Good evening,
I'm sitting upstairs in Palacio Loyd, and decided it was high-time to write. I was SUPPOSED to be in pre-departure crew rest today, before flying off to the majestic untamed reaches of Alaska, but some asshole in scheduling decided it's more important for me to be certified in all the nuclear-end-of-the-world shit and be able to fly a plane through a mushroom cloud. I understand how priorities work, and I admit it would be kind of cool knowing the Top Secret inner workings of how the nuclear holocaust is supposed to play out, but I was gonna go hiking in Alaska! Now that has to wait an unknown number of weeks!
Despite the disappointments in scheduling, I'm excited to say I have been flying. I have another 50-somethin' hours down on paper. Yesterday I was to refuel test flights over the Gulf, but the receivers cancelled and we already had 100k of fuel loaded which ruled out patterns at MacDill (or Miami like I initially suggested). We had to fly at least an hour away to burn down to landing weight so I was like "fuck it, let's go to Charleston". So we did. I went over the bridge, I saw the aircraft carrier, and looked at the church steeples poking through the historic parts of the city; all things that I have done dozens of times visiting aunts and cousins, only this time I peaced-out early and was back home in Florida an hour later.
A few days prior to that, on the 26th of April, I had a nice 8.1hr good-deal-Friday mission flying presidential support, which was AMAZING and I can't wait to write about it! Only... Oh, this is awkward... Well, it's just... I can't talk about it. Yeah, I know I joke a lot about how things are classified but I'm not kidding this time. I could've been refueling a flying strip club for the president and I'd still be honor-bound (read: NDA-bound) to keep my lips sealed and you and the rest of the serfdom would have no idea. I will say, I wasn't refueling a flying strip club for Donald Trump (BUT OMG COULD YOU IMAGINE?) Anyway, I still took off from the Sunshine State and went to some undisclosed location and did stuff and was back home in Florida 8 hours later.
A week prior to that I had my first trip! My Dollar Mission! It also happened to coincide with my first time flying in SEVEN months, so many antics were to be had on all fronts. I hesitate to admit that the pranks were lazy at best (a glitter bomb? really? am I twelve? Now my wife has to clean that up.) But while the pranks were lacking the shore excursions were NOT. You see, while on the road the copilot is designated as the "Cruise Director". The AC is always tired of running the show, and officers never trust the enlisted with the entire funness of a trip which rules out the Booms, so the Cruise Director duties go to Co by default.
And cruise-direct I did. We hit real New England breweries in Portsmouth, the Salem Witch Museum, and when I finally got comfortable with my position I delightfully informed the crew at 35,000ft over the North Atlantic on Day 3 that we would be going to New York City next. So we did, and now I've been to New York City. The next day I went to Boston. C'est la vie d'un voyageur. One day I left Tampa, traveled to some new places, and was back home in Florida a week later.
The quick-paced travel can really fuck with the senses of time and space. We're trained from an early age to think the world is so massive that even your relatives a few states over are a distance away from you that's equally high in time and money. Of course the revolution of air travel changed things from the way it used to be, but even still if you want to be in Maine in two hours you need a pretty good reason to justify spending a grand on tickets. For the most part it's putting up the airfare once or twice a year and the rest of the time putting in days-worth of driving. For the average person, Charleston is 10 hours or $600 away from you. New York is 16 hours or $800 away from you. If you live in Texas or Alaska, good luck.
And then there's people like me, people who get paid to fly. Charleston is only an hour away; it's an afternoon escapade in which you can eat your lunch while watching the Ravenel Bridge, which you used to run across as a high schooler, fall beneath wing. It takes twice as long to drive to New York from Maine than it does to fly to Maine from Florida. But to pilots, a day in Manhattan is only one good deal in scheduling, one flight, and one ambitious Cruise Director away. Seeing downtown Boston is as hard as deciding if you'd rather stay in the hotel and watch movies on an off-day, or see downtown Boston.
When I moved to Texas for Pilot Training, I remember seeing the massive windmill farms about halfway between San Antonio and Laughlin. I remember seeing them a few weeks later when we went to SAN for New Years, and the hour and half of driving that separated me from them. Then I had my first flight in the T-6, and it took about 7 minutes to get to the MOA where Captain Jones ripped us into a cloverleaf, I remember looking up (down) through the canopy, and seeing the same windmill farm.
I'll leave you with the tale of TUDEP. Everyday when we flew out of New England, we'd go halfway across the Atlantic and catch a flight of F-15s coming home. Each flight was long, in fact we could've landed in Europe in less time than it took to go halfway and come back to New England due to winds. Each day we started the oceanic portion of our journey heading east and picking up our path of Lat-Longs that told Gander when and where we'd be as we did our work outside of radar coverage, and then we'd come back. About half of the days that point started or ended at TUDEP.
The first time we did this, as I was in the cockpit alone loading the flight plan while the AC was doing the walk-around and the boom was preflighting the APU, I realized something as I punched in "T-U-D-E-P" into the FMS. I had been there before! Not only that, but I was extremely familiar with the place.
TUDEP is a GPS waypoint about 100 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia. Because of the way the winds flow and the great-circle geography of Europe and America, this waypoint is one of the several starting or ending points of the aerial highway across the Atlantic. Due to it's importance in transatlantic travel and my passion for everything-flying in high school and college, for a while I've known quite a lot about this waypoint. I know more about this point in space than I do some countries. It's at about 51°10' North and 53°14' West. It's commonly used as both the starting point for the easterly tracks, and the ending point for the westerly tracks. Hundreds of planes fly over this spot on Earth everyday using it as a standard routing. And I've been there more than once, even before becoming a pilot, most recently on a plane to Switzerland while in college.
And from the cockpit of a KC-135, I visited TUDEP again. I looked out the window at the endless range of sea, clouds, and icebergs; the same view I saw many years ago. A few hours later after turning around I saw it again. I've been to TUDEP, a landless and random yet traceable point in space over Earth's surface, more times than I have been to New York City. And on the last day of the trip, I passed over 51°10'N 53°14'W again, for probably the ninth or tenth time in my life, and was back home in Florida a few hours later.
Until next time...
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Dear me,
Decker,
Control is a desirable thing. Whether it's using a conversation as it's a helm at the bridge to control what's being said, whether it's manipulating your way into the more favorable assignments at work, or simply deciding what to eat in the middle of the night, control is something I very much enjoy having. Because of this, I don't understand how I spent the past short part of my life letting something control me.
Knowledge is another desirable thing. And in the quest to know everything until you actually do know everything, but can't always remember it all in the same point in time, I've come to realize there are things that are not desirable to know. Like how it feels to be arrested, or if I'm smart enough to actually get away with absolutely everything. I just don't care to know.
I've been crying for days. I've been drinking for weeks. But for some reason, some odd circumstance arose as I laid awake at 5:00 in the morning: it's time. It's time to write a letter to myself. It's time to change.
I haven't done this in a while. I honestly think the last time I wrote a letter to myself was in high school was when Marissa stopped texting me back, and months later I found out it was because she was grounded. Isn't that strange? I got so broken and down and out of the fight that I sat and write a letter to yourself, something to look back to, something to cling to as you fight for life in the bitter world we call our own. And then, in six months, you go back to it. You read the letter you wrote, and realize how stupid this shit is. She was GROUNDED, of course she didn't text you back. There was just information in the world that you didn't happen to know at the time that would've walked you off the ledge had you known.
I've been listening to a lot of music lately. I know that military training has the tendency to do that, but this time it feels different. It's a lot of Phill Collin's music by the title of "that's all" and "I don't care anymore." I scream the lyrics from my car; I want people to hear it. "Oh it's just a shame, and that's all."
But in a day, maybe it was the sleeping pills, maybe it was my will to survive, I can't tell; but one night the music went from "Oh it's such a shame" and "I don't care anymore", to "it's time to move on" and "lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you." I broke down crying, maybe at the transition, maybe at the new lyrics. But maybe now it's time to forget how to play on piano "that's all", and learn "fix you."
Maybe now it's time to eat. Maybe it's time to sleep. Maybe it's time to fix my entire world that I inadvertently destroyed. It won't take a day, it won't take a week. But it's time. Time to fix me.
I can do it. I've done it before. I've done RIDICULOUS shit before. I've landed planes in thunderstorms and 50kt winds. I've graduated an engineering school where we were tested on how electrons move through semiconductors. I've done pilot training - OVER A YEAR OF IT. I've been fucking tortured. Let that soak in. I, W Decker Loyd, have been tortured. So why let this feel worse?
So I will definitely fly again. The Air Force will understand the hiccups along the way. I've been trained in acute communication, I know what to say if they don't quite understand. But motherfucker, I will fly again.
The sun is coming up. Slim blue light is starting to gloss over my pool and pond. Soon the sandhill cranes and blue herons will wake up and make their presence known. Soon Cessna's, British Airways triple sevens, and KC-135's alike will be flying overhead. My house isn't going anywhere. My wife isn't going anywhere. My wings aren't going anywhere.
You aren't losing anything. Just the time it takes to heal. And then, when it's all done, when you read this very letter in how ever long it is, and chuckle over A) how poorly written it was and B) how unnecessary it was; you'll pack up your flight bag, flight suit up, and fly across the world.
And life will be good again, as it always has been.
Control is a desirable thing. Whether it's using a conversation as it's a helm at the bridge to control what's being said, whether it's manipulating your way into the more favorable assignments at work, or simply deciding what to eat in the middle of the night, control is something I very much enjoy having. Because of this, I don't understand how I spent the past short part of my life letting something control me.
Knowledge is another desirable thing. And in the quest to know everything until you actually do know everything, but can't always remember it all in the same point in time, I've come to realize there are things that are not desirable to know. Like how it feels to be arrested, or if I'm smart enough to actually get away with absolutely everything. I just don't care to know.
I've been crying for days. I've been drinking for weeks. But for some reason, some odd circumstance arose as I laid awake at 5:00 in the morning: it's time. It's time to write a letter to myself. It's time to change.
I haven't done this in a while. I honestly think the last time I wrote a letter to myself was in high school was when Marissa stopped texting me back, and months later I found out it was because she was grounded. Isn't that strange? I got so broken and down and out of the fight that I sat and write a letter to yourself, something to look back to, something to cling to as you fight for life in the bitter world we call our own. And then, in six months, you go back to it. You read the letter you wrote, and realize how stupid this shit is. She was GROUNDED, of course she didn't text you back. There was just information in the world that you didn't happen to know at the time that would've walked you off the ledge had you known.
I've been listening to a lot of music lately. I know that military training has the tendency to do that, but this time it feels different. It's a lot of Phill Collin's music by the title of "that's all" and "I don't care anymore." I scream the lyrics from my car; I want people to hear it. "Oh it's just a shame, and that's all."
But in a day, maybe it was the sleeping pills, maybe it was my will to survive, I can't tell; but one night the music went from "Oh it's such a shame" and "I don't care anymore", to "it's time to move on" and "lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, and I will try to fix you." I broke down crying, maybe at the transition, maybe at the new lyrics. But maybe now it's time to forget how to play on piano "that's all", and learn "fix you."
Maybe now it's time to eat. Maybe it's time to sleep. Maybe it's time to fix my entire world that I inadvertently destroyed. It won't take a day, it won't take a week. But it's time. Time to fix me.
I can do it. I've done it before. I've done RIDICULOUS shit before. I've landed planes in thunderstorms and 50kt winds. I've graduated an engineering school where we were tested on how electrons move through semiconductors. I've done pilot training - OVER A YEAR OF IT. I've been fucking tortured. Let that soak in. I, W Decker Loyd, have been tortured. So why let this feel worse?
So I will definitely fly again. The Air Force will understand the hiccups along the way. I've been trained in acute communication, I know what to say if they don't quite understand. But motherfucker, I will fly again.
The sun is coming up. Slim blue light is starting to gloss over my pool and pond. Soon the sandhill cranes and blue herons will wake up and make their presence known. Soon Cessna's, British Airways triple sevens, and KC-135's alike will be flying overhead. My house isn't going anywhere. My wife isn't going anywhere. My wings aren't going anywhere.
You aren't losing anything. Just the time it takes to heal. And then, when it's all done, when you read this very letter in how ever long it is, and chuckle over A) how poorly written it was and B) how unnecessary it was; you'll pack up your flight bag, flight suit up, and fly across the world.
And life will be good again, as it always has been.
Monday, February 4, 2019
My Fucking Awesome Life
Her side:
"I’m currently writing this because I don’t want to say something I can’t take back and regret later. Decker had barely been home from SERE for 12 hours when his dad told him that his mom’s cancer was back. Right now I’m so upset I don’t know if I should cry or scream - currently doing both.
He was so down and depressed before SERE and came home actually happy. He told me SERE was the perfect reset for him. He finally felt normal again. I’m heartbroken and fuming mad that he couldn’t even enjoy that for A DAY!
I want to ask his dad what the fuck is wrong with him or, if I’m toning it down, ask why he couldn’t let him have just one day at home. They don’t even have any details yet, so why the fuck would they spring this on him right when he gets back.
Today was supposed to be a relaxed movie day. We were so excited to watch Red Sparrow and other movies and Decker would tell me what was and wasn’t realistic, but now he’s driving around alone and I’m here trying to talk myself off the ledge. Seriously, we couldn’t even have one fucking day, what the actual fuck is wrong with his parents. Not even one day. That is so fucking ridiculous.
Who in their right mind thinks, “he’s been tortured and had the worst few weeks of his life, let’s tell him some news that will destroy him”? Seriously. This news destroyed him last time and they know it. He couldn’t have ONE FUCKING DAY. I’m pissed. NOT. EVEN. ONE. FUCKING. DAY. “Oh hey, Karen and Decker have their reunion day to relax together and enjoy him being home. Hmmm, yea, fuck that, let’s crush him.”
Don’t get me wrong, I know they’re not being malicious by any means, but this just seems like a horrible judgement call.
The last time his mom had cancer was the worst time for our marriage. Decker has said before that his biggest regret in life was how he treated me while his mom was sick. That pain was still lingering with him before he left for SERE as he told me one night when he was upset. I wish I was stronger back then and I wish I could’ve helped him more. I’m worried this time that I won’t be strong enough again."
My side:
I'm currently sitting shirtless in the sun, on the pool deck of my Florida home that I worked so hard to attain. I'm listening to the same music that got me through SERE. I'm tanning. I got pale in Washington and we can't have that.
But I'm manically depressed.
There are six Florida condors circling my pool. I love them, like all birds. They are free but endangered; fake nests are erected along I-95 to keep them alive. They are beautiful. So why the fuck am I crying and shaking in a pool lounge looking at them.
It's been on my bucketlist since middle school: trouble in paradise. To be absolutely miserable in a place people go to escape misery. I think it's been checked off one too many times.
So what do I do? I've texted my boss, gotten myself off the schedule, so I'm good right? I'll just sit by the pool and tan until everything is better. Temporary solutions to permanent problems.
Apollo's son, or daughter, is in the pond next to me. I didn't know he had a family. I'm happy for him. I hope no one gets cancer.
My palm trees are still alive. The majesty palm is struggling but I might just replace it. Or should I nurse it to health? These are the questions that now embody my spirit. Unfortunately.
Am I replaceable? Or have I reached the budget point where I'm worth more damaged and flying than not? We shall find out.
My parents didn't ask for cancer. They didn't beg for it to fuck with me. Yet here we are. They told me one day too early for Karen. Was that one day too early for me? I don't think so. There is no day in which that is the right time to disclose that information.
I could've been at SERE, it could've been a week from now. And I would be destroyed. That is the nature of it. Destruction. It takes a lot to destroy a human being. It's easier to kill than destroy, Killing is quick, take out an artery, a blow to the head, suffocation. To destroy is much more involved. You have to figure out what that being latches onto, and slowly and efficiently destroy that. And then a human is alive, and destroyed.
But does that describe me? I'm in Florida while the rest of the country freezes to death. I could be at the beach in five minutes. Who could be so fucked up to which this isn't enough?
Me. I am fucked up. I am destroyed. Universe help me.
I could've been at SERE, it could've been a week from now. And I would be destroyed. That is the nature of it. Destruction. It takes a lot to destroy a human being. It's easier to kill than destroy, Killing is quick, take out an artery, a blow to the head, suffocation. To destroy is much more involved. You have to figure out what that being latches onto, and slowly and efficiently destroy that. And then a human is alive, and destroyed.
But does that describe me? I'm in Florida while the rest of the country freezes to death. I could be at the beach in five minutes. Who could be so fucked up to which this isn't enough?
Me. I am fucked up. I am destroyed. Universe help me.
Friday, February 1, 2019
Dear Mom
Good evening,
I went to the beach today. I drove my blacked out sports car down 41, weaving through tourists with my favorite music playing. I walked barefoot on the sand, down to my spot next to the breakers, and I sat. I saw a plane overhead that wasn't commercial traffic, it was clearly a 135 in MacDill's pattern. "Watching one of our own, tearing up the pattern over Tampa Bay, Florida, as I watch from the sand. Nothing gets better," I thought.
I had visualized this moment for four weeks, I even wrote about it: "the end". I slept through many cold nights and endured plenty worse with the thought that on February 1st, 2019, I would be on a beach watching my friends fly above me. It's a beautiful feeling, one that I'd hoped would cling to me as I endured my time in Washington.
But for an entire month, that feeling was robbed of me. The feeling of "the end" has no shortcuts. The psychologists told us, "when you're in pain and misery, just visualize that beach, or that ski slope, or that spouse you cling to, the mind will allow you to escape." I found that to be a lie. When I was going into shock from the ice water, I had not a single neuron left in my brain to think about Karen, the beach, or warmth. Thought's very rapidly turn to survival. What is it? What can I do right now, to get me out of this fucking coffin, and eventually home. That's what the brain resorts to: the ultimate end. Survival, so you can enjoy everything you love, in health, one day in the future.
Dad told me about your situation. The bleakness of potentially doing chemo again covers us all in the family, running a marathon and being told to run another. I'll tell you what dad told me after being tortured: I don't and can't understand what it feels like, the emotions, despair, anger, the questions. But I get it. I get emotions. I get despair. I get anger. I have questions that are never answered. There are a lot of things that we can't control, can't know. God does, but we aren't God. We are simply here at the poker table of life, with the cards we've been dealt.
Another thing the psychologists told us, which was not a lie, that I really latched onto, is that, and I can't emphasize this enough, "IT. WILL. END." The thing I figured out early on, perhaps the biggest secret in tough military training, is that that ending is by your own accord. That is the one piece of control you get in life. At SERE we had a safeword. "Flight Surgeon." If I ever said that word, at any point in training, everything would have stopped and a SERE psychologists would've snowmobiled into my location, and at that point, I could've S.I.E'd, self induced elimination. The military acronym for quit. I could've just quit, and it all would've been over. But had I done it, that day would've been the last day I wore my wings, a fate to me worse than death.
When I was in a coffin being showered with ice water, I knew I could force myself to stop shivering, and let my body go unconscious. I knew the Air Force regulations, once I conk out training is done, I get rushed to the hospital. I could end it, rather quickly. But had I done that, I will have lost consciousness without a blow to the head, which is a precursor to epilepsy, migraines, all sorts of potential complications. My medical clearance would've been in jeopardy. It may have been the last day I wore my wings. So I stayed awake, and endured.
I knew I had just a hair of control over my situation. I could quit, and be done with my career and life, or I could take one more miserable step. This conversation in my head was a broken record for eight days. But the only logical, emotional, rational choice, is to take another step - one step closer to the end. That is the only option. Yes, you have a choice, but only one makes sense. You can't quit on yourself, on your family, on your God, you take one more miserable step towards the end. And as long as that step is on course, the end will come.
Mom, you obviously don't have incredibly intense military training ahead of you where they bend your emotions to a breaking point. You're in a very different boat altogether. But the psychological tensions are the same. "I have a lot of shit ahead of me, and I don't even know how much. I don't know if I can handle it." It's a position of despair and fear. But you have an advantage, you know how this works. You know how kidney stints work (if it comes to it), you know when to eat the brownie and when it's futile. Just like I'm trained to make a real world experience as a POW more comfortable, you have the experience, which always trumps training, to make chemo livable, survivable, enough to get through this.
I remember how awful it was seeing you in chemo. And after watching 15 adults cry over me being iced, when I turned out fine emotionally (relatively), I'm convinced that not only is the dread worse than the deed, but going through it is not the hard part. Having your loved ones look over you is the hard part. And your husband and I are mentally and emotionally the strongest people you know, believe me. We've seen some shit. We will be by your side, unwavering like the American Flag through the snowfall. We will be fine. We just want you to be fine.
And considering the circumstances; considering you left your home in Utah because you wanted a better life which lead to us, considering the strength and bond of our family that will never leave you, considering you raised me to be a superhuman, getting through engineering, pilot training, SERE, and considering that you are the toughest of all of us because, shit, you've done this before; you will be fine. You will get to the sacred "end".
There is nothing worse than having your health or freedom taken from you. You and I have experienced both. It sucks. It really fucking sucks. But until you forget that God has planned an ending to this chapter, where Karen and I visit for Christmas and drink bourbon around the fire because we're freezing; until you forget that your husband is by you thick and thin with great health insurance, desperate to go to fucking North Dakota for some reason, and until you forget that the son you raised will continue to succeed in everything he loves and wanted in life and calls you each weekend...
You will reach the end.
And then you will be forced to go to North Dakota. And I can't help you there.
I went to the beach today. I drove my blacked out sports car down 41, weaving through tourists with my favorite music playing. I walked barefoot on the sand, down to my spot next to the breakers, and I sat. I saw a plane overhead that wasn't commercial traffic, it was clearly a 135 in MacDill's pattern. "Watching one of our own, tearing up the pattern over Tampa Bay, Florida, as I watch from the sand. Nothing gets better," I thought.
I had visualized this moment for four weeks, I even wrote about it: "the end". I slept through many cold nights and endured plenty worse with the thought that on February 1st, 2019, I would be on a beach watching my friends fly above me. It's a beautiful feeling, one that I'd hoped would cling to me as I endured my time in Washington.
But for an entire month, that feeling was robbed of me. The feeling of "the end" has no shortcuts. The psychologists told us, "when you're in pain and misery, just visualize that beach, or that ski slope, or that spouse you cling to, the mind will allow you to escape." I found that to be a lie. When I was going into shock from the ice water, I had not a single neuron left in my brain to think about Karen, the beach, or warmth. Thought's very rapidly turn to survival. What is it? What can I do right now, to get me out of this fucking coffin, and eventually home. That's what the brain resorts to: the ultimate end. Survival, so you can enjoy everything you love, in health, one day in the future.
Dad told me about your situation. The bleakness of potentially doing chemo again covers us all in the family, running a marathon and being told to run another. I'll tell you what dad told me after being tortured: I don't and can't understand what it feels like, the emotions, despair, anger, the questions. But I get it. I get emotions. I get despair. I get anger. I have questions that are never answered. There are a lot of things that we can't control, can't know. God does, but we aren't God. We are simply here at the poker table of life, with the cards we've been dealt.
Another thing the psychologists told us, which was not a lie, that I really latched onto, is that, and I can't emphasize this enough, "IT. WILL. END." The thing I figured out early on, perhaps the biggest secret in tough military training, is that that ending is by your own accord. That is the one piece of control you get in life. At SERE we had a safeword. "Flight Surgeon." If I ever said that word, at any point in training, everything would have stopped and a SERE psychologists would've snowmobiled into my location, and at that point, I could've S.I.E'd, self induced elimination. The military acronym for quit. I could've just quit, and it all would've been over. But had I done it, that day would've been the last day I wore my wings, a fate to me worse than death.
When I was in a coffin being showered with ice water, I knew I could force myself to stop shivering, and let my body go unconscious. I knew the Air Force regulations, once I conk out training is done, I get rushed to the hospital. I could end it, rather quickly. But had I done that, I will have lost consciousness without a blow to the head, which is a precursor to epilepsy, migraines, all sorts of potential complications. My medical clearance would've been in jeopardy. It may have been the last day I wore my wings. So I stayed awake, and endured.
I knew I had just a hair of control over my situation. I could quit, and be done with my career and life, or I could take one more miserable step. This conversation in my head was a broken record for eight days. But the only logical, emotional, rational choice, is to take another step - one step closer to the end. That is the only option. Yes, you have a choice, but only one makes sense. You can't quit on yourself, on your family, on your God, you take one more miserable step towards the end. And as long as that step is on course, the end will come.
Mom, you obviously don't have incredibly intense military training ahead of you where they bend your emotions to a breaking point. You're in a very different boat altogether. But the psychological tensions are the same. "I have a lot of shit ahead of me, and I don't even know how much. I don't know if I can handle it." It's a position of despair and fear. But you have an advantage, you know how this works. You know how kidney stints work (if it comes to it), you know when to eat the brownie and when it's futile. Just like I'm trained to make a real world experience as a POW more comfortable, you have the experience, which always trumps training, to make chemo livable, survivable, enough to get through this.
I remember how awful it was seeing you in chemo. And after watching 15 adults cry over me being iced, when I turned out fine emotionally (relatively), I'm convinced that not only is the dread worse than the deed, but going through it is not the hard part. Having your loved ones look over you is the hard part. And your husband and I are mentally and emotionally the strongest people you know, believe me. We've seen some shit. We will be by your side, unwavering like the American Flag through the snowfall. We will be fine. We just want you to be fine.
And considering the circumstances; considering you left your home in Utah because you wanted a better life which lead to us, considering the strength and bond of our family that will never leave you, considering you raised me to be a superhuman, getting through engineering, pilot training, SERE, and considering that you are the toughest of all of us because, shit, you've done this before; you will be fine. You will get to the sacred "end".
There is nothing worse than having your health or freedom taken from you. You and I have experienced both. It sucks. It really fucking sucks. But until you forget that God has planned an ending to this chapter, where Karen and I visit for Christmas and drink bourbon around the fire because we're freezing; until you forget that your husband is by you thick and thin with great health insurance, desperate to go to fucking North Dakota for some reason, and until you forget that the son you raised will continue to succeed in everything he loves and wanted in life and calls you each weekend...
You will reach the end.
And then you will be forced to go to North Dakota. And I can't help you there.
A Salute to the Limnadian Flag
Good evening,
I have a story to share. Please don't tell anyone, it's not classified but the emotional response to the theatrics is what they don't want to get out because it cements a lot that you learn here, which spoils it for future students. You'll see why. The reason I'm sharing with you, is that you're one of the few people I know who would ever come close to understanding; I really wish I could share with Grandpa, but can't. They say sharing little tidbits here and there with close family who can comprehend is helpful, so this is what I've chosen to share.
So we're POW's, still getting beaten and abused by the Limnadians (the fake communist country that's captured us). I estimate it's about 8pm, probably ten hours since getting iced. I'm still shivering and convulsing. We're pretty broken. We're in our cold little huts together and they're trying to force propaganda or something and we're slowly resisting but breaking down steadily. Snow continues to pour outside. We're trying to get our guard to build us a fire, but every time we ask we get hit.
Then air raid sirens go off. That means the chief commandant is going to address us as a whole group, all 82 of us. We huddle outside to the courtyard, into our lines, in the "position of utmost respect to the comrades". Snow is dumping, it's piling down my neck, getting into my gloves; still convulsing, can barely stand upright. The "glorious commandant" addresses us with more mind games and threats and propaganda. Guards are going through the lines hitting people that aren't standing respectfully enough. It's about as low and broken as we could get. They won. Game over. We'll do what you want.
Then when the leader was done with his speech, he told us, "Now each and every one of you will salute the beautiful Limnadian flag to our beautiful anthem, and that salute will pay respects to our glorious country while denouncing your faith in America. And whoever doesn't will be taken away and beaten senseless. Nod if you understand." 82 airmen nod.
"Present, ARMS." All the guards start saluting the flag behind us. A long drumroll starts over the loudspeakers. I don't remember exactly what I thought, but it was along the lines of. "Whatever, not doing it, don't care, I'm done." I peaked around, and realized not a single person out of 82 people were saluting. The drumroll continued. I could see on every person's face, a deep and sincere "FUCK. YOU." being spoken through narrowed eyes. No more submission or broken posture, just "fuck these sadistic assholes and their flag."
82 American servicemembers and every single one of them came to the conclusion ON THEIR OWN, 'I will not salute my captors flag and anthem.' No matter how broken, how cold, how apparently compliant by that point, 82 people took the "fuck you" option, independently.
Then the drumroll started slowing, and I noticed something. The Limnadian salute was very different, palms forward, toes together etc, but all the guards were rendering American salutes, perfect salutes, feet at 45 degrees. We all realize something is off. The drumroll stopped. The United States Anthem started playing. We still don't know what's going on, just kind of frozen in our "fuck you" stances. One airmen up front figured it out, about faced, and gave an American Salute. We all followed suit.
A giant American storm flag was flying from the flag pole that had a Limnadian flag flying a few minutes prior, they changed it without us realizing. There're four spotlights illuminating it, glinting through the heavy snow. I stopped shivering, I stopped feeling cold, hungry, in pain. I stood upright for the first time in 8 hours and held that salute. The anthem ended and we about faced away from the flag. The guards were gone, they disappeared during the anthem, now a Col is in the guard tower.
He says, "Everyone say the key element of the United States of America is freedom, but almost every single person who says that has never had their freedom taken from them. You have now had the unreal experience of losing your freedom. But if you ever lose your freedom again, remember that that flag and anthem exists, and America will get you back home, and freedom will be restored. Never forget the emotions you are feeling right now, because this is the reason you do what you do."
I've read and heard from so many veterans that at some point, in training or real world, it clicks. The deep emotions tied to pride overflow, and after that you feel like you can do anything. I can't write about it to the caliber of it all, but seeing dozens of Air Force officers and airmen, some only 18 years old, all decide at the same exact point in time, "okay I don't fucking care if you beat me, this is where I draw the line, your country's a malicious piece of shit that tortures people, and I'm simply not doing it." It was amazing, and what's crazy is that is what happens with every single class going through, every single week. Then to see the American flag through the snowfall, and hear your anthem, ohhhhhh it puts the Super Bowl flyby to shame.
On another note, our psych debriefing was sobering. They had the three people that got iced (I thought it was only me and someone else, but there was a third. That made me so furious, the odds were 3 in 82 and us three lost. Something about knowing the exact odds really pissed me off emotionally but I can't figure out why.) Anyway they had the three people that got iced share their experience, so I did. "Yeah it fucking sucked." Then they had the thirty some odd people that were forced to watch come up and talk about it, and that's when it became surprising. People were crying, couldn't talk about it, it was all so complex it seemed, their emotions over having to watch it were far far worse than those who went through it. I was totally floored by people choked up over having to watch little ole me get hosed in ice water. I had no idea the extent of how hard it was for them watching. Then I started getting survivor's guilt, over having getting tortured! Psychology is weird.
So anyways, it's all over now. Now I can play blackjack with the boys and decompress. I just have to get through the three weeks that your brain essentially withdrawals from adrenaline and cortisol. But one thing that was made so blatantly unequivocal these three weeks is something I already knew, but it wasn't cemented, it had no emotion prove the gravity of the reality:
The United States Military is the absolute best in the world.
Friday, January 18, 2019
Secrets Secrets are no fun
Good evening. I'm still in fucking Washington. I really miss my nice house and pool and pond and birds and beaches in Florida. But, I'm here for a reason, and that reason is to learn how to do cool shit. I'm used to doing cool shit, and learning how to do it; my career is filled with learning how to do cool shit. But this is different. This is classified.
I've always been intrigued by classified information. The public knows one thing, and reality is something else on the other side of the room. Everyone flooding Facebook and Twitter with opinions on what they think is reality, may just be touting an illusion. And knowing what's on the other side of that illusion is pure euphoria.
I've always said there are three things in life to pursue: money, fame, and power. I've never cared much for fame, I prefer anonymity minus the people I'm in a room with. Power is an interesting concept, the ability to control things and affect peoples lives from a thousand miles away; but it doesn't suit me either--why would I want to affect peoples lives? Money... now that's just a toy, something to play with. I like having something to play with, and thus money has always been my key pursuit.
But since joining the military and having the gravity of my job and life rain down on me like ash unto Pompeii, I've come to discover a fourth pursuit: knowledge. Knowledge, not education or intelligence per se, is understanding what is around you, the world we live in, the universe, the truth. If we assume that it is impossible to know everything there is to know, and further that only your God or the Universe would be able to do so, then we can draw the conclusion that the more one knows, in truth, in reality, the closer one becomes to that Universe. Knowing of the reality is a syncing device. It is putting you one step above every single person who does not know. And the more you know, and the less they know, the higher you become.
Think back to your teenage years, in High School. There is no knowledge of any importance in the institution of school until a teacher sleeps with a student. Despite this, the knowledge feels important. Which secret parties are being planned? Who's taking Xanax before class? Why did Whitney and Spencer break up? None of this matters, no one should care. But we do. We spent four years fighting each other for every bit of information that has no meaning. Why waste the energy? I believe it's because understanding reality is a substantial human need, a pursuit. We are curious beings but I'm determined it goes further than that. Knowing why Whitney dumped her boyfriend while other people don't puts you in a position above the public. You now see more of the universe than the person next to you, no matter how trivial.
Move on to college. Fraternities and Sororities have secret mantras and handshakes that are absolutely valueless. No one can do anything with that information, yet the secrets are developed and kept. And at a point, it seems, maturity steps in to rationalize and most of the meaningless bits of undisclosed rumors and secrets become a thing of the past, high school drama, a part of your college experience. You move on to staying politically and globally informed via CNN and NBC; that becomes the knowledge you intake, and for some reason it satisfies most thinking they read a breaking headline five minutes before Fox aired it.
And this is where I believe I separate from the average individual--it's not enough. If information is on T.V, then the public knows it. It's out and archived for the night shows and Netflix documentaries, and it will never go back in.
Enter classified information. Information that the government or NATO has deemed too dangerous for the public to know. How far can the missiles in Syria hit a target? How many times has China entered Guam's airspace in the past 6 months? What can we launch from Diego Garcia? What were Osama bin Laden's last words? These are all questions the public doesn't even think to ask. You can't ask what you don't know, and you can't know because it's secret. The public broils in their celebrity gossip, their political scandals, their State of the Union, but none of it is complete and exposed reality. They see a press release that's tailored to the suppressed truth, and the public tweets their polarized opinions on a topic of which they aren't even aware they know nothing about. A blockbuster movie is made on the topic, filled with inconsistencies and guesswork; and then the public tweets about the movie. A Wikipedia page is erected with mainstream academic sources and taken as fact.
And then, in a classified briefing room with my phone sitting alone in my room, I learn the truth. I become graced with a simple, intangible delight: reality.
I've always been intrigued by classified information. The public knows one thing, and reality is something else on the other side of the room. Everyone flooding Facebook and Twitter with opinions on what they think is reality, may just be touting an illusion. And knowing what's on the other side of that illusion is pure euphoria.
I've always said there are three things in life to pursue: money, fame, and power. I've never cared much for fame, I prefer anonymity minus the people I'm in a room with. Power is an interesting concept, the ability to control things and affect peoples lives from a thousand miles away; but it doesn't suit me either--why would I want to affect peoples lives? Money... now that's just a toy, something to play with. I like having something to play with, and thus money has always been my key pursuit.
But since joining the military and having the gravity of my job and life rain down on me like ash unto Pompeii, I've come to discover a fourth pursuit: knowledge. Knowledge, not education or intelligence per se, is understanding what is around you, the world we live in, the universe, the truth. If we assume that it is impossible to know everything there is to know, and further that only your God or the Universe would be able to do so, then we can draw the conclusion that the more one knows, in truth, in reality, the closer one becomes to that Universe. Knowing of the reality is a syncing device. It is putting you one step above every single person who does not know. And the more you know, and the less they know, the higher you become.
Think back to your teenage years, in High School. There is no knowledge of any importance in the institution of school until a teacher sleeps with a student. Despite this, the knowledge feels important. Which secret parties are being planned? Who's taking Xanax before class? Why did Whitney and Spencer break up? None of this matters, no one should care. But we do. We spent four years fighting each other for every bit of information that has no meaning. Why waste the energy? I believe it's because understanding reality is a substantial human need, a pursuit. We are curious beings but I'm determined it goes further than that. Knowing why Whitney dumped her boyfriend while other people don't puts you in a position above the public. You now see more of the universe than the person next to you, no matter how trivial.
Move on to college. Fraternities and Sororities have secret mantras and handshakes that are absolutely valueless. No one can do anything with that information, yet the secrets are developed and kept. And at a point, it seems, maturity steps in to rationalize and most of the meaningless bits of undisclosed rumors and secrets become a thing of the past, high school drama, a part of your college experience. You move on to staying politically and globally informed via CNN and NBC; that becomes the knowledge you intake, and for some reason it satisfies most thinking they read a breaking headline five minutes before Fox aired it.
And this is where I believe I separate from the average individual--it's not enough. If information is on T.V, then the public knows it. It's out and archived for the night shows and Netflix documentaries, and it will never go back in.
Enter classified information. Information that the government or NATO has deemed too dangerous for the public to know. How far can the missiles in Syria hit a target? How many times has China entered Guam's airspace in the past 6 months? What can we launch from Diego Garcia? What were Osama bin Laden's last words? These are all questions the public doesn't even think to ask. You can't ask what you don't know, and you can't know because it's secret. The public broils in their celebrity gossip, their political scandals, their State of the Union, but none of it is complete and exposed reality. They see a press release that's tailored to the suppressed truth, and the public tweets their polarized opinions on a topic of which they aren't even aware they know nothing about. A blockbuster movie is made on the topic, filled with inconsistencies and guesswork; and then the public tweets about the movie. A Wikipedia page is erected with mainstream academic sources and taken as fact.
And then, in a classified briefing room with my phone sitting alone in my room, I learn the truth. I become graced with a simple, intangible delight: reality.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Five Days in Narnia
Good evening. With great misfortune I have found myself in the Pacific Northwest, Spokane to be exact. The Air Force has deemed it necessary that I learn how to survive, evade, resist, and escape from whatever gets thrown at me. Consequentially, it has also deemed it necessary to make completely sure I learned a thing or two and am actually be able to survive. How do they test that, you ask? BY DUMPING YOU IN THE FUCKING WOODS FOR FIVE DAYS WITH THREE MEALS.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't explode like that. It's not that I don't like being tested, especially mentally, it's just I'm not a fan of the cold. And it's fucking January...in the Colville National Forest. It is far too cold outside and cold is not for me.
So there I was [no shit!], snowshoes bound to my boots, 50-some-odd-fucking-pounds of survival shit in our little backpacks (HALF OF WHICH WE NEVER USED, AIRMEN MOORE [excuse me again]), and miles upon miles upon miles of walking. Walking in 10ft of snow I might add, in snowshoes (ahem, that makes walking harder).
When the temperature never gets above -5°C, you simply never get warm; until you have to climb some dumb fucking ridgeline, which makes you sweat through all your layers, and then within a few moments you're back to being frigid. The sweat will freeze. The warmth will never come; your food, your water, your clothes in the morning and a night, it's always cold. The only thing that isn't cold, is fire. But it's so cold beyond the fire, you tend to want to get up close to the fire, and that melts your glove. Your situation is now worse.
Or maybe it's at night, and you're sleeping on the snow in some mil-grade arctic sleeping bag. You think, "oy! Handwarmers will do the trick, warm up my core eh?" So you grab them, open them up, shake them out, and throw them to your chest. Then you think, "well, I'm up and moving and likely dehydrated, I should drink some colder-than-ice-water." You roll over, take a swig, roll back, and the handwarmers are gone. Where did they go? They must be in the sleeping bag, they couldnt' have gotten out, right? But you're feeling around and can't find them! Maybe they did slip out; now you're feeling around the snow, hands going numb, desperate to find those fucking handwarmers that you just opened up because you're already hypothermic. But alas, they are gone. You give up looking for them. You just burned two handwarmers, a ton of energy, and now your hands are wet and numb. Your situation is now worse.
Or maybe the sun has just set, and the group is around the fire drying all their shit. All you've had to eat was a fucking chicken pot pie MRE entree at 7:00 that morning. It is now 5:00 in the evening. You've spent the past 8 hours walking through the snowy peaks. You are hungry. But not the type of hunger that sets in a half hour before lunch. This is the type of hunger that sailors in the 1600s would experience when they drifted too far off the Cape of Good Hope. You can't focus. You're stomach is in pain. You're fantasizing about the simplest forms of food: a banana—oooh, a sandwich—oh man, a slice of cheese—even that would cut it. You're joking around with the guys in your group, maybe fifteen minutes goes by, and BOOM: hunger pang. You feel it, cramping, pissing itself, you feel it all the way up in your lungs. You remember reading once that nicotine is an appetite suppressant. Wait, we have cigarettes! You light it up and suck it down and all is well for the moment. Your feet and hands go numb from the carbon monoxide, and you cough a bit. Your situation now? Arguably worse, but you are no longer hungry. Strike it up as a W... for another 45 minutes.
When you're not sitting still thinking about how cold you are, you're walking with 50lbs on your back thinking about how cold you are. Every step is laborious. Two steps go by, "are we there yet?" No. Of course not. It's only 8:15. Ten steps go by, "now?". Nope, still 8:15. Twelve steps go by and as you attempt to let your mind wander your snowshoe gets caught in a branch. "FUCK!" Face-plant. Buried in the snow to your hips. Are you able to get up? Let's find out. You push forward to propel yourself up. Your hands just fall through the deep, deep snow. Now you're even deeper. You try to roll over, but your pack won't let you. You think for a second, then use every muscle in your back and abdomen to snake yourself upright. You're out. You assess the damage. The obvious: snow inside your layers, that'll be a problem. And uh, oh... blood. Fucking branch. Where's it coming from? Who cares. Keep walking. Thirteen steps. 8:16.
But the beautiful thing I found, is from where motivations stems: the end. Survival is paramount on the end. Whether it's a steep hill, a long day, a five day exercise in the woods, a month of training, or any misery for any amount of time; and ending to each exists. It is over at a certain point. It may not be twelve steps, it may be 5,300 steps. Each day I had a central idea to focus on: after 5,300 or however many steps, we will arrive at our camp. The end of a days walk. We will set up our shitty little poncho tents while Airmen Moore builds us a fire. Then we'll debrief for a bit as the sun sets and by nightfall we'll be on our own to dry our clothes, relax, and go to bed.
This three hour period became a ritual of enjoyment. I can be warm. My clothes can be dry. We can all have a cigarette or two and not feel hungry. We can joke. We can sing. We can get to know each other. I'm an element leader, being a senior ranking officer and all (rank = privilege + responsibility + a hotel room - sleep). I tried to keep morale up, especially around the fire. "Boys, I think we're in Narnia.... and upon initial observation, Narnia's pretty shitty." Some call it 'embracing the suck'. I call it being honest about a situation with a dash of humor (WE'RE IN THE SHIT NOW BOYS, SMOKE 'EM IF YA GOT 'EM!) But to think that three hours out of every 24 being the only semblance of enjoyment... well, it's bleak. As is survival.
So I'm done now. I got my boys out of there successfully without capture. I'm back at Fairchild enjoying a bourbon and a warm hotel room. I survived in the winter woods for 5 days. I woke up this morning and my piss was still brown, my knuckles still bloody, and I still get hungry if I don't eat a slice of pizza every hour. But I'm now where we talked about, the core of all motivation. I am there, existing, right now:
The End.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't explode like that. It's not that I don't like being tested, especially mentally, it's just I'm not a fan of the cold. And it's fucking January...in the Colville National Forest. It is far too cold outside and cold is not for me.
So there I was [no shit!], snowshoes bound to my boots, 50-some-odd-fucking-pounds of survival shit in our little backpacks (HALF OF WHICH WE NEVER USED, AIRMEN MOORE [excuse me again]), and miles upon miles upon miles of walking. Walking in 10ft of snow I might add, in snowshoes (ahem, that makes walking harder).
When the temperature never gets above -5°C, you simply never get warm; until you have to climb some dumb fucking ridgeline, which makes you sweat through all your layers, and then within a few moments you're back to being frigid. The sweat will freeze. The warmth will never come; your food, your water, your clothes in the morning and a night, it's always cold. The only thing that isn't cold, is fire. But it's so cold beyond the fire, you tend to want to get up close to the fire, and that melts your glove. Your situation is now worse.
Or maybe it's at night, and you're sleeping on the snow in some mil-grade arctic sleeping bag. You think, "oy! Handwarmers will do the trick, warm up my core eh?" So you grab them, open them up, shake them out, and throw them to your chest. Then you think, "well, I'm up and moving and likely dehydrated, I should drink some colder-than-ice-water." You roll over, take a swig, roll back, and the handwarmers are gone. Where did they go? They must be in the sleeping bag, they couldnt' have gotten out, right? But you're feeling around and can't find them! Maybe they did slip out; now you're feeling around the snow, hands going numb, desperate to find those fucking handwarmers that you just opened up because you're already hypothermic. But alas, they are gone. You give up looking for them. You just burned two handwarmers, a ton of energy, and now your hands are wet and numb. Your situation is now worse.
Or maybe the sun has just set, and the group is around the fire drying all their shit. All you've had to eat was a fucking chicken pot pie MRE entree at 7:00 that morning. It is now 5:00 in the evening. You've spent the past 8 hours walking through the snowy peaks. You are hungry. But not the type of hunger that sets in a half hour before lunch. This is the type of hunger that sailors in the 1600s would experience when they drifted too far off the Cape of Good Hope. You can't focus. You're stomach is in pain. You're fantasizing about the simplest forms of food: a banana—oooh, a sandwich—oh man, a slice of cheese—even that would cut it. You're joking around with the guys in your group, maybe fifteen minutes goes by, and BOOM: hunger pang. You feel it, cramping, pissing itself, you feel it all the way up in your lungs. You remember reading once that nicotine is an appetite suppressant. Wait, we have cigarettes! You light it up and suck it down and all is well for the moment. Your feet and hands go numb from the carbon monoxide, and you cough a bit. Your situation now? Arguably worse, but you are no longer hungry. Strike it up as a W... for another 45 minutes.
When you're not sitting still thinking about how cold you are, you're walking with 50lbs on your back thinking about how cold you are. Every step is laborious. Two steps go by, "are we there yet?" No. Of course not. It's only 8:15. Ten steps go by, "now?". Nope, still 8:15. Twelve steps go by and as you attempt to let your mind wander your snowshoe gets caught in a branch. "FUCK!" Face-plant. Buried in the snow to your hips. Are you able to get up? Let's find out. You push forward to propel yourself up. Your hands just fall through the deep, deep snow. Now you're even deeper. You try to roll over, but your pack won't let you. You think for a second, then use every muscle in your back and abdomen to snake yourself upright. You're out. You assess the damage. The obvious: snow inside your layers, that'll be a problem. And uh, oh... blood. Fucking branch. Where's it coming from? Who cares. Keep walking. Thirteen steps. 8:16.
But the beautiful thing I found, is from where motivations stems: the end. Survival is paramount on the end. Whether it's a steep hill, a long day, a five day exercise in the woods, a month of training, or any misery for any amount of time; and ending to each exists. It is over at a certain point. It may not be twelve steps, it may be 5,300 steps. Each day I had a central idea to focus on: after 5,300 or however many steps, we will arrive at our camp. The end of a days walk. We will set up our shitty little poncho tents while Airmen Moore builds us a fire. Then we'll debrief for a bit as the sun sets and by nightfall we'll be on our own to dry our clothes, relax, and go to bed.
This three hour period became a ritual of enjoyment. I can be warm. My clothes can be dry. We can all have a cigarette or two and not feel hungry. We can joke. We can sing. We can get to know each other. I'm an element leader, being a senior ranking officer and all (rank = privilege + responsibility + a hotel room - sleep). I tried to keep morale up, especially around the fire. "Boys, I think we're in Narnia.... and upon initial observation, Narnia's pretty shitty." Some call it 'embracing the suck'. I call it being honest about a situation with a dash of humor (WE'RE IN THE SHIT NOW BOYS, SMOKE 'EM IF YA GOT 'EM!) But to think that three hours out of every 24 being the only semblance of enjoyment... well, it's bleak. As is survival.
So I'm done now. I got my boys out of there successfully without capture. I'm back at Fairchild enjoying a bourbon and a warm hotel room. I survived in the winter woods for 5 days. I woke up this morning and my piss was still brown, my knuckles still bloody, and I still get hungry if I don't eat a slice of pizza every hour. But I'm now where we talked about, the core of all motivation. I am there, existing, right now:
The End.
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