Combat Queer Online

I Run So Far Away

Hey friends, I swear, I'm working on a devastating essay against the conservative Evangelical understanding of God. I repeat, devastating.

 

Unfortunately, every time I sit down to work on it, something happens and I continue to be busy or distracted. Honestly, I don't think war is the time for good writing. I think maybe good writing, or God help us, Good Writing might happen once you get home, once you get free and have some time to look back. I think the best I can do now is narrate. Sort-a.

 

So, here's what I have to say: Buy some running shoes. If I were to be really honest about the level at which my current sanity depends on my running two or three miles a day(really, that's not much), well, it might be worrisome to you Dear Reader. The thing is, for that twenty or so minutes while I'm knocking out distance, I feel a little bit free. I also feel a little bit free when I'm reading or playing music, but there's something different about the physicality of running.

 

To have your body fully engaged is to have your soul freed.

 

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Also, and I'm not going to downplay this, I'm going to be about to fit into some cute cloths when I get back. Yes, sadly, the combination of going off HRT and running had more or less erased the curves, they'll come back. It's going to rock.

The Failure of Gender Definitions

So, I'm still out here Dear Reader.  Yes, I know I am awful about updates, but there are people trying to kill me and the other people around me, so you know what?  It's not unreasonable to expect a break.  I do feel hella guilty about the hit to my writing though.  I think that maybe this is one of those times when I'm building up experiences that can be written about for a long, long time.

 

On to business, this deal about Caster Semenya is fascinating to me.  First, I think that it is kind of horrible that the official response to a women being a badass athlete is to suspect her of cheating. That's lame. As some of you know, I am a huge fan of the Tour d' France.  Cycling is a sport that has been all but brought down by doping and that kind of cheating is toxic.  At it's best, sports is an expression of what all of humanity is capable of.  In my opinion, screwing the rules says all the wrong things about humanity.

 

However, what ever the truth about Semenya turns out to be, she certainly rocks the running.  I hope that she has come by it honestly.

 

That said, I a thrilled to see a sort of open and honest discussion on the lack of definiteness of gender assignment.  It's nice to see people openly admitting that gender is not just a 0 or a 1. It's complex, there's much more going on.  It is a pleasant change to watch as Semenya forces people to think about their basic understandings of maleness and femaleness.  Think about the realities of those things.

 

Once people realize that there is more to gender than certain stereotypical physical traits it throws them for a loop.  As for being trans, if males can be XX and females can be XY, then what males a "real" man or woman?  Unfortunately, the answer I have seen tossed around is the ability to bear children.  This reminds me unpleasantly of the South Park episode where Mr./Ms. (and God knows I hate putting it like that, but it's a cartoon, it is trying to be offensive, and that's what is going on) Garrison transitions back to male after a mtf sex change the season before.  Garrison goes through all this because Garrison is convinced that the definition of real gender is in the ability to either father or bear a child.

 

Of course, South Park rarely comes entirely down on one side or the other.  The episode ends with another teacher telling Garrison than his wife is infertile.  Garrison responses stupidly, saying the teacher better get an HIV test 'cause he's sleeping with another man.  Everybody's offended and now end scene.

 

But, however stupid, the point does get across.  Because, any universal or hard and fast definition of gender is so full of holes that it is laughably stupid.  We kinda are what everyone accepts us as.  It's a shitty definition but, hey, hopefully I'll be alright with it once I'm out on the closet and more fully transitioned.  Selfish?  Oh yeah. But it's the truth.

 

Anyway, I got to get back to breathing sand and smoke from the oil well fires. There should be something new up at least once a week.  Stick around.  But never, never come to Iraq. This place is kind of lame.

Two Roads Converge

Well Dear Reader, I remain quite busy.  I think you often, but have had deeply limited internet access as of late. That said, I will try to do better.

 

Apology aside, I'm currently reading "The Language Of God" by Francis Collins and it is absolutely wonderful.  Admittedly, I am pretty awful at science.  The worst grades I got in any courses in college with in biology and chemistry classes. All the memorization, the lab works, etc, there was nothing about those classes I was skilled in.  In fact, science nearly endangered my college enrollment before things got turned around.

 

Despite all of that, the implications of science are fascinating to me. That we poor humans can learn the truth about the workings of the universe, a truth that doesn't depend on a certain way of thinking, a certain set of ideas or ideals just amazes and delights me.

 

Collins is a person who finds the hope of God in the great complexity and reality science describes.  He shows a faith that is big and strong enough to survive contact with reality.  He's able to maintain a faith without denying the basic truths about the world we live in.

It's awesome.

I'm also reading a book, Luke Timothy Johnson's "Living Jesus," that, true to its title, discusses the reality of the living Jesus.  Not just the dude who lived 2,000 years ago, but the person who is alive today and still working in the world.  The book's point is that when Christians move from celebrating the Holy Mysteries of the Resurrection to treating these miracles as problems to be solved, we miss the point. Somehow I think the views of these two books work together.

 

Now hear me out.  I think that figuring out the mechanics of God's Magic is crap game that misses the point.  Christ's message is how to treat each other like human beings.  To read it looking for esoteric clues seems to me a rejection of His message.  It's saying to Christ, "What you were telling us, that whole 'do unto others' and 'don't judge,' and 'love each other,' that's not good enough. We need strange teachings to make us better than other people."

 

But I seem to be rambling.

 

More later.  Affectionately yours,

 

CombatQueer

Sargeant Manny

Well Dear Reader, I have got to tell you my theory on NCOs.  NCOs are non-commissioned officers.  Basically, we're talking about corporals and every species of sergeant.  Now, there are many good NCOs out there.  One of my daily hopes is that you are reading the blog of one, even though there are many places where I could do better serving the folks who work for me.  It's a trite thing for commanders who treat their units like crap to say, but NCOs really do run the Army at a very basic level. But friends, sadly there is many a sergeant out there who could rightly be called a "bafoon."

There is one such sergeant in my unit who has been hanging around the armory for years.  He's stayed on through an ever moving stream of commanders, first sergeants, sergeant majors, everyone. This is a person who has happily maintained his rank of sergeant, E-5 and shown no ambition of ever advancing further.  I once asked a friend of mine who has been in the S1, a former beurocrat if you will, how long it's been since this sergeant put in a promotion packet.  My friend, who's been with
the unit more than a decade, gave me a blank look and said, "never, as far as I know."

This sergeant, let's call him Manny, nevertheless has the single most concern for appearances of anyone I have ever met.  He is always pointing out to people how things would fall apart without him.  Manny's always reminding his soldiers of, what he assumes, is their absolute incompetence in his abscense.

Despite his belief that not a one of his soldiers have the brains to shave unless he instructs them to each morning, SGT Manny regularly fails to remember all the members of his squad by name.  Hilariously, he often believes that soldiers from other parts of the unit are in his squad.  In fact, he once complained to out his first sergeant that a certain PFC was never showing up for formations. A PFC who, it turns out, wasn't even in the same company.

However, SGT Manny's most delightful trait reveals itself after any formation where information is put out.  After these formations, he gathers his soldiers around him and puts the information out again.  Now, don't misunderstand me, plenty of responsible NCOs do this sort of thing.  Saying it twice is a good way of making sure people hear it.  However, what sets SGT Manny apart is how he gets the information wrong.  Instead of repeating the actual information, he angrily and forcefully says whatever sounds good to his own ears.  Thus misinformed, SGT Manny's soldiers  spread across the hinterlands looking for the right place to be.

Now, Dear Reader, don't think I'm being too judgmental.  There's a simple equation I use judge leaders.  At the top of numbers one through ten, you rate how much a leader honestly cares and works for her or his soldiers' well being. On the bottom, you rate how much recognition a leader wants.  Simple and easily mastered criteria.  Guess how SGT Manny measures up?