my brothers keeper…

fleet II

Originally uploaded by jayfherron.

I wish that I could have this photograph with the ships removed so that I could convey the thoughts I have this morning more clearer-I want to try to paint a picture of the vastness of the ocean and the sky together when there is no land in sight.. So if you can try to visualize what the picture would look like with the ships gone-and how pure the scene would seem.
I dont exactly ever know how I’m going to start out when I write these things-sincerely this is no plan only that my original intention is to draw attention to a problem with the way veterans who have been raped and sexually assaulted during military service are provided no means of support at all from the Veterans Administration during the long road towards a hope for recovery.
By this I want to explain that my complaint is not at all levels-for sure the treatment I have been getting each week for over two years-from Charlotte,my therapist at the VA…is the most looked for part of my week . It is at the place where a veteran might get if they decide to hold the military accountable for what happened to them when the attack took place.
Its totally ignorant to think that once a sexual attack is over one can brush off the dust and put thier hair in place and go away forgetting it all ever happened-it sickens me to think of how rape is looked at as a sex crime…it has been my understanding sex is supposed to be something pleasant. Rape was not pleasant.
Every morning that I decide to write something I dont think its up to me as to what I end up writing because my minds a blank-its five in the morning and I just got up and having my first cup of coffee and sit in front of this electro-idea and stare…I mean,I have to find a point? And most of the time these tales of one mans past and present-an insignificant part of the human race,just some guy…no one famous-thats for sure-myself and this being my past and now. (I know that didnt make much sense but I understood it!) So whatever it is Im talking about is current-real…for sure,and must be on my mind in some section of it because it ends up being what I write about.
Who ever you are-you who is takeing a moment to read my life as I put it out to you…you are my invisable therapist! And something I never expected about this-writing on WordPress and exposeing anything myself that I can….to see each day that somebody has looked at me and heard me for a minute is powerful.
I wrote and told about my experience in the Navy-how it was my own brother who was jealous (??I’m guessing??) and put me in jeopordy in a place forever in my memory-barracks D. My brother!….my brother??
In barracks D….we were there to be punished-I know I was,in barracks D your entire world is 32 inches wide and 72 inches long-that is,if you can escape there. And I guess in the depth of it all you try to look for something safe….in a place where you are locked up with other men that is hard to do.
I had some sunday school when I was a boy-we’d go to some kind bible camp in the summer-bible school I think it was called,and we’s cut out pictures of this guy named Jesus and all of his followers and color them with crayons and paste them to pictures of a water hole or something and so for some reason those stories they told us at vacation bible school stuck in my head and so I would seek solitude in my 32 by 72 inch world and look up at God and say….what?
The only thing I could really remember about all that was the story of Jesus and this fishing guy named Peter and they were on a boat fishing and from somewhere Jesus comes and he’s walking out on the surface of the water and convinces Peter he can do it too. Its just one of the many storys that can make it hard to believe any of it….laying there in a bunk in a detention barracks fearing attack because you’ve already been attacked once before and often after that,but I looked towards it-that one story about Jesus and Peter.
Right after the FBI took Rose and sent her back to prison I stood out in my back yard that night and stared out into the sky at the stars and thought about every bit of the events that led both of us to that day. I never felt more alone in all of my life-I can only compare it to laying in my 32 by 72 inch world in barracks D-I was that alone. And just like those nights when I was able to find safety in my 32 by 72 inch word and would go back to being a little boy in vacation bible school and conjure up the memory of the story of Jesus on that water….thats what I did that night looking up into the sky.
I’m not meaning to spout religion here…and I am not! What am saying is how through out the years and especially these later years I look at the fact my body is sick-and I’m going to die,perhaps not tomorrow or anything like that is planned (although I got my coffin and my grave all ready!!) and I look back at everything-everything!! And I find these odd comparisons along with stories in the bible and feel strongly with them and how they fit somehow….and I look at how hard we as a people battle to keep alive in this old world-like the old guys at the VA that are sitting in wheel chairs and have oxygen hoses in thier nose and a long pack of Winstons in thier shirt pocket…why bother? And the political elections are coming up and they expect that millions and millions of bucks will be spent this time and far exceed the previous elections….and yet in this free land of ours live kids,small children-alone and with out a home,or even worse-across the sea into Europe-hundreds and hundreds of kids are dumped by thier parents and they live on the street-most of them sniffing glue,and we in America prepare to bput another guy in office who gives just as much of a crap as the next about these things and can do nothing about them.
Ihad a stroke in 1998 and there was a place I went towards as my body was getting ready to die before triage called code blue and brought me back to the living…its kind of like this picture-except you have visualize it with out the ships! Just look at the blue of the sky and the sea blending together-pure….empty,fresh-with out malice and hate and ugly…just vast and wide open. Clean and new.
How many times have you ever just lay on your back on a sunny afternoon and stare up at the clouds and wish to be free to romp up there?
I think thats what the whole thing is about-Peter and Jesus walking on the sea. We all know that we couldnt go to the shore and just start walking out there….but we all know that we seek something better,much better than what we have right now.
Its a fucked up life,here…really-look at your place where you are and think about the guys and the woman and the kiddies that have no where to go-living these days in the snow,summers in the muck of heat and mosqiutoes. Look at me right now-in the safety of my own home-a hot shower just footsteps away….some TV dinners in the freezer-a micro wave to heat them up,and I feel guilty because I think of those kids in Europe sucking bags of glue and thats it-that is life for them,and its not just those kids-its the way it is across the world…we have all seen it. I am often perplexed because of this way that I think….