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First and Only by Dan Abnett.

Memorial Day, May 27th, 2019

This is technically not my dad's holiday.

After fighting in Europe as a unit of the Army Corps of Engineers attached to the 3rd Army and then transferring over to Asia as part of occupational forces in the Philippines and Japan (he told me how huge the koi were in the Emperor's collection, since he got to see them firsthand), he got to come back home. The only major injury he suffered was a permanently bent finger that he got as a result of a section of a bridge falling on it that he was working on either in northeast France or southwest Belgium. Barring that, he came back intact.

Others weren't so lucky. 

Many others, in fact. And this is their day.

I'm no pacifist. I'm also no militarist. There are times when you have no choice but in engage in warfare, but armed conflict should always be the last option you resort to and not the first. The stakes in terms of lives lost and troops permanently disabled or psychologically mangled are far too high for anyone to claim that war is some glorious adventure that has no consequences for its participants. Pardon my language, but this is grade-A horseshit. It has nothing but consequences, and this is why any politician who starts advocating war as an ideal solution to any geopolitical crisis is either a opportunistic demagogue or a complete idiot. History has proven over and over that this is not the case. Cemetaries the world over are full of their mistakes, as well as soldiers who died in far more justifiable conflicts. It remains the responsibility of historians and survivors of those conflicts alike to decide which is which. 

So consider this: this is more than a Federal holiday or a nice day to barbecue with friends. This is a far more important day than that, and we should all remember it. And we should also try to make sure that the next time we have to memorialize someone's military service, it gets celebrated on November 11th instead of late May.

"But somehow I got over it"

It's occurred to me that from time to time that I can be a moody bastard. That's far from the entire story with me, but I can have my moods just like everyone else. And those moods, when deep enough, make me feel like walking at the bottom of the Marianas Trench would be easier than the situational depression I'm in at the time. Mind you, I feel that I'm not clinically depressed at those times- for the most part, I can be incredibly motivated and engaged even at times like those, but bad news can get to me just like anyone else. And sometimes, that can be an especially nasty occurrence that makes me go to places in my head I'd rather not. A few examples follow, including one incident that could've far messier for me had I not come to my senses.

Back in 1990, my father died unexpectedly after surgery on his legs to restore full blood flow so he could get around without that damn walker he was forced to use after decades of standing at a pharmacist's station filling prescriptions. My last memories of him prior to the visitation and funeral was seeing him twitch unconsciously for days on an ICU gurney after the blood clot that eventually killed him made its way to his brain. For an entire year afterward, I was able to outwardly function, but inwardly? Not even close. Between low-level, chronic depression and other times where I was just an anxious nervous wreck, things just weren't good for me. But somehow I got over it.

From late 1998 to mid-2003, I had no success in landing a permanent job. I had no luck in landing a long-term temporary job, either. The continued lack of anything tangible in the wake of hundreds and hundreds of resumes sent out over that period gave me a complex about job security that I still have issues with today. This wasn't so much the type of depression that I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, but the sense of exasperation it caused was still no fun to deal with. But somehow I got over it. 

The second half of 2014 dealt me a real triple whammy. First, I was - or I thought I was - on the cusp of a serious relationship with someone who I was absolutely sure felt the same way about me as I did about her. She said words to that effect herself early on. End result? Forget it. Things imploding like that did are never fun to go through, and as usual I blamed myself far too much. Almost entirely, in fact. Later on I realized that wasn't even close to the actual case, but only hindsight is 20/20 and "we just weren't gonna make this work" comes as cold comfort when you thought you had a sure thing at the time. 

Unfortunately - and at the same time,,which only exascerbated things - I was also positive that my new supervisor at work was going to go through hell and high water to get me fired, union CBA or not. My transferring to another department in November was probably the only thing that saved my ass from impending termination, and that only made my private life's failures seem all the more brutal at the time. It's hard to focus on the positive when you seemingly can't find a positive. 

And then things got worse.

One of my closest friends - a sister to me emotionally, if not biologically - underwent a serious breast cancer scare that nearly terrified me as much as it did her. It was like I was back walking the bottom of the Marianas Trench again just like it was 1990 all over again, and it was only a negative biopsy result that took some of the pressure off my back weeks later.

And yes, I got over all of this. Somehow. 

Except that for once I nearly didn't. 

The sense of despair that all of this caused was something I thought I'd never get out of. It was a perfect storm of self-doubt and situational depression that all of this hitting at exactly the wrong time caused. Which led to this: 

I had a brief moment where I was so down - the failed relationship, the constant threat of being fired from my job, the breast cancer scare one of my closest friends of 25-plus years was going through - that I nearly punched a beer bottle in the toilet in my hotel room at a SF convention with the intent of what you'd expect such a stupid, jerkwad action to accomplish. It was a completely idiotic thought, and I knew I was a complete asshole for even thinking injuring myself in a fit of utter frustration would solve anything, but the thought was there. If only for five seconds, but it was there.

But then I stopped myself.

Why? Self preservation, obviously, but beyond that? What else made me stop from doing that?

Because it wouldn't have solved anything. At all. That's why. It was as if my brain was telling me "Hey. This shit you're thinking of doing? It won't make her change her mind or want you back; it won't keep you from getting fired from your shitty job; and it certainly won't cure your de facto sister if it does turn out she has cancer. And if she does, she'll need you to be there for her, and in one piece. So stop with this melodramatic bullshit. Now".

For once, I took my inner daemon's advice. Maybe Socrates was right about that after all...

Life can be hard. Real hard, even if you have your health and don't end up living on the street. Hard to the point of just giving in or giving up, and it's difficult to say which is the worst choice of not coping with it: an irreversible gesture of futility like suicide, or miserably dragging your ass through your remaining years on this earth without much in the way of joy or engagement with the outside world; in other words, utter surrender. And a lot of people have chosen either one of those. Far too many, in fact.

As for me, I'll surrender when I'm finally dead. If life has taught me anything, surrendering like that means that you'll take any number of insults to your psyche when you do. And that's just not an acceptable option to me. 

I've known some friends who didn't even make it this far and died far too young. They didn't have a choice in the matter, but I do. So what do you think I'm going to do with mine? 

Maybe that's the real secret of getting over it - just not giving up on yourself. Yeah, there'll be moments in your life where you think it's the best - or worse yet, the only - option. It isn't. You have other options. And whatever else you do, you need to stop waiting for that crosstown Express train to come through and run you over. Get up, board another one in the opposite direction instead and get the hell away from that neighborhood. There's nothing for you there. You owe yourself that much of a shot, at least. 

If you think you need help, the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) provides information on prevention, treatment and symptoms of anxiety, depression and related conditions. Phone: 240-485-1001.

The time capsule that ticks suspiciously

Back in the day - back before he got on Twitter, and back before he became a Presidential candidate - I didn't consider Donald Trump much more than a caricature of an especially crass business tycoon.

He's far worse than that, now.

If his recent evocation of "executive privilege" and his need to sacrifice his latest handpicked Attorney General to Contempt of Congress charges are any indication, he will never allow anyone access to information that makes him look like anything less than his own bloated self-image of choice. The unredacted Mueller report, his tax returns, even his unedited yearly Presidential physicals. There isn't a damn thing he doesn't want covered up, and there aren't many things he wouldn't stoop to in order to achieve that. The smell of burnt shredded documents are the least of anyone's worries in that regard.

One of the side effects of democracy is that demagogues can and will get elected. This is less a condemnation of democracy than it is of people getting lazy and stupid in engaging in it; electing crass, self-serving idiots to govern us is a two-way street, especially since you didn't have to vote for said idiot in the first place. The worst example is the stealth demagogue who suckered people into voting for him because he was just that skilled a liar. Donald J. Trump lied repeatedly during his Presidential campaign, but that deception was neither skilled or incapable of being debunked. His supporters just didn't care. Period. And despite all the new lies he uttered or Tweeted after his inauguration, they still don't.

And now he apparently wants to initiate a constitutional crisis. He's long been described as an admirer of Richard Nixon, and that comparison fits him to a tee more than any other. No, he's not Hitler. Not even close. But Tricky Dick? Oh, he'd love to be him - provided that August 1974 never happened. But it did, and that's exactly what Trump fears most - falling from the peak of the mountain and plunging into the ravine below. But he's also inherited Nixon's paranoia, which is why so many employees of his are now ex-employees. Even someone as rank as Jeff Sessions found this out the hard way. 

Regardless of how all of this ultimately turns out, consider this a time capsule. If you come back in five years or a decade and I'm not either dead, locked up as a political prisoner or living abroad as an unwilling expatriate, you can call me an alarmist and tell me that democracy still works even when it elects an authoritarian, narcissistic boob as President. I'm hoping you do. But if the opposite holds true, don't say I didn't warn you.