out of the loop...

i took it on the road today. i didn't feel like eating crow all day after taking my World Series prediction on the chin. Even the logicical gets it wrong sometimes. Evil transcends all logic. So off i went...

in search of adventure i jumped the F train to Roosevelt Island, an isle that in my 33 years living in this city and being born and raised here, had never set foot on. Strapped with a new IPod after a proper burial of the its predecessor, lost to a series of August deluges while on another mission, i took it to the island known for its tram, Smallpox Hospital, the Woman's Asylum in which Nellie Bly spent 10 days undercover and of course former home of Al "Grandpa" Lewis, among other things...

what occurred to me more than anything else as i toured the island was how quiet it was with the city around it. Across the west side of the isle's coast was the east side of Manhattan. The FDR Drive packed as usual, the hustle and bustle of a town doing business, and to the east the industrial complex of Astoria, Queensbridge and LIC. i felt out of the loop, but enjoyed the solitude...

upon emerging from my afternoon and returning home, the bastard clued me in to the madness at Ft Hood, Texas. For most people this news would bring pause. For the bastard and i we had a personal interest. Our cousin's husband serves as a lifer for the US Armed Forces and at last check had been running of Ft. Hood. My cousin, Mel, and i share a birthday and although we rarely speak, when we are together we are kindred. Immediately i worked the phones calling her cell—no answer, then my Aunt and Uncle, who live outside of Houston, not too far from Ft. Hood in relation—again no answer. Of course in situations like this the media has no answers and given the subject matter, a mass murder at an US Army facility, the largest in the country, information would be harder than usual to come by. i called my parents, figuring my Uncle would call his sister and clue her in. After a little phone tag my Aunt called and informed me that in fact my cousin, her husband, JC, and their son were in Korea, where he had been shipped. Mel and their son had moved over there to be with him in the last months of his tour. Crisis averted, at least for us as a family...

while i talked to my aunt i learned that he had returned from an 18 month stretch in Iraq, and after 10 months was shipped to Korea for two years—to return this Christmas. The Army plans to send him to Fort Carson in Colorado with the idea of shipping him to Afghanistan. He is trying to get East Coast orders instead to guarantee some more time with his family and away from bullets. I don't blame him. My man needs to grab a play out of the Jonny Airplanes handbook...

after finishing up with my Aunt, i got to thinking of JC's plight. Sure, he signed up for it and he is a career man, with a chunk of his career yet to come. But it makes you think of how badly we are stretching these soldiers thin. Physically and emotionally. They say, 'all gave some, some gave all' and over the last 8 years that has become more and more apparent. JC's story is not the worst one i've heard about how soldiers are being shipped away from their families, in constant motion, causing chaos within these families. Some never come back, some come back in pieces, some can't make it all the way back. Some flip their lids and tear up countless lives by opening fire on an Army campus. i'm not going to pass judgement on this man, i'm not a soldier, and never have been. Its just not my place to comment on his motives and his mind set, as he, apparently, was on his way to Afghanistan himself. this is just the worst extreme that could happen under these circumstances, the worst case scenario. At this writing the suspect is still alive, in a hospital bed, probably under heavy guard. He will face his judgement, and hopefully we can get an answer to why he was driven to this madness...

i've always mused that world is very lucky that i am of a rational mind. That, if i wasn't, there would be a trail of bodies, with no answers. i hope we get some answers here. i hope we find out what it takes for a man to do such a thing, because i can't fathom myself in that state, and what could possibly bring me there...

hmmm...