The world presses down,
and pushing back takes it's toll
on you.
It breaks you down,
you crumble,
pieces of body and mind
shear, flake, and tumble away
from your quivering self.
Everything hurts, eyes closing, mind numb, skin crawling.
Coated in sweat, earth, rain, fuel.
Gunpowder lines your lungs
filling your nostrils.
You long for a release.
Lifting the weight off your back,
to feel yourself float unburdened.
Water to run and renew you,
The hardest mattress a cloud above the chill ground.
Jean's like an old friend on fresh flesh that has forgotten denim.
The touch of a lover, long overdue.
Her soft skin on yours,
with lips so divine,
and a voice like honey.
You forget, for a while, the weight of the world, and all you need do,
is be.
You're set free.

Pinanday ka ng panahon
May tapang na hindi
basta sumusuko,
sa lahat ng laban
wala kang inuurungan,

Agimat mo ay katapangan
na umagaw mula sa kalaban.
Buo at tibay ng iyong loob
ano man ang iyong sagupain
walang di kakayanin.

laban mo’y hindi biro
Una kami sa iyong puso
Bago ang iyong pagkatao
Karamay ka, sa bawat
along bumubugso.

Ikaw ang bagong bayani
ng ating lipi na nagbabalik
ng kulay at sigla bitbit
ang bandila na may kisig
at buong katapangan.

Nations writhe in horror before them;
every face turns pale.
They charge like mighty men;
they scale the walls like men of war.
Each one marches in formation,
not swerving from the course.
They do not jostle one another;
each proceeds in his path.
They burst through the defenses,
never breaking ranks.
They storm the city;
they run along the wall;
they climb into houses,
entering through windows like thieves.

the tide, a never-ending olive green
the advance made silently in
the pitch black night,
dark as the leather on their feet.

wading through the water
a muddy yellow tinged with blood
dripping like machine gun fire
opened fire in the jungle thicket

the river is full of them
treading panic water  to escape
treading on landmines -
little pots of death leaving crates,
cutting arms, legs, limbs gone,
lost in the panic water

soldiers in the river,
men in the panic water,
friends in the throes of death
clinging to each other,
kissing olive canvas with red lips
"Tell my girl I love her if I don't make it back!"
holding each other while holding their breath
listening, listening for the next agent to fall
like rain

and orange the rain on viet cong,
the american hatred dropping like bombs,
on ferns and palm trees losing their green
on children losing their voices from all the screaming and crying
their fathers tired of fighting and hanging loose
like landmine limbs,
in the reeds by the river,
waiting for death.

Thirty Four Years Ago

Today…

I scrambled from the back of a 5-ton Army truck and landed in a different universe

Before me stood men
Whose disdain for my existence was visceral

Though I had excelled in all of the tests required to arrive at this place – none of it mattered.

I hadn’t proven my worth to THEM.

And… until I did

I was nothing

Welcome to Day Zero

What's your favorite GoArmy.com commercial?
Mines the one where the make it look like a superhero movie
Completely unrelated
What's your favorite piece of propaganda?

FOR...







US ARMY