I'm tired

One person's musings on a Sunday morning

I am incredibly tired. I could go into a long explanation of the personal reasons why, but it wouldn’t and doesn’t matter. My health problems are minuscule in the grand scheme of things, and I know how incredibly lucky I am to have what I have to take care of them…and me, by default.

Instead, I want to tell you about the other reasons I am just so incredibly exhausted.

I served this country for 14 years, in every capacity I was asked to serve, and in some capacities that I asked for, to be allowed to help both my fellow brothers and sisters and my fellow Americans.

I served until a randomly assigned civilian doctor, after a routine physical, decided that I was “medically unfit” to do my job in the US Army. I had never met this doctor before, nor did she inquire about anything during our 5-10 minutes together. She made the decision to end my career based solely on the fact that I had two tiny little scars on my knee that proved I had undergone an arthroscopic surgical procedure to clean out the roughed up cartilage in my knee.

The rest is history, but I digress.

I have watched, listened, and read articles that many various sources over the last year and some change have laid out; some carefully, and some in a very manufactured way, what has happened with regard to the current administration/regime, however you choose to say it.

I have watched the inaction and literal blockage of Congressional function come to a screeching halt over the last several years as the “Freedom Caucus” has come to power. Power that, in spite of the fact that there have never been more than 20 members in this caucus, they have dictated the very way Congress functions, or doesn’t, in this case. This tiny fraction of 535 elected officials, elected by the people they represent, have brought the mighty United States Congress to its knees. The very Branch of Government outlined as the “Article 1” Branch of Government in our Constitution. All action and normal functioning of this body has halted completely.

It is no longer relevant to our needs.

That is one reason I am so completely exhausted.

Please forgive my following colorful description. The absolute fuckery occurring in and being trotted out on full display for us on almost a daily basis from the Executive Branch…Article 2 in our Constitution…defies any explanation. It flies in the face of logical, rational thought. It is the ranting worthy only of a very young child’s behavior and actions, and ravings normally ascribed to the definitive statutes of the psychotic, schizophrenic individuals in society. Let me say that I mean no offense to these individuals. I merely want to illustrate a comparison to the definitions of their conditions. I do not imply that they are the same.

We have a dementia-ridden old man in the seat of power in this country. He is pointed in whatever direction is called for in the moment by his handlers and allowed to speak in garbled, disconnected thought patterns that the normal person has incredible difficulty translating and ascribing meaning to them.

Why has this been normalized? Why is this acceptable for any rational person?

Then we finally get to the heart of why I am so tired. I have defended, ad nauseam, my brothers and sisters serving in today’s military services. Are there people serving who agree with the current state of affairs? Of course there are. Of course there are. Am I going to demonize them? No. I won’t. They have the same rights I do to believe whatever they want. That is what all of this is about.

I am tired of feeling like I must defend their way of life. Their duty is to serve honorably, regardless of whether I agree with orders being given, so long as they are lawful orders. I am tired of defending their very right to exist within a community and a world that, unless you have served inside it, you do not truly understand.

It is utterly exhausting.

I have more than twice the experience and years in service as our current SecDef. Do not call him nor his department a title that includes the word “War”. Know the laws. Until and unless Congressional approval is given, name changes to governmental departments is not a thing. It is not a whim. I do not care how many things it is printed on. That is not its name.

I am tired, exhausted, in explaining legal regulations that clearly state that what they are doing is illegal. I am tired and exhausted of being forced to then defend my statements to that information, which is freely available with a 10-second search and a reasonable level of reading and/or critical thinking ability; and yes, I am aware that I am asking way too much in this.

I am just so fucking tired. I have a broad and large tolerance for ignorance. Ignorance is, by definition, the absence or lack of knowledge about a subject. It is easily remediated. I have zero tolerance for learned stupidity. It is lazy, and in all honesty, it takes great effort on the part of the person who is spouting it to remain that way. It offends me. Absolutely. It offends every fiber of my being.

I am losing hope that this will end before a great deal of our blood is needlessly spilled. I am not discounting or disregarding blood already spent on all sides everywhere. I am talking about the blood of our service members who have yet to engage in this needless, irrational, and frankly incredibly stupid undertaking. The blood of my brothers and sisters has already been spilled needlessly and we have already been spectators to the level of “honor and dignity” with which those who made that ultimate sacrifice were treated with upon their arrival onto US soil.

I do not want to see the decks of ships and evacs awash in so much more of the same blood. I desperately hope that feeling extends to many more American citizens.

No matter how tired, exhausted, and demoralized I am, it is not within me to quit. I do not possess the capacity to just shrug and walk away. I never did.