travelingunclematt - Tumblr blog

[travelingunclematt]

Where Lost Men Go to Weep

Last summer I went to Arlington for work. I knew I would make time to see my friend, I did. I walked the mile and a half from my hotel room to Arlington National Cemetery on a Saturday, time to think. I walked through the security checkpoint and fumbled through and “uh’d” and “er’d” my my way, depositing my keys and forgetting my belt through the metal detector and so forth. I declined a map, I wasn’t here as a tourist. I was here, a timeline; from Kyu and our time at Bragg 20 years ago, Baghdad, Nate’s call to me of his death in 2008, seeing him on TV and bawling to a bewildered girlfriend later that year, my landing in Afghanistan 2013 and surveying the land - “this is where Kyu was killed.”

    I used the cemetery app on my phone to search his name to where he was and got nothing. Was it his name? He is Korean, maybe his name was put in wrong. I scoured the internet, there is a picture of his father at his graveside weeping and Kyu’s newborn in a stroller beside him for his funeral and an officer handing Kyu’s wife a flag. There was a picture of all of Bravo Company on a roof in Baghdad, I am there, he is there. I walked and frustrate. Where is he? I grew angry even as the wind sent leaves to the wind in a chorus of solace that drowned out the highway. Was I lied to all these years? Was he not here?! Goddamn First Sergeant, take a breath, look - there are numbers on the back of the headstones just like in the photograph! Yes? I followed the numbers to him. I saw his name, the row and walked hurriedly to his place, there! I sat, the tears, hot and loose and everywhere, I touched the stone as if it were him and traced my fingers over the relief of his name and dates. “Kyu, they made me First Sergeant.”, my words broken, warbled, choked and seeking his approval.     Its the same - you think it is a closed loop, the timeline from Bravo Company twenty years ago on Ardennes Street to Afghanistan to Arlington but its not, its the silver bracelet on my right wrist that bears his name - it will never be completely  closed and I never forget, even now. SSG Kyu Chay, ATW. 

[travelingunclematt]

Thanksgiving Weekend

Last night at midnight we went to a lady’s house where she was lying in the fetal position of her bathroom floor, covered in blankets and suffering from terrible nausea. She just had a double mastectomy. We tried our best to lovingly put her on the gurney so she could make her way to the hospital comfortably. This morning I sat at the bar and ate brunch, sipped coffee and didn’t worry about a damn thing. I am very thankful and that the part I play in life keeps me that way. 

[travelingunclematt]

L. Nuit

In the quiet night I lay awake intentionally in wait A shift, the movement, also awake, you My hand glides over the topography of an alabaster landscape My arms draped over the comfort of surrender To be unslumbered is to be reminded of where I am In your arms, in mine Outside this door shoes are weary guards that lean against an empty loveseat, sleepy sentinels against the dawn A kiss on your back, a squeeze of my hand, a code of safety and security Our clothes lay scattered, already regretting the thought of being collected I reluctantly rise and and cover you with the warmth of antiquity and would be remiss without one last kiss before my uneager departure

[travelingunclematt]

As I get older the things that have meaning to me have changed. I think it used to be tied to countries visited, races ran, grades. Those things are still part of the narrative but I have also come to value what I can do for others and what my “legacy” is. What is my contribution? 

I was at 7 Seas the other day, at the bar were tags put out by the Lion’s Club, requests for gifts for children for Christmas. I thumbed through the requests, “Boy, 12” wanted a camouflage sweatshirt. I pocketed the tag. 

I found a sweatshirt, something I’d wear, be here within the week. 

I remember one time in elementary school my class was making trinkets for kids in Kazakhstan. I sent mine with a hand written note and I was the only kid that got a response and a hand drawn VW Bug. I was ecstatic.

I pulled out an unused Christmas card and wrote a note not addressed to a “Boy” but a “Young Man” and signed it First Sergeant Van Kirk. That title still looks weird to me. 

I don’t know what this young man’s future is but I can say at 20 years of service I am beholden to small acts of thoughtfulness from dozens of people. If nothing else, for now, from life he is going to get exactly what he wants. 

Merry Christmas Friends. 

[travelingunclematt]

Child

About four or so years ago I took my youngest niece and nephew for the weekend. What was once thought of as a massive ordeal for a grown bachelor watching two small children was now commonplace. My sister-in-law called them a “package deal” and indeed they were a matched set. I was having a rough time. This blog is the only realm where anyone would have an inclination that I ever have a “rough time” I am sure. I was thankful for the children -  5, 6, to have them for the weekend was the best thing for me. Here I have a hero complex, here I am a big black wolf and they are my pups - my eyes scan and screen the land with heavy brows as they stumble and yelp and bound and nip at my heels without a care. I took the two to the outdoor aircraft museum on McChord Air Force Base. Rae is the youngest. I love them all but I have a soft spot for her, maybe its because she was the hardest to win over. I ask her “you know I love you, right?” She is a child - she wakes up, she is surrounded by it - from the moment I ask her if she remembered to wash her hands after going to the bathroom to asking her if her seat belt is buckled - she doesn’t know a life without love so its just become commonplace, its a little mundane. “yeah”. I ask a lot, about the fifth or sixth time in the day she says “Uncle Nick, you keep saying that!” I have seen the expanse of this state from 14,410 feet on a mountaintop, I have walked off the lip of the edge of a a Chinook at 1,500 feet into blank air above the earth dozens of times, I have seen my own sweat on the the chest of a person I am performing CPR on. The reassurance of this little girl was what was keeping me tethered. The assurance of love is a safety that is stronger than any human emotion or any structure built by hands. I smiled. To reach for love, that affirmation, that reassurance for the sixth time. I am thankful for my tiny rescuers that weekend. 

[travelingunclematt]

The Things You Say

This Thanksgiving I was headed to my brother’s house. The past few holiday seasons for me had been a bust, for whatever reason plans had failed, so had relationships and often I woke up hungover and alone during Thanksgiving and Christmas. I was looking forward to this season being different as this season is my favorite. 

I texted my sister-in-law that I was on my way. I stopped at a cafe to get a cup of coffee. I missed her call in the cafe, twice. I called back and she told me her and my brother were separating after 19 years of marriage. She had forgotten to tell me. My mom once said I am tough when I need to be. I pushed out a weak and wavered “ok”. I was about to see their four kids, one of whom just got out of an in-patient  program. 

I am blessed and I am fortunate but I just sat there with my hands on the steering wheel. People that think depression doesn’t happen to the fortunate aren’t believers in the program. My tongue just searched around my cheeks like it was searching for moisture that was forming in my eyes. 

Big brother met me in his driveway, the kids circled around me like I was a stranger. I have never heard him talk so much, it was the first time where the word ratio was 4:1 big brother. I smiled to hear him talk; he was introspective and thoughtful, not they he never was just that I never knew. I paid attention to his pale blue eyes and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, he spoke like me. We went through parables and thoughts. We are cut from the same cloth but I rarely saw it but now I could see the similarities in the stitching and those patterns, like herringbone - you have to really look to see it.

Kids don’t care about your sadness. They see me, they expect to be picked up and picked on a little. I am Herr Drosselmeyer. I am Uncle Nick not only to mine but also their cousins who now call me that. All those little girls know its only a matter of time before they get picked up and tossed and hugged and they squeal and scream and smile. I suppose I never had much of a problem with the ladies. 

We sit on the couch and I rest my head on their tiny shoulders is as much for me as them. I leave, my brother calls me to apologize he was out walking when I left. Walking is process for him, I smile, its the same for me. 

Before the long weekend I sat all guys in a room and told them to look out for one another. I told them this is a sensitive time of year. I say a lot of good things. My commander, whether because he believes me or understands the value of my credibility with the team or both, agrees. 

I am a spiritual man, I am. I feel like that what is happening to me is a thoughtful reminder that what I say to others I must endure to really be able to tell. My own medicine. To “do as I say” I must also practice. Wisdom is based on experience and also credibility. I don’t trust the words of people that haven’t been what I have been through. I am not even saying I have wisdom, just experience.

My dad always likes to paraphrase “ there is no normal life, there is is just life and you live it.” Cheers Friends. I am fine but if you read this and send a text I won’t mind a bit. 

[travelingunclematt]

Gates Of The West

The Clash’s Gates of the West has always been a song tied deeply to my military service. From Iraq, Afghanistan, Australia to Paraguay and a few other places spanning over twenty years now I have played that song when the plane’s wheels come off the ground and I am en route back to my corner of the world.

My experience is not that far from Joe Strummer’s own. He wrote Gates of the West about The Clash coming to America and the excitement he felt and that of his friends. It is hard to explain that longing for home, especially after long months away. Its different for everyone but for me the longing for home loomed every day, every moment. The sound of my girlfriend’s voice on a satellite phone was only a short reprieve from being away. I remember re-reading emails for kind words of warmth in a land where myself and only a handful of other men spoke English. I remember chomping Ritter-Sport and thinking about mountains.

Service can sometimes be indescribable, the loneliness too. Every time I played this song it sent chills and the hair on my neck stood up and my pulse jumped - I was going home.

“I'm standing at the Gates of the East I take my pulse and the pulse of my friend”

Going home, from East to West. I am eternally grateful to be home.

[travelingunclematt]

White Idiot

One weekend I found myself in Yakima, the downtown which I have always found quaint, was hosting a Hispanic cultural event. Streets were closed down, I just stumbled upon it all. A little girl, very much disinterested in the cacophony of celebration going on, was helping to sell tamales. I don’t think I had ever had a tamale, I say that because of what happened next. I bought two tamales, I removed them from the plastic bag and proceeded to shove one whole tamale into my mouth, outer cornhusk shell completely intact. I could see the little girl’s eyes become as big as saucers and the look of horror spread across her when I met the very protective vegetable covering with my teeth and lost. Through the power of error I trialed again by removing the leathery plant encasement but nothing would bring back my dignity from that little girl. I love the little things. Cheers Friends. 

[travelingunclematt]

The Exhibit is Closed Until Further Notice

I built you your own wing in the museum of my heart. I filled it with memories of us - a vote from the best chicken at the fair, a sweater I’d never buy for myself, a ceramic cup you made and signed just for me, artifacts of my favorite times. I brought all my friends to the exhibits and beamed at the display of love, I walked them and us to every thing that reminded me of you and all we had made. I strode in my best suit and tie, I was proud and I squeezed your hand and made them all the coffee that I made you, I made at 5am before you went back to Seattle for work and I returned to an empty bed and thought of your weary and beautiful head driving from my home with your thermos in hand. Then one day you came and left me. I shut down the wing of the museum and I covered everything in black polyester sheets and turned off all the lights and wept as I drug my hands across the artifacts of my love for you. A reverse guest book sat at a table at the end of the gallery “You’re doing great” - T. “Its okay you miss her” - C. “Screw Her” - Mom. Closed Indefinitely.  I was a mess and sometimes stumbled in late at night with a flashlight to press the buttons on the display to hear your “hi” when you rolled up with your dog to my porch, the inflection in your voice and the spread of my smile across my face was a relief of a long week and the joy I could never could quite articulate. I walk by every so often to the velvet rope with a placard attached that sits at the entrance, spelled out in gold lettering “CLOSED”. I do miss you but I am thankful I don’t come here anymore

[travelingunclematt]

Hair Club Afghanistan

When I was in Afghanistan I fell in with a few Air Force dudes that also grew their hair longer than the high and tights that surrounded us. We started a little club and I wrote the charter MSgt Bruner reminded me of it the other day, I get a kick out of it, humor and those guys to your left and right will always get you through.

Disseminate Wildly - We are Hair Cub – we do not grow our hair out as a means of subversion, we grow our hair out as a mark of distinction. We are the men of the US military; we are professionals – with sweet haircuts.  We take pride in our appearance and as such we stand out as leaders, our subordinates and peers look to us because we rock serious follicle content and because of that attention we will strive to be leaders, uphold or respective service’s core values. As members of Hair Club we will always keep a sense of humor which is paramount, we only take our jobs seriously, that and our hair. Having a supreme coif does not include any douchiness. We will not let our superiors judge us on the length of our hair but on the quality of our character, we will show them that our cuts will not only spread to other service members like a can of Murray’s but our traits as leaders will also permeate within our soldiers for a long, long time (even after many washes). We will never allow fear or a balding SGM determine our hair length. We will always be familiar with the collection of words that is AR 670-1, paragraph 1-8 and AFI36-2903, Table 1.5. We will never forget nor will we allow our comrades to forget - Mission First, Good Hair Always.

[travelingunclematt]

Little Things

27 December 2021 

It snowed pretty substantially this year. I was leaving my house to help a friend but doubled back to retrieve my snow shovel, just in case. On my way to the tool shed I noticed a series of perfect indentations on my front lawn, a little puzzled I thought they might have been where deer had bedded down for the night. When I returned around the front of the house I noticed they where two perfect snow angels. Two thoughtful trespassers had used the untouched lawn as a canvas for their holiday installation. I imagined them falling on their backs and looking up at the stars and laughing, not too loud as to wake the lone inhabitant of the house. Merry Christmas friends. 

[travelingunclematt]

These Men

These men took time away from their loved ones to help me build a fence on a Monday.

I have known Pat and Nate since the second grade and I have known Dion since the seventh grade. I know their parents and their children and their problems as well as they know my problems.

Pat used to come around and pick me up from school in his brown Mazda pickup. We always listened to the Blue album. When we were boys we played baseball and were in the Boy Scouts together. He built me a pink bass that I hate because I spent so little money on and it feels like an extension of my own hands. He is a professional. He is insightful, self aware and his motorcycle is louder than mine and he takes corners with a devil-may-care attitude and does not fault me for my caution. His hands are callused from work and he buries himself in it. The wrinkles on his face are witness to the smiles and hardship of navigating life.

My first real recollection of Nate was when we were kicking the shit out of each other on the playground at South Bay Elementary, I don’t know what led up to that fight but we often speak about who could beat each other now and we are still undecided. Nate’s wisdom means a lot to me. He never placates. He knows he can call on me anytime and I will show up. Some of my favorite memories are showing his children pictures of them and me and saying “ thats us!” We were in the Boy Scouts and baseball together.

Dion. Dion took me on to play music because he found out I play bass and that partnership will never end. We are eternally the “Nick and Dion Show” and we always take a bit of offense when we play in bands not together. Few things bring me more joy than defending him to women I date disliking him. I have said I don’t know how he finds the time to be so smart and he is. I hassle him about putting me on an account for his kids college fund and I will get there. He comes over to fix my sink when I hit a block and doesn’t fault me for not knowing what to do, he just does it and hugs me and goes back to his girls. 

These men all have their problems and I have mine and we discuss and defer and deliberate. When they leave they all hug me with strength, I am proud to be a part of us that doesn’t withhold problems or love and sometimes get texts from the middle of nowhere about music that make perfect sense.

These are men, they are fucked up, we exchange proverbs and parables about life and navigate. These men are professionals, husbands, fathers and artists. These men came to help me build a fence on a Monday and I love them.

These Men. 

[travelingunclematt]

Take Me To Your River

I was riding from Centralia in the late afternoon. I had skated out of homework. I shoved a paperback in my jacket and rode out.  I was on Old Highway 99, a truck pulling a long trailer of landscaping tools pulled right in front of me to turn in to get gas. I couldn’t believe it. Moving with a long trailer they weren’t moving fast, I was.  I had the cognizance to yank the clutch and pull enough brake to slow my myself down while not too much to send myself over the handlebars. My gloved palm caught the throttle, the engine made that low auditory and tactile growl that told me it was being as forgiving as it could. I swerved as little as I could, this was twofold; maybe I wouldn’t hit the pavement if I made it, try not to high side and I wasn’t ready to see that tank scraped to shit. No one knew where I was, I was about to be sprawled all over the highway or impaled by a shovel or posthole digger, under the sun, highway moving and no music playing. I missed that trailer by inches, I know it. I looked back and thought about pulling into that Shell station and beating that person within an inch of their life. Too much to lose. I rode down Highway 99 with my left hand on my hip and a grapefruit-sized lump in my throat while Leon Bridges’ “River” played in my helmet, sun waning. “ Take me to your river, I want to go.” Now I sit at my kitchen table drinking beer that my First Sergeant  made and gave me on Sunday. Coda snores at my feet, I guess I couldn't let her miss a meal. I have a date Friday night, I am looking forward to that. 

[travelingunclematt]

in another time

We made our way to breakfast hand in hand

My finger tracing the lines in your palm

You asked me what those birds were

Mourning Doves, softly cooing to harken our stroll

We arrived at my friends joint and I beam with you

The picture of my friends and my goofy grin greet us

We walk back and our palms sweat with the rising sun

We wipe our hands on our pant legs but they return 

Like magnets we hold our hands clasped 

Now I wonder if those doves were mourning for me

[travelingunclematt]

Young Men Go To War

Here Dead We Lie

Here dead we lie because we did not choose to live and shame the land from which we sprung. 

Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; but young men think it is, and we were young. 

 A.E Housman

SSG Kyu “Q” Chay, October 28, 2006, Oruzgan, Afghanistan, “Always With Us”. That is what the patinaed and battered sliver cuff on my right wrist says. I don’t have to check the date or spelling to know those details. 

Kyu Chay was an Arabic linguist with Bravo Company, 313th MI, 82nd Airborne Division when I knew him. When I am asked about my bracelet I will always say the same things; Kyu was Korean and he reminded me of George Takei (a Japanese-American who was held prisoner in an internment camp in the US during WWII) because he had this radio announcer voice but it was also soft like a doctor’s and when he spoke you knew everything was going to be alright, his voice held you. His face was gentle but he was also a paratrooper that was trained to close with and destroy the enemy, those are my favorite warriors; the gentle ones, the artists, the smart ones. He studied law and after his third year he decided to take a break to join the army and volunteered to join the airborne.

I remember where I was when Nate Disbro called me one day after school to tell me he was killed. I remember balling my eyes out to a bewildered girlfriend as I watched the National Geographic special about his mission, I wept and she had no idea what to say to me as screen shots of him and the rest of Bravo Company flashed, on a rooftop in Iraq, 2004. 

 Kyu was part of the reason I elected to go to Afghanistan. It was 2013, I had spent my days OFO (out fucking off) in the Pacific. I will never forget my charge of indignation when my pastor asked “only one deployment?” I will never forget asking my commander if it was cool if I went to Afghanistan so I could “figure things out”. I remember getting off a plane in Kabul and looking around at the beautiful desert, shaded and magnificent against the endless sun and specifically thinking “this is the land where Kyu was killed.” That sense of guilt for my friends who were being killed as I had sunned in Australia, Thailand and Hawaii and even Kyu’s homeland in South Korea was haunting me and it drew me back to conflict.

The other day my childhood friend sent me a video of a young man using the literature of J.R.R Tolkien to demonstrate a scenario where a warrior talks about fighting wars to keep his children from war, that his sons may practice the arts, that they would never know warfare. I smirked, the articulation was good but I disagree that few men are so altruistic. Young men go to war. My heroes; Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and George Orwell went to war, they wrote about it. War is romantic. That statement is relative, some men want to kill, some want to see the foreign lands and yes, some men are patriots. I was idealistic and whimsical at best. I was a child racing across the desert from Kuwait City to Baghdad with a .249 machine gun under the sweltering heat at 19.

Kyu could have stayed in school but joining was something he wanted to do. He married his college sweetheart and went to war again and again. My mother’s father said I should go into the Navy and find a trade I could use on the outside (sorry grandpa). My father’s father was a paratrooper and three-time combat veteran. Young men go to war. 

My silver cuff rarely comes off. It is a constant reminder that Kyu will never see his son or daughter, see them married, a first dance with his daughter on her wedding day. He will never advise his son. He will never squeeze his wife’s hand in the middle of the night. He will never know the river of grief that poured out for him, the men that collected in Arlington for him. He’ll never know some little shit from the Black Sheep became a Master Sergeant and has never forgotten his favorite memory of him (ask me some time).

This year has been hard; I have lost a handful of men, men who died before their time. I think about Kyu’s children racing under my kitchen table in Fayetteville. I spent the morning with my friend, righting and placing flags for veterans at their final resting places for their Memorial Day recognition. Now I sit at my kitchen table. I think on my friend, I think of my Black Sheep.

I often wonder if we are the lucky ones, left behind. To remember and hold those on high, their altruistic intentions. I know better, young men go to war, some do not come back and I think on you every day Kyu.

Kyu Chay 1972 - 2006, Airborne All The Way, Let’s Go.

[travelingunclematt]

Like a Child

I often liken good behavior to that of a good hound; reliable, loving, diligent and vigilant. When you call I come. You watch the people I will hop and pop for. If I fail to come around my gramma’s house for an extended amount of time I will get called, messaged and lightly scolded. The funny thing is Nancy Lou Van Kirk has a lot of grandchildren. I refer to to my grandma and grandpa’s as “gramma’s” maybe has a lot less to do with brevity than it does who is running the household.

Grandma called me yesterday while I was at the fire station conducting live fire training (things on fire), I stop and answer that call and I don't have their number saved because it is memorized, ask me, I’ll rattle it off. I hadn’t been around. I don’t put off my grandparents, that’s priority, I said I would be by tomorrow.

I rode out on my motorbike. Any excuse I can find, if its 52 degrees I’ll ride, all that cheesy stuff they say about riding is true. 

My grandma was home. She is 80. She asks what you want to eat. As a child I could eat anything in the house, nothing wasn’t for me as long as I washed my hands first. At 37 I don’t have to be reminded to wash my hands and I never forget. I watch her move about the kitchen, I listen like a child, like I was and am sometimes; quiet, a serious look and scowl. She never asked me what was wrong like everyone else did. Here I am Nicholas, no one calls me Nicholas. 

My grandma is Christian and her first born granddaughter is gay. She struggles but she never struggles to love her, she articulates her feelings, she leads with love. I always smile, its a secret few of us know. The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. No one can hate anyone if they love their neighbor as themselves. Disagree all day, that is a choice but to love is a command with no stipulations. She confirms that my cousin and I are the favorites of our grandfather, our pictures adorn the fridge and next to grandpa’s bed is a picture of me, her and an award I received for my service in Paraguay. Grandma has no favorites, she loves all of us equally.

I have always sat at the right hand of my grandfather and at any gathering if I am misplaced I patiently correct the error. I sit at his right vacant place now. I am aware of the way I cross my legs, the way I “hmph”, the way I say “thats alright” and that phrase’s inflection, the way I position myself in a chair, they are all facsimiles of his mannerisms. My boots are clean, not because I don’t work because thats what he would expect.

He appears, he is 90, he stands upright, sits with his legs crossed, pours me coffee. He tells the same stories, the 45th time you have heard it, I listen for some new detail. His hiking boots are dirty because they see the earth, he walks alone, I wonder what he thinks out there. His cowboy boots are $900, they are immaculate. He is a three-time Vietnam veteran. He is the reason I wear expensive boots, went airborne, went, came back and drink a little bit of whisky. 

I am guarded about this place, I don’t bring many here, it is a big deal to me. Grandpa doesn’t say he is proud, he just asks questions and says “thats alright” and thats the same. My grandma says shes proud, she says I have a big heart, she says the things you read in a birthday card at seven when you haven’t done a damn thing but at 37 they are all true. My mom says she’s glad these things don’t go to my head and reaffirms everything later.

I get up to leave. I get a jar of honey from my uncle in Montana and shove it in the pocket of my leather jacket. My grandpa says he likes my helmet, I beam. He watches me leave from the porch, I think he gets a kick out of it.

I ride home, its hard, the day. You can carry all the wonderful things in the world but when one thing is out of place it brings you down. The motor of my little parallel twin is quiet, it is a low vibration, like a lullaby. 

I think about my life, sometimes its hard but I let the words of those people resonate and remember how I have been shaped by their words and hands and love. 

“Direct your children onto the right path, and when they are older, they will not leave it.”

The words above sit on a plaque in my house to remind me of everything they have done and said. 

This post is dedicated to my friend, his grandmother died this past week and I know the verse, he too is an embodiment of it. Love should be diligent, vigilant and will come every time you call for it, no stipulations and if you catch a little hell for being late know it is from a place of love.

[travelingunclematt]

Introspection

I sit outside in the gloaming evening 

The dandelions have all gone to sleep standing up

I watch the swallows sweep the lawn for one more insect before they turn in

The wind moves toward its home, moving through the evergreen sentinels 

These sounds guard my thoughts and keep them in my cool space

I drag from a lone cigarette and sip tea, look over at my unruly lawn 

I sit and stand and sit and stand with mind immersed in the deepest waters of thought

My heart is a slow pulsating distress beacon that churns out love for all those dear to me, silently

In my kitchen the setting sun slips through the blinds where my friends snores gently

She worries about me and is ready to receive my thoughts in a language only she understands

I wrap myself in gifts and make my way toward bed