Quick Links
Categories
Calendar
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
XML/RSS Feed
Other Heathen Blogs and Journals
Caryatid's LiveJournal
Boars Heart's LiveJournal
Orn Ransom's LiveJournal
Thorolf's LiveJournal
Falki's LiveJournal
MacRaven
Seledréam
Vanatru's LiveJournal
Expanding Inward
Boars Heart's LiveJournal
Orn Ransom's LiveJournal
Thorolf's LiveJournal
Falki's LiveJournal
MacRaven
Seledréam
Vanatru's LiveJournal
Expanding Inward
Links of Heathen Interest
Other (non-heathen) Blogs
Subscribe
 |
 |
Technorati
Blog Value
My blog is worth $1,693.62.
How much is your blog worth?
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Apr 26, 2006 10:02 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Apr 26, 2006 10:02 PM
I don't think I like war very much.
Having never been an afficianado of the sports
world, I was surprised as anyone when I discovered a spectator sport to my
liking. I have developed into a watcher of
ants.
Over here in Iraq, the short spring is ending. All the likely rains for the year have fallen, and the grasses and other small plants, which long ago grew accustomed to a short season, are already withering or going to seed. The ants themselves, likewise accustomed to this eventuality, are now frantically scrambling in order to collect enough food to last them through the rest of the year.
Every morning on my walk to breakfast, I am constantly passing lines of ants streaming from their anthills to the closest tassels of yellowing grass, to collect whatever seeds they can, and return them to a communal pile beside their anthill. A few ants also are gradually moving these precious grains inside, but they have all the time in the world to do that, barring a very strong wind. I have a favorite anthill, which is right inside the trench made when some sort of missile plowed into the ground. These lively fellows have earned my admiration with their razor-straight lines, their dedication to the task at hand, and their preparedness in building an anthill in such an easily-defended location, which also happens to be out of the range of winds. Rare is the morning when I don't gather a handful of seeds myself and drop it nearby, on their path, to kind of symbolically help out -- cost of admission, in a way, for enjoying their labors. Sometimes they take my gift, and sometimes they just walk around the grains. I have yet to figure out why.
This morning I was walking along my usual path, past the bombed-out palace, towards the chow hall, when I saw a small anthill. I stopped to watch, because I'm always curious about the different patterns the different anthills form; sometimes they walk in straight lines, sometimes they all meander off in different directions. Some ants from a rival hill must have strayed into this hill's territory, or vice versa, because nearby a saw a skirmish in progress. I saw ants with their feelers locked together, with other ants closing in. I saw ants carrying off the bodies of the slain -- perhaps for food, perhaps for some strange insectine burial rites. I focussed in on one pair in particular, facing off one against the other, as others grouped in behind, in the classic movie example of single combat, and a memory awoke, so strong it put a wrench into my gut.
I remembered Kuwait, back during the actual war (as opposed to the war that came later, that isn't called a war. I remembered days and days of having missiles fired at us hourly, or at least daily. I remembered (and this was what I felt, watching the ants) the gut-wrenching feeling of hunching down inside a bunker, or standing outside one when there was no room, as explosions rocked the ground beneath us or the air above us.
I remembered thinking "I don't think I like war very much."
Understand here that I speak as a civilian, not as a soldier. I've never been in active combat. Never faced my fellow man on a personal level out to obliterate my existence on the field of battle. I've heard the stories. Something else I remember is, one night in the chow hall at Camp Commando, Kuwait -- I think this was the night before I left there to come to Iraq for the first time -- a big blonde Marine came up to me and just started telling me everything he'd seen and done. Memory's kind here -- I don't remember the exact words he used, or even the scenes he described. I remember the look on his face, though, as if the entire world had just stretched out an arm of rock and slapped him. I remember the horror behind his words, and the futility in his voice. I thought at the time (and I still do) that I wasn't the first person to whom he found himself telling this story. It was like he found himself repeating this story over and over, searching for understanding. I hoped then (and I still hope) that I was the last one to whom he had to tell it.
Yep. No two ways about it; war sucks.
Some mornings I think of the ants, and how brave they are just to come out of their hills at all. There are paths running all around their homes, and we share them rather inexpertly. Each ant lives in the uncertainty of knowing that today a boot may come down on top of them. They come out anyway; they fight their battles and they gather their food and they don't, in anything but my imagination, enjoy the sunshine playing across them. They know the survival of their anthill depends upon them, and they'll break their carapaces carrying food, or fight to the death, to protect it.
I'm not some reconstituted hippie who doesn't believe in war. I know that sometimes war happens, and sometimes it's necessary. I try to refrain from judgment on this one, since the occupation phase isn't over yet. I don't like war; war sucks, but it happens. I myself wouldn't be anywhere but here during something like this. I'm not here to fight; my job is a little different from all that, but I do think that I make a difference of some sort in the whole thing.
I know this got more personal than usual. I blame the ants. Perhaps I should take up watching camel spiders. Really hard to feel any sympathy or anthropomorphosize them.
Over here in Iraq, the short spring is ending. All the likely rains for the year have fallen, and the grasses and other small plants, which long ago grew accustomed to a short season, are already withering or going to seed. The ants themselves, likewise accustomed to this eventuality, are now frantically scrambling in order to collect enough food to last them through the rest of the year.
Every morning on my walk to breakfast, I am constantly passing lines of ants streaming from their anthills to the closest tassels of yellowing grass, to collect whatever seeds they can, and return them to a communal pile beside their anthill. A few ants also are gradually moving these precious grains inside, but they have all the time in the world to do that, barring a very strong wind. I have a favorite anthill, which is right inside the trench made when some sort of missile plowed into the ground. These lively fellows have earned my admiration with their razor-straight lines, their dedication to the task at hand, and their preparedness in building an anthill in such an easily-defended location, which also happens to be out of the range of winds. Rare is the morning when I don't gather a handful of seeds myself and drop it nearby, on their path, to kind of symbolically help out -- cost of admission, in a way, for enjoying their labors. Sometimes they take my gift, and sometimes they just walk around the grains. I have yet to figure out why.
This morning I was walking along my usual path, past the bombed-out palace, towards the chow hall, when I saw a small anthill. I stopped to watch, because I'm always curious about the different patterns the different anthills form; sometimes they walk in straight lines, sometimes they all meander off in different directions. Some ants from a rival hill must have strayed into this hill's territory, or vice versa, because nearby a saw a skirmish in progress. I saw ants with their feelers locked together, with other ants closing in. I saw ants carrying off the bodies of the slain -- perhaps for food, perhaps for some strange insectine burial rites. I focussed in on one pair in particular, facing off one against the other, as others grouped in behind, in the classic movie example of single combat, and a memory awoke, so strong it put a wrench into my gut.
I remembered Kuwait, back during the actual war (as opposed to the war that came later, that isn't called a war. I remembered days and days of having missiles fired at us hourly, or at least daily. I remembered (and this was what I felt, watching the ants) the gut-wrenching feeling of hunching down inside a bunker, or standing outside one when there was no room, as explosions rocked the ground beneath us or the air above us.
I remembered thinking "I don't think I like war very much."
Understand here that I speak as a civilian, not as a soldier. I've never been in active combat. Never faced my fellow man on a personal level out to obliterate my existence on the field of battle. I've heard the stories. Something else I remember is, one night in the chow hall at Camp Commando, Kuwait -- I think this was the night before I left there to come to Iraq for the first time -- a big blonde Marine came up to me and just started telling me everything he'd seen and done. Memory's kind here -- I don't remember the exact words he used, or even the scenes he described. I remember the look on his face, though, as if the entire world had just stretched out an arm of rock and slapped him. I remember the horror behind his words, and the futility in his voice. I thought at the time (and I still do) that I wasn't the first person to whom he found himself telling this story. It was like he found himself repeating this story over and over, searching for understanding. I hoped then (and I still hope) that I was the last one to whom he had to tell it.
Yep. No two ways about it; war sucks.
Some mornings I think of the ants, and how brave they are just to come out of their hills at all. There are paths running all around their homes, and we share them rather inexpertly. Each ant lives in the uncertainty of knowing that today a boot may come down on top of them. They come out anyway; they fight their battles and they gather their food and they don't, in anything but my imagination, enjoy the sunshine playing across them. They know the survival of their anthill depends upon them, and they'll break their carapaces carrying food, or fight to the death, to protect it.
I'm not some reconstituted hippie who doesn't believe in war. I know that sometimes war happens, and sometimes it's necessary. I try to refrain from judgment on this one, since the occupation phase isn't over yet. I don't like war; war sucks, but it happens. I myself wouldn't be anywhere but here during something like this. I'm not here to fight; my job is a little different from all that, but I do think that I make a difference of some sort in the whole thing.
I know this got more personal than usual. I blame the ants. Perhaps I should take up watching camel spiders. Really hard to feel any sympathy or anthropomorphosize them.
Posted: Mon - April 18, 2005 at 02:18 PM