William Eaton's Last Stand

I never thought I'd say this...

2008-03-02T02:02:00.002-05:00

First off, let me reiterate that these are not the views of the US Army nor the US Government. In fact, though I'm not qualified to state them (nor should it be presumed that I'm stating in my aside the actual views of the Army or the Government), the views of the Army and Federal Government are probably something along the lines of "while I'm strongly encouraged to vote and take part in our electoral process, I (as a Soldier) do not have any views... Especially in public."

Now, as I was saying:

Seriously people; we're a nation at war. Be it a 'just war' or not [be it front page news or not], the blood your sons and daughters is being shed in foreign lands and the fate of our very way of life hangs in the balance...

Grow up.

To the three or four of you who're keeping track:

2007-09-03T09:15:00.001-05:00

It's been a long time, I know. Do to the nature of my life at the moment, it will probably be a long time again before you hear much from me. This is just a quick little update and then I have to get back to the business at hand.

Since I last posted, I completed Army Basic Training and have been at my "Advanced Individual Training" ever since. Some of you are possibly looking at the dates here and thinking "that's a long time to be at AIT" but I've managed to land myself in one of those MOS's that have a really long school. As long as I don't come out of training for any reason, I should graduate sometime in December.

I can't say too much about what I'm up to right now. Obviously, I'm training but other than that, I don't think it's too bright of an idea for me to be more specific. In terms of domestic and international politics, a lot has changed since I signed my enlistment contract and I believe they'll change a lot more in the coming months. With that in mind, though, I still believe that there are some things happening in the world today which are utterly reprehensible and I'm glad to be in a position to help do something positive about it.

I miss my family, I miss my friends. I'm "eager" to get out of Initial Entry Training and into "the real Army." I've also never been happier in my life. There's a few other things besides the Army going on right now to contribute to that but never in my 27 years on this Earth has it been easier for me to stand tall. I've sacrificed plenty and I'll certainly sacrifice more in time apart from my loved ones spent in places I'd really rather not be but it's not without its rewards. I love my job. I'll love it a lot more when I'm doing it for real.

I hope you all are doing well and until I can start posting again, I wish you the best.

Woah.

2006-10-01T20:25:00.000-05:00

Friday, I received a package in the mail from my grandmother.

In it was a letter explaining what it was that I had just been given and the gift itself; my great-uncle's bible which he had carried all through his service in World War II:

Inside it can be seen my uncle's name and serial number and my great grandfather's name – each in their own handwriting.

I'm not sure exactly how to articulate my reaction to this little link to my family history, but it's really quite something.

In other news [expressed as abrupt, incomplete thoughts], I'm off to basic training on Thursday; this will probably be my last posting for the next two months or so.

Take care, y'all; I'll catch you 'round.

The toughest part is never what you think it's going to be

2006-09-04T19:29:00.000-05:00

"I don't need your social love"
-Mia Zapata

I thought the hardest part of deciding to enlist in the Army would be telling my girlfriend, my parents and my friends. True to my predictions, Jess' and my mom's reactions were absolutely heart-wrenching; my father coped somewhat "more constructively" by inviting me to a weekend-long shooting workshop he and some friends put on every year (he's a firearms instructor with the Vermont State Police) and giving me a baseball cap with Old Glory on the front and "INFIDEL" on the back. So far, my friends have been completely supportive (a pattern I really don't expect to change – I make a point of not surrounding myself with people who won't be there for me).

It hurts like Hell that [probably after the holidays] I'll be leaving these people and seeing very little of them for quite some time, but the fact is that if it weren't for their love and their dedication to me, I wouldn't have to faith in this country or the hope for humanity to be doing this. Indeed, I think the part of me that is enlisting to protect my fellow citizen got its biggest shot in the arm this July when two of my closet friends (people I consider family much more than I consider them friends) were married. I remember standing there at my station as Best Man, about shitting myself with pride and thinking "this is it, this is everything in humanity worth protecting."

But another, much more unexpected (and outright infuriating) pattern is emerging; infantilization.

In truth, I really shouldn't be surprised – I've seen the likes of Christopher Hitchens comment on it but always about the media's treatment of troops, never in the case of peer-to-peer relations. It never occurred to me that from one day to another I could be transformed from an intelligent, informed twenty six year old man into a fucking child in the regards of people who've known or worked with me in one capacity or another for years.

Maybe it's because I was prepared for them, but my girlfriends' tears were easier for me to bear than my desire to punch some of these bastards right in the teeth. I guess the "lesson" here is that while all, I'm sure, are genuinely concerned for me, I'm now finding out who respects me and who never did.

However, on a much more refreshing note, I've found the vets I've talked to leading up to this decision and since making it to be amongst the most helpful people I've talked with. No bullshit, honest advice and always an eye towards helping me out.

Now, this is a pattern I hope continues.

Never thought I'd do it, but I've finally emailed NPR

2006-08-31T19:11:00.000-05:00

I don't know why it is, but I can never properly begin a letter. Even on a day like today when I've spent countless hours in deep thought, made a tremendous, life-changing decision and have lost track of my attempts at finding a moment of mental peace in which to say what it is I need to say, I'm still left with a flood of disorganized information and commentary.

So please bear with me a bit, I'm going to do my best to make this worth your while.

NPR has served as an invaluable source of information for me since I was in high school. It has also been agonizing for me to listen to because I so frequently feel inclined to call in but can never break away from work to do so. Today has been a classic example but I'm sitting down and forcing myself to write this because today I've decided that I'm going to enlist in the Army. I don't expect to change anyone's opinions, but I do feel a need to say my piece before I'm too busy acting on my decision to make time to write anything which remotely resembles this.

What I'm specifically addressing is the discussion I heard today on Talk of the Nation, Robert Paxton's take on the term "Islamofascism" and the reactions expressed to President Bush's recent public statements on the war in Iraq – how all of these topics converge almost a century ago with one man: Amin Al-Husseini.

In 1917, Husseini returned to his birthplace of Jerusalem fresh from his active participation in the Armenian Genocide and set to work fomenting what is today the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He incited riots against Palestine's Jews, he murdered and intimidated secular Muslims and Islamic clerics who stood up for what one of your guests today referred to as "the true nature of Islam." By the start of the second world war, Husseini had allied himself with Hitler and was even able to raise a Muslim division of the SS.

During the course of World War II, Amin Al-Husseini advocated the extermination of Germany's Jews (rather than their exportation), and as the commander of Muslim troops in Bosnia ordered the deaths of 22,000 Jews, 40,000 Gypsies and 200,000 Orthodox Christian Serbs.

After the war, Husseini helped found the Arab League and lived out the latter days of his life in Egypt.

In Amin Al-Husseini was born both the Wahhabist radical Islam we see expressed in al Queda and the Pan-Arab nationalism of (as an example) today's Ba'athists. Take a moment to examine the rhetoric of either movement and Husseini's ideological fingerprints quickly flood to the forefront; brutal authoritarianism, racism (often expressed to the extreme of genocide) and Arab/Islamist nationalism.

So, first, to Mr. Paxton, I would offer Dictionary.com's definition of "fascism:"

1. a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

2. the philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.

3. a fascist movement, esp. the one established by Mussolini in Italy 1922–43.

While, obviously, the full spectrum of terrorist organizations we confront today is far more complicated and nuanced than any of us have time to discuss, how does the above definition NOT apply to al Queda or Ba'athism? So, how is one necessarily incorrect in applying the term "Islamofascism" (especially in light of definition three)?

Secondly, I recall Osama Siblani inviting us all to debate and to look past the recent kidnapping of Israeli soldiers and to what Israel has done in the past five or ten years. Well, I have to ask him to look back 90+ years and to how an Arab created this entire conflict out of his own fanaticism and bigotry. Why should we in this nation and this world hold Israel accountable when an Arab started this entire mess?

Ultimately, I'm not here to cast blame. Past a certain point, it's stupid and wasteful to hold others to blame for misdeeds which have long vanished into the past. We all have our weaknesses and we all can think back to times when we have wronged others. More importantly, we all have the option to take a moment of self-examination and change from the wrong path to a better one.

I ask all of you... what are you for? What are you against?

Not just in the simplistic terms of "the war" or "Bush" but in your fundamental values.

Are you for Democracy or against it? Should the genders be equal under the law or not? Do you like having your choice of religion or would you like it mandated to you? Do you think your (or anybody else's) race is reason enough for your massacre or do you think would-be killers needs a better justification than that? Is the intentional killing or endangerment of non-combatants EVER justified?

I've answered all these questions for myself and I find I have no choice but decide that I will stand against Iraq's insurgency, I'll stand against al Queda and I'll stand against anybody else who declares themselves the enemy of this nation.

It's not that I think we're flawless (we are, after all, as human as they come), but I have to look at everything I think is right and how Pacifism as failed to accomplish ANY of it in the face of determined authoritarianism and I can only conclude that it's time for me to fight.

Peace to you all.

America: We're fucked

2006-06-08T20:31:00.000-05:00

[Cross-post; originally "published" 4/29/06]

Recently, I had stopped at an older friends' house after I had gotten out of work to discover that his granddaughter was there. I paid little mind to her once I had my bike parked (running over people's grandchildren with your motorcycle is not only a great way to scratch your paint, but also to lose friends) as she and her cousin were very busily running behind the house to play out there.

I made my way inside and began discussing various pressing issues with my friend (meaning that we bullshitted about not much of anything while half watching TV) and after a while, said granddaughter's mother showed up to bring her back home. When she [the granddaughter] nosed into my friend's office to say goodbye, he asked how school was going.

She informed him that it was going well and that she was looking forward to Cosmetology class tomorrow.

She is a fourth grader.

It is at this point that I am forced to confront a few horrifying observations that my brain had thus far been successfully repressing: Her hair is teased out to a ridiculous volume, her faced is caked with enough makeup to make her look like a tiny mannequin and she sounds like Moon Unit Zappa's inspiration for the song "Valley Girl" whenever she talks.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not some hyper-traditional chauvinist asshole who thinks that young girls should be denied the cosmetic trappings we unconsciously associate with sexual maturity until they're married or something. (By the way, this Cosmetology class is ONLY open for girls, therefore reenforcing a multitude of sexist stereotypes. Hurrah for public education!)

However, in this case two concerns do arise in my mind:

1. Isn't childhood and the relative innocence and happiness that comes with it short enough as it is without slamming the truckload of image-driven insecurity and BULLSHIT of our teenage years into gear and dumping the clutch at age nine?

2. My tax dollars fucking PAY for this shit?

I mean, come on... teaching young girls how to do makeup as part of their public school education is like teaching sixth grade boys how to masturbate -- fuckin' redundant and above all, wasteful.

Sure, the outset of both learning processes can be messy and [potentially] garishly embarrassing, however, it is something that everybody figures out on their own just fine.

Right now, our schools are turning out waves of progressively ignorant middle managers and service industry fodder, inept at everything but whining and strictly materialistic pursuits. They can't do math, know dick about the Scientific Method, nothing of history and our Art and Music programs are falling apart for a total lack of funding. Meanwhile, the more developed of the world's developing nations are boiling with hungry young men and women who are being shipped off to learn science and engineering from the best universities in the world and then take that knowledge home with them where they apply it with spectacular results. The world's industrial and technological center is shifting from the United States to Central Asia and we're too busy channel surfing to even notice or care.

It's not that I begrudge, say, Pakistan for getting ahead in the world -- I believe in human equality and that we're all entitled to a fair shot at the best life we can make for ourselves. However, we as a nation can only stand to lose out from this if we just let it happen with not even a whimper of competitive spirit. We're content to sit here and squander our prosperity while the next generation of innovators arises somewhere else.

It's not that tomorrow we'll wake up and everything will be gone, but the way things are going right now, in twenty or thirty years we're apt to be an impoverished technological backwater; a fate that awaits all nations at one point or another, but JESUS FUCK, WE'RE LETTING IT HAPPEN.

So, here's what I'm thinking: I'm going to move my ass to India and get a job at a call center -- I won't make much by American standards and I'll spend a lot of time praying that neither India or Pakistan decide to push the button, but I'll be doing purty good by local standards and I'll have my foot in the door well before the rest of you jackasses are emigrating around the world to try take a bite out of the _____________ dream.