libertybelle diaries

The miles crept past and mhere in desperation started talking out loud reciting the directions they turned, in a hopeless effort that someone might hear her, because she still held onto a glimmer of hope that somehow americanrommel would rescue her and just maybe, by a miraculous effort was tracking her whereabouts.  She would say, “we turned left a mile past highway X” and “we are headed north to town Y” (bringing back memories of those crazy roads outside a mid-West post where the highways get named with letters and the interstate rest stops are off the left lane of the interstate (quite disconcerting at first).   mhere was beginning to feel like she was now trapped behind enemy lines, because how could this happen in America?  She was just an ordinary homemaker who ventured onto an online message board and posted her political opinions and here she was being driven off in handcuffs to where, she knew not.

At long last they arrived at a mental health facility in a coastal city, at least that is where mhere thought she was, but she had the most lamentable sense of direction imaginable.  hotshot82nd used their oldest child as the navigator when he had to leave mhere in new places.  When they arrived in a foreign country when mhere’s oldest daughter was only in 1st grade, hotshot82nd had told mhere she needed to get her drivers license immediately, because he needed to go south to train where the Army was changing to a new mechanized idea.  mhere did manage to get her license on the first try, surprisingly considering her first drivers license took mhere three long years to acquire (worthy of a separate story, lol).  hotshot82nd had their family on a waiting list for military quarters, so he had found an apartment for the family in a nearby town.  hotshot82nd loaded mhere and the children into the car and he kept turning around telling mhere’s oldest child, “you’ve got to help Mom, so she doesn’t get lost, just remember to turn here, then go through the next town.”  And so the directions continued and mhere felt panic that she would not be able to find her way to the nearby military installation and then back home.  She got lost just getting off the interstates and getting back on, because she would invariably be headed in the wrong direction.  mhere’s oldest child had an unerring sense of direction that had amazed mhere’s parents when they had visited and her oldest child was but 4 years old – she guided them to a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, making numerous turns in their neighborhood outside a stateside post –  at nighttime, no less.  That girl was so much like hotshot82nd that it amazed mhere – she had a fearless attitude, while poor mhere was always afraid.  hotshot82nd had loved to stand their oldest daughter on the kitchen table when she was only a toddler and he had taught her to run across the kitchen table and leap into the air while he caught her and yelled, “Airborne!”  mhere sure never would have done that as a child, she was always running and hiding – scared of everything.

After being checked into this mental health facility, hotshot82nd left and fear kept mhere in a constant state of near-panic.  No one explained anything to mhere and she was escorted to a room.  A short time later a nurse walked in.   mhere’s mind could not make sense of any of this mess.  The nurse was mrstaroleaf, a former division commander’s wife, whom mhere knew from her volunteer activities.  mhere spoke her name and by the reaction, mhere knew it really was mrstaroleaf.  The immediate thought that followed was, “omg, they left here a couple years ago, why is she here?”  mrstaroleaf left and mhere felt bewildered and very afraid.

Life in an American mental health facility began and all mhere could think is, “no wonder no one ever gets better, because all the staff, to include the shrinks do is “observe” the patients’ behavior – they sit on their butts and watch, with hardly any interaction with the patients, except for the group therapy sessions.  Where mhere really could not believe the chaos was at the dinner table.  The first meal time set the routine that mhere would follow.   Ordinarily, mhere would never have dreamed of making a scene, because she was by nature a little miss goody-two-shoes, but she truly had taken the mindset of being a prisoner behind enemy lines.  The constant thought of how could this happen in America preoccupied her thoughts and more pressingly, the question: WHY? preoccupied mhere’s thinking:  “what if they try to drug me or poision me?”  mhere decided to throw a hissy-fit and just grabbed a random tray from the rack, then she took her meal to the group table and sat down.   Pandemonium reigned at this dinner table as mhere watched this little old lady wander around the table, while other patients yelled at her, accusing her of stealing their belongings.  The staff sat behind their desk – “observing”.  mhere couldn’t allow an elderly old lady to be berated and yelled at so mhere stood up and asked the other patients what was going on.  Another patient told mhere that the old lady keeps going into everyone’s rooms stealing their belongings.  mhere guided the little old lady to an empty chair and helped her get seated.  Then she told the lady who had been shouting, “We’re at the dinner table and everyone is going to be polite!”  The angry patients told mhere about the old lady stealing their stuff and mhere told them, “I will talk to the little old lady and find out why she’s doing that, but for now we’re eating and we can all get along at the table!”  mhere assisted the little old lady with her meal.

After that first meal, mhere observed more commotion with the little old lady, who wandered up and down the hallway, entering other patient’s rooms and picking up odd items, as she went.  A patient started screaming at the old lady, accusing her of stealing her comb.  Finally, a nurse got up and took the comb from the old lady and told her to stop taking other people’s stuff.  The old lady continued to wander aimlessly.  mhere walked up to the old lady and started talking to her and immediately it became obvious to mhere that this little old lady had a good degree of dementia.  The little old lady told mhere, “I can’t find my room?”  mhere gently took her by the arm and told her, “I’ll help you find your room.”  mhere asked another patient as to which room the little old lady belonged in and mhere noticed that none of the rooms had numbers or any other distinguishing features.  After settling the little old lady in her room, mhere went to the nurses’ desk and told them that it appeared that the little old lady has dementia and how it would help if they put a colored piece of paper or something on her door to help her find her room.  The nurses told mhere that the little old lady is always taking other people’s stuff.  mhere told them, “she seems to have dementia and is lost.”

mhere made it part of her daily routine to look after the little old lady, who began to hunt for mhere when she needed anything and mhere took her to her room and helped her find the things she was looking for.  And as usual, mhere began listening to almost every patient. They came to talk to mhere and tell her about their problems.  One young woman was placed in mhere’s room and she sobbed non-stop.  mhere sat down next to her bed and started talking to her.  Gradually, the girl calmed down a little and mhere pieced together this young woman’s story.  She had been raped and she was the child of a soldier, which made this kind of personal to mhere, because she made helping soldiers’ families a lifelong commitment.  mhere went to the nurses desk to talk to them about the young woman.  Another patient was an Air Force wife and mhere talked to her many hours.  That kind lady crocheted two red and green potholders for mhere.

Mealtimes quickly fell into order.  mhere would pick a random tray and then sit down.  mhere told anyone who tried to make a commotion, “this is the dinner table and we are going to be polite here!”  She reminded one huffy lady who got rude, “We say, “please pass the salt!”  And the lady backed down and began saying, “please”.  As days passed, all the patients started coming to mhere with their problems and mhere listened, which was her life story.

One evening a tiny blond young woman arrived and mhere started talking to her.  This young woman reminded mhere of her favorite country singer, countrystar1017, to the point that they could have been twins.  As they chatted mhere listened to the woman’s problems, but she had to ask her if she was related to countrystar1017, because the resemblance was uncanny.  The young woman sort of squirmed when mhere asked her and then she said, “No, but I have been to Garth Brooks house.”  mhere felt this young woman was lying and she thought, “I think she is related to countrystar1017.”

The days turned into weeks and mhere followed the same routine, listening to patients, mealtimes, occasional visits with two different shrinks, one the good cop, the other the bad cop, arrogantass#1, who talked down to mhere constantly.  hotshot82nd and the children visited mhere daily.  mhere’s sister left shortly after mhere was locked up, because when she had come to visit mhere in this nuthouse, mhere screamed at her asking her, “how could you betray me too!  I told you I was attacked!”  And mhere told her she didn’t want to talk to her ever again.  mhere followed the rules (as usual) and she could even step outside on the patio to savor a few minutes of fresh air each day.

This nuthouse set-up consisted of a main common room, with sofas, TV,  and a long table, where they were served meals and a long hallway with their two-person rooms.  A nurses’ desk, centrally-located, separated the male ward from the female ward.  The progression was after a day or two, each female patient, moved out of this ward and into the next level of counseling, except for mhere.  mhere stayed stuck on the beginning phase, (as if she cared – she kept thinking, “how can I escape?”)  There was a pay phone down the hallway and mhere called her mother several times and tried to explain what had happened to her, but her mother refused to believe mhere when she told her mother, “I am in danger, because of some stuff I wrote on a politics message board online.”  mhere kept telling her mother, “Mom, I know you don’t believe me, but don’t you think it’s strange that they are holding me in this place, involuntarily for weeks?”  And mhere kept telling her mother, “I keep asking them how long am I going to stay here?” and “when can I be discharged? and no one can answer that”.

One day as mhere stood near the nurses desk, she spied an older man sitting in the men’s common area and stark terror filled her, followed by a crushing feeling of betrayal.  mhere kept watching that man and she knew, that’s my old first sergeant and he’s the first person I told americanrommel, who could vouch for me.  mhere knew he would never betray any of his troops, but somehow, the lies he was fed had him believing mhere had turned on her country or some such bullshit.  Hadn’t thatwitch2016 gone on TV and blamed the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” of trying to destroy presidentmendacity.  mhere felt hysteria grip her and she screamed, “Top, not you too!”  She kept screaming at him and two large male staff came around the nurses desk and they tackled mhere and pushed her on the floor.  mhere was wearing a blue jumper and they pushed her jumper up, yanked down her panties and injected her with something.  Anger, fear, desperation, so many emotions filled mhere at that moment, but the overriding one was a burning anger, such as she had never felt before.  She began pacing up and down the long hallway for hours on end, tapping her foot on the infantry-blue line by her doorway  that ran along the side of the hallway.  And each time she tapped her foot on that infantry-blue line, mhere made a vow that no matter how long it takes, no matter what she had to do -someday I am going to drag thatwitch2016 to justice!!!  Top would never betray one of his troops and mhere vowed, some way, somehow  someone is going to pay for dragging him into some petty, vile shit like this – all over some postings on a politics message board.  mhere always followed the rules, in fact, she had never even gotten a speeding ticket in her life.

And mhere believed in the Constitution of the United States!!!

mhere tried to talk to hotshot82nd and explain that she was being attacked and in danger.  She hesitantly told him about the politics message board.  hotshot82nd impatiently dismissed mhere’s concerns and he told her, “No one would give a fuck about anything you have to say!”  mhere felt like crying and she walked away, her thoughts churning with how on earth she could explain a threat to him that he couldn’t see and on top of that mhere knew from previous experience that hotshot82nd thought in terms of mission and he trusted americanrommel, afterall they had gone to war together and hotshot82nd had talked about some conversations he had with americanrommel as they raced across one foreign country in a war that set new records for desert warfare.  And on top of that, mhere knew something that hotshot82nd didn’t, because hotshot82nd didn’t pay attention to a bunch of “wives’ stuff”.

During that long ago war, mhere lived in a far off country and this was something new for the Army to try – leaving Army families in one foreign country and deploying their soldiers from there to another foreign country.  mhere stayed behind and encountered many difficulties with the queenoftherock and her sidekick, cluelesscptwife, as they set off to show the world the premiere standard in family support services, which included a one-stop shop for all Army wives to receive help during the war.  The Army dubbed this new facility a Family Asssistance Center (FAC).  The queenoftherock, even managed getting national media to showcase her great works in supporting Army families.

Throughout this war, mhere kept telling hotshot82nd about the problems she was encountering with the queenoftherock and cluelesscptwife.  hotshot82nd had become a first sergeant before this war, so this was his first company as being, Top and his company commander, cptsilverstar, didn’t have a wife, so mhere took charge of the family support group for their company.  mhere had talked to cptsilverstar many times when she stopped by the company with her children to see hotshot82nd or drop off food for his soldiers.  mhere loved to cook and bake for hotshot82nd’s troops and she liked to meet as many of them as possible.  Before this war the queenoftherock organized many meetings where mhere and other wives sat and listened to her tell them about all the grand support she was setting up and americanrommel attended many of these meetings too.  americanrommel  introduced the rear detachment commander and others like, cluelesscptwife, who would be the director of the FAC, at one meeting that mhere attended.  hotshot82nd didn’t have time for a bunch of wives stuff, because he knew mhere loved doing that, she had even started writing her own monthly company newsletter with their brand new word processor machine that they bought at the PX, which allowed mhere to save information on disks.  mhere loved writing and any information their battalion commander’s wife, petitesouthernbelle, gave mhere, she gladly included in her newsletter.

One day, cptsilverstar called mhere and he huffily asked mhere what information she had given a wife, who had gotten misinformation and was telling other wives this.  mhere told cptsilverstar that she had been writing a company newsletter for months and how she used information from petitesouthernbelle, who diligently passed on information and also from a brigade newsletter that she helped edit every month for a man, who thought a monthly newsletter from his office would be helpful for families.  He had talked to mhere long ago and she liked his idea and offered to come help him edit it one Sunday a month.   He would call mhere when he had his newsletter ready and she would meet him at his office and they would spend a couple hours fixing up his monthly newsletter.  mhere assured cptsilverstar that she understood how important accurate information is and that she had worked in public affairs long ago.  cptsilverstar told mhere she needed to clear all information through him, because that is the chain.  mhere knew the first sergeant’s wife before her had sent out newsletters occasionally too, because she was mhere’s neighbor and she had shared with mhere what all she did for the families in the company and also shared information on some families with extra problems, so mhere would know how to help.  mhere told cptsilverstar about her neighbor filling her in and how she did a newsletter, but cptsilverstar told mhere she needed to clear it through him.

After the men deployed, bad things began to happen dealing with the queenoftherock and cluelesscptwife.  One day, cluelesscptwife called mhere and told her she needed to activate her chain of concern, which was the phone roster for the wives in hotshot82nd’s company and tell them there was a bomb threat at the PX.  mhere immediately told cluelesscptwife that the Army has rules on the release of information and it would be a very bad idea to release this information where wife A calls wife B, who calls wife C.  mhere told cluelesscptwife that she wasn’t going to do that.  cluelesscptwife angrily told mhere, “then I am going to have to tell the queenoftherock!”  mhere told her to go right ahead, but she was not going to activate the chain of concern and pass out information on a bomb threat through a wives phone roster (not in this lifetime anyways, lol).  Then the queenoftherock told mhere that she would have to tell americanrommel that she wasn’t cooperating.  mhere tried to explain to the queenoftherock the necessity of maintaining control of bomb threat information, but alas, the queenoftherock was the expert on everything.  And in typical catty bitch fashion, the queenoftherock told mhere that petitesouthernbelle wasn’t doing her job.

mhere decided she had better call the rear detachment commander, whom americanrommel had introduced at one his many pre-deployment briefings.  When mhere called ltc-ohmycan’tdecide, he angrily told mhere that he wasn’t the rear detachment commander and she was mistaken.  mhere started getting scared, thinking, “oh my God, this is who americanrommel left in charge to keep us safe!”   mhere persisted and she said, “but Sir, americanrommel introduced you as the rear detachment commander.”  He huffily told mhere, “you’re mistaken, that is majpassedbuck.”  mhere called majpassedbuck, who listened to mhere’s concerns and told her he agreed, but the queenoftherock does lots of things her way.  Later that day, mhere called petitesouthernbelle, who burst into laughter and said, “mhere isn’t that the most ridculous thing you have ever heard of?”   mhere chuckled and agreed.  petitesouthernbelle told mhere, “our battalion isn’t doing that!”  mhere felt relief that petitesouthernbelle knew how to take charge and make a decision better than ltc-ohmycan’tdecide.

Now, mhere remembered all these catty battles of the past and she felt desperate, because hotshot82nd never wanted to hear about catty wives bickering, after all that’s petty, little stuff, right?

mhere fared no better trying to talk to her littlesister, who flew down to check on mhere, because mhere  sounded so panicked.  mhere tried to tell her littlesister about being attacked and about the message board, but her littlesister cut her off and said, “That’s not possible!”

mhere felt bewildered and so desperate and she was struggling to speak, because she kept stuttering.  One morning mhere showered and dressed and walked into her computer room when the doorbell rang.  A sheriff’s deputy entered mhere’s house and he told mhere he had a court order to pick her up.  Stark terror raced through mhere’s heart and she asked the deputy to see the papers.  He waved the papers above her head, then he pushed mhere on the floor and handcuffed her.  hotshot82nd and her littlesister stood nearby watching and mhere began screaming, but no one would listen to her.  mhere was shoved into the backseat of a police car, that was backed up across her front lawn and the sherriff’s deputy and hotshot82nd sat in the front seat and no matter what mhere tried to tell hotshot82nd about being attacked, he would not listen to her.  mhere didn’t have a clue where they were headed and she feared that americanrommel meant to kill her.

They stopped at the sheriff’s deputy’s office and mhere was locked inside a glass enclosure and she paced the floor nervously for a long, long time.  Besides being terrified, mhere was fighting mad – in fact, she could not remember ever being so angry.  Pacing, pacing, pacing, and finally hotshot82nd returned with the sheriff’s deputy and mhere was taken outside and shoved into the sheriff’s deputy’s car again.  She still didn’t know where she was headed and hotshot82nd refused to listen to her pleading with him.

Christmas passed and the attack on mhere continued.  Day after day, she endured being pushed down by whatever non-lethal weapon that was being used against her.  Although well-versed in military strategy, mhere was a hopeless case at technology, mechanical stuff and she couldn’t even tell you the difference between the various makes of any type of military hardware.  Long, long ago the Army handed out decks of playing cards with Soviet vehicles on the back to help American soldiers become familiar with them.  mhere spent many hours shuffling through her deck of cards and practicing to see if she would improve.  No, it was the same as always with mhere, just ask her family, she would say, “it was a blue car” and when prodded for a make, mhere was clueless.  Despite Jane’s help with this, which mhere consulted often, she remained technologically-illiterate.  mhere didn’t know what was being used to attack her, she just knew she was being jolted and pushed down for hours on end.

Although mhere ranked as one of the worst cowards in the world, she did have a temper, which though slow to ignite, could become quite forceful when provoked.   As a child, growing up in a large, old house in the country, mhere spent many hours sitting on the bottom step, waiting, waiting, waiting.  The light switch was at the top of the steps and she was too scared to go up the stairs in the dark.  She waited for one of her sisters to take her by the hand and assure her it was safe.  She had her bravestsister, who later became a state trooper, check under the bed and in the closet every night to make sure it was safe.  If mhere heard a noise, she would beg her sister to check again, because mhere was scared of everything.   But, she was getting pissed off at being toyed with and she knew she could not hold out much longer.  She kept thinking about her beloved Sun Tzu and thought, “the only thing I’ve got in my “arsenal” is deception.”  One day when hotshot82nd and her children were gone mhere looked through her many rows of books and she pulled out ones with “tough” sounding titles and carefully arranged them around her bedroom.  Then she loudly announced, “I know you’re there and you aren’t scaring me!”  What a huge lie that was, because she was almost petrified with fright.

mhere could not remember exactly what happened, but she awakened early the next morning and she was tucked tight against hotshot82nd, laying on her tummy and she was so scared she was afraid to move.  Her t-shirt was missing and she felt so much anger, she wanted to hurt someone.  As soon as hotshot82nd went to work, she stood in her bedroom and defiantly shouted, “You’re still not scaring me!” A horrendous day of being pushed down followed and mhere felt panicky and desperate by the time she climbed into bed that night.  She knew she could not endure much more of this.

Long before morning, she awakened in bed and her nightgown and panties were gone and she felt total despair.  She climbed out of bed and all she could think of was finding her nightgown.  Her knee was hurting badly and she knew she had bumped it hard, but she could not put into coherent thought what had transpired – she was too scared to even think.  She thought, I need to make sure my kids are safe and she wandered down the hallway and through her house.  She found her nightgown tossed in a laundry basket in the kitchen.  She put it back on and crawled back into bed and she curled tight against hotshot82nd, who was sound asleep, to try and feel safe, but it didn’t work.

Later that morning, when she was at home alone again she tried to make sense out of what had happened, but truly she could not remember and all she still could definitively state was her knee was hurting like hell, but in her heart she knew much more had happened.  She felt like throwing up and she felt a level of humiliation that she could not ever recall feeling and above all of that, confusion clouded through mhere’s mind.  Relief that she knew this attack was American, but still none of it made any sense to her.  She looked around her bedroom and suddenly her eyes fixed on a historical romance novel she had laid on the old steamer trunk at the foot of their bed titled, Love Be Mine.  Crazy thoughts raced through her mind as she thought, “what in the hell could this man be thinking?”  mhere worried that maybe she had confused him the wrong way and she picked up the book and she bent over in horror and she said, “I was only reading this book.  It didn’t mean anything.”  But she was very scared and then she thought, he hates me, but he doesn’t even know me.  She knew she had to convince him that she was not a threat and that some terrible mistake had been made.  Time to surrender, mhere thought.  She started talking, talking, talking, telling him all about who she is and naming people who could vouch that she wasn’t a terrorist or a threat of any kind – she was just a homemaker.  And mhere believed he would help her once he knew some terrible mistake had been made.

mhere kept talking, day after day, and when hotshot82nd and her children weren’t around, she kept telling him to move the channel up two and things like that and he complied.  mhere kept thinking, I need to keep finding ways to contact my command.  And each time he responded mhere felt safer, believing she wasn’t alone anymore . He would help her, afterall, hotshot82nd said he was a fantastic commander.  She kept thinking, “he’s a  commander, he’ll know what to do and he’ll come get me when it’s safe.”  So, she started to feel safer knowing she wasn’t alone.  In her mind she tried to put those two nights into a “friendly fire” context and she kept thinking, “he was lied to, but he’ll check out some of the people who can vouch for me and then he will help me.”  The very first person she had mentioned, as someone who could vouch for her, was her old first sergeant, because he was one of the finest NCOs ever – he had been a hero in a long ago unpopular war and he also came from one of those elite units, where America’s bravest serve.  mhere felt sure that Top would tell him that she was a hard worker and always loyal to the team.  The pressure had let up, so she felt sure he was listening to her.  mhere started playing her country music loud during the day to keep the fear from taking over though.  mhere kept posting on that message board too, because she would not let them get away with this and she wanted them to know that they could not silence her.

Days ticked by and still she waited and new worries plagued mhere, because she felt sure that somehow those sewer rats had convinced people she was a right-wing terrorist of some sort – that was the only thing that made sense with thatwitch2016 accusing that there was some “vast, right-wing conspiracy”.  And then she remembered that long, long ago another NCO, who loved to joke around, had nicknamed mhere, “Killer” one day as he saw mhere toting that machine gun to her office to clean.  Top started calling her “Killer” too and mhere would just roll her eyes at them and walk away.  Truthfully, mhere didn’t like going to the field or being dirty and not being able to shower.  Her second field training exercise she had packed her embroidery stuff in her duffel bag and she thought she might be able to sew while she sat around in the woods, but quickly realized that wasn’t possible – too dirty to try and sew.  mhere got out of the Army when she was pregnant with their first child and for all the years hotshot82nd served, she felt she got the better part of the deal, because she could cook and bake for all his soldiers, which she loved to do and she didn’t have to deal with guns or sitting in the mud in some inhospitable locale getting rained on, shot at or not being able to shower every day.  Surely, everyone who knew her would know she was the furthermost thing from a “killer” as possible.  But that man hates me, mhere thought.

mhere began to worry that he wasn’t going to help her get out of this mess and he believed all their lies.  She knew she had to try and hold on, but she wasn’t doing well, fear was winning.  Pure terror kept gripping mhere, because her littlesister worked high up training generals to do public speaking, in an ironical twist considering mhere’s speaking issues.  mhere adored her littlesister and everyone in the family was so proud of how well she had done in the Air Force, but mhere started worrying, “what if they do something to my littlesister?”

mhere knew she had to try and explain what she thought of as “this mess” to hotshot82nd.  But would he listen to her, because mhere knew hotshot82nd thought that man was a great commander and mhere knew hotshot82nd had brushed aside her concerns long ago when she had tried to tell him about her issues with that man’s wife.    And mhere knew she had to call her littlesister.

Long, long ago, hotshot82nd had been given an impossible mission, except he had been trained by one of the finest of the military units in America, where they don’t believe in “impossible” missions.  Way back then,  units like his were singled out for recognition of their superior nature with their own special colored beret.  mhere and hotshot82nd met in a far away country serving their country in the Army.  hotshot82nd didn’t think women belonged in the Army.  When mhere arrived to this unit, hotshot82nd was the big deal – NCO of the Year for their brigade and a SGT Morales Club inductee.  mhere worked down the hallway from hotshot82nd, but she avoided him and another infantry NCO from that office.  They would walk down the hallway, looking straight ahead like they didn’t see mhere and as soon as they were right beside her, they would shove mhere into the wall and say, “Out of my way Private!”  Then they would laugh and keep walking.  mhere learned to peek out of her office and look down toward their S-3 office (that’s where the training and operations happens) to make sure the coast was clear before venturing down the hallway.

After a while, the other NCO started talking to mhere and he would come in her office and chat.  Once he even asked her what to do, because he was having problems with his wife.  hotshot82nd though, hmmmmmm, mhere avoided him and thought he was just too cocky.  One morning, their first sergeant (he’s called Top in the Army) pulled mhere aside before formation.  Top smiled and told mhere, “Kid, you’re going to become a machine-gunner!”  Fear gripped mhere’s heart, because naturally, she was afraid of guns.  When she had enlisted in the Army it never entered her mind that she would have to use guns.  She had read the recruitment information and it talked about all these amazing jobs (military occupational specialty – MOS) you could pursue and mhere had decided she wanted to be a public affairs specialist. She liked to write and in high school she had been editor of the yearbook and on the school newspaper staff.  Her recruiter told mhere that she should become a translator, because mhere had taken 2 years of Russian in high school.  mhere knew that would be a disaster, because while she learned to read okay in foreign languages, speaking them could only be described as pathetic and anyway, poor little mhere knew she had enough trouble just spitting out sentences in English.   mhere had made it through basic training markmanship training, only with a great deal of help from a kind drill sergeant, who stayed by her side and talked her through it.

hotshot82nd, standing nearby with a few other infantry soldiers (grunts in the Army),  bristled with anger when he heard Top tell mhere that she was going to become a machine-gunner.  He disgustedly told Top, “Girls can’t be machine-gunners!”    Top smiled at hotshot82nd and said, “Sergeant, you’re going to train her!” and walked away.  mhere told hotshot82nd that she knew it was a dumb idea too and she knew she couldn’t be a machine-gunner.

hotshot82nd began taking mhere to the range and at first every time she had to fire a machine-gun, little mhere would close her eyes.  hotshot82nd told her she needed to keep her eyes open to always watch what was going on.  mhere knew she would be a failure at this and as was her nature she started  worrying, “I’m going to get chaptered out of the Army, because I am too pathetic to learn to be a real soldier.”  hotshot82nd didn’t want to hear mhere’s defeatist talk and he told her, “Look, I was given this mission and you will learn to be a machine-gunner!”  mhere told hotshot82nd, “I am scared of guns!” He told her, “Just remember the mind controls the body, the body does not control the mind!”

Weeks went by and mhere started to improve at being a machine-gunner.  She would remember all the things hotshot82nd told her and it got easier, but mhere constantly worried whether she would be able to actually shoot another human being, because oh my gosh, mhere didn’t even like killing flies and she would try to get someone else to do it.

mhere remembered that lesson, now, as the attack on her escalated.  She now knew she was under attack.  She had sat on her sofa feeling pressed down, while hotshot82nd put up their Christmas tree.  mhere tried to focus on decorating the tree with her children, but the pressure did not let up, so she smiled and chatted and handed ornaments to her children to hang on the tree.  mhere’s oldest sister had given her a little cross-stitched Christmas door-hanger ornament a few years before that said, “I Believe” and mhere placed that on her living room door.  When she was alone, she began to pace around her house, worrying, worrying, worrying and the only thing that kept her mind from slipping into terror was reminding herself, “I Believe!” and she kept asking God to help her, because she didn’t know what to do and she had moved past being scared to being terrified.   She would tap that little cross stitch door-hanger ornament and repeat the words, “I Believe”.

mhere had figured out that she was the target, because hotshot82nd and her children remained unaware of anything amiss.  mhere spent many hours worrying, “what if they hurt my kids or hotshot82nd?”  So far, it appeared that she was the target.  Then mhere began thinking, “well, if they wanted me dead, I would already be dead,”  mhere and hotshot82nd didn’t own any guns and even if they did, mhere doubted she’d be brave enough to shoot anyone, so she didn’t know what to do.  Uneasily she kept thinking back to that night when she had awakened and peeked through the slats of her mini-blind.  “Could that be where this is coming from?”, she wondered.  mhere was too afraid to go over there and knock on the door or check it out, because she feared, “what if they kill me?  Then my kids and hotshot82nd will be alone against these crazy people and they don’t even know there’s a threat”.   mhere kept thinking, “who is doing this?” and since the only people outside of family she was talking to were on that message board, she had her answer.  mhere kept posting messages, because she thought, “this is America and I will not let anyone take away my right to free speech!”  The hours she spent wrapping Christmas presents, she braced her knees against her bed to keep from being knocked to the floor and she thought, “No one is going to wreck my kids Christmas!”  And mhere kept thinking about her beloved Sun Tzu, “always refer to the Estimates.”  she told herself.

Although mhere still didn’t know exactly what the objective of this attack was, she worried that this was a psychological operation and she was not well-read on this topic.  presidentmendacity and thatwitch2016 stayed mired in scandals and mhere remembered reading about their unsavory entanglements with the Chinese with their campaign financing.  She wondered, “is this an American operation or a foreign one?” She didn’t know.  The only thing she was 100% positive about was – she must stay calm, because she must keep her children and hotshot82nd safe.

Growing up out in the country, mhere loved spending time outdoors and she loved gardening.  Traveling around for years in the Army provided a wealth of experiences, but mhere constantly told hotshot82nd that someday she yearned for a garden of her own.  mhere loved to take care of plants and considering just about everyone where she grew up had at least a small plot to grow some vegetables, she had learned from an early age how important it is to be able to grow your own food.  She loved helping can vegetables and make pickles in the summertime.  One of her favorite chores as a child was to trim around the house and along the sidewalks, long before weed-eaters existed.  Her mother would hand her a pair of grass shears and she would happily work her way around the house and along the sidewalk.  Another chore she loved was to spend time weeding the garden.

When they had bought their home, mhere’s parents came to visit and mhere excitedly told her father that finally she was going to have a garden of her own.  mhere’s father walked around the backyard with her looking at the sky and then picking up handfuls of dirt here and there as they talked.  He pointed out which side of her yard got the best sunlight, then he kindly told mhere that her dream wasn’t going to be easy, because the soil wasn’t fertile like back home where seeds sprouted without effort.  He told her, “all you’ve got here is sand and clumps of clay.”  mhere had waited many years to have her garden and she decided, “I don’t care!  I am going to have a garden!”  She told hotshot82nd what her father had said and how she thought if she added plenty of compost, over time, she could build up her soil.  She went to the library and signed out books on Southern gardening and then she told hotshot82nd that what she needed was a compost bin.  He built her two large bins back by the edge of the woods behind their home and he started adding yard scraps to begin the process to build up her soil.  Now, hotshot82nd didn’t know anything about gardening, because he grew up in a city, but when she showed him books with diagrams and happily waxed on about her dreams of a garden of her own, he jumped in to help.

hotshot82nd had decided what mhere needed was a fence with a gate to keep the kids and dogs out of her garden, so he built a fence.  The first couple years mhere’s garden didn’t produce much of anything, but by the time this new scandal hit America, mhere happily told her mother that her garden actually was starting to grow like the gardens back home and mhere felt that the few years she had spent adding compost over and over and over had finally paid off.

One night, mhere got up during the middle of the night to use the bathroom and she noticed there were lights on at the house across the street where the neighbors had moved and the house sat empty awaiting new neighbors.  mhere glanced through the slats of her mini-blind and thought it odd that there were several vehicles in the driveway and the floodlight in the backyard was on.   She always had many chores to do around her home, so she put this out of her mind and didn’t give it more thought until much later.

One morning, mhere went outside after her children had gone to school and she started sweeping her front porch.  An odd sensation hit her, and she couldn’t quite describe it because she had never felt like this before.  This sensation continued wherever she went in her house and even in her backyard when she went outside to work in her garden.  It was Fall and mhere wanted to plow under her garden, but when hotshot82nd said he’d get the rototiller out to do that, mhere told him she liked doing it by hand with a shovel and there were many weeds she wanted to pull out when she did it.  As she worked this sensation of being “tracked”, would be the only word she could use to describe it at this point, followed her.

Strange things began to happen to mhere.  The sensation of being tracked continued and as the days passed many times when she was in her home near hotshot82nd, she started to feel jolts that knocked her off-balance.  She started to get scared, but since mhere was scared of everything, she kept her fears to herself.  All her life, she had been the little cry-baby – scared of the dark, scared of strangers, scared, scared, scared.  Her fearful nature caused her children and hotshot82nd to make fun of her often, because at the first hint of a storm, she’d rush to get the flashlight handy and start thinking about all the what “ifs”.  She worried about everything.

Days turned into weeks and these jolts continued.   One day mhere was back by the woods at her compost bins and she noticed that a nearby tree had a brand-new tree stand and it was situated to look directly into her backyard.  She thought that was very odd, because for the years they had lived there, an old dilapidated tree stand had been in that tree from years ago before this neighborhood had houses.  Fear rippled through mhere, because she was beginning to worry, but she kept telling herself, “stop being ridiculous!”  She had noticed that when she left her house that odd sensation disappeared, but when she returned home it started again.  When hotshot82nd got home, mhere told him about this tree stand and he walked back there to look at it .  He thought that was odd too.

Her days turned into anxious worryings and mhere noticed something strange, some of her message boards comments were being borrowed by right-wing pundits on TV.   The jolts had now turned into anxious hours spent feeling like she was being pressed down almost, so she would sit and try to keep the fears at bay.  Gradually, she began to think she really was being deliberately attacked and as soon as she would let that line of thought play out, the possibilities seemed so far-fetched that she would pull herself back and tell herself, “that would be impossible! I am just a homemaker, who would care about what I have to say on some stupid message board?”  Back and forth she would think, “well, what if I am being targeted, who would do this?” Only to be followed with thoughts of, “stop being stupid, no one cares about a message board.”

For many years America had been engaged in a far-off country, embroiled in low-level conflict – maintaining a no-fly zone and pressing economic sanctions after a short war, that hotshot82nd had participated in almost a decade before.  Now, mhere held presidentmendacity in complete contempt when it came to foreign policy, because he followed the same script as in his speeches, – lies, disingenuous promises, backtracking and waffling. He didn’t seem to have any set core principles or objectives and every move he made was weighed against how it would impact his poll numbers and his image.  He governed by poll numbers and his cadre of what mhere thought of as “sewer rats”, spent endless hours talking about presidentmendacity’s popularity, even as the fall-out from this latest scandal escalated.

The scandal inched along toward talk of impeachment and removal from office and mhere’s message boards became even more contentious.  News broke of presidentmendacity launching a new round of air strikes in this far off country and immediately critics charged this was a lame attempt to deflect attention from the sex scandal.  One night, mhere pointed out to hotshot82nd that the only high-ranking military officer who had come out in support of presidentmendacity’s military action was a commander hotshot82nd had served under long ago, in a war in that far-off country.  Now, mhere and hotshot82nd had very differing opinions of this commander, now a retired general, whom mhere thought of as the americanrommel.   hotshot82nd considered americanrommel a fantastic commander.  mhere knew americanrommel hated her, because of some issues mhere and americanrommel’s wife had during that long ago war.  Of course, hotshot82nd didn’t like politics and he didn’t want to hear about a bunch of “wives” stuff, when mhere had tried to tell him long, long ago.

The Army, just like America, had signed onto this “two for one” idea and instead of a “co-president”, the Army had a “command team”.  americanrommel’s wife certainly had proved adept at grasping the reins of power.  mhere thought of her as the queenoftherock and in fact, mhere’s neighbor had heard her glibly exclaim that she felt like she was “the queen of the rock”. To mhere’s way of thinking she was more akin to a petty tyrant, almost as bad as thatwitch2016.   Of course, mhere cattily thought, “of course americanrommel would support presidentmendacity, because if the scuttlebutt hotshot82nd heard was true, americanrommel couldn’t keep his pants zipped either!”  mhere remembered hotshot82nd coming home and telling her that story circulating that americanrommel had to retire,  because he got involved with a foreign reporter while serving in another far-off country for presidentmendacity.   mhere thought to herself, “of course he’d be sympathetic to presidentmendacity’s problem!’  hotshot82nd thought amercianrommel was a great commander, but mhere knew that americanrommel hated her.

Things were starting to get worse for mhere at home.  Sometimes when the kids were off at school and hotshot82nd was at work, her TV started flipping channels on its own.  The jolts were turning into hours upon hours of feeling pressed down and her heart had started skipping beats sometimes and she’d take slow, deep breaths to try and steady her heart, because it was beating completely out of whack, as the fear nearly paralyzed her.

One morning she awakened early and she noticed that hotshot82nd had poop all over his butt and she thought at first that he had diarrhea, but fear rippled through her.  It seemed odd to her, because it was on the outside of his underwear and it smelled like animal feces.  She woke him up and he cleaned himself up and she kept telling herself, “it was just an accident, think about normal stuff and this crazy stuff will go away!”  It was Christmas time and mhere loved decorating.  For the several years they had lived in their home, mhere and hotshot82nd took the kids to a nearby Christmas tree farm to pick out a tree and cut it down.    Time to think about baking Christmas cookies, which mhere loved to bake at least a half-dozen different kinds and store them in decorative metal cans, so the kids and hotshot82nd could happily munch on them for weeks.

Scandals seemed to follow this president and mhere thought of him as presidentmendacity.  Often she would watch him on TV and his oratorical skills amazed mhere, who due to her own lack of public-speaking ability, admired great public speakers.  Now, presidentmendacity fell into a category of his own, he oozed folksy charm, connected with people, and his mastery of using words struck mhere as totally amazing.  He wasn’t just a “good” public speaker, no, mhere thought he was right up there with President Ronald Reagan, who was one of mhere’s personal favorite presidents (of course, no president, good public speaking skills aside, could top President George Washington in mhere’s estimation – she just loved reading about George Washington and anyways, no president could top building his own army from scratch in mhere’s book).  Often,  mhere would watch presidentmendacity speak on TV and then she would seek out a transcript of the speech, to compare what she thought he said, to what he actually said.  mhere thought he might be the best liar in the world, because he had mastered lying so well that he didn’t even have any obvious “tells” that she could detect.

America embraced presidentmendacity, but the left-wing partisans and mainstream media tripped over themselves singing the praises of presidentmendacity’s wife, whom mhere thought of as thatwitch2016.  Oh my goodness, the press could not say enough about thatwitch2016, “smartest woman in the world”, “America was getting two presidents for the price of one”, “a co-president who wasn’t going to sit at home and bake cookies”  and the tributes to her abilities were hailed far and wide.  Now, mhere loved to sit at home and bake cookies and she didn’t see what was wrong with baking cookies – everyone likes cookies.   As a small child mhere loved playing for hours with her play kitchen set and as a teenager, her favorite job was babysitting.  mhere loved babies.  Of course, growing up in the girl power era, mhere felt compelled to think in terms of “careers”, but her romantic little heart led her to feel like all she really wanted to do was find her Prince Charming and live happily ever after in a castle filled with lots of children.  mhere loved reading books on interior decorating. Her grandmother had given mhere’s oldest sister a set of decorating books, which mhere read through many times and she loved to look at the pictures of the different decorating styles.  In fact, she loved reading about decorating almost as much as she loved reading about military strategy.

Many things confused mhere about presidentmendacity and his “co-president”, thatwitch2016.  mhere wondered why people thought she was such a trailblazer, when it seemed to mhere thatwitch2016 rode her husband’s coattails to power, because on her own mhere didn’t think many people would like her strident, harpy ways.  As time went by, scandals dogged presidentmendacity’s footsteps and mhere noticed something odd about thatwitch2016.  Instead of sweeping her house, like mhere did, thatwitch2016 spent her time sweeping presidentmendacity’s scandals under the carpet.  Oh my gosh, mhere thought, she’s got so much power as “co-president”and no one to check it except presidentmendacity (and mhere’s beloved The Federalist Papers warned about that danger)  And another fearful thought struck mhere’s heart – thatwitch2016 lied even more than presidentmendacity and she wasn’t going to let anyone get in her way to becoming “the first” female President.  mhere often thought thatwitch2016 believed it was her destiny to be the first female President, because as so many people told her, “she’s the smartest woman in the world” and she believed it.

When this new scandal hit America, mhere waited like an avid spectator to see how it played out and she wondered, “how many ways will they lie this time?”  Her answer came quickly and like those hordes of Genghis Khan, who swept across the Steppes, thatwitch2016’s storm troops operated using what mhere thought of as most like a “swarming tactic”.  They began immobilizing the opposition using spin (lies) to bombard all avenues of information dissemination.

mhere felt like the very pillars upon which America stood were under attack.  In her youth, she had sworn an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, from all enemies foreign and domestic, when she joined the Army.  Another one of mhere’s pet subjects to read about was propaganda and oh my, Army post libraries were filled with books on that and military intelligence operations (another one of mhere’s favorite hobbyhorses), where she loved to read about how everyone else in the world ran their operations.   Being a cold war era little soldier, mhere focused mainly on the Soviets, but boy mhere read a book on Czech intelligence one time and she was impressed.  mhere liked cowboys too and she sure liked reading about the US Army in the American West.  In one Army post library she had found a really fascinating book filled with actual photos of the Army in the American West that she spent many hours looking at.  Americans like innovation and thinking outside the box, so mhere learned about the US Army Camel Corps too.

This new scandal involved presidentmendacity and a sexual relationship with a young woman, because he sure liked women.  All through his political career, stories of his philandering ways followed him and thatwitch2016 had made it her wifely duty to fix all these scandals and manage the political fall-out, because she knew presidentmendacity possessed all the political dazzle that she lacked and if she stuck with him, then she could climb to the top too.

When these new posters invaded the message board where mhere had gotten comfortable prosing on about her pet political and cultural topics, it quickly became obvious to mhere that they had come prepared to silence the opposition.  mhere never liked bullies and this sure seemed like bullying.  And as mhere watched, this was happening on TV, in the press too and mhere began to think wow, the Constitution really is under attack.  She believed that those entrusted with preserving the rule of law would do their duty, so she didn’t worry at first and she decided that she wasn’t going to let them get away with that on this message board.  She fought back with all her might as they silenced one after another of the right-wing posters.  And since mhere liked to have the last word, boy, she was a natural at these message boards.  So much of their spin struck mhere as plainly idiotic, so she began mocking them.

She watched, totally disgusted, as thatwitch2016 and presidentmendacity got people with fancy titles to go before the American public and lie.  A law professor from a prominent American university actually sat on TV day after day talking about how lying under oath didn’t matter in this situation.  mhere felt total disgust for so much lying all to keep presidentmendacity in power, but even more alarming to mhere was how thatwitch2016 launched attacks to silence and discredit all the other women involved with presidentmendacity.  mhere felt there was some great irony that the supposed champion of women, so doggedly tried to destroy other women.

By nature mhere didn’t do things by half-measures, when she embarked on any new adventure, whether it be cooking, sewing, exploring, or this new forum of posting messages on these internet message boards – mhere gave it her all.  Even in family discussions mhere’s children knew her nature very well and in the words of her youngest daughter, “Mom’s always gotta have the last word even if it is just posting a news article.”  Web etiquette posed a whole new challenge for mhere, because she used capitalization to emphasize her points, without being aware that online that was considered rude.  Her first posts in trying to break through to marfark and to remind him of the oath she thought he had taken as a soldier were filled with capitalized statements like, “I BELIEVE IN THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES!’ and other loud statements.

Every day presented new and interesting possibilities to interact with these posters on the message boards, because the topics changed frequently and many provocative topics got tossed into the mix. During this time in America the mainstream media kept talking about dangerous, right-wing militias and mhere felt a few might be posting on these message boards too and she tried to reason with some of the more strident posters.  If there was one thing mhere believed in, it was in following the rules and in America that meant the Constitution of the United States.

In her youth, mhere felt privileged to be selected to attend the Presidential Classroom for Young Americans and she spent an entire week in Washington DC seeing the monuments, visiting museums and she even got to meet one of the senators from her home state.  Her mother had a booklet she received in high school and when she passed this booklet on to mhere, she explained that in America, everyone should know how to be a “good citizen”.  mhere spent many hours reading and rereading this little booklet titled, Good Citizen”.  In junior high school, mhere had a US history teacher, whose politics were very liberal and much different than her parents’ conservative views, but mhere thought he was a fantastic teacher.  He challenged his students to argue both sides of many of the more important Supreme Court decisions and mhere felt like she was on a scavenger hunt to research and then build her arguments.  A whole week in Washington provided a lifetime of memories for the young mhere, but truly she felt in total awe when she stood before the Supreme Court of the United States.   When she stepped inside that building, she felt like the luckiest girl in America.   mhere just loved reading about anything having to do with the Constitution and she bored her many siblings and her classmates with her fixation on “following the rules”.  Any game they played, mhere could be counted on to insist on clear rules.

In typical mhere fashion, she started talking to the extreme posters and reminding them about the rule of law and droning on about the Constitution.  It pained mhere to think that marfark had lost faith in the Constitution and she kept reminding him about the oath they take and how important national defense is.  Her efforts to reach marfark ended up in angry exchanges and mhere felt like he was locked down in a personal hell of some sort, but when challenged he would berate mhere and angrily  shout, “mhere, you need to think anew!“.  Her hopes of reaching marfark and getting him to open up and talk faded and as time passed he rarely posted comments on the message boards.  mhere worried that her attempts to break through this craziness he was spouting had failed and it hurt to think that she may have driven him away, when all she wanted to do was help him.

mhere was starting to lose interest in the message boards, when out of the blue,  a huge political scandal rocked America.  The message boards became a frenzied, hot-bed of partisan flame-throwing, because this new scandal reached the highest levels of the US government.  Oh my gosh, mhere’s favorite topics to perch on her soapbox and ramble on about – the Constitution, following the rules and lying – all wrapped up in one scandal.  By nature, mhere avoided confrontations, because in real life she struggled with stuttering and only by rigid discipline had she learned to speak without stuttering non-stop.  From the time she learned to read, mhere spent time every day practicing how to say words.  When her parents bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias, a large dictionary came with the set and mhere’s siblings teased her constantly, telling her, “No one reads the dictionary!”  mhere did.  She would sit for hours on end trying to figure out how to say words and it could get confusing to remember, because some words could be pronounced more than one way and she worried about forgetting and having other kids laugh at her.  But mhere felt free to talk when she wrote things, because the rules in writing, especially in creative writing, allowed her to experiment and try new ways of saying things.  Of course, she could also use words in writing that she knew she would never be able to spit out.

This new scandal brought forth a horde of new, very determined, left-wing partisan posters, who swept onto the message boards like Genghis Khan from the Steppes (to borrow a John Kerry analogy).  These were smart, wily, organized posters, not like the usual amateurs posting here and these newcomers seemed to work together to silence the right-wing posters.  They came loaded with a political technique they bragged about called spin (lying) and they armed their ranks with talking points to repeat and twisted reasoning to silence their opponents.  mhere felt a new challenge, because she loved to win political debates.

Long ago, in America, there lived a young woman named mhere.  mhere loved to bake and sew and work in her garden. Growing up in an era where girl power had come into vogue, she believed girls were just as smart as boys and she wanted to learn about everything.  Her favorite question was “why” and she happily explored her idyllic neighborhood  in the countryside and she loved to read about just about anything.  As she grew-up, history fascinated her, because here she felt she might find the answers to her many “why” questions.  In high school she joined a club to play a board game called “Diplomacy”.  Poor mhere was the only girl in the club and she really lost very badly at first, because she trusted the boys when they negotiated and her feelings got crushed as the moves unfolded and she was betrayed over and over again.  When she confronted the boys and told them, “you told me you weren’t going to do that!”, they would laugh at her and tell her, “this is how the game is played!”  One boy played this game brilliantly and he won almost all the time (that boy grew up to become a successful criminal defense lawyer, imagine that).  Poor mhere never got to be very good at this game, but she did improve.  She started thinking,  “I am not going to give up my forces without a fight!”, but she never got the hang of lying – she hated lying with a passion.  This game set mhere on a path to trying to understand war and the more she read about military strategy and military history, the more she wanted to find out.  Of course, having a romantic little heart, what could be more interesting than dashing, brave warriors who actually did amazing things.  So much went on in the world  and mhere, with her inquisitive nature, wanted to find out about all the happenings in the world.  A high school history teacher started each class talking about current events and mhere’s father read the daily newspaper religiously, so she became an unrepentant news junkie too.

Eventually mhere grew up and she married her own warrior, hotshot82nd.  As they moved around,  from one Army post to another, mhere spent her time doing housewifey things, taking care of her children and volunteering in her neighborhood, because her mother had instilled in her a belief that this is a “duty”.

Years passed and hotshot82nd decided to retire from the Army and he was looking forward to that.  Around this time the PC craze hit. Now mhere wasn’t much sold on the PC craze spreading across America and the idea of having a computer in the home seemed bizarre and just another expensive toy, which she had come to know quite well with sons and their endless demands for more gaming systems.  Of course,  hotshot82nd kept saying, “it will be great for the kids and they’ll use it!”  So, finally  hotshot82nd went out and bought their first PC.  At first, mhere felt intimidated by this new gadget, but her inquisitive kids quickly learned how to do all sorts of interesting things on the PC and mhere cautiously started exploring this brave, new world too.  Compared to the days when mhere had to rely on her trusty World Book Encyclopedia, this internet age linked her to so much information that she would spend hours upon hours “surfing” the internet, captivated by the amazing “sites” she saw.  Very quickly, the kids started complaining that mhere wasn’t sharing computer time and hotshot82nd kept reminding mhere that she was the one who thought a home PC was a ridiculous idea.

As the days went by, mhere started thinking, that while finding so much information entertained her, she thought, “boy, wouldn’t it be nice to write to other people and make friends in this new world.”  In typical mhere fashion, she started looking for pen pals, but then she discovered “message boards”.  She stumbled upon a politics message board and, oh my, mhere just loved debating politics.  She loved to gather facts and figures to hone a good argument for her point of view, but mhere hesitated jumping into this new community.  This new world had a new language and new rules on how to communicate and mhere spent a long time “lurking” before she ventured into “posting” messages.  And most of all she wanted to figure out who these posters were, because in this new world, people selected “user names” and she learned that some people changed their “user name” frequently or posted under several identities.  It reminded mhere of the masquerade balls in the historical Regency romance novels she loved to read.

One poster, marfark, posted frequently about some new form of governance he was proposing – that would lead to world peace.  From years of reading about government and politics, mhere placed her faith in the Constitution and she loved reading “The Federalist Papers” for fun.  From her life experiences, mhere, too had been reading and reading,  searching for many years for a path to peace, because she felt certain that “war” was a man-made invention and that somehow, some way there must be steps that could be taken to lead to a more lasting peace.  Of course, since mhere loved the Army, she thought in terms of “missions” and she felt that humans must have a purpose, because God would not give us an impossible mission.  Peace must be possible on a long-term basis.

So, mhere started reading everything she could about marfark’s ideas, because she was thinking about the same thing.  Many posters mocked and ridiculed marfark’s ideas, but he never backed down.  One old Marine struck mhere as the smartest poster on the entire message board.  He delighted in ripping marfark’s ideas to shreds in a wickedly funny manner.  Finally, mhere decided she wanted to talk to marfark, because she thought he was so against war, because he had been a soldier who had gone to war.  The way he argued caused an uneasy feeling, because mhere began to think she knew marfark (or a soldier just like him) long , long ago.  And mhere felt she needed to try to reason with him, because he had certainly lost his way with his pie-in-the-sky political system he was advocating.

Many years before, hotshot82nd had gone to war and as is the case in all wars, some of the brave warriors come back traumatized from the horrors that doing their duty entails.  The way that marfark argued brought back many memories of a friend of hotshot82nd’s, who spent many hours at their home, with mhere and the friend arguing about politics and many other issues frequently.  A year or so after this war, hotshot82nd left home to train in another state.  Lots of people liked to talk to mhere about their problems, even though mhere often felt like she wasn’t really much help at solving most of these problems. This friend kept getting in trouble with drinking-related incidents and despite having a bright future in the Army, he was struggling to cope with his war experiences.  One night the friend stopped by to talk to mhere and despair filled her heart, because she didn’t know how to help.  This friend had gotten another DUI and she knew he was going to run away from his problems and he did – he went AWOL.    Many, many times over the years mhere thought about this friend and hoped he had found inner-peace from the war still raging in his head.