I was walking home from work at the Salt Palace Convention Center when the tones of "I Ran" by A Flock of Seagulls emanated from my pocket. I answered and my squad leader Sgt. Henley's voice queried, "When are you going to arrive for AT?"
"ASAP? Maybe an hour including travel time?"
"You were supposed to report to the drill hall last night, White."
"I didn't get the letter Sarn't. I'll call my dad and we'll head down ASAP."
"Move."
"Out."
That's really how the conversation went.
So, after a very hurried packing and assembling of my uniforms and sundry gear I had stashed at my apartment, my father and I set out to get our soldier on. Now, as has been mentioned before, my father was in the motor pool as a mechanic so he was no where near my chain of command, so no nepotism, got it?
Later that night we were at the Salt Lake International airport, in our civilian clothes. There was a problem with our flight so we had to stay the night in the terminal(!)
The company commander and first sergeant slept in a hotel room and invited the youngest private to join them. The rest of us were left to our own devices because the USO office was closed and none of us were authorized to leave. This made us reasonably unhappy.
Boyz II Men was there at the airport that night and several of my buddies went to see them. This was 2005 by the way. The first concert I ever went to was Boyz II Men back in '94. My buddies returned angry and crestfallen. They were told they would have to pay $50.00 for autographs, even though they were soldiers. Fuck Boyz II Men.
Our armorer, Specialist Leigh, was the first to sleep. He managed to get comfortable laying down on some chairs and covered himself with newspapers like a hobo. He had earned the nickname "Hobo Leigh" some years before, and I never did learn the story of how he earned the nickname.
No way was I going to be able to sleep on one of those airport chairs. I lay myself down on the floor and used my gym bag as a pillow. I couldn't sleep. In fact, most of us were awake the whole night. We sort of just wandered around aimlessly half-awake. We were the walking dead and we were in some sort of nightmarish limbo.
After the dawn of the new day began and regular customers began to trickle in, I wonder how we must have looked, we somnambulist soldiers.
The pilot made an announcement honoring us for flying with his crew that day and it made me feel pretty good but I was not alert enough to fully appreciate it. The most exciting thing was my game of "Spot the Air Marshall" with my battle-buddy Smitty. We also listened to stories from the veterans about serving in the first and second waves of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
That day was the first time I slept on an airplane. I still have the airport blankets. We touched down in Raleigh, NC on our way to Camp Lejeune to learn how the Marine Corps combat engineers did things. They called in "Operation Joint Essayons".
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Why I live in the World of Madness
Okay, so it's time to let you in on what's going on in my head. I know it's the internet and you'll probably think I'm full of crap and seeking attention or whatever, but I make a habit of not lying.
I'm bipolar. I have major depressive disorder, and I was diagnosed with oppositive defiant disorder. I'm not so sure about that one because I don't have problems with authority (see army veteran).
I also have dissociative identity disorder. And in a weird way too. I was molested as a child but I had an alter before that happened. I was neglected as a child, as in, completely left to my own devices around age three or four. I developed a personality who was an adult and could take care of things.
His name is Shea. In the long long ago, he didn't have a different name, and I wasn't really aware of him, but my mother remembers times when I talked to her like an adult. I also have the stories he tells me.
I'm not the original. Shadowdancer number one disappeared a long time ago. He closed his eyes and willed himself to go away, and he did. Shea made another little boy to live with my family and be "normal" so that I would survive and nothing bad would happen. I don't know what triggered Number One's urge to not be anymore. Maybe he was sad and lonely and tired of it. I can't say.
Years went by and Shea, who was still unnamed at this time laid low, only acting as the voice of authority in my young mind. Now, this may be confusing, but I the one writing this, am not that little boy, Number Two. I became later. I'm telling the story because I speak plainly and I can deal with the harsh words of others. I don't expect anyone will ever read this, and that's okay. I just need to articulate my story, and maybe it will be of help to someone else.
Now, Number Two was doing just fine until I got molested by my sister. He didn't know what to do with things. I had been having random erections and stuff before this happened, and I don't want to act like I wasn't a willing participant or anything, but I was five years old and didn't fully understand what was going on. She's my half sister by the way. I wasn't traumatized or anything, but I became obsessed with women and sex and when I got older I got addicted to pornography.
Number Two realized he had done something wrong and went to sleep. Inside my mind there is a grove of trees that I put there because my friend the Painting Man told me I could make my own world filled with happy trees, so I did. Number Two still sleeps in the grove, with another little boy who never leaves there and a peaceful dead boy and a big white tiger named Khan. Also there is an older boy in the grove named Benevolence, but his story comes later.
So now Shea made number three, who later hit puberty at age nine and became very depressed and attempted suicide. Number Three thought he was the only one in his head until hormonal anger became too hard to control and the Berserker became, who could control and harness the rage. As a balance to the Berserker the Paladin became and it was about this time that Shea started calling himself the Tactician. When things got too out of control in the emotions department, Tactician would step forward and handle things, because he was unburdened by that nonsense. I had trouble making friends and was not liked, so I decided to start studying people and how they work and thus the Bard became, he who could charm and sing and play instruments, and write poetry and tell stories.
And for some time all was pretty stable. At age thirteen I began to gain confidence in myself and spent a lot of time reading and playing video games and getting good at them. Now, the Painting Man I mentioned earlier was Bob Ross, who I would watch on PBS, because mostly the television raised me. My mother was constantly too busy doing other things and my father was out to sea for the Navy and my sisters didn't want me around, embarrassing them in front of their friends or anything. I love my family very much.
At age sixteen Number Three had managed to find happiness within himself and shrugged off depression for the most part. The depression became simply "The Old Sorrow" and he could just ride it out and get on with things. Then he met a girl unlike any he had ever met before. Bard couldn't figure out how she though, Tactician couldn't manipulate her, and she wasn't scared of the Berserker. Number Three still wasn't really sure that he wasn't alone in his head, but he had suspicions. He and this girl developed a fondness for each other beyond friendship but she didn't want a relationship. She was older and they went to different schools.
However, she would kiss me and hug me and it was all very confusing especially when she let me play with her breasts, but it was like being in love and that was good enough. Then one day she starting spreading horrible stories to her friends that I tried to rape her and that I did other things that I did not do. This betrayal was so heartbreaking that Number Three, the Happy One, died. Shea the Tactician stepped in and wasn't going to tolerate any more of this bullshit.
And for a long time he ran the show. When I was thirteen my parents got divorced and when I was seventeen my mother remarried. She married a complete scumbag. My sisters had both grown up and left already. My oldest sister was in Washington with a husband and child of her own, and my other sister left to serve a mission. My mother left me to marry that scumbag and live with him. Four five days I was all alone in a split level house. My father moved in after a while, but we could only live together in that house for a few months and then we had to leave. I couldn't live in my dad's apartment, so I had to go live with my mother and her husband and his son, and his brother. I tried to sleep as much as possible.
I lost my virginity for real during that time with another emotionally disturbed girl. She fucked with my emotions a great deal. She was a genuine man-hater. I don't know what she wanted with me, but...
High school was not fun because I took dance. I was the only man in my dance troupe. In Utah. I actually had people shout out "Faggot" before our performance at the Homecoming football game. Yeah. I managed to graduate, with unimpressive grades but I did take some medals in Academic Decathlon, so I'm proud of that. I also was inducted into Delta Epsilon Phi for my good German grades. If you're curious, I took bronze for essay, gold for music, and them my team took gold. I wrote an essay about the loss of privacy on the internet, back in the AOL days. I graduated in 2002 and goofed off a bunch but tried to get a job. I ended up moving to live with my sister, who had returned from her mission by then and was a newlywed.
At age nineteen I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, and I lived in an apartment with my dad. At this point I became fully aware of the men who shared my mind and body, and we fought for dominance and eventually reached an accord. Tactician, Bard, and Paladin who now calls himself Crusader, would go to work and share stress from that between themselves. Sometimes Berserker will go to work, but he usually can't handle people so well. I have a wife and children of my own, and most of the time I am good and stable. I am about as well adjusted as a guy like me could hope, and life isn't bad. I am fortunate. I will tell more of my story as time goes by but it will be infrequent and in varying levels of detail.
Welcome to the World of Madness, I'm an Shadowdancer21b and I'll be your tour guide.
I'm bipolar. I have major depressive disorder, and I was diagnosed with oppositive defiant disorder. I'm not so sure about that one because I don't have problems with authority (see army veteran).
I also have dissociative identity disorder. And in a weird way too. I was molested as a child but I had an alter before that happened. I was neglected as a child, as in, completely left to my own devices around age three or four. I developed a personality who was an adult and could take care of things.
His name is Shea. In the long long ago, he didn't have a different name, and I wasn't really aware of him, but my mother remembers times when I talked to her like an adult. I also have the stories he tells me.
I'm not the original. Shadowdancer number one disappeared a long time ago. He closed his eyes and willed himself to go away, and he did. Shea made another little boy to live with my family and be "normal" so that I would survive and nothing bad would happen. I don't know what triggered Number One's urge to not be anymore. Maybe he was sad and lonely and tired of it. I can't say.
Years went by and Shea, who was still unnamed at this time laid low, only acting as the voice of authority in my young mind. Now, this may be confusing, but I the one writing this, am not that little boy, Number Two. I became later. I'm telling the story because I speak plainly and I can deal with the harsh words of others. I don't expect anyone will ever read this, and that's okay. I just need to articulate my story, and maybe it will be of help to someone else.
Now, Number Two was doing just fine until I got molested by my sister. He didn't know what to do with things. I had been having random erections and stuff before this happened, and I don't want to act like I wasn't a willing participant or anything, but I was five years old and didn't fully understand what was going on. She's my half sister by the way. I wasn't traumatized or anything, but I became obsessed with women and sex and when I got older I got addicted to pornography.
Number Two realized he had done something wrong and went to sleep. Inside my mind there is a grove of trees that I put there because my friend the Painting Man told me I could make my own world filled with happy trees, so I did. Number Two still sleeps in the grove, with another little boy who never leaves there and a peaceful dead boy and a big white tiger named Khan. Also there is an older boy in the grove named Benevolence, but his story comes later.
So now Shea made number three, who later hit puberty at age nine and became very depressed and attempted suicide. Number Three thought he was the only one in his head until hormonal anger became too hard to control and the Berserker became, who could control and harness the rage. As a balance to the Berserker the Paladin became and it was about this time that Shea started calling himself the Tactician. When things got too out of control in the emotions department, Tactician would step forward and handle things, because he was unburdened by that nonsense. I had trouble making friends and was not liked, so I decided to start studying people and how they work and thus the Bard became, he who could charm and sing and play instruments, and write poetry and tell stories.
And for some time all was pretty stable. At age thirteen I began to gain confidence in myself and spent a lot of time reading and playing video games and getting good at them. Now, the Painting Man I mentioned earlier was Bob Ross, who I would watch on PBS, because mostly the television raised me. My mother was constantly too busy doing other things and my father was out to sea for the Navy and my sisters didn't want me around, embarrassing them in front of their friends or anything. I love my family very much.
At age sixteen Number Three had managed to find happiness within himself and shrugged off depression for the most part. The depression became simply "The Old Sorrow" and he could just ride it out and get on with things. Then he met a girl unlike any he had ever met before. Bard couldn't figure out how she though, Tactician couldn't manipulate her, and she wasn't scared of the Berserker. Number Three still wasn't really sure that he wasn't alone in his head, but he had suspicions. He and this girl developed a fondness for each other beyond friendship but she didn't want a relationship. She was older and they went to different schools.
However, she would kiss me and hug me and it was all very confusing especially when she let me play with her breasts, but it was like being in love and that was good enough. Then one day she starting spreading horrible stories to her friends that I tried to rape her and that I did other things that I did not do. This betrayal was so heartbreaking that Number Three, the Happy One, died. Shea the Tactician stepped in and wasn't going to tolerate any more of this bullshit.
And for a long time he ran the show. When I was thirteen my parents got divorced and when I was seventeen my mother remarried. She married a complete scumbag. My sisters had both grown up and left already. My oldest sister was in Washington with a husband and child of her own, and my other sister left to serve a mission. My mother left me to marry that scumbag and live with him. Four five days I was all alone in a split level house. My father moved in after a while, but we could only live together in that house for a few months and then we had to leave. I couldn't live in my dad's apartment, so I had to go live with my mother and her husband and his son, and his brother. I tried to sleep as much as possible.
I lost my virginity for real during that time with another emotionally disturbed girl. She fucked with my emotions a great deal. She was a genuine man-hater. I don't know what she wanted with me, but...
High school was not fun because I took dance. I was the only man in my dance troupe. In Utah. I actually had people shout out "Faggot" before our performance at the Homecoming football game. Yeah. I managed to graduate, with unimpressive grades but I did take some medals in Academic Decathlon, so I'm proud of that. I also was inducted into Delta Epsilon Phi for my good German grades. If you're curious, I took bronze for essay, gold for music, and them my team took gold. I wrote an essay about the loss of privacy on the internet, back in the AOL days. I graduated in 2002 and goofed off a bunch but tried to get a job. I ended up moving to live with my sister, who had returned from her mission by then and was a newlywed.
At age nineteen I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve, and I lived in an apartment with my dad. At this point I became fully aware of the men who shared my mind and body, and we fought for dominance and eventually reached an accord. Tactician, Bard, and Paladin who now calls himself Crusader, would go to work and share stress from that between themselves. Sometimes Berserker will go to work, but he usually can't handle people so well. I have a wife and children of my own, and most of the time I am good and stable. I am about as well adjusted as a guy like me could hope, and life isn't bad. I am fortunate. I will tell more of my story as time goes by but it will be infrequent and in varying levels of detail.
Welcome to the World of Madness, I'm an Shadowdancer21b and I'll be your tour guide.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Every Soldier Has a Story to Tell: Prologue
Allow me to be frank at the beginning. There are no war stories here. I never went overseas due to a knee injury. I served for six years as a combat engineer in the US Army Reserve. Now that you have the correct expectation, I'll begin.
I am the fifth generation in a row in my family to serve in the US Army. My father enlisted in the Navy first and then enlisted in the Army. He later transferred to my unit. He was a mechanic, so he was in the motor pool, far from my chain of command so there could be no accusations of nepotism.
When I was 17 I talked to the recruiter at my high school. I weighed 245 pounds at the time and could do maybe five pushups and 30 situps. I couldn't run to save my life either. I joined the Delayed Enlistment Program and took the ASVAB scoring a respectable 72 overall. I scored a 120 on general tech and I'm proud of that. Through talking with my recruiter I learned that Combat Engineer, MOS 21B was the job for me. 21Bs run around doing the same kind of stuff infantrymen do, AND they get to blow stuff up! I was ready to sign then and there. I was too fat though. Also I needed a waiver because I had spent time with psychologists for depression. It would be two years before I lost enough weight and got the waiver. I wanted to serve my country. Once I was given detention for being late to class for talking with a recruiter in the hall. While at detention I wrote a note to the monitor detailing that I was late because I was talking to a recruiter and that I refused to be punished for wanting to serve my county. I walked out the door. I later got a note from the principle who informed me that she spoke to the recruiter to verify my story and apologized. I felt vindicated and kind of wanted to save the note, but that would be kind of childish. All the same, a 17-year-old boy had beaten the system. Pathetic, I know.
After that I injured my knee because I wanted to show off my tae kwon do skills and newly improved jump height with weight I had lost and executed a nearly-flawless jumping axe kick. The only flaw was in the landing. My foot landed on the dusty, dusty tile floor and slid out from under me. I landed with all my weight on my left knee. This inury required I walk with a cane for several weeks after and probably should have been x-rayed but the doctor at my clinic said it was just a sprain. After a few weeks I felt good enough to walk on it so I let it be and thought nothing more about that knee. It would come back to haunt me.
I am the fifth generation in a row in my family to serve in the US Army. My father enlisted in the Navy first and then enlisted in the Army. He later transferred to my unit. He was a mechanic, so he was in the motor pool, far from my chain of command so there could be no accusations of nepotism.
When I was 17 I talked to the recruiter at my high school. I weighed 245 pounds at the time and could do maybe five pushups and 30 situps. I couldn't run to save my life either. I joined the Delayed Enlistment Program and took the ASVAB scoring a respectable 72 overall. I scored a 120 on general tech and I'm proud of that. Through talking with my recruiter I learned that Combat Engineer, MOS 21B was the job for me. 21Bs run around doing the same kind of stuff infantrymen do, AND they get to blow stuff up! I was ready to sign then and there. I was too fat though. Also I needed a waiver because I had spent time with psychologists for depression. It would be two years before I lost enough weight and got the waiver. I wanted to serve my country. Once I was given detention for being late to class for talking with a recruiter in the hall. While at detention I wrote a note to the monitor detailing that I was late because I was talking to a recruiter and that I refused to be punished for wanting to serve my county. I walked out the door. I later got a note from the principle who informed me that she spoke to the recruiter to verify my story and apologized. I felt vindicated and kind of wanted to save the note, but that would be kind of childish. All the same, a 17-year-old boy had beaten the system. Pathetic, I know.
After that I injured my knee because I wanted to show off my tae kwon do skills and newly improved jump height with weight I had lost and executed a nearly-flawless jumping axe kick. The only flaw was in the landing. My foot landed on the dusty, dusty tile floor and slid out from under me. I landed with all my weight on my left knee. This inury required I walk with a cane for several weeks after and probably should have been x-rayed but the doctor at my clinic said it was just a sprain. After a few weeks I felt good enough to walk on it so I let it be and thought nothing more about that knee. It would come back to haunt me.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
If you were offered the job of U.S. president would you take the job?
No. The president doesn't have enough power. Now if I could be tyrant...
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
What's something you're proud of?
I fathered disturbingly intelligent children. Also I'm proud of my military service in spite of all the bullshit I endured.
Who's your favorite under-appreciated contributor on Channel Awesome?
I love Dena's stuff. She's funny, thoughtful, and lets you know when she's biased.
How often do you go to the movies?
I rarely think any film is worth the theater experience. Overpriced food and drink, and of course people. I love my friends but I dislike the the general public.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
formspring.me
Anything, military, history, games, movies, books, dance, http://www.formspring.me/shadowdancer21b
Happy Discount Chocolate Day Eve!
On this day when we are obligated to think and talk about love, I must of course think of my wonderful wife and family. I have been married to her for almost six years. She has given me four healthy children who I love. I have been going a special kind of crazy since I lost my job that online retailer in December.
I'm hanging in there, and a large part of it is the support I receive from my wife.I hope that everyone who knows me or at least "internet" knows me can find some peace and comfort. I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together.
I'm hanging in there, and a large part of it is the support I receive from my wife.I hope that everyone who knows me or at least "internet" knows me can find some peace and comfort. I'm pulling for ya. We're all in this together.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
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