737. Beware! Combat Rage

(This is a re-post from my blog at www.notalone.com/blogs, check it out!)

It still comes out sometimes. The combat rage. Usually at bars; other people get so plastered that they lose their filters. They will come to me with disrespect, being uncouth or accosting me for no real reason. I’ve learned to be a peaceful man, but don’t doubt that beneath my wild beard and extra pounds of flab, the green, clean, killer-confident Marine still lies dormant.

You wouldn’t poke a stick against a serpent would you?

It’s the hardest part of the combat experience to erase – that warrior instinct to maim or kill at a moment’s notice. It’s part of boot camp: beat up the other Marine, knock off his helmet with your pugil sticks, and get a phone call home.

It’s an aspect of weapons training: peer through your rifle’s iron-sights at the targets shaped like people; imagine what it’s like to violently end another human.

And it’s the most essential part of war: an explosion ignites while on patrol, rack your machine gun and get ready to kill.

I used to spend a lot of time at bars because I was depressed and didn’t care about life. Drinking allowed me to at least feel a burn, the flaming spirits torching my throat and charring my mind, which was something at least. Or maybe I’d just consume so much I’d never wake up again. That would have been fine, too.

Now I drink however, because I have found a calm and joyous spirit, and I love to be social and spend time with my friends. I’ll have a few brews and laugh and watch sports; or stay up late, engaging strangers with discussion of the arts, culture, or life and the lessons I’ve learned.

But I forget sometimes who I am really am – the warrior I was programmed to be – and the mental struggles of surviving battle that I may never entirely rise above.

A short, muscular man with a shaped-goatee, tried to take one of the chairs that I had reserved for my friend, as I chilled with some friends at a local trivia night. He did this even though I reminded him when asked about the chair several times already, that “Yes, my friend is coming. He’s just running late, man.”

His question, this time, was especially disrespectful. During a chug-off (if more than one team gets the correct answer, they send a representative to throw back a beer as quickly as possible to try and win the round), he had already taken another one of our chairs when we left our table to cheer our teammate.

“You sure you need this chair?” he asked yet again, jeering us, as he began to drag it away.

I slammed my palm against the table and leaned into him. “Take your hands off that f***ing chair.”

He stared back, deciding if he wanted to pursue a brawl. I’m sure he was way stronger than me – I haven’t lifted much in the years after getting out – and maybe more trained. Who knows, maybe he was even a part time lightweight cage fighter; almost everyone I meet is into martial arts these days. But I get blackout rage, this deeply ingrained caustic instinct that prevents me from feeling any pain when I’m mad. And I don’t think those who haven’t survived man versus man, life or death combat (or ever even had to consider their mortality) can really understand how that can be. Like a suicide bomber, you can’t stop that mentality. There’s no defense.

He backed off and returned to his group of friends, chair-less, and leaned against the bar. My friends stared at me awkwardly and my pulse still roared.

It was all the better for him, though. I like to think of myself as a pacifist now, but I cannot shut off my nature. It’s in moments like these that the darkness returns. I pray I’m not pushed too far in these times. They are less and less frequent the further away I get in years from Iraq and war. But I know that they’ll always remain.

All content ©Dario DiBattista 2010. All posts are for display purposes only and not to be considered published.

736. Six Months Down: How Close Am I Towards Making My Goals for the Year?

Six months have passed. We've laughed. We've cried. My bank account has dipped to zero. But does that mean I'm not close to making my goals for the year? Let's discuss (or actually, you just sit there and read).

---From Blog Number 719---

Goal Number One: Sell both my books. Well, yeah, I have not achieved that one, yet. I'm methodically pitching agents and have gotten some pretty good responses so far (one request for more material and several personalized rejections). My big secret I'm not telling anyone is that, supposedly, one of my mentor's agents is interested in talking to me about representation. But alas, she was supposed to call me two Mondays ago and I still haven't heard from her. Sigh.

Goal Number Two: Continue doing my very best at Hopkins. Well, I got the same grades as last semester so I'm totally on par with that one. I'm taking a full time load again this Fall.

Goal Number Three: Complete a book of poems. Um, let's not talk about this one just yet. I have poems -- just not in a book. Yeah...

Goal Number Four: Make enough for sushi with my writing. Well, I'm a paid blogger now at www.notalone.com/blogs, and I'm going to be getting recompensed for making documentaries for them -- and I'm started a podcast too! Sweet! And yeah, I'm not making money overall for my words but I've had my stuff published in The Washington Post (see two posts ago) and later this year in Connecticut Review so that's pretty tops, huh?

I don't know people! I think I'm getting there and I'm not quitting. Much love all :-)

735. Memorial Day (We Were Dreamers)

Torn from our family and our lives, we volunteered to put the weight of the nation on our shoulders. Many of us didn’t know why we would ever fight, or what romantic notion would compel us to even try.

It was for God, for country, for family, for the love of a heart so many thousands of miles away; we fought.

Anything would have been better: working late at the office six days a week; driving during rush hour to some distant relative’s house; mowing the lawn on Saturday; shopping with a girl; attending a high school reunion; anything at all.

In between battles, over cigarette smoke and strumming guitars, we would talk about our plans for after we returned home: the embrace of our lover; living life as a college boy; sleeping in everyday; betting on black in Vegas. It would all be so sweet.

It was those images that kept us awake behind our machine guns after fighting for days. It was the thought of our lover’s taste that gave us the drive to search houses and vehicles while not knowing what hid inside. It was the hope of something better that helped us exist unbroken in our reality.

Oftentimes we were mindless; we had been conditioned and trained. We would give immediate obedience to lawful order. We would react by instinct and perform like automatons. But we were dreamers – we would have never joined if that weren’t the case.

And that is the tragedy of a military death in combat. The dreams of nations, the dreams of family and friends, the dreams of the individual soldier; they all fall one person.

It is a burden that those who have survived will never forget. We don’t seek pity and charity from anyone. We just ask that you remember; just like us the best you can.

Lest we forget and the American dream becomes a nightmare.


RIP: Sergeant Bill Cahir; Corporal William Salazar; Lance Corporal Michael Starr; Lance Corporal Norman Anderson; Corporal Joshua Snyder; fallen members Third Battalion Seventh Marine Regiment for OIF II


~ Semper Fi ~





All content ©Dario DiBattista 2010. All posts are for display purposes only and not to be considered published.

734. Dario's Guest Blog for the Washington Post

From Fallujah to Chili's: A reservist goes back to work (Excerpt)

(You can read the full blog by clicking here)

At the restaurant, right now is the highlight of our guests's week. Monday through Friday, for eight hours a day, they had to dress up, be polite to the boss and look busy behind something light and digital - how tough for them.

None of them carried a weapon instead of a Personal Digital Assistant. None of them listened to wind-tossed dog tags clanking against the rifle, boots and helmet memorial of a newly killed Marine. None of them picked up the body parts of both strangers and friends: a tossed salad served by suicide bombings.

It's March 2005; I've only been back home from my second tour for about four months and I'm heartbroken and poor and not mentally well. It's been over two months since my year-long orders to active duty ended. The military's finance system has yet to sign off on the thousands of dollars they owe me. So I'm forced to work when I'm barely capable of basic existence. On my days off, I'm too depressed to move. On my couch, I watch the days turn to darkness through the slits in the patio blinds; and when it's dark I'll finally rise to go get wasted.

I loved someone once. And she loved me. She wrote me daily in Iraq and drew me pictures. She scribbled hearts under her name and marked the envelopes with lipstick. We used to work at the same store. Now that I'm home again though, I've become an ugly man - filled with rage and sorrow, prone to excessive self-medication. I scared her away. I show up to a different Chili's now; it's too hard for me to face my failures...

733. Check Out Dario as the Featured Student Voice in The Johns Hopkins University Arts and Sciences Magazine!

Here's a snippet (click here for the full story):

Which is most difficult: Waiting for war, fighting in it...or making sense of the aftermath?

These are among the issues that Marine Reservist Dario DiBattista Jr. grapples with in his memoir Go Now, You Are Forgiven. Currently a graduate student in the Advanced Academic Programs' writing program, DiBattista, 26, served two combat tours in Iraq before coming home, he says, to a life of "discord." Eventually he began to find catharsis by blogging about his experiences—work that gained him notice in The New York Times and an interview on Connecticut Public Radio.

DiBattista's story extends beyond the battlefield. Inhis memoir, for which he is currently seeking a publisher, he writes movingly about the pain of living in "constant flux"—as a college student (at Central Connecticut State University), waiter, and Reservist "on standby for war." In the end, he says, "Go Now, You Are Forgiven is about accepting responsibility for one's life, no matter how the problems came to be, and moving forward confidently and self-forgiven."

732. Don't Leave Me This Night (Ballad for Narrative Poetry Class)

This will be available to own for free on www.dariodibattista.com soon. Thank you for your patience.

Cheers,

Dario






All content ©Dario DiBattista 2010. All posts are for display purposes only and not to be considered published.

731. A Beautiful Passing (Profile and Biography Workshop Assignment)

This will be available to own for free on www.dariodibattista.com soon. Thank you for your patience.

Cheers,

Dario





All content ©Dario DiBattista 2010. All posts are for display purposes only and not to be considered published.