One Trick Pony

So my Christmas present from my sister arrived the other day, and as soon as it arrived I ripped the package open and there they were, the two Mark Helprin novels that I had yet to read.It was pretty late that night already and it was going to be a busy week, but I had duty on Friday so I decided that I would wait till then, and then during the 12 hours that I would have been twiddling my thumbs on post, I would devote to reading, first, Refiner’s Fire, and then Memoir from Antproof Case.

So friday rolls around, I wake up, put my cammies on, grab my book and head down to the duty desk. I sit down, mentally prep myself for duty, (I have to remind myself where it is I am answering the phone from, before I sit down to do anything else, otherwise my autopilot will just use whatever the last stored entry was) and then open Refiner’s Fire. I can’t presume to speak for anyone else, but personally, when I open a book, there’s no fanfare, nothing special, no moment where I crack my mental knuckles and think, reading, yes, lets get this done. No, I just open the book, turn to the appropriate page, and begin. Maybe everyone launches into reading the same way, but hey, I haven’t really asked around.

Refiners Fire opens much like Helprin’s, in my opinion, greatest novel, A Soldier of the Great War. Description of a scene, his prose a vivid paintbrush bringing alive colours, spreading a broad, sweeping vista before you. It matters not that he is describing the interior of a helicopter, or the narrow, twisting streets of Rome, or an oppressive jungle. When Helprin writes everything becomes open, illuminated by his words. Ok, maybe describing a scene isn’t such an original way to open a novel, you think to yourself, you’re not going to have very much success as a writer if you don’t describe things, I’m not really sure how you’d write at all really. You could put down random disjointed thoughts, describing nothing, simply stating random unconnected facts. Unfortunately in todays economic climate there’s not much demand for tech writers (I’m unsure of that joke, are tech writer’s really fodder for comedy? Is that even a description of tech writer’s work?). Regardless any novelist worth his salt must open with a description, upon that we are agreed. But Helprin isn’t just painting you a landscape, he’s populating it with a character, one who may not have much time left and is going to use that time to reminisce about the life he has led. I use reminisce for lack of a something better, it is more a reliving, a re experiencing of every moment lived.

Both Soldier and Refiner’s open similarly, a dieing, or at least near death, man begins to relive his life, and when I realized this, I began to think that maybe, for all that I loved his language, his vivid descriptions of all he writes on, Mark Helprin was a one trick pony, selling us the same story in a different skin, new descriptions, old plotline. After all, most of his books focus on a strong, independent, male protagonist, one who, over the course of the book will invariably come into contact with, and love multiple women, always themselves beautiful and unconventional,  in that while strong, intelligent and independent they completely lack any resemblance to that whining image of the modern feminist. All his protagonists will have wide and varied experiences, conquering the wild, capturing cities (not to capture as in take, as in siege, but capture as in become wholly comfortable with, to feel in the city as if it is your natural hunting ground), climbing mountains and flying aircraft. His characters will interact with each other in the most whimsical fashion possible, absurd comedy springing from the most mudane places, comedy springing not from the central characters, but from their interactions with an assortment of insane bit players, who crash through the pages of the novel like a bear with a hat several sizes to small making his through a small child’s birthday party. And then there’s the supernatural, not present as some sort of deus ex machina, some solution to an otherwise impossible problem, but simply present. Not that it never plays a part in the story, the supernatural is the driving element of A City in Winter after all, but present in that he writes of the supernatural as if it is the natural, not mundane, never mundane, but expected. The supernatural is not beyond the scope of his character’s imaginations, they understand not all is meant to be understood.

And all his writing has these elements. And for one moment, just one mind you, disappointment swelled within, the writer over all others was simply a one trick pony. And then just as quickly as it came, it was gone, and to abuse an already overused saying, the scales fell from my eyes. The reason his writing is so easily distinguishable, so unique and distinct, and containing so many similar elements, is because he writes of us, not as we are, but as we should be. Just as the landscape he describes is never drab and boring, even gray factory’s being brought to life, not in a sea of pastels and hum-drum, but in a blaze of colour and magnificence, the gray rectangles becoming brilliant and beautiful; just as his landscape is all of it lifted beyond, enlightened, so are his characters. His heroes are just that, noble, dedicated, even as they fall you wish you could be them, for they in their worst are greater than you in your best. His love interests are not token characters who fall by the wayside, they are magnificent women, who the least of, you would sacrifice your leg to meet. And his heroine’s, never until Refiner’s Fire had I finished a novel and known without a doubt that if she existed, I would do everything in my power to marry Lydia Pearl, any women who is both beautiful and capable of positing that the defeat of the Mongols at Ain-Jalut was inevitable is a jewel beyond price. But more than anything it is in his Hero’s quest that he cements himself in his position above all. For his Hero’s are not trying to conquer a nation, or win their love, or deliver a message although they will almost definitely do all of the above. For his hero’s simply live, and do so magnificently.

Newfound Pessimism

I’m beginning to understand why several people I know have over the years been getting more and more pessimistic about the future of western civilization. Time and time again, someone would start talking about the degeneration of american society, and would without fail bring up the fall of Rome and point at the common denominators; while I, just as inevitably, would marshal my counterpoints and dismiss such talk as alarmist. Sure, America’s not perfect, but lets face it, nothing is; and while Rome ultimately fell because of the vanishing of the middle class, the yeoman farmers and shop owners sons with which the Legions held back the barbarians for so many years; America still has an enormous middle class, a middle class willing to sacrifice 4 or more years of their youth serving their Country. But for all that this is correct, I’m beginning to realize I may have missed the point. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, from time to time the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots, and tyrants. However, I’m beginning to realize that its not just the watering that matters, but where the watering is done. It does your tree of liberty no good if all you do is water your neighbors.

Now if you were alarmist, and liberal I might add, you might misconstrue my comments, given that they concern last weeks election, and think that I am somehow advocating the assassination of our president elect at best, fomenting revolution at worst. Don’t worry I’m not. I’m merely trying to illustrate my point. When Roman Legions were defeated, as they sometimes were, Rome was not. When Hannibal crossed the Alps and destroyed the Roman army at Cannae, Rome did not sue for peace, she raised more legions. When Varus lost 3 eagles and his life in the Teutoburgerwald, Rome recovered the Eagles, and destroyed the tribes responsible. When fleet after fleet was destroyed Rome built more ships. Rome was great because time and again she persevered when others would have given up. After the disasters that followed Hannibals crossing of the Alps; the allied cities deserting, the army of the Scipios left behind in Spain, the disastrous battles at Lake Trasimene and Cannae, the city of Rome itself was left virtually defenseless. And yet, after having suffered 50000+ killed at Lake Trasimene, and 60000+ at Cannae, Rome raised more Legions and, taking the fight to Africa, destroyed the Carthaginian Empire. And here we are, the most powerful Nation on earth, with a Military capable of taking on any nation on earth and winning the battle in a matter of days, and after 7 years and 5000 casualties, we are ready to raise the white flag, ready to sue for peace. Not that the lives lost are insignificant, but they are lives lost defending freedom, and what other price can be paid?

90, 60, 50 years ago, we did not see 5000 lives as too dear a price to be paid in the defense of freedom, in defense of our way of life. In WW1, WW2 and Korea, the nation held fast and even in the face of setbacks, some of which could be psychologically compared, at the very least, to any of the defeats Rome suffered, stayed the course. But now, after all the positive news to come from the Middle East, having suffered no significant strategic military setback, we are ready to throw in the towel. And its wrong to attempt to invalidate the comparison by trying to posit that this war is somehow different, that we are fighting a war for oil or for different motives than we have fought for in the past; in neither Korea nor WW2 was our nation itself attacked, in both cases, as we are now, we were fighting to defend the freedom of others. What makes turn of the century Europe, or mid century Korea any more worthy of our defense than new millennium Mesopotamia? The enemy? Imperialist, Communist or Ba’athist, different ideology, same motives. Perhaps we should have avoided Iraq because it’s none of our business when a ruler engages in the ethnic cleansing and random slaughter of his own people. Even if, in the callousness of your heart you could somehow agree with that statement, Saddam made it our business when he invaded Kuwait in 91 and then every year since then engaged in illegal activities and deception over his weapons programs while attempting to shoot down western combat aircraft attempting to guarantee his peoples safety.

There really isn’t much room for argument over the reason for war, after all, the nation was overwhelmingly for it back in 2003. What then has changed? Nothing. The only difference between 01 or 03 and 08 is the passage of years and 5000 American casualties. Precious lives every one, but given in the defense of freedom, by volunteers proud to fight for their country. And even though the military, those of us on the sharp end of the stick, are overwhelmingly for the war, our nation, in 5 years, has turned volte face. The American people have decided that the war was the wrong decision, and instead of, as a reasonable and repsonsible person would have done, looking at themselves and saying “I was wrong, we should not have gone to war, but now engaged we are honour bound to see it through”; they look at the war, and even if they were initially for it, think “Oh my god, I was for the war but I was wrong why did the President not know that it was wrong?” and blame the President for a war that they were for, that Congress was for, that the Senate approved.

And now, finally, after a long 4 paragraphs of exposition my point. You must be thinking, “hey tom, the history lesson was great, Rome and all that, and I can see your point about the Iraq war, kind of, but what does that have to do with pessimism, or with the election of that marxist, Obama?” (That is, assuming you’re a conservative, as a liberal would have called the secret service when they saw the word’s president and assasination in the same sentence back at the beginning of paragraph 2, consequently missing my roundabout explanation). The American people elected Obama on the platform of change. Change from what? Change from Bush, change from an Administration that has experienced record low approval level’s first for it’s handling of the war, and when that became the norm, the war itself. Black voters may have provided Obama with his base, rich Liberals his money, but it was the voter who became disenfranchised with conservative foreign policy in states like Virginia who handed Obama the election. America no longer knows what it is to go without, so no longer understands why occasionally a good man goes jobless, loses his house, or sacrifices his life for what he believes in. Rather than abolishing the middle class by creating an enormous lower class and decadent elite, we have one-upped Rome by abolishing the middle class in favor of a small lower class and a decadent majority, not rich when measured on the bell curve of american economics; but in a society where even the nominally poor drive to work and come home to a house with a computer and a tv, how can we compare ourselves to the great majority of the worlds citizens? The majority of Americans have never had to spill their blood to afford luxuries, and do not understand what it is to live under a tyrant, and so our tree of liberty has withered, neglected by a society set on affording that second car or larger house.

That is the reason for my newfound pessimism.

Day of Future Passed

So recently I’ve been receiving a lot of questions from people about what it is I actually do. Not much. But for all those of you who actually want to know what the day to day life of tom woodard is like, here we go:

A Day in the Life of Tom Woodard:

Five fifteen is usually about when I get up on a week day; PT usually runs somewhere around 530 and I like to get up about 15 minutes early so I have to time to shave and maybe check the news. This time’s variable, tomorrow PT runs at 5 so I’ll be getting up around 450 (the earlier PT runs the more time i like to shave off my shaving time) and some days we don’t PT we just head up to the shop for 730. After PT, which is almost always over by 630, I head back to my room, shower, change, check my email, make my bed, and if time permits, head over to the chow hall to get some breakfast. If we had no PT that day, I usually wake up around 7, grab a quick shower, throw on my cammies and head off to work.

730 is when the day really starts. Everything up till that point is just preparation for 730 and at 730, you had better be prepared. All the chips are down, and many other metaphors about how you will get messed up if you are not prepared and the absolutely monstrous level of preparedness you must possess. Because at 730, thats when the magic is made. Thats when all those commercials you see about life in the Marine Corps come true, and for one glorious moment, you climb a cliff in your dress blues and then magically transform into a member of the silent drill team crackin sticks in all the cities of the world while flying an attack chopper through the mountains of afghanistan and waving all the banners of righteousness before you as break upon the seawall of Islam in a glorious tide of impending doom. And then you go into your shop and realize, wait, I have nothing to do. And you sit down in a chair and try to avoid getting shanghaied by radio into helping them do something stupid. Or you can be motivated (as I usually try to be) and you can better yourself by advancing your knowledge on the one piece of equipment that  makes Data vitally important to a fake Artillery Battalion.  That glorious piece of kit known as the COC, short for Combat Operations Center, and never to be pronounced phonetically.  The one problem with that is the COC is pretty mystical. It’s function is quite banal, it integrates the battlefield communications net, and the manner in which it achieves that objective is readily accessible to the average understanding, but its how it achieves what it accomplishes that is magical. You plug cables into boxes, telnet into those boxes, make sure all the settings are correct, turn it on and BAM, nothing works! Its quite magical. Every time you turn it on, something else fails to work, so you just change settings until it does. So from 730 till about 11, I sit around in the shop, maybe make a cable, do osme busy work, troubleshoot whatever portion of the COC happens to be failing if we have it running at the moment, basically trying to avoid radio. Around 11, 1130 we usually break for lunch. If i had breakfast, or am not especially hungry, I usually head back to my room, hang out for 2 hours and then head backinto work for one. Conversely, if I didn’t eat breakfast, I head over to the chow hall eat lunch and if its tuesday or monday catch the football games.

1300 is what I like to call the day’s endgame. From this point onward, (or at least until 1600) the day is a fast paced game of cat and mouse, the hunter cagily stalking his prey, using all his wiles and his not inconsiderable natural gifts in an attempt to capture a prey perhaps even wilier than himself, a prey whose entire being bends itself to the task at hand, avoiding a working party. Yeah, from 1300 onward you basically just move around and wait for the day to end. If it’s a busy day, thankful that the work will not only end the day more quickly but make the ending all the sweeter; if it’s a slow day, using the infinite time apparently available to understanding the theoretical physics that make it possible for time to actually stop moving forward altogether.

Wonderful, magnificent 1600 (approximately), the time when our majestic OIC has decreed will be the end of the working day in our shop, unless extenuating circumstances necessitate staying late, an oft spoken of, but rarely encountered occurence, thank the good Lord in his Heavens for blessing us with such mercy. I either head over to the chow hall right after work, or grab something from the shoppette on my way (think 7-11, only more) and then just kick it in my room, eager for my hard earned r and r. My head usually finds the pillow at any time from 2130-2230 (930-1030 ), and then the whole process starts over again. And for those of you with a hazy sense of geography, Okinawa is an island in the Ryuuku chain (named for Okinawa which is actually called Ryuuku by the indigenous population) approximately 400 miles to the south and west of mainland Japan. I’ve never really measured that distance, just guesstimated it from a globe, so it could be a little off. Its also a prefecture of Japan, so for all those of you who are thinking “hey tom told me he was going to japan, not some no name island in the middle of the ocean” right now, Okinawa also happens to be prefecture (read province or state) of Japan, so you can shut up.

tom

first

So I’ve decided that from now on I’ll be keeping everybody up to date on general happenings in the Tom world through this, my online…I’m trying to think of a half decent way to spin this, because there’s no way I’m going to call this a blog, journal sounds to pre-teen princess and well we all know what diary’s are for. I’ll give you a hint. They aren’t for badasses. And while I may not be a fully fledged badass, I have my aspirations, I’ll have you know. So this is my message board. Thats right, its not a blog, it’s a message board. I’ll leave a message, and you can read it if you so choose. As for the title, Gentlemen Rankers is the title of an awesome poem by Rudyard Kipling about the sons of the Gentry serving in the cavalry.

“Gentlemen Rankers, out on the spree/Damned from here to eternity/God ha’ mercy on such as we/Bah! Yah! Bah!”

Those bah yah bah may not make to much sense in the context of that little excerpt, but the subtext of the poem is that the Gentlemen Rankers are sheep who’ve gone astray. “We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way”. If you read the poem, and then enlist in the service of your country of choice, then you as well will gain some gleam of understanding. Not saying of course that you don’t have such a gleam already, but certain things have no meaning until you’re in the service. Moving on, we come to my week. My week was pretty awesome. I was once again in class, this time Net+. Net+ is the network equivalent of A+. Probably doesn’t mean anything to those of you who haven’t taken A+ (all of you) but really its not that interesting. I passed the course and hopefully next week I’ll get my cert. I also managed to skate out of the PFT (physical fitness test), thanks to some clever maneuvering on my part, and this weekends a 96, so all in all, everything is going pretty well.

Was anyone else as disappointed as I was when they watched Ironman? I finally saw it last night, and when i finished watching it I was like ” really? thats what happens? really?”. First of all, since when does the Air Force hold giant tests of secret weapons out in the middle of nowhere and then convoy the billionaire genius behind the technology back to safety in unarmored humvees? Never. That never happens. (On a sidenote is anybody else as entertained by air force cammies as i am? They seem to misunderstand the whole “camouflage” concept behind cammies. Cracks me up.) I mean really. If the air force was going to hold a secrets weapons test in a dangerous area, you know how they would get there? BY HELICOPTER. Its the AIR FORCE. They have HELICOPTERS. And then Tony Stark gets to the base of the talibs or the hadji or whoever the bad guys were, and he’s like “OMG WHERE DID THEY GET ALL THIS STARK WEAPONRY”. You know, I was asking that question also. Because the USA, God bless her, is the country that almost prosecuted a guy for releasing the source code to an email encryption program on the basis that he was exporting dangerous weaponry. Don’t believe me? Look Pretty Good Privacy up on Wikipedia. So you’re thinking “But tom, so of course the air force never demo’s weapons in a non controlled environment, and yes major American arms corporations can’t sell sophisticated weaponry that the air force has just barely adopted to crazed third world terrorists, but thats only two things, and the movie is SO ENTERTAINING LOL!!”. Well guess what, the entire movie hinges upon those two points. So for the movie to make sense, the movie can’t happen. I like my social commentary and my entertainment seperate thank you very much, and when you have a thinly disguised Lockheed Martin selling weapons to terrorists and having to be stopped by some crazy industrialist hippy in his armored suit of magic death? Seriously. Yeah, the action sequences were good. And Gwyneth Paltrow actually looked pretty attractive, which was kind of surprising. But that plot just killed it for me.