The new beginning

...This is the preferred prom gear.

A Marine's dress blues. I wonder if I can ever get the honor of wearing that. As a Marine. I have an idea of how to get myself in those shoes, but a chance which is so small that it is tempting to say there is no chance at all. Perhaps all I need is some time in the military, see how life is, then maybe I can make a sound choice. But truly, I see myself in no other vocation which can sustain me for the rest of my life. Perhaps just a short-sighted youth with no work experience speaking now. I will get that chance soon, a military life awaits me, but I guess I'm going to enjoy my first months of basic.

It's over, an entire chapter of my life. Studies no longer, I will probably reminisnce of this period of life where everything did not matter so much, where innocence still existed as more than just a word in my vocabulary. A reality which will disappear, with the real world sinking in deeper. It's funny how we always look back in wonder, at how we never appreciate the moments where time didn't matter, and life was simply a joy. I probably will only remember the camps, my failed attempts at soccer, my first three months in AJ, my JC life with GC, the Guys(tm), my abysmal friendships in JC, and that overwhelming urge, to join the military. Perhaps I am made out to fit well in SCHCDO, SPECWARTAC.

Prom is the only day in my calender now. A long goodbye, and I truly hope, a last friendship to be made which would last. Thank you for acceptance. I hope I can make the best of what you have offered. May a friendship blossom in fading light.

A true waste of time again, but salvaging as always, a quote.

Someone once told me that time is a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey that reminds us to cherish every moment because they'll never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we live it. After all, Number One, we're only mortal.
-Captain Jean Luc Picard

Don't give a damn about legacy, it will build itself from the way you choose to spend your life. Spend wisely.

Don

This is how I look...In prom gear. But...

Rounding the bend

What's round the corner? A question the Marine may be asking, and me as well. The conclusion of 12 years of schooling, and I'll be in the army next year. The next step will be stepping into the unknown, but what's round the bend you won't find out just standing there. I'm going to have to take the plunge, and find out just what life, army life, has to offer.

Just visited the blog of the guy who ratted out on the Marine unit he followed. Truth, that's his prerogative. He needed to make sure he put out the truth. Let the truth set you free they say. But that's just it, it doesn't. It just put someone behind bars, and made the battle for peace in Iraq one notch more impossible. Margaret Hassan's death occured around the time the news of the Marine shooting came out, Al-Jazeera chooses not to publicise the footage of her killing, but splashes images of the Marine shooting all over the headlines. Truth?

Fact, Marine may not have followed Uniformed Code of Military Justice. Fact, he would be punished nonetheless, with or without the publicity. Fact, Margaret Hassan was executed. Fact, she was defenseless. Fact, she helped the people of Iraq. Fact, the people who killed her are still on the loose, and people put more emphasis on the shooting of a known insurgent who probably killed innocent civilians. In all these facts, where is the truth? Our journalist publicised a fact, which simply hid the truth, and put a false image in peoples' minds, that Marines just enjoy nailing themselves some 'hajis' and totally give no shit about the rules. The media as a source of truth? That's a new one, anyone watched "Wag the Dog"? Truth can be created, and the media can manufacture one, splash pictures it creates and sway you with its words.

Hiram Johnson once said, "The first casualty when war comes is truth". Truth is something to be sought, the carrot on a stick which is always just a finger too far. We chase it, but it just remains out of reach. Does not mean we lose faith and forsake it, but we shouldn't go out of our way to distort it. Facts like the Marine shooting go out and simply skew the truth further, not bring us closer.

What a world I will go into. Where falsehood is perpetuated by facts, and the truth remains so elusive. The lesson which education will never teach, just experience. Before I lose my rose-tinted images of the world, and lose the belief that everyone can make a difference in this world, I can only hope that I do something to prove that perhaps there is still some good left in this world for me to save. Let's hope Mr. Frodo was right.

Don

The battle is over, but is victory one step closer? Is Iraq one battle less? Or has Fallujah been just the beginning? Mosul, Ramadi, Baghdad? Like late Yasser Arafat once said, to the United Nations General Assembly, "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand." Yasser Arafat could not stop his organisation from fighting, the olive branch fell and Israel and the dream of Palestine seems as far away now as it was then. Will a free Iraq, from dictator and now more importantly, from fear, ever have a chance? Someone get those Marines an olive branch each.

It don't mean a thing, man. Don't mean a f***ing thing

Marine shoots dead an insurgent. Now, this probably ain't news-worthy enough, so they probably had to give it a nice spin.

Marine shoots dead a wounded insurgent. Still doesn't have a ring to it...

Marine shoots dead a wounded, defenseless insurgent at point blank range. Wow, that totally will flood the headlines and totally make everyone MORE pissed off over the war in Iraq. Put some footage of a guy blowing away someone lying prone on the floor, and you got your story. But guess what, here's some news to that dumb embedded reporter who decided to screw the guy who had ensured he was alive to send that footage out.

It's war, people get killed. All the time. No matter who you are, what you do, once a bullet comes at you at 1100m/s, you don't have much of a chance. Plus, it seems every coverage of that story only wants to show the shooting part, ignoring what had happened to that unit earlier. The marine had almost had his cheek blown off, they lost a man to insurgents who pretended to surrender, and they just spent the better part of last week clearing street after street of people wanting to kill them. In those kinds of situation, the guy lying on the floor PRETENDING to be dead could well be holding a fragmentation grenade and waiting for me to walk near him (which the insurgents have been known to do way too often.). It seems the BBC is the only objective voice here, actually telling what had happened to the unit before they entered the mosque. Perhaps American media should learn a lesson from their Atlantic neighbour, and learn to tell THE WHOLE TRUTH.

Now that marine is waiting to be charged with violating the rules of war. I wonder how civilized those insurgents were when they blew away an aid worker. A woman. Nobody is complaining about that. Headline: Insurgents kill innocent, defenseless aid worker, who spent the better part of her life helping Iraqi children get on their feet again. Who railed against Clinton and Bush for the sanctions. Who was helping others till she was kidnapped and killed by insurgents. Margaret Hassan, a true heroine.

Nobody gets surprised at those headlines anymore, I wonder why. We truly believe that this insurgents no longer need to follow the rules? And the American soldier who must fight them have to follow military code of conduct or face being charged? Very soon, we'll have another Vietnam, because the media seems to give no shit about telling the whole truth, giving that sensationalist view of Americans killing 'innocent' insurgents, rather than insurgents killing real innocent civilians. Why report a single insurgent who had previously been trying his best to kill Marines and civilians, when everyday a bomb goes off killing tens of hundreds of civilians? Many more will die if the US were forced out of Iraq before its mission is done, and all because CNN or NBC needs a headline.

The good guys need to follow the rules when fighting the bad guys. Agreed. The bad guys need not follow the rules. Agreed. But let's not put more stress on the good guys anymore. They got a war to fight, an enemy who follows no rules to defeat. They don't need to face the prospect of having their faces plastered all over the evening news because they made a mistake. They don't need others to make judgements on them, blowing up minarets, where snipers are hiding, and killing wounded insurgents, who for all we know might be holding a grenade. Others who make judgements while they sit peacefully in their offices, or homes, without mortar rounds coming in on their heads, and can be certain they won't have an IED, AK-47 or RPG going off anywhere near them.

The title, it's a favorite line among GIs in Vietnam. They no longer saw the point in fighting an enemy, if all they were rewarded with was condemnation and scorn upon reaching home. A war they never volunteered for, but were drafted into. A war the media dramatised to get troops in, then dramatised to get troops out. Vietnam was a tragic error, like my history essay said. Let's not make Iraq one too.

"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"
-George Orwell

Let's not forget that.

Don

The picture in my head, an impeccable illustration. The Enterprise leaves dock, as I imagined. The songs plays in the background. Then it goes to warp, the song slowly fades away. The hope of humanity, away on its maiden voyage to explore the great blue. A picture truly says a thousand words.

I.D.I.C.

"Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations". Vulcan philosophy, that tolerance is the key because diversity is inevitable, since the universe is infinite, and like it or not, we're stuck together on this puny Earth. I guess it is the brainchild of Gene Roddenberry himself. Interesting that the things which mattered in the 1960s, still matter now. Old prejudices die hard, and we take time to change. Or will we ever?

Nazis and their "Final Solution", America and the Civil Rights movement, apartheid in South Africa, even now, the branding of all Muslims as terrorists. All are instances of when we try to achieve uniformity, and deny that diversity is all around us. Perhaps Star Trek needs to make a huge comeback, teach the lessons all over again to a generation which came upon "ethnic cleansing" as a new term, where wars are fought because we cannot stand each other. The fundamentalists are again running the show, with their own notions of what is good or bad. While they battle, the innocent suffer. While Fallujah burns as US and Iraqi forces battle the insurgents, the civilians are unable to get any medical aid. No food, water or safety. Perhaps the insurgents like to see the suffering, maybe that's why they keep taxi drivers and innocent civilians in slaugterhouses in the city, and torture and kill them only when US forces arrive. US places approaching? Mosques are protected under the Geneva Convention, let's shoot at the Marines while hiding in mosques and get them to blow up those minarets! Excellent Kodiac moment, while those dumb embedded reporters film all that down and label the US as insensitive and barbaric while we sit in the basement torturing innocent civilians!

Everything is a symbol these days. I blow up a mosque because the enemy fires at me from inside it, I'm labelled a hater of Muslims. Even Yasser Arafat can't get a final resting place in Jerusalem because that would mean the Israelis recognise the Palestinian claim that Jerusalem is part of Palestine. All that religious talk about forgiveness and tolerance, from both Jews and Muslims, and a man can't get his final resting place because of politics, that's got to be a first. The Israelis don't earn any brownie points with that gesture of theirs, they're simply perpetuating the endless round of violence they want to put a stop to. How many more lives does it take for something to become wrong? When did numbers matter more than actual morality? People obviously don't give a shit about what their religions preach, as they continue to keep a conflict which should have ended a long time ago going.

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Perhaps like in the Earth in Star Trek, when we start World War III and nuke ourselves to oblivion and back, then we might understand, and treasure, what it means. Question is, will we get that chance to survive Armageddon?

"If man does find the solution for world peace it will be the most revolutionary reversal of his record we have ever known."
George C. Marshall

Satellite picture of Fallujah. As usual, the "insurgents" are cowering in mosques or schools, to avoid getting shelled by the American and Iraqi forces. Perhaps it has to be mentioned again, there is no chance, not even an iota worth, that the insurgents are going to triumph. They keep locals back at gunpoint so they can have human shields against the Americans, and they continue to take hostages like nobody's business. Don't think that'll work wonders for their public relations, but I guess the image of terrorists is bad enough that nothing can save it. They'll lose Fallujah in the next few days, then run to Ramadi, which they'll lose again in a couple of months, maybe even weeks. Where next? Perhaps they haven't seen that the US is determined to ensure Iraq is safe, and Iraqis themselves want safety and stability above all else. Keep fighting, but be assured, you're going down. Hard.

SEAL team. Get in, get down, get them, and get out. Enough said.

I am my father's son

It was on Saturday, after tuition when I had dinner with my dad, both of us sharing a meal. He talked to me about the issues for the family, especially my sister's dismal results. Previously, he has told me about the business opportunities, asked me for my views and what he planned to do. We talked about my future, most probably in the military, and at that moment, it may have seemed how similar I was to my father more than 2, 3 decades ago. He gave me his usual warnings about how the army works, that I must be academically accomplished or I will be a nobody. But through the warning, I heard the unspoken words, (perhaps my over-active imagination at work) "My son is turning out so much to be...like me."

I don't know the circumstances that led to my father joining the army, he may have done so out of necessity. But it may be just like mine, a genuine desire to help others, and at the same time, see the world. It would be an interesting moment, when I am the one in uniform, and my dad pins on my stripes. That would be a dream, not the President handing the sword of honor to me, but my father, and so I could salute the man who has done so much for me.

Would my family be proud of the course I have chosen in life? I do not know, but I know that they would be happy at least that I choose to walk my own path. To honor, and glory? No, I think something simpler would be more fitting. To ideals, and dad.

Don

The forgotten. Values over troops in Iraq? America may have just voted wrongly, and these Marines may have to suffer their mistake. Would President Bush be the right choice for Iraq and the rest of the world? Only time will tell. 4 more years will tell. http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/ramadi/

It's almost 3, I ought to make this short. One day from my greatest fear, Maths C 9233 Paper 1. Guess it's nothing compared to the terror these Marines will be facing in Fallujah. I don't know about the comments some of them made, that "Satan is in Fallujah. And we're going in to fix him." Naviete? I guess they live up to how Lord Alfred Tennyson describes the soldier in "Charge of the Light Brigade", "Theirs not to make reply,/ Theirs not to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and die."

The higher ups will do the thinking for us, we're going in just to kill the bad guys, the generals and the President will make sure we're fighting the right people. No children in the streets, no fraticide, no innocent civilians. The insurgents will have horns on their heads, tails sticking out their butts and carry pitchforks, not RPGs and AK-47s. Right?

Right?

Ain't she a sight for sore eyes...

When will your moment come?

The inspiration for the title of this page is a rather odd one. It's one of those things we think up in the middle of the night, when the restless mind refuses to submit to sleep. I think it was a few months back, after June Common Test, when I laid in bed staring at the ceiling. I had just finished reading "A Company of Heroes", the exploits of Mike Durant during his capture in Somalia in 1993, after the operation to capture Aidid's top lieutenants went horribly wrong. I think it would be easier for most to remember it as "Black Hawk Down", the book and the movie which tried to capture the essence of that day in history. Two names stay with me after personally reading the book and watching the movie (I was watching the NC-16 film while I was 15). Their names stick because of the actions which they undertook to save the lives of their comrades, that of the crew of Super-64. Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon, I have the greatest respect for both of you.

The title came to me, because as my sleep-deprived mind wondered that night, I came to a sudden realization that perhaps all of us have that one moment when a choice had to be made, the definitive point in our life, where all previous actions and deeds pale in comparison to what we had to do next.(maybe the caffeine I had a few hours before sleeping was getting to me) It was the moment when nothing we did before ever mattered, rather, it was our next step which meant everything. Heroes I guess, are made in that moment, when that one choice would define you, where either you simply choose the highway to obscurity, or your own way to live on in eternal memory. Therefore, a moment for eternity.

Perhaps it may be a bit too simplistic to think that one deed would serve to validate our personal existence, but being the idealist I do think we each have our own personal choices which would affect people around us, and how we go about resolving our issues show who we are. Though the choices matter, I guess the experience is still the most important. I do hope that when my moment for eternity comes, I choose my way.

Choice. Today's General Paper comprehension passages delved into it, whether too much choices in modern day life is a bane or a blessing. My personal view is that though life is not our choice to make, how we live it is and always has been our own choice. Having only the contemporary worldview, it may be an over-generalisation on my part, that my ancestors had as much choice as I do, but it is my view that the fundamental choices in life exist now as they have before. Perhaps education is the key, that with more knowledge come more complex decisions. Therefore is ignorance bliss? Less choice better? An endless path we tread on now, and I choose to stop.

America has made its choice, and it is George Bush for another 4 years. I only hope he sticks to his word, unlike 4 years earlier, when he said he will be a unifier. The world and America has become more divided, even polarised, since he took office. I only hope we do not descend into chaos because of irreconciliable differences, and truly hope that we can rise above to find common ground and seek understanding rather than war. Then we can concentrate on digging Osama's ass out of the hole he crawled into, and send him on his way to Paradise.

Ideals don't come cheap, if we want peace, then we must prepare to combat those who threaten it. I've always been of the mind that force is necessary because there is such a thing as irrevocable evil, that will not compromise. Pure evil, and we can only protect the ideals we hold dear with M-16 in one hand, the other extended to offer peace if and when we find the source of evil eliminated. Osama is one source, the others are all the radical teachers of fundamentalist, extremist religious and social beliefs. Terrorism may have many tentacles, but an octupus still has a head which a 5.56 round can easily ventilate. The old axiom, that old men talk while young men die, still holds true. Take out the old trash-talkers like Osama and Bashir, and young men would have a chance to live again, to utilise their lives in service of peace and all mankind.

Off the deep end again, I have a tendency to ramble into the totally incoherent. Again, I provide salvation in quotation marks, a quote from John Stuart Mill.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

Sincerely,
Don

Captain's Starlog, November 3rd, 2-0-0-4

Change is the only constant. How true that rings now. I always criticised others about blogging, saying how childish it is, and that it was attention seeking behaviour at its worst, since it clogs up an already garbage-filled Internet. Then change occurred, I start to see things from their view, and found that it is indeed a good way to let off steam, and keep tabs of our own growth, as we grow from strength to strength. History, even if it's only our own, in the making, with each new entry. I believe it was Frodo who said that the best anyone could get to living forever was in songs and books, and though the Lord of the Rings was a work of fiction, it is without doubt the method with which Tolkien will live on forever.

First entry, and yes as seen in the title, I am clearly a Trekkie, though you could consider me a late bloomer. I didn't grow up on Kirk or Picard, but the most recent iteration, Captain Jonathan Archer. My starship is the NX-01 Enterprise, not the NCC-1701 classification, without deflector shields, tractor beams, phaser arrays and quantum torpedos, just polarized hull plating, spatial torpedos, phaser cannons and magnetic tractors. There was no Federation yet, no Prime Directive, just Starfleet with no Vulcan commanders. I saw the pilot while on holiday in Malaysia, Desaru if I recall correctly. At 1200 midnight, alone in the hotel room with everyone conked out, I saw the Enterprise hit the threshold at Warp Factor 5. I was at my lowest then, having screwed up Common Tests, and preparing to do worse for Preliminary Exams. My prefectorial term left me with nothing worth remembering, I regretted not spending more time on my scouting, feeling fatalistic when I looked at the sum of the parts of my life, and saw it amounting to zilch. Nothing.

That episode ended on a cliffhanger, though I wouldn't call it so, because it didn't leave me hanging. I was beamed up, metaphorically speaking. At the end the crew was faced with an ion storm, which was an uncertain obstacle, since Starfleet never equipped its crew with what it needed most then during its maiden voyage, experience. The navigation officer Ensign Mayweather (Dickens would be proud of how that name seems so ironic now) advises to go around the storm. But our captain simply looks at the obstacle facing him, smiles and shakes his head gently. "No. Let's go through it." I found a new way to look at things, and no longer did I see the predicament I was in as a bane, but an experience waiting for me to go through it, to explore and learn more.

The song which plays when Enterprise cleared its moorings, moving out of star dock with the rest of humanity watching, and Archer commanding, "Bring us out slow, one quarter impulse. Warm up the warp engines, we're going into the deep blue." It plays everytime I face an insurmountable obstacle, with overwhelming odds stacked against me. It plays, and speaks softly into my ears, don't always find triumph when it doesn't exist, don't admit failure and go away defeated, don't avoid the situation, go through it and gain what is most precious, the experience. From out of the blue, Enterprise pulled me from the gutters, and I am all the better because of it. The show gave me back what I sorely lacked to face my trials ahead, the idealism and the faith. At the end of my journey, I would love to say that despite regrets in certain points of my life, there would be no other course I would have taken.

Perhaps that is why I never found God like those who tried to convert me. To all those who have in one way or another felt hurt or doubted their faith in God due to me, I offer my mea cupla (I believe it is used in this context). I have found my own way of seeing things, and having faith in something more worthy of trust, that humanity is still human, as long as we believe in it and put our life's work to it. The world today may be a different place if we put more faith in ourselves, than in some divine being who might right our wrongs, and forgive our sins, and heaven or paradise would await us at the end. Instead of "In God We Trust", I humbly propose, " In Humanity We Believe."

Deep. I'm probably sounding like I have gone off the really deep end, like the Marianas Trench. But I guess I'm doing my little bit in pushing what I believe, hoping that perhaps I would do some good in this first post. If you manage to read up to here, I commend you for your perserverance, and put across this little notion, perhaps you may have gained something from the traumatising experience of reading through this storm of random ideas?

I'll try and salvage this experience for you, by making sure you do gain something from this. A quote, from Samuel Butler.

"We can do very little with faith, but we can do nothing without it."

Sincerely,
Don