-Pema Chodron
"But the worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests. Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself! And your way goes past yourself and past your seven devils! You will be a heretic to yourself and witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and villain. You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how can you become new, if you had not first become ashes?"
-Friedrich Nietzsche
***
When I finally graduated drone school, it was 18 November 2006. I had started mid April 2006, in 3 different classes that ended up having to be split because they were too large. I spent the majority of my time reading the technical manuals, making popcorn, and Navy coffee so strong you could stand a spoon up in it. Because that's the only way some of the officers would drink it. And cleaning. Lots and lots of cleaning. Casual status.
To get by without having to interact with the self-important upper ranks, Haas and I rode the 0200 van up every chance we got and left before noon. It made our lives easier and we were able to fuck around and still get shit done. Most of our peers that were supposed to be on casual status with us showed up at 0800 and left after they showed their faces. One guy didn't show up for over a month, playing World of Warcraft, and no one even questioned it.
In the end, Haas and I were almost as knowledgeable as the instructors lacking only experience. We were excellent and that was a problem.
***
To get back to the core of the story, True Love, or the search for it. Everything else is the background noise. Everything else is poison. But without the poison, nothing dies.
***
While it wasn't until my first day of actual work that the search for the self began, these events play a critical role in breaking apart the foundation of everything that I knew. December 2006 is when my personal life and my professional life crashed together like explosive ridden freight trains.
The summer of 2006 saw the light of my true age when my mother, while visiting with my friends, asked if I was excited to turn 21 in Las Vegas. I deserved group shunning I got after that. Even if I was not the only under age drinker. My lie to the group was enough.
And I was dating somebody new. She walked in on me while I was praying and I mistook it as a sign. We got along, worshiped the same space wizard, told each other our darkest secrets. When I had mentioned my first incident and my virtual ignorance of feminine pleasure, she told me that "men cannot get raped when they have an erection. That means you want it." My desperation to fill that devouring cancer of shame and self doubt led to my moments of debauchery and isolation.
After a month of dating she wanted to get married and jump on the BAH wagon. I said no, she accused me of using her for sex. My reasoning was to follow advice I was given: be with somebody for a year before you decide to get married. You go through all the seasons together.
After that, my male peers started to try and move in on me. Tell her that they could treat her better. She even confessed to me that she had started to hang out with a few of them and started developing mutual feelings with one in particular. I told her it was her decision with what she wanted to do and her decision was to bring the wrath of god down upon my heart and head. After we broke up I was no longer invited to group outings and after December 2006, she lied to our leadership about me "raping her" and when I tried to ask her about it when I started to hear the rumors I was accused of stalking her.
While this was going on I had my first mission and I watched a convoy hit an IED on their way back to home base north of Baghdad. My leadership told me that it happens and shrugged it off. I heard the screams for help over the radio. I saw the aftermath. I watched the desperation of the ground troops to save their friends. While my friends abandoned me.
I dedicated myself to the mission. Desperately seeking purpose in deed. Haas and I got along with the British drone operators better than our peers. The internal political and drama situation was increasingly hostile, good ol'boy's club, that was more reminiscent of junior high school than a professional military outfit. My life was dictated and ruined by the petty will of those who had nothing better to do with their time. Then I killed my first three human beings and I was alone in feeling remorse.
What kind of human beings are we to do this to one another? You don't make very many friends by being the squadron philosopher, less so with the name of religious intent backing your doctrine.
And in order to seek biblical forgiveness I once sought out the woman by inviting myself out to the club with some mutual friends. I had hoped that I could beg, yes I was that crazy, in front of everyone. At the end of the night she gave me the chance to air out my grievances. I had told her that I had once loved her, and asked if that even meant anything. I told her it was unfair of her to treat me like she has been. Her response was simple, "I never loved you. I only used you to get over my ex. You were a rebound."
Two days before that was when I had the incident where I believe we killed a child. My insides were being torn apart by Lucifer, himself, from his prison in the cold heart of Hell.
“THROUGH me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of Power divine,
Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
And that was how the purification process began.
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