Dreams (part 2)

I was sad when I left the eye doctor but I quickly realized that being sad was not safe where I was so I pushed the sadness deep down inside of me and wrapped it around my dead dream.  And there it sat.


A year and a half later, I left the Army


8 months after that, Firefly and I got married.


Slowly over that first year, my dream of flying came out of hiding (turns out it was not dead, just scared of being rejected again)


One night Firefly said to me, "If you want to fly, you should fly. Follow your dreams."


I started doing some research and found the old school I had wanted to go to.  Over the next to years I talked to the flight school, a local community college near the school, and the VA department.  I got burned on some flight training here locally but learned a good lesson in the process.


As of now, my dreams are back on track and one day soon, I will be a helicopter and float plane pilot.


Thanks Love for believing in me.

Dreams (part 1)

I want to be a helicopter pilot.  This is my dream.

I remember watching the movie TOP GUN with my family as a child, and I think that is where the seed got planted for me.  Yes, I know Top Gun is about jets but at the very end of the movie when the good guys get shot down, who rescues them?  The guys in the helicopter.  The guy behind the scenes is more my personality.  I loved being a NCO in the Army for that very reason.  I was the guy that got things done while the officers debated the politics.

In 2004 I went to see an eye doctor on our base in Balad, Iraq for an eye exam (the first part of putting together my request to transfer out of my unit and become a pilot).  After about 10 minutes of testing I asked the doc if my eyes were good enough to qualify for flight training.  He pulled the equipment away from my face, looked me in the eyes and said no.  He said no.

With one word, this man killed my dream.  I felt empty inside.  I had the next several years all planned out and this one word ripped those plans out from inside of me.  His answer was not what I expected.

Addictions...round two

I think it is important to stop and take time every so often to check yourself.  One of the things I check is wither or not I have become or am becoming addicted to something.  Back in march I wrote about my addiction to microwaves which led us to get rid of it all together.  (little side note: I am happy to report that I am CURED from this addiction and have no desire to ever own a microwave again.) 

In this post, I want to share about something I just learned I was addicted to...free stuff.  The worst free stuff addiction I have is with alcohol.  It seems that if someone else is paying, I just want to keep drinking.  The good news is that this is not because I am an alcoholic, but rather because I am cheep :)  I love flying Horizon (They run the flight for Alaskan Airlines) from Reno to Seattle because they always serve free wine and beer from local NW vineyards and brewers.  I think I might have had four glasses on one really empty flight once which is a lot with the high altitude.  I'll even drink bad beer if it's free.  Some friends took us out last new years and because they kept buying the drinks, I had more then I should have or would have normally.

Like I said, I am not an alcoholic but because my behavior changes in ways I don't want it to when the drinks are free (i.e. drinking more then I normally would) I do think this is a problem.  My normal rule of thumb is not to have more then two drinks in an evening out or one glass of wine at home.  My NEW rule is to pay for all drinks that Firefly or I drink, no beer and only one glass of wine if at a friends house. This is in addition to the above two drink rule. 

I think it is a good idea to place restrictions on yourself if you feel your own self-control in a certain area needs strengthening.  You should know your own strengths and weaknesses.  If you can't see where you might be weak or weaking, ask those around you to LOVING point it out to you.  And don't get mad at them when they do :)

The other free addiction I have is with piles of free stuff in front of peoples houses.  I just want to load it all up and take it home! I have been pretty good about this and in the last two years have only brought home three items...a bike, a desk, and a rotary phone...all three of which are still in use today.  I only bring home things that will be used immediately and only need a little love.  

So?  What are you addicted to? 

Therapy 101: Part Two

There were about seven or eight of us in the bunker I was in and not one of us really knew what was going on.  We could hear gun fire and see the tracer rounds along the perimeter of the base be we had very little real information.  We knew missiles had been fired at us and that base security was returning small arms fire. 

While the reality of possibly being hit with chemical or biological weapons was heavy on my mind, realizing that I could not defend myself should the base be over run was foremost in my mind.  Yes I had a machine gun.  Yes I was fully trained and ready to use it. But without ammo, it was just a hunk of steal weighing me down.  The scariest part of that night was realizing that I had no control over the situation.  If I lived or died was not only not up to me, there was very little I could do to increase my odds of survival.  The only thing that any of us could do was pray and wait.  

As we sat in that bunker, we understood that we were going to die.  If not in this bunker, or even in this war, then someday.  Some people smoked a last cigarette while others tried to laugh and tell jokes.  What did I do?  I prayed that we would live through the night.  And after that, we all ate and enjoyed the breakfast cereal bars that I had with me.  For the first time in my life, I lived for and in the moment.  The past was forgotten and the future not worried about.

I was a different man when I climbed out of that bunker.  The attack was over and I was still alive.  There was no special feeling of being a survivor or anything like that.  I was alive and that was that, time to head back to the tent and get some sleep.  I didn't realize it at the time but part of me did die that night and that part of me is still lying there dead in that bunker.  But like a sapling growing out of the ash after a forest fire, a new seed inside of me now had room to grow.  I have been sheltering and watering that seed ever since and slowly, it is growing.

I spent almost two years at war and that night was the only time I was ever scared.  I honestly knew no fear during the rest of my time in Iraq.  That was one of the good things that came from that night.  One of the bad things is that I know almost no-one now that I knew then and the relationships that I do still have are strained at best.  Like I said, the old me died that night.

It has been about 6 1/2 years since that night and the growth of new life inside of me is demanding that I let go of this last little patch of dirt I've dedicated to this moment in my life.  Now that I am almost whole again,  I have started to take bigger steps in life.  I feel I can open myself up to the world and I am not afraid to follow my dreams.  Through out the last 6 1/2 years Firefly has been the warmth and sunlight needed to help my heart grow…first as my friend and now as my wife.  Her words of encouragement were and still are like rain to my dry roots.

Honesty

There are many things that I want this blog to be and an outlet is close to the top of the list for me.  Thoughts and feelings fly around in my head all day long and the only way I can process them is to write them down.  Writing them down allows me to look at them from another prospective, to take a step back so to speak.  Also, once I write them down, I am free to leave them there and walk away from them.

I tend to keep my thoughts and feeling to myself.  Other then with Firefly I don't tend to share things because I don't trust people with them.  I guess if I am being honest, I am afraid of being hurt and hurting others.  But here is the best part...people don't have to read this blog if they don't want to.  As for me, I think it will be good to kick open some of the locked doors in my head and open a few windows.

So, here goes.   

Therapy 101, part 1

The plane landed in Kuwait in the late afternoon. The several hour flight from our home in Germany was finally over and had to be the most uncomfortable flight I've ever been on. Imagine being crammed on a cross-Atlantic flight in the dreaded 3,5,3 configuration and having to sit with your knees in your chest for the entire flight. Our weapons and gear were where our feet would go and so our feet had to be on top of it all.

We had to check all pocket knifes but were allowed o take are weapons, including my machine gun, on the plane.  We of course had to run them through an x-ray machine first!

After we landed in Kuwait, we then had to sit on the tarmac for another four hours  (knees still to chest) for a possible bomb to be investigated and removed.  Turns out it was just a suitcase that was somehow left out on the taxi way.

We deplaned and boarded a small, hot 30 person bus for a bus ride through Kuwait city.  I know we were headed to war and all but man, I wish that bus would have at least had padded seats.  I kept dozing of in the heat so I’m not sure how long the bus ride was but I think it was around an hour or so.

It was dark when we arrived at our staging base and had to find a place to bunk down till morning.  We finally found an empty tent and our platoon tied to get some sleep on the dusty bare floor. A short while we were told "the higher ups" had a different tent for us.  It turned out the other tent was on the other side of the camp. We loaded up our ruck sacs, gathered our two duffel bags, gear and weapons and slowly made our way the mile or so to the new tent through the ankle deep moon-like dust. 

Another solider decided he was tired of carrying his gear so he decided to steal a cargo truck so he wouldn't have to walk anymore.  The rest of us seized the chance to also lighten our load and tossed our gear onto the truck as quickly, and quietly as we could.

Almost as soon as we made it to the new tent, the alarms went off and we ran for the nearest bunker. The sirens meant one thing and one thing only....the base was under attack.  Scud missiles had been launched at us and we were helpless to defend ourselves.  If a missile were to hit the base near us, we would be killed.  Death would come either by being gassed or from some sort of biological agent within the missile....