Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Aftertaste

Aftertaste,

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and I got drafted to sing in the Choir. The director says I have a good voice but I think she is desperate to fill the ranks. She promised to sing a hymn I liked and I was hooked.

I am glad to be focused on things other than writing. The EWW class while fun is a bit of a drain and I am trying to recharge my batter. At the same time is this diet of mine, FPDGL, which was encouraging on the scales this morning. I dropped two lbs. since yesterday.

When it comes to dieting and my blog, I behave like a gambler. If you have ever listened to one you know that they always report when they win but keep mum when they don’t. You can take it to the bank that when I talk about my world famous diet it is only when the results show it is working. Sometimes I think it is an inconsistency in the scale. However, over time the scale doesn’t lie.

I finished my Sniper Book and felt depressed when I did. While not as prolific a practitioner of war, my Vietnam experiences were similar to the Author’s in Iraq. The difference was that my wife thought I returned a better person than when I left. What I didn’t realize was that it was often possible for a soldier to communicate by Cell Phone with the United States and there was more contact between husbands and wives than in Vietnam.

Another thing that I saw in the author was an almost sociopathic lack of feeling for the Iraqis that he killed. I must admit that same feeling at the time, but as the years have passed I develop more and more empathy for each and every one. What I did as a soldier was necessary and I have no shame but I do feel a more personal sense of regret now than when it was happening. One of the things he expressed was that there is often an element of humor in the most ghastly of events evidences itself. Talk about gallows humor, soldiers find a way to laugh and vent over some pretty terrible events that in retrospect were no laughing matter. It is almost as if in war we descend a few rungs down Maslow’s scale and the brutality that would shock detached viewers has a different effect on combatants than viewers of the evening news.

I played some more on my model airplane simulator. I flew a B-17 Bomber and a Spitfire. My proficiency is going up and my landings are becoming less and less of an embarrassment. My biggest problem is that my vision is not as good and my coordination, which was never exceptional, has not improved with age. I lose orientation on the airplane which would not happen if I was in the cockpit. From a bystander POV the control functions on banking reverse themselves and you have to force your mind to stay behind the stick until your brain makes the adjustment. I am not sure how this relates to writing except to say that an author needs to stay in the heads of the characters while writing and stay out of his/her own husk.