May 24, 2004 - War Dreams

I think I might have had this dream because The Gryphon and I went to see Troy yesterday afternoon, and that movie, while it tells an ancient story of war, plays up many of the issues universal to war, such as love of country, love of family, honor and respect, acting honorably and dishonorably.

Yet, it's a bright sunny day, not the sort of day when I would normally be obsessing about such things. If it weren't a Monday, and if I hadn't had that dream, or seen that movie.

On Friday, I received a T-shirt that I had ordered from 80sTees.com, a M*A*S*H T-shirt that says "M*A*S*H 4077th" on it. I'd always wanted a M*A*S*H T-shirt. I wore it Saturday to a meeting of Otakon, the Japanese animation convention where The Gryphon and I help out.

At one point someone even said to me, "How can anyone not like you? You're wearing a M*A*S*H T-shirt." I happened to also have matching oliver drab shorts, which I wore with it.

Not until later, in a restaurant in the Baltimore Inner Harbor, did I think about how the most famous picture nowadays of a woman in Army fatigues is a most shameful one, that of Specialist Lynndie England, holding a humiliated Iraqi prisoner on a dog leash. Distressing.

Cleaning out my spring and summer wardrobe, something I try to do every season, now that I've been successful in losing weight, I found a T-shirt tucked in the back of one of my drawers. I had bought it to wear to a Gwar/Misfits concert, simply because I'd been warned that Gwar sprays a lot of fake blood and ooze into their audience, and I shouldn't wear anything I definitely wanted to keep in good condition.

I'd bought a T-shirt for the Third Battalion, 103rd Armor, one of the units which has seen action in Iraq. The T-shirt had come from a Good Will store in my Central Pennsylvania home town, whose National Guard unit is part of that division.

And yet, it's a bright, sunny, late spring morning. The sun is hot. My dog, Una, and I are enjoying a walk. And under ordinary circumstances, I might be writing about the fact that I'm starting to get a Teva tan from wearing my sandals on these walks, and how I take that as a sign I'm making some progress away from the pale cave creature I became over the winter.

Or I might mention this pink rose bush in bloom along our path, and the way both Una and I like to stop and smell it on our daily walks.

Or I might mention the fact that my neighbor, who's done a couple tours of duty in Iraq, is now home, gardening with his wife, looking refreshed. He is, as I remember now, in military intelligence. Did I somehow step into his dream this morning?

But there is a balmy breeze, birds chirping happily. I've been picking up plenty of extra work (one reason I couldn't update Musings this past Friday), and I'm hoping this will help me make up for unpaid vacation later this summer.

So many happy, sunny, bright and pleasant things to write about, if I hadn't had that dream, or seen that movie.

Moral:
I've got to remember to watch a comedy or something before going to sleep.