ARMISTICE DAY, 2009

Tomorrow is Veterans Day...shit, by the time I'm done writing today is gonna be Veterans Day.

It's funny how names change over the years, huh?

Armistice Day, a day honoring peace from the end of the First World War is now a day to honor "veterans," whatever that means. Must be like the War Department changing its name to the DOD... got to manipulate the people.

I was at an event tonight with 2 speakers; an Iraqi and Iraq War Veteran.

The Iraqi man now works for AFSC, and he brought up an interesting fact. The VA has numbers showing that the number of Vietnam Veterans that have committed suicide since the Vietnam War ended has already surpassed the number of casualties from Vietnam.

To me both numbers are sort of bullshit, because I know people always fall through the cracks. What about the injuries leading to death? What about the vets that never got admitted into the VA or were never counted by them?

The vet that spoke is also a member of IVAW and a marine. He went to Fallujah - twice. I just typed Fallujah, and this f*cking word program didn't know what it was - the first correction is hallelujah. Shit, maybe it's a sign. Anyways, I knew another marine that was there at the invasion of Fallujah.

He said for a week the US spread literature saying anyone still there was going to be seen as the enemy, that the US was there to help, and this was also in concert with heavy bombings. When the marines went into the city there were bodies, and body parts, all over the streets. Do you know what happens to bodies when they sit around? They swell up, they pop, they smell, they don't even look human anymore. And anything left alive in the city was basically fair game.

It's funny, how we celebrate soldiers with parades and patriotic songs and shallow stickers while not questioning the weight put on their shoulders, huh?

You know what I mean of course, the weight of seeing a civilian and being under orders to basically kill anything in sight. The weight of annihilating peoples' homes just because you are there and tasked to find terrorists. The weight of realizing you are fighting a war for corporations and US hegemony of the region because of oil, greed, and a hint of Christian justification because of odd concoctions using biblical reference and ethnic lies.

So, Veterans Day - What do we do?
Like I said, have parades.
Thank men and women that "served."
Go shopping.
You know, stuff.

I'm thinking of my favorite poem by my favorite poet, Siegfried Sassoon. It's called Suicide in the Trenches, and it goes like this:

I knew a simple soldier
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug faced crowd with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

I thought of that when the Iraqi man spoke, when he said the number of suicides of Vietnam Vets since Vietnam has exceeded the casualties from the War. And that's a little silly in itself. That we know these guys are casualties from the war, but they aren't counted as such. We are still sustaining casualties from Vietnam.

F*cked up.

I like that poem by Sassoon. I don't like it - like it makes me happy. I like it - like it speaks to me. I hope you get that when you read what I'm writing. I found out about Sassoon in 2003 when my unit got activated. We got activated, but didn't have deployment orders. The orders we had were to train us in mortuary affairs. This is basically graves registration. If you still don't get it the job is getting dead marines when they die, and getting their effects on them when they got killed, and being the first ones to start the process of sending that marine back home. Anyways I started reading this book called A Rumor of War. The marine that wrote it also did graves registration in Vietnam, and he used lines from Sassoon's poems in the beginning of different sections and chapters in his book. So I looked up Sassoon and got a book of his collected poems. And I like that one, Suicide in the Trenches.

A year and half prior to getting activated one of my sergeants committed suicide. Maybe that's why I like the poem. It let me know that even back in WWI people were f*cking clueless and cheered, and paraded, and probably had f*cking sales events at the mall, and no one knew or even cared to know where the youth and laughter went.

F*cked up.

The poem is nice because the soldier just had to put a bullet in his brain. That's nice, huh? I mean, when Sgt. Dixon killed himself at first we didn't know it. The captain came into the unit and said on Monday "Sgt. Dixon was found dead in his apartment last night, police are still investigating." It didn't click then that Sunday had been Father's Day. That Sgt. Dixon took his daughter to a babysitter and never showed up to get her, so the emergency contact was called, and it was Sgt. Dixon's home in Columbus. So his dad drives up from Columbus, on Fathers Day, to find his son.

It wasn't like the poem.

First, he tried to poison himself, we found out later. Poison was all around, like he was drinking bottles of Mr. Clean or whatever other shit was in his apartment. Not like the poem. I guess that didn't work, because he had to try again. Then he tried to cut his wrists. So he was cut up and there was blood all over. Not like the poem. That didn't work out either, but marines...shit I don't know if you know any marines, but they keep going when shit gets crazy. So Sgt. Dixon kept going and finally got his gun out and shot himself. Not through the head, not like the poem. Through the heart. He shot himself through the heart and his Dad found him on Fathers Day.

It wasn't like the poem.

We didn't have a parade, we had a funeral. It was in Columbus and I ended up driving down there by myself. I think I was 20 and I was a lance corporal at the time. All these other NCO's I looked up to were there. We were all in our dress blues. There were so many marines we filled up at least a quarter of the pews. That's a lot of damn marines because we can squeeze in some tight spaces. All lined up, all dressed up, all crying. Not at first, I don't remember crying at first. I almost started when I went to see him in the casket.

That wasn't like the poem. He was dressed for the occasion too. Dress blues. He was always winning PFT awards, so he was squared away in there, well, except his face. The left side of his face was swollen. I kind of knew why, but when I got trained in mortuary affairs I really knew why. But that was jarring. His face. The casket. The flag. So we are going down the side and to the casket then to the pews. And just waiting, just f*cking waiting.

Then his family comes in. His parents...I have no other words to describe them but grace. They embodied grace. Sgt. Dixon's daughter came in too, and the lady that was the mother of the child. Sometimes I loose track of who screamed. It was sometime when the family was viewing him in the casket, and there was a scream.

F*cked up.

This scream, I can't recreate this physically, you know? But mentally, mentally I hear this scream. Emotionally I hear this scream. When I hear or think about more troops committing suicide I hear it. When I research veterans' health care I hear it. When I hear rising casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan I hear it. Sometimes I block it out, sometimes I can, and sometimes I can't. It's just there. I will never forget that scream.

Anyways, that's when I remember crying, really crying. I heard other cries, sniffs, breathing. Man I needed to breathe, I couldn't breathe. And I started breathing and it was like flood gates broke. Tears just started coming down my cheeks. I don't even remember the ceremony. Just crying, hearing the other marines crying. Seeing them in the corner of my eyes crying. Snot was dripping down my blues jacket like a faucet. I was just trying to stop. Just trying to be a good marine. Trying to suck it up. Trying to breathe.

Then we left for the burial. This Staff Sergeant asked me if I was okay.

"You okay Stainthorp?"
I wasn't okay. No one was f*cking okay.
"Yeah, I'm alright."

He knew I wasn't okay. He knew no one was okay. So he got in my car, see I was driving alone. He got in my car and just drove with me to the burial and I don't think we said one word. We got out, and the burial was hard too. Still crying. Saluting and crying. Trying to suck it up. Trying to breathe.

We went to Sgt. Dixon's parents' house afterward. Grace. They had us all in their home, and were grateful for our company. I don't remember it except in their house they had a lot of art. They wrote me a card and sent it to the unit. I opened it a long time ago, now it hangs on a cork board in my room by my bed. I haven't read it in a really long time so I just took it down and read it.

"Lance Corporal Jeremy,

Thank you so much for the card, the words from your heart are so beautiful. Please continue to pray for our family.

Thank you, we are humble and grateful.
Kermit & Sylvia Dixon."

I'm not all right you know. SSgt. was right. No one was or is all right. I'm glad he got in the car with me.

I usually write things that may look like I'm being vulnerable, like I'm putting everything out there. But I'm not. I'm not always putting everything out there. Tonight, right now, I'm having a very difficult time writing. Right now. I'm shaking. And I can't even f*cking type in the first place. It takes me a f*cking long time to write this shit. Like hours. I'm crying and shaking.

I wish. Tomorrow. I hope. I hope one day we can stop parading around and putting god damn stickers on the backs of f*cking cars for vets or the troops.

When I see yellow ribbon magnets I do not see ribbons. I see nooses.
When I see parades I do not see honoring veterans, I see funeral precessions.

I did not know a simple soldier boy, don't you get it? That's why I like the poem. Because he got it - Sassoon got it. None of us are simple like that.

Not when we commit suicide.
Not when we think critically about our actions.
Not when we regret decisions about Fallujah.

He didn't put a bullet through his brain, don't you get it? That's why I like the poem. Because he got it - Sassoon got it. It's not that smooth.

Not when we try three times.
Not when we aren't considered casualties after we come home.
Not when we are discharged for it.

We do speak of him again, don't you get it? That's why I like the poem. Because he got it - Sassoon got it. Silence is betrayal.

So we speak up, so that we aren't confused as some tough guys from the "greatest generation" who mutter combat calls on their death bed and tell no one of the nightmares, of the screams, until they die.

So we speak up, we dig and we dig and we shake and we cry and we learn to talk about it and put ourselves out there so that it doesn't happen again. So we speak of him again -at home, in formations, at Winter Soldier, at the RNC, online, and with each another.

We speak up because we know silence is betrayal.

Do you understand why I like the poem?

Because we are not so simple anymore-
A once meaningful duty now an illegal chore.

Today (now Veterans Day is today) I hope you take off your yellow stickers and throw them away.
I hope you stop your parades and start protesting.
I hope you honor the warrior, not the war.
I hope, I hope for one f*cking day you don't ask me about going or NOT going to Iraq or killing something, or cool stories, or stupid Hollywood shit. I hope you take the hint. That we are not okay.

I am not always okay.

Not with the occupation.
Not with the sexual abuse.
Not with the torture.
Not with bombing for democracy.
Not with the lies.
Not with the US hegemony or racist assumptions of Iraqi's.
Not with the corporate consumption of the "other."

That Veterans Day was Armistice Day and it served as a symbol of peace and now you use this day to justify wars and the people that fight them serve as your pawns.

I am not okay with that.

Today is Veterans Day. Listen to us. And when we say we are okay, just get in the f*cking car and shut the f*ck up and ride with us. Just know, just know that we are humans not machines, but the government reprogrammed us. Just know some of us are racist and sexist and silence is betrayal. Just know some of us want to be with Sgt. Dixon. Just know some of us are still trying to protect and defend the Constitution. Just know this shit is complicated, so stop simplifying everything to sound bites. This isn't a presidential election. People's lives and souls are at stake.

Stop justifying wars because your party leaders prompt you to.

Stop being so god damned self absorbed, and only concerned about the government's interference with your wallet rather than with lives.

Stop being such f*cking simple people. Wipe that smug look off your pompous face and stop f*cking cheering and do something.

Today, this Veterans Day, we are occupying two countries - based on lies. I can think of nothing better to do than oppose the war that justifies killing Americans, Iraqi and Afghan civilians. And if you disagree, well, sneak home and pray you'll never know. Sassoon knew it; after all he wrote about his experience in World War One, before Armistice Day.

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