An Arbitrary Anniversary

Eight years ago, I was fighting the flue and had missed a drill weekend which was part of my commitment to my contract with the United States Army Reserves. I actually agonized over whether or not I would go to drill that weekend because while I was sick and feeling rather miserable, I also had a misguided sense of duty combined with a diminished sense of self-care. I ended up doing what could be considered the responsible thing and stayed home with my sickness. It was February 13, 2005; a Sunday morning. My supervising NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) called my house asking to speak with me. She asked me how I was, and if I was recovering well, and if I was sitting down. I said I was, and she replied with "You're going to Baghdad". Whatever visceral emotional response I might have had, I will never know. Reflexively I was a clear minded professional calculating a thousand things which were contingent on my almost robotic reply: "What's my timeline?"

The next day was a series of phone calls, and e-mails to school. I was within a year of graduation of a series of classes which I had fought tooth and nail through a portfolio review to get into. It was imperative I knew I would have my place held or if I was going to have to resubmit my portfolio again. I had to notify work, and I had to let certain friends and family know I was leaving soon - really soon.

After a few farewells, and a few very encouraging metaphorical but well needed kicks in the ass, I was not sad when I was saying my farewells and good byes. I consequently found out I would have far more time than the "This Thursday" my NCO told me, as there was training I had to complete prior to heading overseas.

The deployment was a profoundly formative experience in my life, which I cannot say with any sort of confidence that I would be the person I am today were it not for that experience. There are people whom I would have never been put on a path to meet were it not for how my military service and actually deploying affected the way I think, and helped shape my values and beliefs. There are people like Marc-Anthony, or Cherie whom I would have never spoken too or been fortunate enough to befriend. The introduced me to Sacha Sacket, wonderful ideas, and unbridled kindness of strangers. A longer lasting kindness than the Bangor Troop Welcomers, who also are very deserving of my respect.I would have never met the other "nerdiest person in the batallion" Lysandwr, my deployment girlfriend! If I had not deployed to Baghdad I would not have taken an interest in foreign languages and cultures, nor would I have gotten involved with the Vet Art Project, and met Lisa, Jessa, Tim, and subsequently Aaron, Sabrina, Nicky, Vinny, Alejandro, Barry, Hans, or Iris. My friendship with Susheela would not have been as nurturing nor fulfilling. I would not make the kind of art which I am making now, nor would I explore the ideas and grapple with the issues which I grapple with now.

So today, I honor my eighth anniversary to my deployment to a war we should have never fought, but my involvement in has made me a more conscientiousness and engaged inhabitant of the world.

Trying to organize my thoughts and creative impulses

In the past three days I have started preparing at least 5 canvases of varying sizes with a distinct spacial constraint in my work space. I'm juggling drying space with two easels on which I work with either painting or waiting for something to dry just enough before I continue working on it. Overall I am building backgrounds, though technically the works as they progress can be abstract explorations in themselves.  could leave them as well enough, but the premise is unsatisfying and weighs as intellectually lazy on my part considering I have several concepts which I have been toying around with. The intersection between my starting such a big workload in such a short time given my sporadic art making schedule is I am starting many surfaces and I am not certain or completely oblivious to how I am going to finish each artwork. I generally have two series of works which I have been working on recently or researching to work on; Idle/Idol Worship, and basically making works generated from a pool of artists whose work I admire. Both of these ideas generate several lists in how I will explore each concept.

Idle/Idol Worship was a concept which emerged from the sort of celebrity worship which starts in the teenage years with an unchecked zeal and fervor, but wanes over time. As an adult I keep that impulse in check to some degree, but I still have several favorite actors/actresses, singers, performers and celebrity individuals. My students do as well. They plaster their notebooks with printouts and cut outs, draw pictures of them for class projects, have stickers, and basically make small sort of shrines to them in their belongings. In this idea, I have been looking at the celebrities which I have followed overtime, and taking that similar kind of "celebrity worship" and juxtapose it with different religious images and representations, such as candles, and I would wager a lot of Medieval and Renaissance Art. In a sense it is a look at what other people including myself worship besides religion, and how that worship manifests itself in visible ways.

In the second which is basically a stitching together of elements from various artists and art movements I like, it is a little more nebulous and difficult to pin down. Consistently on my list are artists Jose Parla and Kehinde Wiley. I love Parla's free-flowing abstractions of script and the way he takes elements from the street such as wheat pasted posters, advertisements left behind, and layers onto them washes of paint and scripting. From Wiley I admire his skill in rendering his figures in such a naturalistic fashion, imitating the works of historically lauded dead European/White men and mixes in the decorative elements with very garish flowery sometimes feminine aspects to them. Generally any sort of realism involving the human figure draws my attention, and lately a lot of that has been J.C. Leyendecker and Jack Vettrianno's works. Usually I will find some random photo on a fashion blogging site and apply elements from everything I have listed in this paragraph.

I am not sure which way I will veer in this bountiful problem... though it is not a problem at all. After all, more art is a good thing.

The uncontrollable reflex of making meaning of random events

After three and a half years of working with the Community Arts Sustaining Academics at Hurley Elementary, it was decided that what I was doing with and for the students and what the School Administration would like to do with the students were no longer coalescing in the administration's interest. Having to show evidence that the program coordinators are working with their partners schools, they let me go. Today was my last day at Hurley Elementary, and I was touched by how much people there saw me as a part of their community, and their genuine surprise and heart-rending disappointment that I was going, and that my transition from there was only one day. I told my students the news and many of them responded with a loud and whining "Why?!" followed by a resolute "I'm just not going to come to class anymore." which also had the sting of feeling scorned. After all, this was not the end of school year fare well, but a sudden withdrawal and change in their routine. We took a photo together, and then I explained what we would be doing in class that day, how the class was going to change in a broader sense with the new art teacher, and that I would miss all of them very much.
Both before and after class, I sought out the people who I had worked with in the past three and a half years and gave them a small sealed "Thank you" card personalized with a short thank you for all the ways in which they had welcomed me and made me a part of their community, and how I cherished what they had done.  Some people, including in the administration expressed surprise and a palpable sense of disappointment, as if my departure was an injustice to them on some level. It was very heartwarming what they shared with me in my last work day. At the end of class, each of my students wanted to give me a hug, so I obliged. I organized the materials as neatly as I could in the cramped storage space, grabbed my bag and walked out of the building. Having been notified about my transition from the program, I had already mourned and basically accepted the reality of what was happening. To a certain degree, it paralleled my experiences bidding my farewells to friends, colleagues, and professors when I was deployed to Iraq. They were more distraught than I was at the moment.
On the drive home, listening to my playlist, two songs played consecutively; a paring which begged, and reflexively claimed meaning. Individually, and in any other context you can put any two songs together and assign them a meaning based on the situation. I had paired the song "Disarm" by The Smashing Pumpkins with an eight kilometer ruck march in Basic Training. My best friend had sent me the lyrics in a letter and I had read them prior to the march so fragmented memory of how the song went played in cadence with my footsteps. The song "Such Great Heights" by The Postal Service is forever associated with my family and a friend and his son dropping me off at the airport post Easter Sunday before I deployed to Baghdad. Given the context of those sample situations, the lyrics from the songs, such a memory is very strongly imprinted to those melodies. So after the ordeal of saying farewell to my students, and my seemingly sudden departure from the program, the songs "Used" by Sacha Sacket, immediately followed by "Risk of Change" by Holcombe Waller summed up both the mild bitterness from being let go, but also the ideals I would like to further embody in this new calendar year.
I do hope that my kids have been changed for the better, and they remember fondly the time they had spent in my class.

Chicago Ideas Week: A Critique of The Military Talk From the Battle front to the Home Front

I took advantage of an opportunity from IAVA to attend the Chicago Ideas Week Talk at the Goodman Theater. It was about the Military, and it was titled "From the Front Lines to the Home Front". The quantity and type of corporate sponsorship made me very skeptical and critical of the framework for the discussion from the get go. It seemed outright that the only ideas worth discussing were ones which could turn a profit for someone, and I really wish my impression was more wrong than right. Tom Brokaw led the audience through a two hour block of discussions, talks, and presentations featuring General Colin Powell; General Stanley McChrystal; Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Paul Reickhoff; Melissa Stockwell, Veteran and Paratriathlete; Taryn Davis, founder of The American Widow Project; and Maj. General Marcia Anderson, the highest ranking African-American woman in the US Military. I hold a certain degree of respect for Colin Powell, even though he played a key role in the events leading up to the US Invasion of Iraq, a distraction which I think directly affects the fact that our efforts in Afghanistan have gone on as long as they did. General McChrystal commands a little bit less respect, but my reasoning is only slightly more nebulous. There was a lengthy period of time which was spent stroking the egos of the financial sponsors of the event, JP Morgan, Chase, and Time. There are other companies, but the JP Morgan and Chase logos were plastered all over the place. I think were I live-tweeting the event, I might have made snarky remarks mocking what the people on stage said. When the VP of the Midwest branch of JP Morgan Chace, he mentioned the 100,000 veteran initiative, in which it is the goal of participating companies to hire 100,000 veterans. My question immediately was whether or not they would be subsequently fired. And considering that JP Morgan, along with Citigroup, and Bank of America are among the biggest institutions evicting people, how many of the evicted are veterans, and how many of these veterans have they offered jobs? or at least struck some sort of deal so they can keep their house?
The one statement which I agreed with which he spoke of was the idea that "Veterans can, in a sense, mentor all of us."
My skepticism was fully engaged as it appeared there would be little to address the fact that most of the young men and women who enlist don't do so for love of country, but more because the military is usually the best option they have in order to further their lives because they were born into less than stellar conditions. Yes there are people who do enlist out of patriotism, but to say that is the only reason they enlist is an incredibly narrow and selective view of reality. Brokaw did an articulate introduction in which he mentioned the immorality of having only one percent of a Democratic Nation bear 100% of the pain, hardship, injuries, and casualties for the rest of us.
General McChrystal and General Powell did hit on several kernels of truth in when you are with a unit, be it a company, platoon, or squad; when you are out in the field, whatever your military occupational specialty, it is ultimately about your team. When service members separate from the service either due to injury, or not re-enlisting, they are separated from a team, and because of their experiences, they really don't have a team looking out for them when they get back to civilian life, and they become stuck kind of in between.
One of the major themes which emerged from the two Generals talking could best be expressed in this metaphor: how can we get military cogs to fit into a civilian machine? What McChrystal and Powell spent a great deal of time on was how do military skills translate to a civilian economy? For me, this seemed to miss one of the other great failings in this nation, how do we help veterans as whole feel welcome in society, and what can we do to help the ones who are injured, hurt, or hurting. They did talk about the Wounded Warrior Project, and The Mission Continues, and other wonderful projects, but the amount of time spent on the economy over other issues was telling of the panel's priorities. There was a poignant moment which General Powell mentioned that at a veteran's luncheon he met a veterans who had lost three limbs and was basically recruited by a real estate company in California. The company wanted him specifically because he was a veterans, and they were aware of his condition. The young veteran said that losing three limbs was the worst thing which could have happened to him, but it was also the best thing which has happened to him. This served as an introduction to the concept that businesses from the small to the mega corporations should be proactive in recruiting veterans into the work force. I think in spite of the fact that this still is within the pitfall of basically putting profits over people, it was a step in the right direction.
Another relevant and kind of astonishing fact, General Powell again mentioned some interesting comparisons in how we were more engaged as a nation during previous wars. I can't recall what war he mentioned (I want to say Vietnam, but I am not sure), but with the ratio in the number of wounded back then was such that there was one wounded veteran for every sixty-some-odd civilians, so the fact that we had been fighting a war was impossible to ignore. Now we have a ratio of one visibly wounded veteran per 7000 civilians, so the effects of war are not as prevalent, and all but under the rug and swept for this generation of Americans.
I am reminded of the Robert E. Lee quote "It is well war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." I am afraid though that as a nation we have grown to fond of it, and in part is because we do not see the destruction which has been wrought, not just to the nations where we are waging war, but in the households of all the wounded veterans. Mind you, when I say wounded, I am not just referring to physical injury, but also stress disorders, PTSD, and other similar issues. I think as a society, we have not really had to confront the reality of war here in the United States. the closest we have come to that as a nation was the attacks of September 11, 2001. Another good thing which did emerge from the seemingly endless talk about veterans and the economy was the fact that while a veteran can face combat, and the dangers of deployment, civilian life is a challenge which they are not always prepared for, and it is up to civilian to be proactive in reaching out to veterans and their loved ones and help them find a team here.
Paul Reickhoff took the stage after the two Generals left. His talk seemed a little bit more centered in reality, but not by much. He does address what would be the middle issue of not every veteran comes home wounded, not every veteran is a victim, and many are in fact quite proud of what they did, and well should be. He did address the fact that the VA is not enough, and with their backlog of 1 million, that is 1,000,000 claim backlog, things with the VA are progressively getting worse, and this is creating an abhorrent situation for veterans. He did provide a statement which does answer the empty-calorie sentiment of support the troops; give them a job. But it was still largely centered in the larger notion of simply getting getting veterans from the battlefield to a job, addressing very little of anything which might be important in the details of that transition.
Melissa Stockwell presented a much needed female veteran perspective. She spoke of how her father, even in the 2000's still had the thought "They let women in the military?" It is both an amusing, but rather disturbing notion that people still hold that sort of mentality in the 21st century. She has since become an accomplished Paratriathlete, and a Prostheticist helping other people, not just troops reclaim some sense of normalcy in their life with a new limb, and technologies which have advanced to the point that it is not just a prosthetic, but simply a "different leg". She did remark on how because of her injury, she has done more since than she would have if she would have come home whole. I think people who are usually confronted with obstacles like a missing limb have often put the rest of us able-bodied people to shame in that they seem to do so much more.
After Melissa stepped off stage, Taryn Davis shared her story, which addressed how families of soldiers are veterans, but also how in this generation there are many young women who are acquiring the rather dubious title of "Widow" at a very young age. She had married her high school sweet heart, Michael Davis. Taryn recounted the day she found out about Michael's death, and my heart sank. I think this was by far the most human presentation/discussion in the entire panel. She spoke of the surrealness as she had gotten a ride from her parent's house by a neighbor to see two soldiers in front of a military vehicle shaking and barely holding their composure because they did not want to tell her that Michael was dead, and show because of this she thought they were telling another military wife. After the funeral, and a few months later, people discounted her grief as a widow because she was so young, or because "he knew what he was getting into when he enlisted" and to Taryn, it seemed a better option to join her husband than to go on living. When she finally went to Google to search "widow" and Google responding with "Did you mean 'window'", she had found new purpose in the other young military widows, and started the American Widows Project. I think this is one of the toils of war which we do not hear about. I actually had not even considered the premise of young 21 year old widows. The idea is so bizarre and unreal if you really think about it, but they exist!
I think Taryn would have been a great place to conclude the presentation, if anything because of the warmth and the fact that her story resonates most with tugging at the heart strings. No offense to Major General Marcia Anderson, but her presentation I thought was a very sharp turn back to the "we need veterans to get the economy going again" mentality. She spoke about the experience that reservists have, and how they are probably most like the ninja veterans in that they can be in your communities and you may not know that your neighbor is a reservist. I think it is important to have her voice and experience as the highest ranking female of color in the military, but it seemed like a very abrupt transition from something so centered on a sense of heartfelt community and emotion, to go back to  business minded approach. She did mention two organizations which help reservists, Fort Families, and Army Strong Community Centers. I think if she were to keep with the emotional tone of Taryn's presentation, perhaps if she highlighted specific stories or went more into the details of the New York Veteran who was homeless with a bipolar disorder that was helped by the Rochester Army String Community Center, it may have had a sense of thematic emotional continuity. I will give due respect to Major General Anderson, to make it to her rank and boast proud titles like Mother and Grandmother among her other accolades is a respectable achievement in a male dominated field.

Freedom of Speech & Freedom from Consequence

I have been following the news a lot lately with issues like Daniel Tosh's unfortunate spate with rape jokes, if they could be called that. There was also pundit Jonah Goldberg stating that young people who believe we should take a turn towards socialism in some areas of the government are stupid, and should have said stupidity beaten out of them literally or figuratively. In general, people posting some very controversial an unpopular or erroneous opinions, then crying foul when someone calls them out on how their opinion is offensive, and making proclamations that the critics are stifling this person's freedom of speech. I think what has happened is people are conflating Freedom of Speech with Freedom from Criticism. They usually think their opinion is sacrosanct, and when people disagree with them in a vociferous manner or counter their opinion with some larger ramifications of stated opinion, they react poorly to said criticism. It is almost as if they are surprised that people either disagree with them, or think they are wrong.
People, specially people in the realm of celebrity and influence should chose their words more carefully. Someone hears what they have to say, and take it as the thing to do, or believe, which in turn has greater consequences. As one of my favorite journalists Allison Killkenny once said, and I am paraphrasing a bit... "It is not our job to make bullies and bigots comfortable." People should take responsibility for what they say. This applies to bullies, pundits, but also to community members on the local scope, such as teachers, preachers, and family members.

I'm not a preachy vegetarian, don't be an asshole omnivore

One of my brothers appreciates how I'm not super vocal and preachy and over the top about the things that make me even more of a minority than what I already might be considered. I'm not a super swishy over the top out gay man, and I am not a pushy, preachy, holier-than-thou vegetarian. I figure, just respect people whoever they may be, and let them make their own decisions even if you may not agree with them. In other fronts I may be a little less forgiving, or push back against views I don't necessarily agree with, and my decision to be vegetarian has seldom been one of them. Overtime however, there is the accumulation of small snippy comments along the lines of "more meat for me", and "How could you not like bacon?!" which pile up. They are like small pebbles thrown at my head. They are more annoying then damaging. However if you get enough of them, they accumulate, and maybe slip into your shoes, and eventually fester and aggravate. I have remained respectful of other people's decision to eat meat, and I do not think that it is too much of a stretch of the imagination to expect similar respect in return. However when you crack a joke like pigs are vegetarian, so ham is actually vegetarian too; you are not being clever. You are not being funny. You are being a disrespectful asshole who has become worthy of my contempt. I try to do vegetarian right. I eat plenty of vegetables, and fruit. I try to avoid the bread and pasta pitfall some people fall into sometimes at some restaurants, or at family gatherings where the menu is poorly thought out. I don't constantly preach about how you can actually get more than enough protein being vegan or vegetarian if you eat the right grains and legumes, or how it helps you lose weight, and lower blood pressure, or the other multitude of benefits that being vegetarian can bring (if done correctly). If you crack a joke like the ones I mentioned above when I mention I am vegetarian to you, do not be surprised if I smack you upside the head for your blatant disrespect. Granted, I tend to avoid physical violence, as we are supposed to be a civilized people. But I do hope you understand if I do not speak to you again and that you enjoy your heart disease, and diabetes 20 years from now.

convictions, or lack thereof: musings on NATO, protesters, and teaching

I have had NATO and activism on the mind, and I am not sure how I can reconcile my sentiments on this. In spirit, I support the protesters in their actions, but lack the courage and conviction to be out there on the streets with them. What little I have is too tenuous and fragile to destabilize it further, and I am trying to make peace with what I have, and the change I am hoping to enact in this world as a classroom teacher. I recognize that may have been an abrupt transition in topics, but if I make a point of discussing systemic inequities in society in my classroom, is that not a form of protest? If I point out that there are injustices in the world which are not necessarily globally spanning sentiments, but things which are in the very halls of the schools where I teach, in the homes of my students, and in the neighborhoods; and that NOT accepting certain things as truth and immutable is itself an act of rebellion, and a catalyst for change? While I do not want to equate the actions of a protester who marches to express their grievances to the world leadership (who, in my opinion, are clearly not listening or paying attention whatsoever), and my day to day toils with students, in the long term, are we not going for similar goals: change for the better? The kind of change which does not make for a fancy feel-good political campaign, but the change where people collectively feel safer, more trusting in the general good-will of their fellow person, and not looking for any and every which way in which to take down everyone else in order to get ahead, or at least keep another from advancing?
Today many military Veterans symbolically divested themselves from their Global War on Terrorism Medals, Operation Enduring Freedom Medals, and Operation Iraqi Freedom Medals. Neither NATO nor the United States Government send any representative, which I guess were expected to be present, to receive them. Their gesture spoke volumes about the veteran’s convictions; which I admire. I also think that the NATO or US leadership could not be bothered to send anyone to hear the grievances of the protesters is also very telling. The fact that politically, they basically outfit the police in a fashion akin to a soldier going on patrol is very telling of how things have changed now. It is scary, and I hope that in the end general decency and good will prevail; though thinsg are seeming more and more doubtful.