Reflection

When I started writing this, a friend of mine asked why I would take on such a mundane task. Filling pages on the Internet with stuff I have done, or my thoughts on certain things. I told him that for all I have been through, I thought that sharing these experiences with others, hopefully others like me only younger, may somehow shed light on the Big Green Machine. That is why I chose the title Views from the Hide Site. See, a hide site is a place where people in my profession go to look around the playing field and get much needed information, all without (hopefully) being found out about. It is a place that is either on the surface or below, on the high ground or in the low ground or in the desert or mountains and each one is unique. It is constructed by hand, but mostly by experience; much like I try to do with my posts. I have sat back and soaked up everything I could for many years. Absorbed the good and discarded the bad. Most of my experiences have been from a hide site, of sorts. Sitting, observing, partaking, enjoying and relishing in the fact that I was a part of something bigger than myself and gathering much needed information.

Looking back through my posts, I see that I have been filling those Internet pages with mostly negative stuff. I realized that this is a mistake as I have way more positive experiences that I have had negative and I will do my best to rectify that with this post. The reader must understand that as you push through your chosen career, you become solidified in certain ways of doing things. Add to that the fact that you have over 130 subordinate workers under you looking for you to guide their every move. With all that, I have come to find that the small stuff I used to crave is now things that just stop my forward momentum. Below is a very quick run-down of how I came to sit here at this time and place.

My views started a long time ago in a snowy village in northern New York. I had great mentorship in guys named Rob, George, Dave and a host of others. They taught me the way things were done, but more importantly, the way they should be done. I spent nearly 5 years in that village and got to see some pretty cool places. Above all else, I grew in maturity. That was something that had eluded me up until that time and I learned about responsibility and accountability. Not the kind where someone gives you something and expects you to hang onto it, but the kind where if you were wrong, you owned up to it and took your licks like a man. Again, that was something that was foreign to me until that point in my life.

I finally got permission from the Green Machine to move down south. I was on my way to another world, only I didn’t know it. That place was full of adventures. The Green Machine let me fill the sky with green silk and they actually paid me for it. I learned about leadership and expounded my education of the Green Machine that I was in love with in a much, much different period of time than now. The boys there were top-notch. I didn’t get to hang around there very long, but every day that I spent there molded my soul into what I truly desired to be. Along the way, DD and Buddha came into my life and added to the love that I had for the life that I was truly happy living. Shortly after their arrival, I got permission to move again.

I couldn’t believe that I was standing there. I was speechless. Here I was standing in the airport in a place that I had only read about. We were exhausted from the trip. Buddha was only about 4 or 5 then, so I was lugging all her stuff around with my mouth open. Not only gasping for air, but in awe of all the new things there were to see. Immediately, DD spotted one of her favorite sites; Diamond Head. This was going to be great! As we settled in to our new house and surroundings, I immediately went to work trying to prove myself. I buried myself in my work and was having a blast. The only problem was that I forgot the other 2 players on my team and I left them at home a lot. It was rough for the first stretch, but the girls knew that I was working towards something better for all of us and they cut me some slack. While we were there I got to see some more great places and things; things that I never would’ve imagined that I would get to see in my lifetime. The 3 of us met some really great people, who are still very much a part of our lives today. Bill, Chriss, Cassie and Jake became extensions to our family. We were together all the time and I learned every day from Bill, who was an amazing teacher and an outstanding performer in the Machine. But good things must come to an end. It was time to pack up again and get moving.

“Georgia, are you kidding me?” That pretty much sums up my disbelief when the Green Machine papers found me. I was headed to a place that I had already been before and, for the most part, I had no choice in going. You see, the Green Machine has a thing called the “Good ‘Ole Boy Network.” I am sure you are familiar with it as it is in most places. I had been bested by an old friend and supervisor who was looking out for my best interest. He was sending me to teach. Teach? DD and Buddha were indifferent, as usual. As long as we are all together, they are as happy as newborns. I took a hard look at where I was heading and decided that I would give it a shot. Many people I knew, when they found out, thought that I actually may have found my calling. We’ll see, I thought. Once we arrived, we got settled in and got Buddha in school and the house arraigned and everything in order. I would show up to work when my name was highlighted on the schedule. Most of the time, I sat around the house helping DD do her thing. It wasn’t what I thought I would be doing. But, little did I realize, this was to be my biggest learning experience yet. I was an instructor. Usually, I taught about 10 guys but sometimes as many as 250. I would rant and rave that things weren’t as they should be, bang my head against the wall when they were late to class and then, dish out perverse, wicked punishments that would make some physically sick after they were over. We call it PT, others call it evil. After the first 8 months or so, one day while I was trying to tell this young man his wrongdoings, I looked him in the eye and realized that I had seen that look a hundred times before. The look of “I don’t care what you have to say, just let this be over.” I realized then and there, that there was a time for PT and a time to teach and those two fences should never intersect. Never. I changed my style of teaching shortly after that moment and realized that if I get through to just one guy out of the 250 or whatever size I was teaching, then I had won. I had reached inside that guy and taught him something he would take back and teach others. Finally, I was a teacher. Then, one day after I pulled a 24 hour shift, I came home around 8:00 a.m. and rushed to the bus stop only to find that I had missed her. She was already aboard and laughing with her friends. DD and T were talking, so I went inside to shower and try to catch some sleep. The T.V. was on and something big was happening. I saw smoke, then the repeated camera angles of an object slamming into a building. “What the hell is going on?” I shouted across the grass. Neither of them knew, so I walked back inside and listened as the news anchor described an airplane or something crashing into the Twin Towers. DD and T came in just in time to see the second plane hit the intact Tower. We were silent. Shortly after, I called the office and everyone was chattering back and forth. They had all watched the same thing. We immediately went and picked Buddha up from school, as did just about every parent registered at the school. Our lives had changed forever and we knew it. Throughout the remaining time I had to be there, I had witnessed kids coming back from places I had heard about on the news. They were skinny, tough and seasoned. They talked about the ‘Stan and some things they had done and seen, but you might as well have told me in French as it was all foreign to me. Later on, as we dragged ourselves through our daily tasks of teaching the same thing to different people, the Green Machine said it was time for me to move again. They sent down some experts and we all put our names in for different places. I wanted to go west, towards home as I rarely got to go back and visit with my family. DD loved it there and so did Buddha. “Nothing available” was all the clerk could say. My boss at the time, George, knew some people and offered to try and get me to move with him to Europe. I asked and the girls gave an excited “Yes!” It wasn’t a sure thing, especially now that the other scuffle had started in that other country. I hoped and hoped that I would get to go to Europe. What an exciting place to live. I could only imagine. Finally, the Green Machine said yes and the papers started to fly. I did my last walk and pondered our future. It was going to be great.

Passport and papers in hand, I kissed DD and Buddha goodbye. Somehow (go figure!) DD and Buddha’s Visas were messed up and they would have to come later. It was only going to be a few weeks, no big deal. I didn’t realize then that those few weeks would just be a sampling of time that we were to spend apart. I arrived at the Venice airport. George and his friend Robin picked me up; George had overdone it on the wine and didn’t look so good. They took me to my hotel and told me to shower and be outside shortly. They were giving me the Grand Tour. Outside, I was so excited to finally be here. New surroundings, sounds, smells and sights all caught my attention and jockeyed for the best spot on my brain. George and Robin were taking me to lunch and showing me around my new facilities. Anyway, jut after DD and Buddha arrived in Europe, the news came that we all knew would come. I was headed “downrange.” My new office-mates were there and I was headed there to be with them. I finally arrived at the camp downrange and my first tour got settled in, met some great people and got on with my first prison sentence. This one would be the shortest served. I stayed there for about 7 months and it was a rewarding experience, being a part of history and all, but actually looking back now, it was boring as all get out. I finally came home and reunited with DD and Buddha. I missed them terribly while I was gone. DD had plans for our vacation and she was to take me to do all the “Euro” things he had experience in my absence. It was great. Shortly after I got back home, we got the news that we were heading back downrange again in about another year and that we had a lot of training to do and that we would have to go away for a lot of it. I was so busy preparing for the next year downrange that I barely had time for DD and Buddha. It was rough on them since it seemed as though I had just came back and was now readying to go again. The months flew by, arguments ensued over this and that, and then one day I came home and sat down with DD. I told her I needed to fill out some paperwork that the Green Machine said I needed. It was in the event of unfortunate circumstances. She flatly refused to discuss it. I needed her help, as I didn’t know my bank routing codes and where the car insurance was kept and what bills needed to be paid. I didn’t have control over any of that stuff. So, she rescinded her objection and began to help until we got to the part about what to do with my remains, how I was to be buried, what I wanted on my headstone. She freaked, as did I. I didn’t have to fill this out last time around! The Green Machine calls it “emergency data.” But, what they don’t understand is that when you are as young as we are, we have no idea about any of this stuff. This isn’t dinner table conversation, nor is it something that your spouse comes up to you and says, “Honey, what if…” when you are our age. We finally got through it, made up some stuff on it and turned it in. Throughout this whole ordeal of preparing for this adventure I was about to embark upon, we were also dealing with the fact that great friends of ours were having their own tragedy. J and V, along with their girls had arrived with me to Europe. We befriended each other immediately and stayed very near each other. In fact, the day J and I left for the show downrange the first time, was the day that DD and V met. At this point in time, J was my boss but hadn’t been feeling well. Test after test were conducted and it was finally deduced that he had a brain tumor. It was on his pituitary gland and very dangerous. Soon, he was to have it removed. Near the end of the preparation time, I took the reins of the office and got things ready to go. Shortly after his surgery, it was decided that he wouldn’t be allowed to go with us right away and some changes in thrones and crowns needed to be made since I was just filling in temporarily. I was moved to a special organization. I had trained for this job for a long time and now, here it was thrown in my lap because my friend was sick. I was in shock at my good fortune, yet troubled concerning my friend’s horrible diagnosis. The following Monday, I showed up at the new office and found out I was leaving within 96 hours to go downrange. I dreaded telling DD and Buddha about it as I knew it would cause more pressure on them. But, what could I do? When the Green Machine says it is time to go, it is time to go. That weekend I said my goodbyes yet again. Tears flowed and I hugged them as hard as I could. I left in the middle of the night and drove myself just so they wouldn’t have to watch me leave twice. V would drive DD to get the car in the morning after I had left. It’s harder every time I have to leave.

We flew out and arrived at stop one and floundered around in the cold air. We were to be there for a few days until another aircraft could take us the remainder of our journey. While waiting there, we did some PT, looked through the little stores that lined the sidewalks and mostly slept. At one point, they told us the government of that particular country had eroded in a coup and we may be needed at the front gate as 10,000 protesters were expected to riot outside the main gate. I chuckled at the thought of 70 of my guys against 10,000 foreigners. They had to realize that this was insane. Luckily for us, it didn’t pan out and all was quiet for the remainder of our time there. Early one morning, a guy walked over, told us to grab our stuff and get on the aircraft. Our tour was about to start. I landed in the southern desert in mid-March and got to work. We moved from point A to point B roughly a month after we landed and headed to a small village 3 hours west of the bigger city. We stayed there for nearly 7 months before the mucky-mucks decided we needed to come back east and live in the big city. At that point, I had a new boss – who happened to be a great friend of mine - and we were to move a little north and go to work. We reorganized into something the Green Machine had never experienced before and got after it. Shortly after our arrival in the big city, the unthinkable happened. One of my office-mates was killed. He was shot in the back and it came out his chest as he hit the ground. He didn’t feel a thing and if I were to describe him at that moment, I would have to say that he managed one word. It was every swear word you have ever heard all wrapped up into one word and then he was gone. Another office-mate grabbed him, unaware he was dead and subsequently was shot in the thigh. A local guy ran over to assist and was shot through both legs as he reached them. We buried J.”G”.M. and moved on doing our thing. That was close to the end of my second prison sentence and the remainder of my time served was uneventful.

I came back home to a warm welcome and immediately saw that DD and Buddha were not the same girls I had left a year ago. They were hardened and much more mature. They were used to this kind of thing by then and had moved forward in their lives while I was away. I expected that, as you can’t blame them for living their lives. But, in reality, I felt like an outsider. They had their things going on and I had to play catch up. It wasn’t hard since we had done this before, but it is still something each of us must go through in order to earn our place back in the pecking order of daily life. Some handle it great while others struggle to get back into the mode of life. Once I was reacquainted with the girls, I began the task of closing the doors to my office for good. We were being disbanded and sent to the four corners of the Green Machine. I was to move up in stature and was allowed to stay in Europe and take over a larger office. With my acceptance of the promotion and subsequent rise in power (not really), I knew before hand that I had in effect, accepted another prison sentence. This would be my third. I got right to work putting my grubby little fingers in everything and submerged myself in work. That was the way it was and the way it had to be as most of my office-mates were new guys to the Green Machine and had never served a prison sentence before. SMac and I went right to work with Vo-Vo, the Head and others putting ourselves through the paces before we took the long walk down the cell block. We were gone a lot and it really paid of work-wise. Family life was harder this time around, even though DD and Buddha were pro’s by now. The year flew by and before I knew it, I was leaving in the middle of the night again. Throughout the year, SMac moved on to bigger and better things and we got RMac in control. He has been here since then and we have been through a lot together. I am looking forward to serving out the rest of my prison sentence here with him. I wouldn’t have it any other way, even though most of the time I rant and rave and carry on about mundane things that cause my eyes to roll back into my head and bad words come out of my mouth. This is what I chose to do and I still get excited every day about being here. Look forward to some more posts…

Still Green

I should have started writing this a while ago, but time slips through your fingers. We are nearing our halfway mark in a long 15 months. Wow, that is even hard to say. It seems as though we have been gone for a long time now and we still aren’t halfway there yet. Realize this; there are prison sentences shorter than what we are serving…I’m just sayin’. But, time is ticking away and as a friend of mine says, “You can’t stop the clock!”

Let’s go back a little to the building of our little Copper on the hilltop. That place is amazing. It definitely has been the focus of the bad guys’ attention. It has brought joy, pain, suffering, laughter, tears and a host of other feelings you are supposed to repress during times like these. It really is a rose bud in our garden of weeds. We have spent a lot of time up there and it is starting to look like a real place instead of a cartoon drawing. We have lights and most importantly, heat. It has a sewage system, actually, it is just a hole in the ground with a screen over it and some burn cans that catch…well, you understand. It has been a lot of fun to be up there from time to time but, tragedy strikes as usual in a place like this. On the way to The Copper, friends of ours were killed recently by one of those damn buried-in-the-road-death machines. It was a horrific experience for those around here. Luckily for me, I wasn’t here to have to emotionally deal with all that stuff. I was out west guarding dirt. After the tragedy, a time stamp for us really, we have had a bunch of toys pushed at us and we have struck back ten-fold. We immediately went to work and I think we have put a dent in the bad guys’ winter as some won’t get to see it snow again. But, make no mistake, they are very determined. They have put metal to sky over a hundred times (nearly 150). Almost 20 of those have hit the heart of The Copper, but we were buried in our dirt mounds and came out clean…whew! The Copper still stands today and we are motivated to “keep on keepin’ on up there.”

As you can see, The Copper is the hub of our focus here in the desert-mountains. There are other things going on around here, of course. We’ve had personnel moves. I lost Vo-Vo to another team recently. I was terribly sad to see him go as he proved to be a great member of the cell block here and he is already missed. I have also had to send off some other members to the four corners in order to better the environment around here. Not my call on many of them, but they had to go. My complaint is that I have a certain amount of things to do and there are a set number of thugs I need to get it done with. A football team doesn’t play with 9 players, nor does a basketball team take the court with 3 guys. We do! We are forced to pull it off and “get it done” regardless of the expense because you can bet your sweet backside that around the corner is another task to do that will only pile up if you don’t get the first one done. Such is life here. For those that sit up in the Wardens offices, they don’t really care about your pain as long as they can brief some mucky-muck about how good things are. It is the way things are done now and it sickens me, so my only recourse is to finish my projects here, spend a few more years in the cell block and finally petition for my parole and hope for the best. I am hoping that when I am done here they send me to a medium-security facility to ride my time out. But, the Big Green (digital) Machine will pull another rabbit out of its hat and I will be looking a 5-10 more years in the system. Whatever!

While I have my complaints, I also have had some great experiences here and I have met some great people. Usually I don’t give out names or any distinguishing facts and whatnot, but this guy I recently met is an amazing photographer and writer who spent a lot of time with me and we have become great friends. He’s an Irishman that lives and works in London where he has his business. For the most part, “Journey’s” just ride along and get in the way and make stuff up that covers their story. This guy, I will tell you that he has shed his own blood and guts (literally) in the mountains of this troubled country. He was shot in the stomach about 6 months back and has come back to figure it all out. Give him a look at www.johndmchugh.com and read his blog at the bottom. It is really good and will give you some insights into things I don’t speak of here.

So, with all that said and done, I think we are doing okay. We are still mired in the mud of what to wear. I swear if I hear about looking alike again, I may slash my own throat. I am so sick of hearing about how we are no good because our socks don’t match or that the hat I wear isn’t within the confines of what the Cool Kids like. We are back to square one – day one - of Andersonville about this crap. The Cool Kids are in a debate over this coat and whether it belongs in our happy homes. It is issued to the other team’s guys and is the color that The Green Machine likes, but since it isn’t the same as what was handed out to us in the soup line, the Cool Kids are aghast that we have them. Holy she-i-it!!! It packs down to the size of a small football, is like a duck when it comes to the rain and is like bear hide when it comes to the cold. Let me spell it a little more clearly…FUNCTIONAL! But, some book in the Green Library says it is a no-no and some junior-level prison guard might see it and spank us with a memo shouting his disbelief. It is okay to roll out and get hemmed up by a bunch of weirdoes, just don’t do it if you don’t look the same. Message received; parole paperwork being worked! I am tired of this cell block and if some other idiot wants to come and take charge of my chain gang, then please hurry. Please!