Preview:
I. June 1, 2008. My friends, my dear friends, my dear dead friends, I grieve for you, I mourn for you, I do not know why you died and I have yet not, amongst us, identically scarred forty ways, indistinguishable patterns of psychic shrapnel bursts, Swiss cheese personae, matching whacked peas in a holding pod for the Iraq induced insane, I stand alone, I stand apart, not yet dead, like a leprous beggar at the banquet of the wretched and the piteous, I flail against the gravitational density of His will, His resolve, and still I fail utterly, miserably, totally, to comprehend His design, His plan, the chaos of His choices and the randomness of His intentions, I do not understand why He took you only to position me like Pharaoh Menephtah at the entrance of Gehenna, to perch me upon the throne of Sheol like Moloch, alone, to flagellate my spirit, to lash my soul, to suffer the shame of continuance, the ignominy of survival.
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Nurse, with your kind, strong hands, will you please repair the light, the filament is sputtering, the incandescent spasms of wolfram stab at my retinae like tiny kendo swords in the simian hands of malevolent homunculi, Nurse, why do you remain silent, hidden in the shadows, Nurse, why does the gloom frighten me so?
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I am a warfighter, a wolf clad in shit dun khaki clothing, violence and death are my domain, pro Deo et Patria, today is my final day in the Suck, my Wake Up Day, my Day of All Good Things, the ignorant refer to the inside Suck as the Green Zone, the Green Zone really not green at all, the few semblances of nature in its grandeur the pitiful, zombied wraiths of palm trees stuccoed with desert sand a dried shit dun color, the ignorant refer to the outside Suck as the Red Zone, cognoscenti eschew the Green Zone, the Red Zone, speak only of the Suck, warfighters refer to all of Iraq as the Suck, warfighters refer to our lost war, the Vietnam War, as the Shit, Iraq is not a bodacious war as was Vietnam, Baghdad is not a sybaritic city, as was Saigon, there is no life in Baghdad, no night life, no day life, no infamous cafes or hotels or brothels, no exquisite bars or restaurants or strip joints, no villes selling the commodities of a conquering army's needs, black market cigarettes, black market booze, black market trinkets, black market food, black market electronics, black market intelligence, black market sex, never the opportunity for humping, thrusting, bruising sex, girl sex, boy sex, toy sex, ménage à trois sex, never scenes of lovely, leggy, buxom Iraqi babes in short, tight miniskirts and demure hijabs twirling gum on street corners, promising soldiers fucky-fucky, love you long-time, boom-boom you good, ten dollah, souldjah, perhaps in a black comedy, the Iraq of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Iraq of the Suck, the Iraq of the REMF, superior in numbers to the warfighters who hold an unassailable edge in weapons technology, who disdain REMFs, who fear warfighters, who carry weapons while REMFs carry chips on their shoulders, it's as easy to kill a REMF as it is to kill a warfighter, easier, since warfighters instantly react to rockets and mortars, sprint to the nearest concrete, bumblebee yellow and black Duck and Cover until the indirect fire is eliminated, REMFs are caught like deer in headlights, frozen to the ground upon which they stand, waiting for a memo telling them how to react to the mortars and rockets exploding around them, not knowing enough to get out of the shrapnel bursts, listening to the shrieking whistle of the incoming round as it tears asunder the fabric of the sky, watching the world erupt in dirt and concrete geysers twenty feet high, feeling the explosive concussion in the pit of the stomach, between the ears like a kick in the solar plexus, a slap upside the head with a blunt edged sledge hammer, registering the tickling sensation not as an incipient hard-on but as the warm, wet, salty stickiness of urine as it cascades into boots, if the REMF dies, people cry, warfighters sigh, How could those rearechelonmothersfuckers be so stupid, confession, depression, repression, my head hurts, clarity comes hard to me, if it attends at all, as if burdened with presenile dementia I am easily confused, confusion embraces me, confusion clutches me to its spiky, thorny, hairy bosom, confusion whispers with hot, rank breath into my tympanic membrane, Welcome to the Suck, I refer to every part of Iraq, including Baghdad, not only as the Suck, never as the Green Zone, never as the Red Zone, as the Shit Dun Zone, I am easily confused, I never lie, if caught in such a falsity I will deny it, deny it, deny it, three times I will deny it, like Peter refusing to acknowledge Christ, turn the calumny onto your humble self.
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Nurse, my head hurts, hello, is anyone out there, can anyone hear me, am I alone, am I bleeding, where is everyone, Nurse, is that my blood?