without those advantages, given the political enterprises of her mother, John McCain, the Republican Party, and the prospect of their victory in November, Bristol’s ability to afford her child that American Dream would become far more unlikely.

Rationally, the decisions made by Sarah Palin and her daughter Brisol, regarding their reproductive organs are non-issues. But I’m not sure most would agree with that. Putting all that aside, I’m left looking at John McCain’s campaign riding the wave of Governor Palin’s new political celebrity and thinking to myself now it’s really Sarah Palin’s Vice Presidential Campaign running against Barack Obama’s Presidential Campaign. That’s weak. To quote another woman at the RNC, “Sarah Palin is the rocket fuel, but John McCain is the rocket.” Weak! The Republicans are playing poker when the Democrats appear to be dealing with real issues. I’ll admit I’m biased but what are you gonna’ do? G’OBAMA!

Nominal Degrees and Rising

Most nights are uneventful. There have been very few mortar attacks on the base except for last night. Since one of my supervisors is on vacation I’ve been asked to fill in and provide tech support for a couple hours a night at a trailer compound that we provide internet service to. The incoming alarm went off while struggled to figure out how to get some guy’s PC laptop to recognize the signal, so we casually made our way to the bunker outside trailer. I can’t help feeling like a teenager at his first school dance huddled with strangers in a bunker. One guy was still on his cell phone, most likely a call to the states. When you’re over forty and a civilian, what would possess you to choose to be here? Like my boss Charles says, “There are three kinds of people here. Soldiers who pretty much don’t have a choice, people trying to make enough money to pay their debt, and guys that want to live one more hurrah.” There seemed to be no attack. Routinely we hear, “This is the command post. All clear. All clear.” But even that was missing. I didn’t want to wait for the official “all clear” so I walked back into the trailer.

Later, after watching a movie in my hooch, Brooklyn Rules with Alec Baldwin – set in Bayridge, Brooklyn – I shut the lights off and attempted to make myself comfortable enough to fall asleep. I hurt my back after playing basketball about three weeks ago. They have an indoor fieldhouse here and it was a good five game run. We lost the fifth game. The next morning I could barely stand up straight and even now I still have a little nagging pain, which makes it hard to sleep. I could hear an explosion while trying to fall asleep, like I said, rare these days, and I told myself it must have been a controlled detonation. Of course it was a controlled detonation because there was an attack hence the incoming alarm, there wasn’t any explosions because it hit but didn’t detonate, so the EOD guys were just doing their jobs.

Last week I spoke to my mother on the phone and she put my younger cousin on to talk with me. He praised me, the job I’m doing here and how he was proud of me. I understood what he was saying and how he felt. I feel the same way about the soldiers, airmen, sailors and marines I see here in the same way I respect what my cousin had to offer me. Regardless of their reasons I respect their decisions whether history should judge such decisions or actions good or bad.

“… men refuse to admit that all those things which men defended in former ages with the sacrifice of life and happiness were nothing but errors; it is even said, perhaps, that they were degrees of the truth. But what is really meant is that when a man has honestly believed in something, and has fought and died for his faith, it would really be too unjust if he had only been inspired by an error.” Nietzsche, Human, All-Too-Human

In 1993, I visited my daughter in Santa Cruz and we drove to San Francisco, and marched in a protest against this war. That day I took a very small role to play. Five years later I still don’t believe we, the United States of America, with our collective responsibility should have attacked Iraq. And I don’t see my job here as having anything to do with protecting Americans, their lives, national security, access to natural resources or way of life. Not on the moral tip. My hope, when I hope, is that my work helps Iraqis wake up one day and live at least as well as they did when Saddam was last in power – people had jobs, and electricity and didn’t fear suicide bombings, ethnic violence and extremists – even if the probability of such a truth is low.

My friend from Sadr City told me he was in a car accident last night. He said someone was following him and ran him off the road, flipping his car. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. Luckily he only had a sore neck and a totaled car to be upset about. I couldn’t help thinking the accident wasn’t an accident when he said the guy was following him.

Sandstorms Bad Kites Good

Over the past few months I haven’t posted to this blog for one reason or another. You could say it was my belated show of solidarity with the WGA strike. Maybe they’ll give me an honorary membership. Below are a few notes from my recent experiences living here on Camp Victory and Camp Victory, Baghdad, Iraq.

I enjoyed watching the movie The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, a story about murderous crime, loyalty, betrayal and egoism.

I know of an Iraqi man who lives in Sadr City. I’ve been told that his ability to work has become very dangerous now that the Madi militia has begun fighting again with Iraqi security forces. Earlier tonight, while driving from the DFAC, I could hear a gun fight not far from my trailer. I suppose it was far enough because people continued to play a game of volleyball nearby. – Have you ever wondered how terrorized all the extras were at high noon when suddenly they had to scurry away, and the Good Guy shoots it out with the Outlaw? –In a newly democratic Iraq who represents this man, my friend, the middleman, the man without a gun.

I found it funny as I got to know my coworkers that many people assumed I was married. If the fact I don’t wear a single piece of jewelry didn’t clue them I don’t know what gave them that impression. That was a stupid sentence. I’ve noticed that many of the soldiers and contractors are married; people with strong, clear convictions, career minded, highly educated or not, patriotic, loyal, and religious.

I’ve had sick sinuses and been depressed here. It’s oppressive in a nutshell, and I hate sandstorms. I believe it is humid in Paradise.

I buy bootlegs from the small stores run by Iraqis here on base for about two dollars a piece. I’ve also begun working out with my neighbor an Army guy and I enjoy him kicking my ass in the gym.

The fighting has continued.

Last night I woke in the middle of the night dreaming about being bombed. Mortars were landing all around me. I was running seeking cover when one landed close behind me lifting me off my feet head-first. I thought my legs were blown off and I woke, quickly looking down the length of my bed to see if I was still in one piece.

At times I battle with contempt as the beautiful pictures of my life fade in and out of my screensaver. Friends and family, ex-girlfriends and all the old places don’t live with me anymore.

The movies, one or two a night have gotten to be too much, kinda like pancakes, all exciting at first but too much in the end. Iraqis, or Arabic speakers who don’t know me speak to me in Arabic. It’s the same as when Puerto Ricans and Dominicans talk to me in Spanish. Even Mexicans sometimes make the assumption. Some things don’t change.

If necessity is the mother of invention it’s a shell game finding purpose everyday.