I felt really pumped after the run and wanted to try out the push-up section of the test, but ultimately decided against it.  First of all, despite my adrenaline rush I really was physically exhuasted.  Second, now that I have a regimented, regular workout for my chest muscles I didn’t want to strain them on a day when I wouldn’t normally be working them and throw off my regular routine.  I guess that’s a lame excuse, really I was just tired and talked myself out of it.  I am looking forward to trying the test again, even though I’m still certain the sit-up section is out of reach.

Well I think that’s pretty much all I wanted to write about today.  Sometimes I think about expanding the scope of this blog to include my other interests, like video games and crossword puzzles.  I don’t think that’s a good idea though because those topics are too different.  Readers interested in video games and crosswords won’t want to read the rest of this nonsense!  Those of you accustomed to my current topic probably wouldn’t be too interested in video games and crosswords.  Maybe I’ll start other blogs for those other topics someday!

This is what I think frees individual soldiers from being held morally or legally responsible for some of the things that happen in a war zone.  Granted at a certain level strategic decisions are being made “in house” without any direct input from politicians or non-Army personnel, but those people are still at the top of the food chain so much of the responsibility sits with them.  Of course when things go wildly off track a deeper investigation into responsibility is required.  An American soldier who rapes an Iraqi woman can’t reasonably say, “Well you sent me here, so this is your fault.”  (Although maybe if as a society we recognized that entering a war and sending our countrymen and women into a war zone might cause them to make some pretty uncharacteristic decisions given the stress levels they face, we would be less eager to make that step in the first place.  One of the only points from Marcus Luttrell’s Lone Survivor that really stuck with me was that great pains are taken by our military to avoid the killing of innocent civilians in hostile enemy territory, even to the extent that it risks more American soldiers’ lives.  He writes that maybe before we send soldiers off to war, we ought to realize and accept that for them to accomplish their goals and defend themselves, innocent people will be killed.  If this is an unacceptable premise, then so is the war in the first place.)

Anyway, for the most part I trust that the leaders of our nation make informed decisions and genuinely want America to succeed and prosper.  Of course there are a disturbing number of examples to the contrary, but I believe that as a democracy the integrity and values of our political leaders should, to a certain degree, reflect the integrity and values of the people who elect them.  Especially under President Obama I feel this is true, and his victory in the last presidential election proves to me that the American people still value something other than personal wealth and selfishness. I have very few qualms about serving in the military with Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief.

Even before the Obama Administration took over though, I hadn’t lost all faith in the previous administration.  President Bush, I believe, wasn’t a bad man and did take certain aspects of his job seriously.  However, he was, in my opinion, severely under-prepared for the job and received some of the worst counsel in recent history.  Many serious errors were made, and America’s prestige in the world was damaged as a result.  Call me naive, but for some reason, I still think Bush, the man, was good, and I could have served in the military under his command.  (It’s true that I’ve become much more informed politically in the past two years, so maybe I would have felt different during Bush’s presidency had I known more at the time.)

Now, I come to the article about Sarah Palin, and it claims that she is “the favorite to win the Republican presidential nomination…”.  I just absolutely cannot under any circumstances believe that statement to be true.  How could it be!?  Almost every bit of informed investigation and reporting on the woman reveals her to be out of touch with reality and abysmally uninformed about even the most basic elements of global politics.  Personally I cringe at any mention of her name in the news because to me she represents the most self-serving, deluded portion of American politicians who themselves only really represent a tiny slice of our populace yet through the machinations of corporate sponsors and wealth depict themselves as heroes of the working class.

If Sarah Palin or any of her ilk were to become Commander-in-Chief I really don’t know how I could continue to serve in the military.  I don’t believe she possesses slightest clue how to lead, and scarier still, that she doesn’t care to learn how.  That’s what really gets me fired up about these people.  Not their mere ignorance, but the fact that they are blissful in their ignorance and in some cases even try to tout it as a virtue.  Isn’t that how she came up with the whole nonsensical “rogue” theme?  Some ingenious campaign manager somewhere took her utter ignorance of world affairs and re-branded it as something desirable, something to be proud of and admired for.

In reality, this isn’t me.  Yes I can still see myself maybe pursuing those options someday, but I don’t think they are realistic if I want to be successful in any military service I might choose to pursue.  That’s part of what keeps my constant back and forth about this topic running; I consider options that are not really a good match for me, and then when I realize I can’t do them, I think the military as a whole is not a good option.  What I need to do is look at this more pragmatically, like a regular job.  In fact the “regular” job search I am also currently putting some energy into helped me realize this.

It’s true that the military has always held a certain amount of appeal, but it’s also true that much of why I want to join now is because of a lack of other options.  That’s not the same as saying, like I did before, that I’m desperate or depressed and giving up control of my own destiny simply because I’ve stopped caring.  Military service is one option among many others.  It might end up just being a place holder for a couple of years, a way for me to get some help with student debt and acquire training in a brand new field.  If I end up loving what I’m doing then it could turn into a career, but who can determine that at this point?  Another mistake I’ve made in the past is to put all my hopes and plans for the future into one big bundle and then define myself based on that intangible idea.

There was a time when I really, really want to be a teacher.  Of course I only decided this several months before graduation when there was no option of changing majors or transferring schools.  I researched the Teach For America program and created a whole life for myself  based on my participation in this program and where it would take me.  When I didn’t get into the program I was devastated and felt completely lost because in my head everything for the rest of my life hinged on that program.  It’s taken a long, long time to really bounce back from that experience, and I don’t want to make the same mistake with the Army.  “Being a soldier” can’t become an essential part of my identity in such a short time.  Maybe I won’t be accepted into the program or MOS I want, or maybe I’ll never be able to do 50 sit-ups in 60 seconds.  I have to be prepared for that contingency.

Anyway, speaking of sit-ups, my Hard Core class at the gym is going pretty well.  I find it really challenging but still manageable.  In the second and third week we did lunge and squat progressions, respectively, and neither caused any undue pain in my knee!  I’m not sure if I wrote too much about it here, but that knee was really starting to stress me out.  Not just because of the implications for the military but because I’ve never really had a physical injury like that.  No offense to you 30 and over crowd out there, but I felt old!  My body just wouldn’t do what I wanted, and I couldn’t understand why or do much about it without going to a doctor (which luckily I didn’t need to do).  I’m relieved that it seems to have healed with rest.

At this point I think I’ve gone through one typical cycle of feelings about joining the military.  Usually the idea comes to me when I am struggling in my current situation or feeling stuck in some way.  I start looking for a way out that will be both personally satisfying and beneficial to others.  Many possible “outs” seem unappealing or out of reach, and so I start digging deeper and considering more foreign options.  This is where the military always finds its way in as a viable, desirable option.  First of all it will take me far, far away from the displeasing situation I’m stuck in.  In many ways it would be a completely fresh start just because of how different I think it would be from anything I’ve done so far in life.  Anyway, I start thinking about all the positives of military service, and I get really absorbed in it.  I start thinking it’s the only option for me and become blinded to any other options or suggestions.  Nothing else seems to have comparable value or merit.

Right around this point something triggers the reverse process.  Maybe it’s a conversation with family or friends or even simply a great weekend playing video games with the guys.  I start thinking about all I would have to give up to join the military and suddenly my current situation doesn’t seem so bad.  My list of reasons for not joining soon surpasses my reasons for joining, and I move on from the idea for a while.  When things seem to be going well there isn’t as much pressure to find a solution.  This phase will last a while, and then the process starts again.

Now thanks to my blog I have this process recorded and can look objectively at the various phases.  Like I said before, I need to figure out which parts are for real and which parts are just fluff.  The point is to turn this recurrent cycle into a linear process the ultimately yields a solid, informed decision.  Most likely it will never be clearly one or the other, but I need to reach a decision I will be happy with for more than just a month or two.

Another positive of blogging so far has been the feed back I’ve gotten from friends and family who are reading it.  I’ve had brand new conversations with people who I’ve known all my life, and really in depth conversations with people I’ve only known a short while.  Also, many readers have suggested books and movies to supplement my blogging.  I really appreciate the feedback, ideas, and general support!

The sit-ups and running were just a lost cause yesterday though.  First of all, I couldn’t find anyone reliable to hold my feet in place which for me makes a full sit-up all but impossible.  I tried using twelve-pound free weights as a substitute but only succeeded in looking like a fool rolling around on the mat with weights on my feet.  Unfortunately my abs still aren’t strong enough to left my upper body off the floor without my legs flailing wildly about.

With that section of the test in the gutter, I went up to the cardio room planning to ace the 2-mile run.  I’d come within five seconds of passing on a previous run, so I expected I could definitely do it this time, yet somehow my legs just didn’t have any energy.  I couldn’t get motivated at all either, so it wasn’t possible to just will myself through it.  I suspect I was partially dehydrated because I hardly drank any water this weekend and had only eaten one real meal on Saturday.  Let’s just say I was on the Modern Warfare 2 diet and overlooked some of the body’s other basic needs.  Still I wanted to get something productive done, and I ended up having a pretty good weight lifting session focusing on upper body strength using techniques from my Men’s Health book.

My posts about the military have been pretty rare these days but don’t take that to mean I’ve stopped thinking about it.  My mind is far from made up at this point.  Lately though I have been very focused on thinking about relocating to Boston and what that would mean to me.  I almost feel silly for not considering that option more seriously sooner.  It would be so good to live near my friends and family again that it could make leaving for military service a lot harder.  Finding my own niche, though, still proves to be the largest hurdle.  I just want a nice, normal life surrounded by friends and family, and it’s hard to rationalize that the best way to achieve that dream is by going to the other side of the world.  Then again, there’s nothing wrong with taking the less direct route, and maybe I’d be better off for it.

In my last posted I noted that my personal experiences are too limited to substantiate the sweeping judgments I have made about the world we live in, but I think it’s legitimate to draw from other people’s experiences and stories like these are all too common.  I mean it’s not like I just made these ideas up completely out of thin air.  Everything from classics like Walden to the much more recent Shop Class as Soul Craft has been part of the philosophical foundation of these ideas, and they are pretty deeply rooted in me.  Don’t worry though, I’m not taking back anything I said.  In fact this week has been pretty positive, and I even applied for a job!

I had my first Hard Core class yesterday, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.  We will be doing a lot more lunges and squat motions than I anticipated, and those are by far my weakest areas.  Not only do I just suck at them because I hardly use those muscles, but that’s the motion that causes my knee to hurt.  Hopefully just doing them once a week won’t overly strain the tendon or whatever it is causing the pain.  Today I just let my body rest because tomorrow is going to be another full APFT, and I don’t want to be unnecessarily sore.  I’m hoping to pass the running part, get closer to passing the push-up section, and at least do some sit-ups properly.

I spent this weekend relaxing with my family in Boston.  Even though I had just been to Boston the weekend before, I definitely needed another weekend out of the city to clear my head.  With my girlfriend moving away, my knee hurting, and my nose running last week was pretty depressing.  Also, the conversation with my girlfriend that inspired much of my last post really unsettled me and affected my focus a bit.  Of course that’s the kind of feedback I want from this blog, and I’m glad we had that talk, but overall I was just down.

I started asking myself more hard questions about why I want to serve in the military.  I have to admit to myself, and you all, that part of my motivation comes from a certain type of hopelessness with the rest of my life.  Sometimes I get stuck in a cycle of negativity that starts me thinking that we live in a world in which all sense of morality and value has been eroded.  Nothing seems to have any real meaning, and I feel like I’m floating through life without any purpose or value.  Joining the military appeals to me as a way out of this sea of despair.  Instead of having to make hard choices and decisions about my life for myself, I can turn all control over to a larger institution.  That act of sacrifice looks good from the outside, but internally I know I’m just doing it because I am paralyzed by choice.  In other words, it’s just a mode of giving up because I’m saying I don’t care anymore.  I don’t care what happens to me or what I do to other people.  I don’t want to make those decisions for myself, so I’ll let the Army make them for me.

Now I’m not saying that’s the real motivation behind everything, it’s not, but I do know that those kind of thoughts are part of what’s going on right now.  Before I can make any decision about the military I want to make sure I’m not being influenced by those kinds of ideas.  Would I still feel so strongly about doing my part if I had a job that was stimulating, challenging, and rewarding in other ways?  I do have “dream jobs,” but they feel unreachable, requiring skills I can’t see myself ever acquiring.

Anyway, this was all part of a long conversation I had with my mom upon arriving in Boston on Friday night.  As always, she can see through a lot of my bravado and knows when I’m saying things I don’t really mean or that don’t make any sense.  Part of my problem is that I can rationalize myself into or out of almost anything, so it’s sometimes hard to distinguish what I really want from what I’ve temporarily convinced myself I want.  Being home and spending time with my family reminded me of the things I really want and value.  I think I could make a much more honest decision about the military if I made it from a less miserable starting point.  Toward that end I decided it is worth the effort to start trying to find a new job in Boston.  People are right when they point out that I’ve had far too limited an experience to start writing off the world has a lost cause.  The working world might not seem so desperately bleak once I’ve had a job that isn’t as uninspiring as my current one.  If I can remove some of the general helplessness and hopelessness I sometimes feel, I’ll feel more confident about committing my life to military service.

In other news, I have continued my work out routine and plan on trying another practice APFT this weekend.  Surprisingly running has gotten more and more satisfying and even become something that I look forward to starting my day with.  The pain in my knee only bothers me when performing a squatting exercise and running doesn’t bother it at all.  My doctor suggested avoiding painful exercises for the time being and testing it again in a couple of weeks.

My time in the weight room continues to be a bit of a struggle, but while I was in Boston I met with a trainer for an assessment session.  Jessi (who happens to be my sister’s roommate) of Eutopia in Brookline reminded me that I need to start with the basics to ensure that I progress smoothly and healthily.  She helped me create a routine that focuses on proper technique and establishing better balance and control over my body.  Already I can feel the difference in my core from doing proper crunches and sit-ups, so thanks Jessi!  Another motivation to meet with Jessi was to support her fund-raiser for Autism Speaks.  Through January assessment sessions were half price, with all proceeds going directly towards this great cause.

One of the problems right now is that I’m a bit lacking in specific direction.  I know what my goals are, but I’m not sure about the best way to get there.  Typically I make my way around the weight room without any real sense of what exercises go together.  A couple of years ago I paid for a few session with a physical trainer when I had a membership at a gym in the city.  After those workouts my whole body would be sore well into the next day.  Now I feel like I need to workout twice a day to get anywhere near that kind of intensity.  Once I sit down with the wrestling coach and take from his team’s routine that should improve things.  On top of that, a week from Friday will be the first day of the fitness class I decided to take.  I managed to get enlist a few students to take it with me for motivation!

As I mentioned in my last post, my girlfriend moved to Boston last weekend.  I know that has me down too.  I’m not big on social interaction as it is, but without her here I’m even more boring.  Today she reminded me that this is merely practice compared to the separation we are likely to face if I join the Army.  Hopefully the separation gets easier as we adjust to our new routines.

Earlier today we were talking about military service in general, and she challenged some of the notions that motivate me to serve.  As I’ve mentioned one driving factor is my desire to improve the lives of the soldiers I might one day command.  In that light, I see military service as an act of solidarity with the men and women already serving our country.  They are the people I feel for the most.  In other words, it isn’t so much the rush to fight terrorism or stabilize the Middle East that motivates me, it’s to lighten the burden of other Americans already doing that work.  Of course I also want to help ensure that our country is never the victim of another massive act of terrorism, so I can definitely say that I care about protecting and helping Americans more than any other group of people.

My girlfriend is a bit more broad-minded than me, however, and she has the capacity to look beyond national identity.  She frequently asks me why I can’t show solidarity with, for example, the innocent Afghan people who are killed during U.S. raids on Taliban and Al-Qaeda safe-houses and training areas.  She asks me, and so I must ask myself, how can I be a part of any institution which kills innocent people?

Well for one, I do not believe the U.S. makes a habit of targeting innocent people.  In fact from the reading I’ve done the policy seems to be that even in the most hostile, anti-American areas of the world our policy is always to withhold firing until the enemy shoots first, even though that greatly increases the odds that an American soldier will be killed.  Now I’m not so naive to think that every soldier everywhere follows that order, and there is no doubt in my mind that many innocent Afghans and Iraqis have been killed.  Still, in my heart and in my head, I care more about the Americans.  Again my girlfriend will say, “But we are all people.  Look at it from a human perspective instead of an American perspective.  There are plenty of places in the world where you could go and help some people without having to kill other people.

Of course she is right about that.  Even without leaving the comfort of my apartment I could do lots and lots of positive things to make the world a better in which to live.  That’s true for all of us; everyone could be doing more to make life better for someone else.  The question is, what motivates you?  What’s going to get you out of the couch and on the phone making phone calls to organize a protest?  What magnitude earthquake will it take for you to help the people of Haiti?

At 25 years old I like to think I know myself pretty well.  I know that no matter how much I say I care about the various righteous causes that exist in the world, very rarely will I actually do anything about it.  One cause that does motivate me, however, is the plight of the American soldier.  Again, there are very many ways to go about supporting that cause, and maybe the best way isn’t by becoming a soldier myself.  That’s a question I’m trying to figure out.  Perhaps doing volunteer work will be enough for me, or maybe someday I could find a career working for the USO.  I could organize drives to put together care packages to send overseas or protest our current war and lobby for the hasty return of all Americans serving on foreign soil.  These are all great options, and some amazing people do all of these things every day.  All I can do is choose the one I feel best suits me.  The one I think I could do well at.

What makes me think actively serving in the military is the best option of all of these?  Well so far it is the only thing that has gotten me off the couch and into the gym.  It has me reading books and writing my thoughts down in an organized way.  It’s the only thing that has given me any real inspiration over the past few years, and I think it could give me a sense of pride and accomplishment that organizing a care package drive just wouldn’t.  Simply put, I want to do it.  I want to be there, and at this point, that’s the bottom line.

I finished Mullaney’s book on the bus tonight as I traveled back to New York from Boston.  (I was in Boston helping my girlfriend relocate to our hometown after living in New York for six years.)  Among his many other accomplishments, the man is a master storyteller, and I was on the verge of tears for much of the last fifty pages.  I burned through the book faster than I intended, underlining and annotating many passages along the way.  For whatever reason the stars aligned and I picked this book up at just the right time.  So much of what he says goes straight to the core of the questions I’ve been asking myself over the months, and I’m sure I’ll read it again soon just to make sure I’ve absorbed as much insight as possible.

I don’t think I’m ready to start analyzing just yet.  The whole experience feels very personal and intensely emotional at the moment, and I need to let it settle in more.  As I finished the book I was immediately reminded of another great war story, Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried.  At the end of a chapter about how to tell a true war story O’Brien writes the following:

And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war.  It’s about sunlight.  It’s about the special way that dawn spreads out on a river when you know you must cross the river and march into the mountains and do things you are afraid to do.  It’s about love and memory.  It’s about sorrow.  It’s about sisters who never write back and people who never listen.

This passage has stuck with me ever since I first read The Things They Carried in my senior year of high school, and it came screeching back to me tonight while reading The Unforgiving Minute.  Above all else Mullaney’s book is about his great love for his family, his fiancee, and most importantly his men.  There is absolutely nothing he won’t do in order to keep them safe and protected, and when one is killed in combat, the tragedy sends shock waves through the platoon and through the rest of Mullaney’s life.

I’m having a really tough time getting the rest of my thoughts about this book in order.  I definitely need to go over parts again and take better notes before I start writing about it in the blog.  Obviously I highly recommend it, not only as a point of reference for people considering military service but for anyone who enjoys great literature.

This is the side of military service that really scares me, the psychological after effects.  As a nation we focus on death tolls when we decide to care at all about the victims of war, but emotional problems and neurological disorders affect thousands of others.  As one of my high school teachers rightly pointed out to me not long ago, there are worse things than death.  Anyone who knows me knows that my greatest ambition in life is to have a wife and children.  What if I were unable to achieve that dream?  Even worse, what if I became a danger to my family?  Fortunately, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is finally starting to be recognized as a real disease that needs serious treatment.  Unfortunately, it has had to reach epidemic levels before people started learning about the issue and taking it seriously.  Slowest of all to adjust have been the various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces.

Being a massive instituion and bureaucracy, agility and adaptability are not characterics of the Army.  As Craig Mullaney reports much of the training he recieved prior to deployment in Afghanistan was ineffective in actually preparing him for the situations in which he found himself.  In the late ’90s when he was in Ranger School the Army had actually eliminated the desert phase of the hyper-intense training program. Many of his instructors hadn’t actually seen combat and were unable to answer questions about what he should expect.  Luckily that very same training had sharpened his mind to be able to react quickly and effectively, which was really the point after all.

The Army is definitely a bureaucracy though, and that’s a major point against it in my book.  The long chain of command resembles the multiple layers of supervision that already annoy me  in the small bureaucracy in which I am currently installed.  In order to get anything done there are procedures to follow, forms to fill out, and meetings to attend.  How will I feel about that same process when lives are at stake?

On the other hand, I see Mullaney able to fill the role I envision for myself as a lieutenant.  His men come to him with everything from requests to go to prom to help getting out of debt.  Along with all that he is the liason between the enlisted men and the upper echelons of the Army.  He manuevres within the bureaucraacy so that his platoon can get time on the rifle range and practice nighttime ambush drills.  It’s up to him to make sure they have the skills they’ll need when the real test comes.

The sole redeeming quality of my current job is helping my student-employees in the same way.  I’m a part-time guidance cousellor and advocate.  I try to prevent them from getting into situations which will force them into meetings with the real shot callers who don’t know them or care about them the same way I do.  It’s my hope that they trust me and learn from me, even in a small way.  Yes it can be beyond frustrating dealing with the administration, but I think I would have left by now if it really wasn’t worth it.  In the Army I can see myself performing the same service, so bureacracy or not I think it could still be a good decision for me.  I’ll be able to perform a service that I already know I enjoy, but in what is for me a much more meaningful setting.

Speaking of service, I called the Manhattan V.A. Hospital on Thursday to find out about their volunteer opportunities.  The woman I spoke with directed me to an online application I’ll need to fill out.  She also informed me that they currently have more volunteers than they do opportunities to serve, so I may have to spend some time on a waiting list.  While that was encouraging to hear, it poses a serious challenge for the second half of my current undertaking.  I’ll be looking for other possibilities to work with veterans in need while I wait to hear from them.