well, another christmas away from home. it was pretty relaxed. spent christmas eve at the commander’s place, and then went to seoul to see miwa on christmas day. she made a nice christmas dinner for me and her friend doo hee.
courtesy of doo hee’s phone:
즐거운 크리쓰마쓰! / malagayang pasco! / ¡feliz navidad! / merry christmas from koalayummeee!
has it only been a year-and-a-half? a year-and-a-half has been simultaneously three weeks and three years, and eight months has been like a lifetime… i’ve lived and died so many times, i don’t even know which life i’m on anymore.
i still have the dreams — both the beautiful ones and the nightmares. sometimes i still curl up and shake uncontrollably. my brain chemistry all fucked up, my emotions all out of whack. i think i have ptsd.
some wars you fight on the soil of a faraway land, and some wars you fight in the privacy of your own mind. and those wars — the ones waged in silence — are the worst, because no one can even help you because no one knows, and even if they did, they wouldn’t know how. the only thing tangible is the way you wither away from inside.
some sights, some sounds, some smells and touches, some memories you can never forget.
religious leaders appealing to religious teachings to encourage a religious constituency to do the right thing isn’t blasphemous; it’s a textbook example of knowing your audience. that it has to do with politics is no more a violation of the separation between church and state or an assault on the christian faith than what jesus himself said in the bible: “give to caesar what is caesar’s and to god what is god’s.” in fact, it’s practically the same message.
what irks me is that the mere mention of jesus’ name instantly supercharges any conversation. it shouldn’t be that way. credit that to people who throw out jesus’ name for their own ends; it seems to me a true christian would never invoke jesus’ name for the sake of personal gain, only for the sake of god and god’s ends — which is to say in the promotion of love and righteousness. encouraging people to obey laws hardly seems to go against what jesus himself said.
Group’s Census promo called ‘blasphemous’
A Hispanic group promotes full participation in next year’s Census with an ad campaign built around the story of Christmas.
By Haya El Nasser, USA TODAY
A push to spread the gospel about the 2010 Census this Christmas is stoking controversy with a campaign that links the government count to events surrounding the birth of Jesus.
The National Association of Latino Elected Officials is leading the distribution to churches and clergy of thousands of posters that depict the arrival of Joseph and a pregnant Mary in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago. As chronicled in the Gospel of Luke, Joseph returned to be counted in a Roman census, but he and Mary found no room at an inn, and Jesus was born in a manger.
“This is how Jesus was born,” the poster states. “Joseph and Mary participated in the Census.”
Most of the posters are in Spanish and target Latino evangelicals, says Jose Cruz, senior director of civic engagement at the Latino association, which launched its Ya Es Hora (It’s Time) campaign in 2006 to promote voter registration among Latinos.
It is promoting the Census, used to help allocate $400 billion a year in federal dollars, redraw state and local political districts and determine the number of seats each state gets in Congress.
“Our challenge is a full Latino count,” says Cruz, who designed the poster. For people who fear government — especially those here illegally — the plea to fill out the Census has to come from someone they trust, he says. “There is no more trusted voice in our community than faith-based leaders.”
The campaign may counter efforts by one Latino evangelical group to get Hispanics to boycott the Census unless Congress changes immigration laws.
The Rev. Miguel Rivera, chairman of the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders, says invoking the name of Jesus to promote the 2010 Census is “blasphemous” and “violates the concept of separation of church and state.” Using the name of Jesus for “a political and secular intention, it is definitely an assault against our Christian faith,” Rivera says.
Government did not pay or play a role in creating the posters, says Nick Kimball, spokesman at the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau. “We work with people from all walks of life to get an accurate count but do not provide funding,” he says. Most mainstream Latino groups do not support a Census boycott.
Tying the Census to the Christmas story strengthens the message, Cruz says, because “Mary and Joseph, who were both God-fearing, decided they needed to participate.”
“결혼해 주세요.”
“네.”
“cool.”
well, the topic of marriage seems to be rearing its head everywhere these days… jenny and will are getting married; now that jeff is getting deployed to afghanistan, he and his girlfriend in taiwan are rushing to get married before he leaves; v says he’s ready to settle down with his girl…
and then there is james. marriage… is a big and scary subject, for many reasons. the biggest reason is that if i make a promise, i make that promise forever. for me, forever means forever — not ’til i find someone younger and prettier than you, not ’til i get sick and tired of your annoying quirks and you start to drive me crazy, but forever.
it’s unfortunate that the divorce rate is over fifty percent these days, and in the military, with the strain of multiple deployments, it’s around sixty. it’s also unfortunate that some people at least partially blame this on homosexual partnerships, which “destroy the sanctity of marriage.” the problem with marriage these days isn’t that homosexuals are corrupting its sanctity; the problem is that heterosexual men and women rush into things and make promises they either don’t truly understand or they don’t truly mean. ie, they get married with the mindset that they truly love the other person, when they really don’t and only think they do, or they get married with the mindset that if it doesn’t work out, they can always get a divorce anyways. people set themselves up for failure.
anyone who has ever been around a successful marriage knows that for the union to remain strong and intact, it takes work! it requires total commitment to the other person, the intestinal fortitude to swallow one’s pride and make the difficult sacrifice, and the integrity to truly live up to one’s word when things get tough and there is nothing you would like to do more than run away and leave the mess behind. but instead, people lack the balls to own up to their promises and bail on the relationship, because that’s the easier thing to do. it’s easier to blame the other person, or to cut and run. it’s difficult to forgive.
now granted, there are situations where one partner does irreparable harm to the marriage, and there is no point in continuing on together — such as cases of abuse and repeated infidelities. it takes two to tango after all, and you can’t make a person keep on dancing unless he or she chooses to. but by and large, the majority of failed marriages are the result of people making poor/hasty decisions for the wrong reasons, with unrealistic expectations for the relationship going forward or counting on changes in the other person they have no right to expect will come, and without truly willing to commit to their own promises of “in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, ’til death do us apart.”
and the other thing: you need to keep the romance, man! you need to keep fanning the flames! you need to stay young at heart, even while maturing together and gaining a deeper understanding of each other. you have to keep falling in love again. kisses, flowers, long walks on the beach, dinner dates on the town, crazy passionate sex, and the confidence that you are the best and no one else can rock his or her world like you can — the swagger if you will. and free time apart from each other to do your own things. all of it easier said than done, of course. no one truly knows how another person will change and grow over time, but if you don’t have a pretty damn good idea, then you have no business asking the question.
finally, if nothing else, don’t be tiger woods.
so i met miwa after work in hangdang, where we sat down to a delicious meal of shabu shabu and lots of silliness, as always. miwa is so terrible though! we were walking to the train, and this hajima was selling puppies. they were so cute! well, miwa convinced me that they were for food. i was soooooo upset! turns out she was lying and was just trying to provoke me. i nearly flipped out. not cool!
puja, korea, 27 november 2009
so unfortunately, we were working friday over the four-day thanksgiving weekend, because every time i have anything planned, @#$%ing 2ID or 210 Fires BDE comes up with some last minute tasking—in the case of last wednesday, it was division safety stand-down day. consequently, thanksgiving consisted of serving lunch to the joes in my dress blues at the chow hall, followed by dinner at the commander’s house, and finally a blitz back to camp casey to get some sleep before 0430 wakeup the next day.
by 0600 we were on the road to scout out some sites around korea, which generally means within shooting range of the DMZ, along north korea air avenues of approach. we hit our sites without too much trouble, except for one road which was mislabeled on the map and sent us on a two-hour long detour.
the cool part was taking a break and stopping to get some lunch in paju book city, a pretty artsy-looking area north of the han river that runs through seoul. we drove up to simhaksan, which holds a buddhist temple complete with a giant statue of buddha. alas, our fearless driver missed a turn on the return trip, which brought us directly to the DMZ near warrior base, where we do our grenade ranges, and in the general vicinity of panmunjom, the village just south of the 38th parallel where truce negotiations were held to end the korean war. so we kind of took the scenic route, but we made it back, which is all that matters.
also, don’t let sgt epps take photos. he’s a good soldier; a good photographer? not so much. ::james shakes his head::
i would like to take the time to wish everyone a safe and relaxing thanksgiving weekend.
it’s going to be a lonely holiday again this year. the family is on the other side of the world, and the girlfriend is working, as the koreans already celebrated chusok.
just another day in the life.
to all my brethren deployed to iraq and afghanistan, you’re in our prayers. come home alive.
one of the worst things about being at camp casey is the quarters. basically, i have one room, which serves as my bedroom/living room/kitchen/storage closet, with an attached bathroom. it’s not too bad—i don’t have a roommate or have to share a suite—but it’s definitely not like living in an apartment or condo off post, as married soldiers do. the real worst things are the curfew and the remoteness of post—it takes an hour-and-a-half to get to seoul.
anyhow, sometimes the white cinderblock walls get pretty depressing, and furthermore, i am seriously lacking in storage space. especially in the kitchen. so i took matters into my own hands and attained shelving that sticks to the walls on ultra-strong suction cups, simultaneously increasing storage space and making my room feel slightly more homey…
and, of course, i have “the ex knife set” and a brand new spice rack! granted, most of the spices i went out and purchased for use on my spice rack i have never used, but they look pretty! they also smell good, and i suppose miwa can come over and cook for me =)
my little kitchenette
i bought this waffle maker when i first got to korea, and i still have never used it!
“the ex” knife holder & a jar with 31 different kinds of beans!
mmmm… spices!
okay, first question: why do the civilians get the focus for our operation?! aside from that, check out the sweet footage of the MANPADS kill around the 1:40 mark:
sweet.
