So close to home

Thanks to Ruthie at synch-ro-ni-zing for this poem.

BECOMING MILTON
by Coleman Barks

Milton, the airport driver, retired now
from trucking, who ferried me
from the Greenville-Spartanburg airport
to Athens last Sunday midnight to 2:30 A.M.,
tells me about his son, Tom, just back
from the Gulf war. "He's at Fort Stewart
with the 102nd Mechanized, the first tank unit
over the line, not a shot fired at them.
His job was to check the Iraqi tanks
that the airstrikes hit, hundreds of them.
The boy had never even come up on a car accident
here at home, twenty-four years old. Can you
imagine what he lifted the lid to find?
Three helmets with heads in them staring
from the floor, and that's just one tank.
He has screaming flashbacks, can't talk about it
anymore. I just told him to be strong
and put it out of his mind. With time,
if you stay strong, those things'll go away.
Or they'd find a bunker, one of those holes
they hid in, and yell something in American,
and wait a minute, and then roll grenades in
and check it and find nineteen freshly killed guys,
some sixty, some fourteen, real thin.
They were just too scared to move.
He feels pretty bad about it, truthfully,
all this yellow ribbon celebrating.
It wasn't a war really. I mean, he says
it was just piles and piles of their bodies.
Some of his friends got sick, started vomiting,
and had to be walked back to the rear.
Looks like to me it could have been worked
some other way. My boy came through OK,
but he won't go back, I'll tell you that.
He's getting out as soon as he can.
First chance comes, he'll be in Greenville
selling cars, or fixing them. He's good at both.
Pretty good carpenter too, you know how I know?
He'll tear the whole thing out if it's not right
and start over. There's some that'll look
at a board that's not flush and say shit,
nail it, but he can't do that, Tom."

Living History

The Upstate History Museum opened an exhibit this morning entitled "Weaving Our Survival: Upcountry Stories of WWII". The exhibit features many oral histories, and my dad is one whose interviews are featured in the exhibit's interactive narration stations. He describes growing up in the Depression, signing up for the war, liberating concentration camps, Dachau, returning home, and how the war changed the course of his life. Of course, the editors had to leave out much of his 2 hour interview, but the portions they used are wonderful. They even used a quote from his interview to highlight on the wall of the exhibit:
"It's like you'd gone to hell, you know. And you had been really."

Adventure Racing

US Cycling Championships

120 professional cyclists on a 115-mile course. They pass so darn fast it's really a challenge to get a good shot (at least it's hard for me, with my camera!)

To walk a mile in his shoes...

Pvt Burgess, USMC

Remember this?


Or this?


Or even this?


We got our first glimpse today of our son, post-boot camp.


I used to nibble on those little ears.

Always appropriate

Bless his heart, Bill struck out a few times in past years on clothes; and we agreed that for a woman, anything with a plug attached to it couldn't count as a "gift". (Though appliances and electronics are often wanted, needed, and appreciated, they don't exactly warm the lover's heart.) So he's found a niche that is always appropriate: jewelry. I've never seen a ring like this before, and he knows that my little artist's heart loves the unusual and handcrafted. The metal on this is anodized titanium. My apologies for the quality of photos....I'm using my cell phone (explanation to follow).

The first day of the rest of his life

All he took with him...a Bible and a toothbrush. And I think they'll issue him another toothbrush.




They gave us a list of what he'll be generally doing in boot camp: exotic things such as Pugil Sticks & NIghttime Rappeling, ominous things such as Innoculations III & Gas Chamber, stuff you'd rather not know about: Chokes & Bayonet Techniques, and even a few things to look forward to: after 11 weeks, Four Hours of "Recruit Liberty", and of course, Graduation.

Man of Iron

Today Bill added to his list of athletic accomplishments the completion of a half-iron man: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, & 13.1 mile run. Mackenzie pointed out that "half iron man" sounds lame, like "copper man" or worse, "rust man". So we need a better name for it, because there's nothing lame about finishing a race like that! All the novices had to wear neon pink swim caps, as he's modeling here....he thinks it's so they could be spotted if they went under! He finished in 7 hours.

Oorah

Can you tell that Gomer Pyle here does NOT want his mom taking his picture?


If they can take that guy, and turn him into this guy...

...then maybe the Marines will be a good thing.
Grayson enlisted today.

Marathon Man

I was totally faking the smile at the airport. I was apprehensive...not that he couldn't make it, but that he was alone with no means to summon help, no one looking out for him, no good 'worst case scenario' plan. Though I've privately cried off my mascara, please note I'm wearing lipstick...no need for him to see me hysterical or anything.



So here he is at the North Rim at 3:30 am, full of piss and vinegar. And adrenaline.



After almost four hours running downhill mostly in the dark for 14 miles, he arrived at the footbridge over the Colorado River. It was a welcome sight. He got off a phone call to me (must have been a landline at Phantom Ranch), to let me know he made it through the night. His voice sounded husky and dry, but upbeat. I felt a lot better knowing that the mountain lions had not eaten him. He did see a bobcat though, along with dozens of deer. And a pterodactyl.

OK, maybe it wasn't a pterodactyl. But it was big.



As seen from above. That's an angry-looking river.



The canyon walls dive straight into the water. For a size comparison, a person would hardly be visible on the rock wall. That's the thing about the canyon...it's so vast, but the scale of it is hard to gauge, and it certainly doesn't ever come through in pictures.




There's not a lot of shade on the switchbacks of the Bright Angel Trail.



You really want to keep focused on the trail. If you don't ... it's a long way down.



He's looking just a little bit deranged, I think. The sun is starting to fry his brain.




Looking back at the route he's travelled. The trail runs inside that gash in front of you, across the canyon.



The last 2 miles were brutal. He was throwing up and of course feeling the effects of heat, fatigue, altitude, jet lag, dehydration... you name it. But he kept going, though his pace was a crawl; he had to stop every hundred yards to rest. This is the sign that greeted him after 11 hours and 45 minutes, at the top of the South Rim.



He reports that it was the hardest thing he's ever done. I knew he could do it. After the stuff he's done adventure racing I felt confident in his ability and preparation. But gosh, it's nice to have him back in one piece!