TO RUWFABG/HSL FOUR NORTH ISLAND CA
Running faster now, breath comes in ragged tears.
Cranial riding heavily on my neck, five pounds of equipment to support.
RULSABR/FLECOMPRON NINETEEN DET NORFOLK VA
RUWFABC/PERSUPP DET NORTH ISLAND CA//JJJ//
What is it, what is wrong with this bird? Damn thing will not load, five minutes to go and we launch. I do not have the time for a major system failure right now. Too hot in here, too damn hot in the Gulf. Ninety some odd degrees and it's two in the morning. 43 just went down and now the bag is falling to us to finish, X-ray Zulu is on the phone and screaming at the bridge to get us off the deck. That Iranian MARPAT P-3 is somewhere close and they want someone up and watching him for the nightly overflight of the Lincoln Battle Group. It is an irony that I do not quite understand that we sold them the equipment, and now they use it to play I-Spy-With-My-Teeny-Eye-A-Big-Gray-Ship-Named-After-A-Dead-President.
X-ray Zulu, means the admiral running this whole show is waiting for one AT2(AW) Gijutsuka, Yurei NMN 720-93-0106 to get his collective shit into one sock.
Grin a silly little grin. Imagine a me or an army of me happily dancing, prancing on the flight deck in cranials and coveralls. Our mouths pulled into wide sickening grins of glee dominated by rows of impossibly white teeth and boots so polished they're electric. There she goes, loading now. I am the very model of a modern avionics technician. Laughing, cackling, rolling around in a hundred cloned actions, mirrored men wriggle underfoot on the flight deck when the chorus line collapses. Skeleton hands wave from heavy fingerless leather gloves. Their arms are bare, blue fabric rolled above the elbows to expose the flesh beneath. So many arms, they look like blades of tall grass blowing in waves beneath a heavy strong wind and a New Mexico sky. Hearth and home not there, homeless.
These visions come and go as I close my eyes and listen to the songs vocalized by an ethereal beauty waiting for her time to fly on titanium wings.
RULSABP/PERSUPP DET NORFOLK VA//JJJ//
INFO RUCOQAS/FLECOMPRON NINETEEN
BT
UNCLAS //N03278//
MSGID/GENADMIN/COMNAVPERSCOM//
SUBJ/BUPERS ORDER//
RMKS/
Never quite had a permanent home. This lifestyle suits me, the last of a handful of ronin living by bushido and waiting for the master to return. The war and the killing, the hating when all the Ghosts will gather together spears for one last proud muster under angry black clouds.
Killing one another silly with tooth and claw, laughing all the way while we please the lust for that which we cannot identify. The outstretched arms of the dying look like tall blades of grass blowing in waves beneath a heavy wind and an impossibly blue New Mexico sky. Love and forgiveness there, among the dead.
BUPERS ORDER: 0031 720-93-0106/AT2 (PERS-808ST )
OFFICIAL CHANGE DUTY ORDERS FOR AT2 YUREI NMN GIJUTSUKA, USN (8376/ )
Scared. Apprehensive. This sheaf of paper sits folded quietly in the corner of my desk waiting for me to open it and once again travel the mental distance back to where everything began. Here, now, then the future that I have not been through yet. I wonder if I will be as good at this as I was here, if I will be again known as the one to send when it all turns to shit. Lake Tahoe, Japan, Hawaii, this last det to the Persian Gulf.
I know the words that will come out of my mouth.
They never fail me here when it matters. I can lie to Mother and Father, convince them their little boy isn't scared of dying a long way from home. That it doesn't matter to me that what we're doing is indeed dangerous. I can't lie to them and tell them that I am not afraid anymore.
Numb. Just numb now. Numb to the death of friends, numb to the slight burn on my hand from the iron pressed onto the uniform now neatly laid out for tomorrow's funeral. Numb to the idea that I have no masters and no school, that the people subverting what I intend to protect are the people who have given me these orders.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
IN CARRYING OUT/PROCESSING THESE ORDERS, BOTH PARTS ONE AND TWO MUST BE
READ AND LISTED INSTRUCTIONS COMPLIED WITH.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I am
In an armory somewhere,
there is a torpedo,
tired,
or a missile,
or a bomb,
worn down,
or a tungsten slug on the end of a bullet,
or several interesting electrical bits joined together,
bled white,
with my name on it.
All I have to do now,
cut clean to the bone,
Is dance,
exhausted,
and torn between the desperation giving up,
and the obligation to be ready to go again.
UIC: 42827
------- ULTIMATE ACTIVITY (S) -------
REPORT NOT LATER THAN 08 OCT 01 EDA: 08 OCT 01
TO VC 19 DET NORFOLK RV UIC: 25011
until another round,
with someone else's name on it,
HOMEPORT: NORFOLK VA
is fired,
in a sort of final round,
FOR DUTY ACC: 100
just before last call,
to establish how good,
ASSIGNED RATE: AT2 DNEC1: 8340 DNEC2: PRD: 0510
I really am.
And if,
PERSONNEL ACCOUNTING SUPPORT: PERSUPPDET NORFOLK VA UIC: 47832.
I can make sure,
that someone else,
------- ACCOUNTING DATA -------
dies before I do,
so that the button,
MAC CIC: 8AWM54
that launches
the torpedo,
CIC: AWM54IIL90
or the missile,
or the bomb,
PCS ACCOUNTING DATA:
or the tungsten slug on the end of a bullet,
or the several interesting electrical bits wired together
NDI1 17176193422190 F 091 833 AL DI1/1/F/C DI1 720-93-0106
is never pressed,
and I can finally go home.
P A R T T W O
BUPERS ORDER: 0031 720-93-1017/AT2 (PERS-808ST )
OFFICIAL CHANGE DUTY ORDERS FOR AT2 YUREI GIJUTSUKA, USN