Bangkok, Ballcock, and other funny words!

Hey there!

Just when sanity was in my reach, I spoil it all by saying, "Bangkok," all day! Come on, if you don't think that the word is obscenely funny, then you have a serious chuck of wood up your ass! My husband got mad at me in Home Depot the other day because while in the plumbing section I see a plastic wrapper with the word, "Ballcock," on it! I couldn't help it. Like a victim of Tourette's, I just kept saying it and giggling uncontrollably. Maybe the doc should lower my dosage of Zoloft!

Sorry. I was distracted by the Nancy Grace show on Headline News. They are discussing the emergency court order to prevent Larry Birkhead from taking Dannielynn out of the Bahamas. Gotta love gold-digging grandmothers.

So I promised I would finally talk about Iraq, and I'm going to.

I noticed the deployments for Army soldiers just got extended to 15 mos. Amazingly when I was there, 8 month deployment was the discussion. So I'm confused. Are they pulling out or extending the tours for the long haul? Maybe it's both. Who knows. All I know is while nobody wants to be there, someone has too. However unpopular this catastrophe is we cannot just wash our hands of it. I think the main problem is Americans in general disregard consequences. I mean even in our own society we do not take the blame for our own shortcomings and behavior. It was either your parents, spouse, teachers, medical condition, whatever that has caused your actions. The same with Iraq. It is the consequence of our Patriotism, Pride, Vengeance, and Arrogance. But that doesn't matter. We have to finish it. We have to at least put Iraq back to almost the way we found it. Not a dictator, not a monarch, maybe not even a democracy, but stable ground. We have past the point of no return. Walking away will only hurt us in the long run. We have enough enemies. We don't need to set ourselves up to go back into Iraq in another decade.

When I got to Iraq, I had never done my job in a tactical environment. No hostile situations, everyone spoke English, and we all shared a similar culture. I don't think there is truly anyway to prepare for conducting Human Intelligence in another country with another culture other than to just do it. You stumble and fall alot. You never quite understand every situations, but you do learn normalises. "Insha 'Allah," or if god wills it, because one of the most hated phrases in the world. It's the go to phrase for Muslim detainees during questioning. It really means if I tell you or don't tell you anything, it's because god made it so, and not that I am a stubborn and irritating sonafbitch!

Deep Breath. Whew! Then Zen and Marble castles in the clouds. Ah. Better.

When I went out, I mostly spoke to women. I would take off my helmet while I was inside the mud homes to show my hair ( it was in a bob and then later I grew enough hair for a bun which I would let down ). This would put the women at ease because they will not confess anything to a male. Well not with out alot of wailing and tears. The sad thing is after so many encounters, you become numb to the tears. It's great when you are there, but when you come back to your world, you don't feel anything. Not when you granny who you loved endlessly dies, not when your husband is stressed, not when you take a sex hiatus for 14 mos, not even when you wish for your life to end.

I'm sorry. I just got really sad.
I think I will end here.

--The most important point is to
accept yourself and stand on
your own two feet.

--Shunryu Suzuki

Yokai Kifujin