3

I don't think the kid realized he nearly died.

We were standing there in a giant mob, and we needed to smoke.  Smoking isn't only about chemical addiction, it's about control.  If I were to ask the powers that be for food, they'd tell me wait for meal time, if I ask for sleep, they'll tell me when I bed down, but if I look at them with a crazed and hungry look and ask where the smoking area is, they know they have only moments to acquiesce to my demands or die.  

Back in the States, I had headed out an hour before the flight to smoke... I had to exit security, leave the terminal, and sacrifice a small animal for this to happen.  Pigeon in hand, I walked towards the exit, only to be told by the TSA worker that I wasn't allowed to leave.  Now, I'll fuck with a bunch of people, because there's very little in the way of consequences right now that the military can inflict upon me without involving a lawyer.  But, I did realize this guys was TSA, and they're the new badasses of government sectors: be you an Air Force pilot or Navy Seal or Congressman, they're going to make you take your shoes off and let them take X-ray pictures of your junk.  So when the TSA guy told me I couldn't leave, I nodded meekly and went back to my seat.

End result?  Ten hours smoke free.  And we get herded into a holding room, and the one-striper who is trying to bring order to our chaos tells us to be quiet three times, and he'll "in-brief us when he's ready."  So we wait, and wait, trying to figure out what is more important than getting the sweet sweet nicotine into our veins.  Finally, after 15 minutes, he speaks.

"Hi, this is Airman Snuffy.  Welcome to Germany.  Your plane leaves in two and a half hours.  Please take 15 minutes, and then return to your seats.  There is no smoking in the terminal.  Thank you."

At this point, Airman Snuffy may only have moments to live.  Airman Snuffy is suddenly verbally accosted, surrounded, and told on no uncertain terms that we are going out to smoke, and if it takes to long he will hold the gate or we sacrifice him to Marlboro and smoke his ashes.

Half of us are intimidating Snuffy, the other half are searching frantically for a way out.  There appear to be no exits to this room... we came from the skyway, all the doors are locked.  Panic begins to seep in, followed by a steely determination.  We must escape.  We must.

"Where's the way out!" demands the crowd.  It is at this point Snuffy's poor mind works.  He stammers impotently, the situation has gotten out of control.

"Where's the way out," we demand again.  Snuffy searches frantically through his book.  It has two pages in the binder, both in document protectors, one of which is the speech he just gave in big block letters.  He looks at us with desperation.

"I don't know?"

"You don't know?"  I push my way through to the edge of the crowd.  "You don't know how to get out?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know if you don't know how to get out?  How did you get in here?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know how you got in here?  Have you lived here all your life?  Have you never left?"

"I don't know..."

At this point the mob has pushed past him and is on the skyway.  We stalk through the terminal, the finest minds of our generation searching for an angry fix.  The exit is found, the information disperse rapidly throughout the crowd.

And Snuffy gets to live another day, to perhaps refine and improve his briefing.

2

I’m pretty sure the first soldier to listen to the radio in the trenches a hundred years ago thought it was a pretty nifty idea.

I’m 32 and I’m going to war for the first time.  Only that’s bullshit, because I’ve been doing this for years, and I really should use quotation marks around “war.”  Maybe capitalize it, or use italics.  Because there’s war, and there’s War, and the two are kind of different.

Because if I were to ask a bunch of people to define war, I could probably get a decent definition.  It’s what happens when you take a bunch of people from one place and put them in another place, and then they kill the people there and the people there try to kill them right back.  But in this sense, it’s so much more.  Because it’s not like a fight you get into at a bar.  This sort of war is a process… it’s logistics and intelligence and computer support and hamburgers.  And I know how to do my little part in it, which up until a couple of months ago was hauling cargo bigger than a breadbox over a large body of water, over and over and over again.  

The other kind I know nothing about, because I’m a cargo pilot, and our stories are a little different than War.  Because in War, shit happens dramatically.  It’s like a  movie with more blood and the screaming doesn’t stop.  That stuff happens, but it hasn’t really happened to me.

So, there’s this disconnect between the two, and it makes it fucking surreal.

The only thing that stops people from losing their sanity the first time some one-striper rests his weapon against his leg to check facebook on his iPhone is the fact that everyone is more pissed about the wireless not working.  If your grandfather was heaving over the side of the liberty ship bound for Britain seventy years ago, today you’re watching Transformers on you 747.  Right now, I’m in a tent wearing dog tags, and the two things I’m most thankful for are the hot water in the showers and the power to charge my MacBook while I blog.

I’m 32 and I’ve done this hundred times and never before.  I’ve moved cargo all over the world, and have been doing it for the better part of a decade, but I’ve never sat down next to someone as a passenger and a troop and headed off to the Middle East.  We were always off in our own little world, and when we stopped, we went to our rooms and unpacked.  Here, it’s a transient tent city.  We take what space we can get, and everyone expands to fill it.  And because of that, I never needed to think about everything we carry.  Laptops.  Porn.  iPods. Sports Illustrated and the Economist.  Whiteboards (really, this guy was a little weird).  This isn’t the stuff in the prop department for the World War II movie.  At least the loofa the guy brought to the shower wasn’t.

Forensics is all about the fact that when two surfaces make contact, they both leave part of themselves on the other surface.  I’m pretty sure the oddities I’m encountering are thousands of years old; some Greek guy brought figs to Troy, and everyone thought that was a decent idea.  I kind of think that war is a bunch of things you do, and while combat is a unique thing I don’t feel qualified to write about, the majority of the tasks are  kind of mundane.  And when you’re not doing them, you bring stuff with you, and you get those things all over the war your fighting.

1

So, the thing to say when someone’s heading off to war is “God bless you,” or “We’ll be praying for you,” or “Jesus will make sure you kill those dirty terrorists before they kill you.”  This seriously freaks me out.

The scariest thing in the world to me is prayer, because the best case scenario is that it does absolutely nothing for me.  I’m a filthy, dirty atheist, and if there is an Almighty, I’m pretty sure he’s pissed at me for that entire make-out session outside the Academy Chapel about a decade ago.  I’d never repent (hey, she was hot… everyone’s damnation should look so good) because a) I don’t believe in God, b) if he is there, I kind of want to stay under the radar.

So best case, nobody’s up there.  But let say there is.  God is up there doing whatever it is God does (I don’t know, miracles, locusts, what have you).  He’s not blissfully ignorant of me, but he’s not really paying attention… I’m not high up on his list of things to do.  But… then there’s my mother-in-law, who has some sort of direct line connection to him.  I imagine the conversation might go something like this:

M-i-L: “Um, Jesus?”

Jesus: “B!  What’s up!  Did you get that sunshine I sent you.”

M-i-L: “Oh yes, it was lovely.  And thank you for burying New York in snow last week.  It was a very nice touch.”

Jesus: “I do what I can.  What’s on your mind?”

M-i-L: “Well, my Son-in-Law is going to Afghanistan…”

Jesus: “No prob, I handle these all the time.  This is Mongo right? I’ll just… oh, wait.”

M-i-L: “What is it it?”

Jesus: “Did you know about the USAFA Chapel incident of 2000?”

M-i-L: “He came to Church?”

Jesus: “Um, so to speak…”  (mumbles to himself) “I’ve been meaning to do something about that one…”

You see, if there’s one thing I learned in the Air Force, it’s that it’s never good to have your bosses attention.  I can only imagine what it would be like to have God’s attention.  Only I don’t need to imagine… he wants us to know.

Abraham - See Isaac

Isaac - Chained to a rock by Dad.

Job - Trope namer

Lot - Not that bad, when you consider salt was a pretty valuable commodity

Lot’s Daughters - Hint: Bible Tales usually takes off a couple paragraphs from the end of Genesis 19. 

John - See Jesus

Paul - See Jesus

Andrew - See Jesus (he even got a cross named after him)

Jesus - Did you see what he did to his son!  He even crucified all his friends.  Messed up.

As you can see, being an atheist is kind of like not having your homework done because you know there’s a substitute teacher that day… the last thing I need is the eggheads reminding the sub about the book report due.

This isn’t even the worst case scenario.  Worst case, Jesus goes to his Dad and Dad is already in there talking to Mohammed.

God: “I told you, Mo, I’m not killing anymore infidels today.”

Mo: “Come on, my guys are praying like five times a day, and JC’s dudes only show up on Sunday.

God: “Look, I told you, you got Mecca, he got hung on a tree.  You could have taken the tree deal, you know.”

Jesus: “Wait, Dad!”

God: “How’s it going, son?”

Jesus: “Pretty good.  I got an idea that will make us both happy.  Remember that Chapel Incident?”