Dear Family and Friends:

Desert Storm

...

The clouds surround the base in a massive, black crescent, the storm like so many others seemingly skirting around us to pound the uninhabited sands of the wasteland.

Near our hooches there's this solitary, uneven and cracked slab of pavement that serves as a basketball court. The hoop has long ago been broken by would-be slam-dunkers. I have never seen anyone play there.

Our staff took us there yesterday to chew our butts for something that was completely beyond our control. One of the Marines got hurt in a convoy-- his vehicle flipped over when he swerved to avoid a civilian car as it recklessly cut him off. The next day he's back with us, but we're hearing words like "there will be no liberty anymore; none of you will drive anywhere... we don't want you getting hurt" etc.

Classic knee jerk, irrational reaction to something beyond our control. Sometimes I want to slap them silly and yell in their faces that if God wanted us dead the next mortar would hit us and then all their stupid, obfuscated, enraging rules and inconsistently enforced standards would be worth nothing more than a pile of... what's left of us.

But tonight I'm too crushed to slap anybody. I don't even find my habitual self-doubt in place. I've spent most of the day feeling the deep and ruinous frustration of this place, of these people. I've cried alone when I thought no one else was around.

The rain is already starting to patter the ground. Vast underground ant colonies pass under my feet as I make my way to the basketball court. The ants scatter at the falling water; they always seem to me like it's the first time they've been wet: their running is manic, their level of organization something I always misapprehend.

I lay down in the middle of the court. I don't even kneel first, or roll down. I just collapse there and the minor pain of the ungiving surface just isn't enough to register with me. It doesn't matter when my heart hurts so bad, when all I can think to say to God is "Jesus help..." inbetween flashes of a pain I don't understand.

I just lay there, repeating myself. I place my boonie cover over my forehead at first, then toss it aside and let the warm little droplets land and slide wherever they want. The drops of rain tickle my closed eyelids. My cammies get soaked, and even though I know that only means I'll be a humid mess later, I don't care. I don't care.

The spear-shafts of lightning are immense. They criss-cross insanely fast accross the length of the crescent before plunging down to smite the earth with their familiar, fearsome roar.

I'm gonna call one of my friends tonight. It's her birthday.

...

Later, still damp.

I wrangle a phone from the masses and I can't wait to implement my plan of many days. I'm going to sing happy birthday over the phone from Kuwait. Tone-deaf over the phone like anybody, and I'm going to do it. The first time I call the operator interrupts and cutts me off just as her voicemail sounds-- wherever this operator is, please miss, stop messing about-- and I have to hang up and dial again. Not a problem if I were in the first world, but I have to rout my calls now, dial obscure locations in the US and have them transfer me. Automated menus, operators paid minimum wage.

I sing to the voicemail. Tone deaf and suddenly self-conscious in a room full of rowdy players, I don't quit. I throw in a blessing and hang up, and sit so no one can see me.

...

On the slab the rain is kind. It is warm, like tears except they don't bring sadness with them, but delicate and profound strength. I have been kissed like this.

...

Real men won't quit when they know it counts.

I borrow Stan's phone card, since mine lost its mind. She picks up. I tell her I'm going to sing happy birthday to her but she giggles-- a little laugh slaps me with a smile even this far away-- and says she just listened to the message. I almost sing again anyway just to show her that no indignity is too base for me to undertake twice on her behalf, but there's other things to say. When phone cards and busy schedules conspire, time is precious.

"I don't turn 29 for another five or six minutes," she says.

I laugh. "Trying to hold on to 28 for all it's worth?"

"Not really. I didn't like 28."

Not like 28? I ask her what she means. Apparently she didn't like 27 either.

"Now hold on," I say. "Near the end of 27 we met, and I'd say that makes it a pretty good year by any stretch!" and I'm already laughing at myself. Already laughing.

I am a conspirator-- if it must be known-- and I conspired with a mutual friend to get her a present. Halfsies gets good when you're both buying for a friend you love enough to get them something that says "people who know my heart and love it bought me this." It's a necklace, not just any old piece, but scandalously beautiful. My favorite ninja picked it out herself.

"I'm going shopping soon to pick out an outfit that I can wear the necklace with," she says.

"oh...." and I'm always in a rush at the end when we talk. It's the exact opposite of being crushed by months of foul speech from ignorant men who hate your bravery and love of life. With calls like this there's an abundance I feel, something that wells up within me. A blessing. I only have a few seconds left and in keeping with my quirky outspoken-mindedness I'm counting down

"Five, four, three, two, and Jesus bless you today. Bye, J."

...

If only there was more rain. This place would be so green.

I wallow there, soaking wet. It's serious this prayer for help. It's all here-- me, that is. Pick through it. Sort by name or number. There's a lot here I see I'm not comfortable with. I can't change it. I need this help. I can't even imagine making a phone call today without this. There isn't anything abundant in me that's worth... I just don't know how to say it.

He doesn't leave me there. His rain, His crescent-shaped storm of darkness and skylit fire. He puts me together, gives me the only gift that really scandalizes, the only thing that's really beautiful enough to share, the one thing that cures the pain instead of just making it stop a while.

His love.

"Go call, son."

...

:D