Giving Thanks, From Fayette'nam

The following account has been toned down (28NOV09), and subsequently more coherent than it was a few days ago when I posted it, on Thanksgiving. It took me almost a month to come to a point where I felt like writing about the incident, and in the original version my emotions surfaced. A good thing to get out of one's system, but not to leave as a lasting public document, viewable to the world.

Strange to think, for a couple of days, how though I was safer in Iraq. I came to Ft. Bragg with a mix of expectations, but I didn't expect to get carjacked - shot - and stabbed in this small city outside the U.S. Army's "Center of the Military Universe." This was far outside my expectations in spite of my fellow ex-N.C. soldiers at Ft. Carson CO giving me warnings before I left for home on the east coast, "be careful in 'Fayett'Nam' and '...stay off the strip.'" Now I ask - "what part of Fayetteville isn't the F'k'n' strip!?" Miles and miles of "strip" in this "conservative" area. I asked in one establishment why being a customer required a membership. "Cuz of the government, you know, fees and taxes." Sounds conservative a la cart to me. Conservative used to mean conservative use of government, now the word tends to apply more to social issues and a conflict results.

Fayetteville North Carolina, a place that would, by the mouth of the average church going local, consider the liberal big cities to be sinful satanic hubs. All the while Friday nights are big here, and Saturday nights are a close third to any given weekday night as the average 6 day patron has to make it to church on time. This is the only place on earth where I've seen on the signs outside retail shops, "Dancer Discount" along with the more common, "Military Discount."

I've had poor experiences with the locals in regular interactions as well. For example, as I bought groceries at a local store here recently, the cashier asked me as she rung up my reusable $1.99 Green Grocery Bags, paper or plastic? This is not just an indicator of a single person's lack of insight, but moreover an alarm to the lack of awareness in the general population. I was apparently the only person who ever bought the reusable grocery bag at her register.

Growing up near Daytona Beach, which I had always considered the seediest place on earth, with the highest homeless person per block ratio, at least in my experience, I thought these warnings about a little place in North Carolina to be the words of country folk. I often considered my fellow small town soldier, no matter the rank or combat experience, to be much less seasoned in the ways of street people and the like than myself.

I found myself lost, on the south side of Fayetteville, the same day I picked up my vehicle after it was recovered and repaired, I stopped inside a convenient store and asked for directions toward Bragg. The woman behind the counter quipped, "Jus' keep goin' strait!" Indeed. I asked for details on "strait," and with aggravation she obliged, "...strait up 301!" N? S?E?W?!! WTF!

But my perceptions have always been a bit outside of reality as well. Of course, just as it is for everyone, each of us, singular and lost from time to time. As close as I may ever get to truth, I find again and again how un-bespeckled within, and short-sighted I am. Dare I be critical of the locals when I'm the one who let himself be suckered into a violent carjacking, at 36 y.o.a., and fresh back from Iraq? But the sun comes up. I pull on my trousers. We go to work. You live to see another day. One gives thanks. From Bragg N.C. giving thanks, on Thanksviving, as things could have been worse in recent times past. A long road home, away from home, wherever that is anymore.