Friends

I remember when I was a little boy, my father telling me that if in my entire life I had five good friends that I could consider myself lucky.  I thought that odd at the time partly because there were so many people out there, and from my perspective at the time life seemed so long.  Certainly I would amass hoards of friends over my lifetime.

Today I see that that he was giving insight into my personality, which, to my father was an extension of his.  I, like my father, am deeply private, and at the same time sociably social.  As he predicted, I have dozens and dozens of acquaintances, but less than a handful of people that I call friends.  Maybe my definition of a friend is too narrow.  More likely its that I prefer to interact with people on a one-on-one, deeply personal level, and there are just so many people in your life that you can do that with.

The other day my 8-year old son had his best friend over to the house for a sleep over.  My father's words came to mind and I felt happy that his friend was there, the two of them sharing the latest video game or having a Nerf gun war.  I see myself in my son, as my father saw himself in me.  I'm continually surprised how generations pass...one to the next.

Don't Do It!

A helmet rests on a the handlebars of a San Francisco police motorcycle. Note that the officer secured the helmet with his handcuffs.

There has been a rash of break-ins in our neighborhood lately. People are forcing their way into homes in the late evenings and quickly taking what they can get their hands on. Fortunately no one has been home during these unfortunate events.

I'm disturbed by what I may have to do should we fall victim to a home invasion like this. I've decided that I would let them take whatever they want, but I will not risk for a moment my family's health and safety over the event. Certainly there must be a better way to make a living as a criminal than entering a dark house with an unknown floor plan, and possibly finding an armed, well-trained home owner inside. I can't imagine such a stupid undertaking.

Michelle

Today is my wife's birthday, and I had this shot framed for her office wall. First day of school, an emotional moment for both Mom and son.

Time Management

Triathlon season is going full-force. The immense amount of training is taking up almost all of my free time; what little is left over from working on a 911 ambulance over 40 hours a week. My family is being supportive, seeing me wander into the house after working all night, and then heading off to a scheduled workout. I'm not truly sure why I do this, maybe I need to look deeper into my motivations. It shouldn't be hard to do, I'm not all that complicated.

The Good Thanksgiving

Today is the American holiday Thanksgiving, the traditional day when its celebrants give thanks for the things that they have. The day is normally spent with family, enjoying a large meal, and watching football on the television. We've added another tradition in my family, one designed to pass on the spirit of the day to our almost 5-year old son. Today is the day when he goes through all of his toys and packs up those that he no longer uses to ship off to Goodwill, a charity organization for those who are in greater need.

Five year old boys aren't very keen on parting with their things so its a struggle to get him to put his past treasures in a box to send off to someone else. The struggle is the learning processes here, the realization that someone else in the world isn't lucky enough to have an Optimus Prime robot, and that the plastic toy may bring some other little boy as much joy as it did him. Before long the spirit of the exercise takes hold and my son enthusiastically scours the house for things to give away. It's a good Thanksgiving.

Obsessions

Cross atop an old Spanish mission, shot against a blue Texas sky.

My son recently went through a phase where he was collecting McDonald's Happy Meal Transformer toys. At one point we had to stop into three different restaurants in order to find the ever-elusive 'Optimus Prime', the one that would complete his collection. I wasn't happy with the whole thing, but he was being exceptionally well-behaved, so we didn't mind the extended search. I marked it down as a 4-year old boy's obsession.

Just the other day I was researching the '10 best samurai movies' according to the Amazon.com list. I realized that I owned 9 of them, and the one I didn't have was located at a Barnes and Noble some miles away. Jumping in the car I rushed to find the missing DVD, and called my wife along the way. She quickly pointed out that it's obvious where my son gets his obsessions from. Oooops!

I'm off to the Middle East tonight. Next stop, the United Arab Emirates.

Getting My Life Back

There was a time, long, long ago when I would go on long bike rides, attend back-to-back Aikido classes, or enjoy a leisurely breakfast at Einstein Brothers. It was an idyllic time, full of fun activities and adventures. Then came “child”, and it all came to a screeching fast halt.

Today, for the first time, my wife and I went back into the Aikido dojo, this time with a four-year old in-tow. We rolled and tumbled, teaching the littlest aikidoka, and remembered the old days of endless hours spent on the canvas-covered mats. We both realized this morning that we are slowly getting our life back, this time, however, with the unmitigated joy of being joined by our eager and adventurous son. Long Sunday bike rides, underwater hockey, and more Aikido are just around the corner. Imagine the joy!

What's Dat For?

Today’s a banner day. My three year-old son just now entered into the “What’s dat?” stage. He’s discovered interrogatives, which is now driving him to ask about everything and anything, affording my wife and I the opportunity to explain the entire known universe to him. Joy!

I wonder what the world is like for him, existing without any of the baggage that comes along with learning definitions, purposes, names, etc… A three year-old is a blank slate and happily wonders through life knowing that an apple is good to eat, and that’s about it. He doesn’t care about photosynthesis, organic farming, supply and demand, or migrant labor. It’s just an apple, and he’s happy with that. What a great way to look at the world.

It's Pretty Damn Good

Dozens of different spices adorn a store’s rack.

I remember years ago one night deep in the Panamanian jungle finding my Special Forces Communications Sergeant talking on the radio to his wife back in North Carolina. I was amazed at this and had him explain to me the alchemy of phone patches, amateur radio operators, and HF signals that enabled him to do this. Wow, talking to your family while on deployment!

Fifteen years later I have daily running conversations with my wife, 8,000 miles away. Granted she’s a bit of a techy-geek and is armed with several bright and shiny communication devices at any given time, but the fact remains that it’s not much different than being home and at the office all day. We chat about the normal things that married people talk about, make plans, ask about the day, how are the kids, vent about issues at work. It’s all very normal, but at the same time quite remarkable.

Certainly none of this is a substitute for being there. I know some guys, however, that hook up their web cams every night and chat with their families. Others, me included, send pictures and other multimedia of their day, maintain blogs, make Internet calls, or trade video clips or text messages. You’re limited only by your own lack of effort or knowledge. It’s clearly not a way to run a marriage or raise your children, but it’s a hell of a lot better than it used to be.

Distance and Daddy

Cameraman shoots the rising smoke cloud from a truck bomb in downtown Baghdad

I’m well over halfway through this trip to Iraq. My six-week stints seem embarrassingly minuscule compared to the 15 months that the U.S. soldiers are doing. I spoke with a Peruvian contract guard the other day and asked him how long he had been “in-country”, and he replied that he’d been here a year already. “How much longer do you have to go?” His answer was two…two years.

A lot is reported about the loss of life and limb that occurs here, and the western world is just now hearing about veterans returning home with various stress-related disorders. I believe that the greatest aftermath of this war is yet to be reported; the tens of thousands of broken families as a result of fathers and husbands being deployed away from their homes for so long. The ripple of countless children growing up in single parent households will be felt for two generations or more in the United States.


U.S. soldiers earn a very meager wage, often just a micron above the official poverty level. A great many of them are young, under 22 years old, and have wives, pregnant fiancées, babies and children left behind at the posts where they come from. The difficulties of keeping fledgling marriages together and healthy under normal circumstances are immense. The soldier goes away for over a year and they become insurmountable.

To the military’s credit, it goes to herculean efforts to keep the communications channels open between soldiers and their families, counseling is made available at both ends, spouse support groups are established, all in an effort to save military families. Good intentions and great effort, but I don’t believe that it can succeed in keeping military families together under such dire conditions of prolong separation.

Home

Coming home is always the best. Landing at the airport, Immigration, collecting bags, Customs; none of it ever happens fast enough. That moment of seeing my wife or son for the first time in six weeks. I notice all of the little changes; the smallest details. My son has new words and expressions. My wife bought new sunglasses. Everything is a discovery amide the haze of jet lag. It's always magical coming home.