Lethal Minds Volume 12
Lethal Minds Volume 12
Volume 12, Edition 1 01JUNE2023
LETHAL MINDS JOURNAL
Lethal Minds Volume 12
Volume 12, Edition 1 01JUNE2023
Memorial Day weekend is a time to honor and remember. This volume of Lethal Minds Journal was committed to doing just that. The content you’re about to read may be heavier for some more than others. Please remember - you never have to carry the heavy things alone. Your best resource is each other. Additional resources are available at https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/ - The Lethal Minds Team
Letter from the Editor
I don’t like most rules. I never have.
That is a psychologically proven fact, reinforced by the three separate exams I underwent during my previous career, much of which occurred in various corners of the US Special Operations Command. It is ironic I was a Marine for so long, a service that prides itself on iron discipline. At my peril and sometimes my discredit, I tended to subconsciously strain against rules I disliked or just assume they didn’t really apply to me. That antipathy towards regulation was an ironic motivation for attending law school, where I hoped to find a way to either eliminate stupid laws or prevent their making. I’m sure it’s why I now have a career in which I say what I think for a living. But, as in most things, there is nuance to my reflexive contrarianism.
Every time I got a psychological screening, the psychologists said virtually the same thing, “You fit a common SOCOM profile. You don’t like following rules, but you understand that society requires them and you will follow them, begrudgingly.” That is the case, and it's why I am so attracted to concepts like the “grocery cart test,” in which we know something about someone by where they leave a grocery cart when they’re done with it.
Likewise, my local nature park with its walking trails full of people and their dogs offers an opportunity into human psychology. At the trailhead, there is a sign that says, “All Dogs Must Be On A Leash At All Times.” I would like it better if it said, “Worth Parker Can Walk his Well-Trained Labrador Jed Off Leash but Laurel the Hound/Pyrenees Mix Needs to Be on a Leash.” But it doesn’t. It says “All.”
And the fact is, that’s appropriate. Jed and I train every other day. He is whistle trained and knows obedience and hunting retriever commands. He’s actually a pain in the ass on a leash and a pleasure when left to his own devices. Laurel is a ninety-pound rescue with a checkered past and strong protective instincts when even friendly dogs come charging toward me, or worse, my child. I walk her, as is my right. I walk her alone, without Jed, at times when most folks are at work, as is my responsibility. She still needs a leash.
Nonetheless, for a relatively tiny park, there seems to be a stunning population of people to whom the rules do not apply; for whom America is “all rights, no responsibilities.” As a result, I’ve been bitten by off-leash dogs. Laurel has offered pretty negative receptions to wonderful dogs who sprint toward us to play. Then there’s the blood pressure spike I feel when someone with an unleashed dog implies I’m the unreasonable party for following a posted rule and expecting the same from adults. Perhaps you agree with them, but I offer the notion that as veterans we understand better than anyone that with rights come responsibilities.
Almost two decades ago I got a moral education. I was exasperated and demanding of a Marine Staff Sergeant whom I had put in a place to kill someone why he had not killed someone. To be clear, the rules of engagement were pretty malleable and the killing would not have been his first. “I could not confirm what he was doing, Sir. I am not killing someone I don’t know deserves it.”
We had the right.
He recognized the responsibility.
The fact is, rules exist for a reason, one of which is that in a civil society, all of us must exist alongside the lowest common denominator (the manifestation of whom may be wholly different for you than for me). We often have laws because the meanest elements of our society demand their creation. Hell, sometimes the meanest elements of our society were part of their creation (again, our opinions on whom that may be may reasonably differ). But that doesn’t eliminate the requirements of adherence to our social compact. Whether you’re a student driver, a race car driver, or a drunk driver we have guardrails to keep us all on the road and generally traveling with the flow of traffic.
Thus, I found myself standing silently at the local trailhead this morning waiting for a man and woman with two large, beautiful, sweet dogs to restrain them. Yes, I was radiating judgment. I had my earphones in but silenced, so I imagine the man in the pair thought I couldn’t hear when he muttered, “You know buddy, you could just keep walking,” implying I was the unreasonable party. I had a moment.
“Buddy” and “Sport” are words my father taught me to use to get an already enraged person to take the first swing so we could get to the part with the beat down. They’re intentionally patronizing, a way to minimize their target, and in my mind, I heard the stirrings of the soundtrack to the ultra-violence. But then I smiled and walked on. Because I just don’t need to get to the beatdown ever again. And because judgment generally only lands when you know you’re doing something wrong.
Veterans know how to take up less space. We’ve lived in coffin racks underway, in fighting holes, in six-person barracks rooms, and in one-hundred-person tents kept dark and cold for the vagaries of combat sleep schedules. Maybe we can use that to show our fellow Americans that it is possible to get everything we need while not taking everything we want; that we can demand all of our amazing constitutional rights while meeting all of the concomitant responsibilities too many Americans ignore to our collective detriment.
A friend, with whom I disagree sharply on some political issues but whose wisdom I admire, recently said to me, “Civility and optimism are pretty much the keys to everything.” Maybe they’re not everything, but they go a distance towards bridging, or at least obscuring, gaps. Part of civility is recognizing our rights and responsibilities. Part of that recognition is remembering that we don’t have to take up all the space to which we could make a claim. Further still the notion that we could offer some of that up to someone else.
Submissions are open at lethalmindsjournal@gmail.com.
Fire for Effect.
Russell Worth Parker
Editor in Chief – Lethal Minds Journal
Dedicated to those who serve, those who have served, and those who paid the final price for their country.
Sponsors:
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As you likely know, Lethal Minds Journal shares common ancestry with Patrol Base Abbate, one of the most impactful veteran’s outreach organizations in America. One of the ways in which we connect is through a love of the written word, a belief in the power of good writing to help give a voice to people who need to be heard, and a desire to help service members and vets connect through self-expression. This summer, Sebastian Junger, award winning writer of War, Tribe, and Freedom (amongst others), will join the Patrol Base Abbate Book Club in Montana for their annual Return to Base Program. From June 22nd-26th, members of the Book Club will spend a few days discussing literature while they reconnect with nature and other veterans at Patrol Base Abbate’s PB in Thompson Falls, Montana. Details about eligibility are at https://www.pbabbate.org/rtb-application-0-0.
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Recent episodes include:
23. Rich Jordan on Empowering A Team
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51. What If My Passion Has Nothing To Do With What I'm Doing Now with Bill Kieffer
In This Issue
The Written Word
The List
Blissful Death
Vandal Dome
The World Today
Cognitive Warfare Part II
Opinion
The Perfect Circle
No Answers, Only Questions
Poetry and Art
Salted Dog
Choices
Trying to Remember
The Written Word
Fiction and Nonfiction written by servicemen and veterans.
The List - Russell Worth Parker
I carry a list. We all do. Some of the names on my list are more prominent for me than others. Some were friends; some I knew in the way you know and like people you work with but couldn’t say their kid’s names; some are faceless names associated with the freshly fallen I saluted as they were carried aboard a cargo plane for a last ride home. I started the list in 2004, before I understood that it was open-ended work I’d be adding to well into a second decade.
Every year on this day, I read The List aloud to make sure that I never forget The Names, a possibility that seems remote, but less so as the gulf of years between the men on The List and I becomes more vast. The wars are still here, though diminished, and I still serve, but the sharp, individual edges of the pain have dulled; collectively leaving a more blunt, crushing type of injury, one caused more by mass and weight than by immediate impact.
The very distance, more than a decade in some cases, makes me think that The List deserves more than a simple recitation. This year, as I prepare to spend Memorial Day living the life they were denied, The Names require personification. They deserve a minute to explain, if not who they were, at least how I knew them or knew of them, and how I understand their sacrifice.
Marine Sergeant Foster Lee Harrington was the first, and even now, the one to whom I was closest. Foster put me through the Reconnaissance Indoctrination Program with the same enthusiasm he brought to everything else. We became friends over six years of training together, then deployed to Iraq in two different platoons of 2d Force Reconnaissance Company; I as a Platoon Commander, he as a Team Leader.
On Sept 20, 2004, I was in the Combat Operations Center of the infantry battalion with which we were working, discussing an upcoming operation, when I thought I heard the radio code word for a unit requesting an emergency medical evacuation. The call was faint, clouded in static, and when I asked the radio operator if he had heard it, he had not. I jogged back to our own unit operation center and asked our own radio operators if they had heard a call for a MEDEVAC. They were similarly unaware. But I knew. I ran back to where they again denied hearing it, but by the time I got back to our Company, the MEDEVAC was landing and our Chief Corpsman was asking me if I knew the man aboard. I did. Every man in my platoon knew Foster, and soon enough we all knew he had been shot through the head on a street in Husaybah, Iraq and was dead. My Commanding Officer held his hand till he passed.
After that came Major Alan Rowe. In the way of our tribe, we met for the first time and shared a two-hour conversation about the Corps, our families, and friends before taking a familiarization ride of our communal area of operations. The next day Al was killed by an Improvised Explosive Device that also killed Lance Corporal Nicholas Wilt and First Lieutenant Ronald Winchester. The same day I met Al, I shared a Humvee ride through our area of operations with Lance Corporal Wilt, Corporal William Salazar, and Lance Corporal Nicholas Perez. All three were killed by IEDs before they could reach twenty-four years of age. Only two of the five men in that Humvee survived that tour. I think about that from time to time and have no idea what to do with that information. It’s a meaningless coincidence, but one that remains with me nonetheless.
I never met Army Staff Sergeant Aaron Holleyman. I arrived in Iraq just after he was killed, but I carry his name because I fought beside the men of his U.S. Army Special Forces team and he meant something to them. It is the way of our tribe.
My platoon was blessed. While almost half were wounded over seven months, we all came home alive. The other three platoons distributed across Iraq at the time were not similarly blessed. Sergeant David Caruso died in the second battle of Fallujah on November 9, 2004. Sergeant Ben Edinger was killed on November 23, 2004. Sergeant Thomas Houser followed them across the river in December, leading the way into a house that was essentially a bunker full of explosives.
Corporal Corey Palmer, with whom I attended Marine Combatant Diver School, died from horrific wounds sustained in an IED attack. He was, like me, a slow swimmer with a self-deprecating humor and, unlike me, a good surfer. In contrast to most Marines who drive sports cars or monster trucks, he drove an Oldsmobile with surf racks. He was a character and I love a character. I only found out he was dead when I saw his name on a bracelet on another Marine’s wrist. He told me Cory’s death was a blessing, given his wounds.
Captain John Maloney and I went to college together but I barely knew him. He had just arrived as a Sergeant seeking a commission and I was a graduating senior getting ready to put on my Lieutenant’s bars. He died leading a Marine Infantry Company in Ramadi. Posthumously, the Marine Corps awarded him the Leftwich Trophy as the best Company Commander in the Corps. I wish I’d taken the time, I might have been a better man for it.
Major Douglas Zembiec was my best friend’s roommate and an incredible Marine. I met him at my best friend’s wedding. His story has been told more times far better than I could here. I was standing on a landing zone at Camp Lejeune, attempting to get the Secretary of the Navy aboard an aircraft following the kind of VIP dog and pony shows that most Majors oversee at some point, when my best friend called me to ask if it were true that Doug had been killed. Only with Doug’s death did I truly understood that we are all mortal.
Staff Sergeant Ryan Means was another Army Special Forces soldier I really didn’t know. He was a friend of a friend and one day in Baghdad he looked in the mirror and realized his eyes were yellow. I shared some emails with him and his family and less than a year later he was dead of a particularly aggressive cancer. The enemy didn’t kill him, but he gave up a comfortable, country club life to serve his country in a dangerous assignment and he lost his imminently finite time with his wife and kids because he was willing to do so. I count him amongst the men I must honor and remember.
Sergeant Michael Roy and I were both early members of Marine Special Operations Command. We were in separate battalions but we shared one tiny building because we were battalions in name only. He was killed in Afghanistan in 2009. A year later, Gunnery Sergeant Robert Gilbert was shot in the head twice, dying on his 28th birthday. Rob described advising a company of Afghan National Army soldiers in the incredibly dangerous mountains along the Afghanistan/Pakistan border as “pretty much the coolest thing ever.” He was an incredibly funny man who made squatting in a South Carolina forest in the rain in February a hysterically enjoyable experience. I sacrificed a lot of sleep to sit next to a fire and laugh in a steady drizzle with him. I miss him and who he would have become
Later in 2010, I was in Afghanistan. By then, as a Lieutenant Colonel, I spent much more time near coffee machines than on the streets of Iraq or in Afghan villages. During that six months I saw no blood. I bore no danger save the odd rocket attack that I typically slept through. Nonetheless, I learned to tell from the cast of a man’s voice on a radio whether a casualty would live or die and I went to fourteen memorials for men on the other end of the radio. Specialist Jonathan K. Peney, Specialist Joseph Dimock, Sergeant Justin B. Allen, Sergeant Anibal Santiago, Master Sergeant Jared Van Aalst, Specialist Bradley Rappuhn, Sergeant Andrew Nicol, Specialist Christopher Wright, Sergeant Martin Lugo, Chief Collin Thomas, Sergeant First Class Aaron Gryder, Sergeant First Class Lance Vogeler, and Staff Sergeant Kevin Pape. I didn’t know them. I will never forget them.
Sergeant Nicholas Aleman was not meant to die as a Marine. I often marveled that he WAS a Marine. He was stunningly intelligent, had no driver’s license, lived an ascetic lifestyle, didn’t like to get dirty, and seemed to have no interest in comparing testosterone levels with his fellow Marines; all of which seemed to coincide to make him an exceptional intelligence analyst. He exited the Corps to attend college at home in New York City, his eyes set on Columbia and a career in the Foreign Service or Intelligence Community. He remained a Reservist and was killed by a suicide bomber in a market in eastern Afghanistan. I still periodically turn to the internet to confirm it was indeed that Sergeant Aleman. I keep hoping he’ll give me one more surprise and show up somewhere, even though I’ve seen the memorial his family maintains on Facebook.
Sergeant Christopher Wrinkle and I worked together in the Operations Section of Marine Special Operations Command. We both eventually escaped to battalions. He was an infantryman who became a dog handler. He died when he returned to a burning building in western Afghanistan in an attempt to save his dog. No greater love indeed.
Sergeant First Class Kristopher Domeij is another man I didn’t know, but his influence over men who mean a lot to me is huge and thus his memory is one I bear, because I love who my friends love and respect who my friends respect. I remember the day he died on his fourteenth combat deployment as a U.S. Army Ranger. I was home and safe and sitting in an office far removed from the sights and smells of the places where men go to fight and die. I feel guilty for that. It’s the way of our tribe.
Hospitalman First Class Darrell Enos was a Sailor, husband, and father to six children. We served in the same battalion. He was calm and decent, the kind of man who cares for a wife and six children. He was killed by an Afghan he was training in 2012.
I did not know Gunnery Sergeant Jon Gifford. But “Giff” was a friend of a lot of my friends and I remember the day I learned of his death. It was a bad summer in which we lost a lot of Marines and Sailors from my command. Years later, I got to know his wife and family in the process of funding and emplacing the statue of him that now stands in front of Jonathan W. Gifford Hall, also known as the Marine Raider Training Center. In that process, I certainly learned a lot about a man I never knew, who meant so much to so many. Last Memorial Day his wife asked me why he was not included on this list. Bluntly, I was uncomfortable implying a connection to a genuine Marine hero, a Navy Cross recipient, whom I never knew and whose memorial I never attended. So this year, with her blessing, I add Giff’s name because his wife clearly expects me to serve his memory.
In 2013–2014 I was again in Afghanistan, on the staff of the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. I did not know Marine Corporal Alex Martinez, but I stood in a Memorial Day formation with his father, a US Navy Seabee who enlisted late in life because it was the only way he could get to the place where his son died. When I learned that, I held it together long enough to promise him I will always carry the name of his son, killed in action Afghanistan April 5, 2012. Then I went back to my room and cried in a way I could not before I became a father. God forbid I outlive my child.
Captain David Lyons was an Air Force officer assigned to a unit I worked with regularly. By all accounts he was an extraordinary man. He was killed by a suicide bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan on the way back to his base after visiting his wife, a fellow officer, at hers. Watching a burning vehicle via surveillance camera, I called a friend at that unit to tell them I thought their convoy had been hit by a suicide bomber. Sadly, I was correct. I watched as his wife was helped aboard the plane that carried her home with his body and tried to imagine trying to carry that weight.
Again, as a Lieutenant Colonel on a staff, I was safe, warm, and well fed but, as is the way of our tribe, lower ranking members still sought and found the enemy. Staff Sergeant Daniel Lee, Sergeant William K. Lacey, Specialist Christopher Landis, Sergeant First Class Roberto Skelt, Master Sergeant Aaron Torian, Sergeant Shawn Farrell, Staff Sergeant Jason McDonald, Staff Sergeant Scott Studenham, Corporal Justin Clouse, Private Aaron Toppen, and Specialist Justin Helton gave the last full measure across the length and breadth of Afghanistan. The best I could do for them was to stand and salute at their memorials and remember them now and forever. It seems a paltry promise but it’s what I have.
I flew home from that tour with Marine Staff Sergeant Kerry Kemp, Staff Sergeant Liam Flynn, SSgt Trevor Blaylock, Staff Sergeant Andrew Seif, and Staff Sergeant Marcus Bawol. They were tight in the way men who have faced danger together are. As a guy who was not with them in the fire and as the senior service member on the plane, I was a stranger, but we laughed and shared family stories. On return to North Carolina, I was assigned to a training billet while they began training for another deployment along with Captain Ford Shaw and Master Sergeant Thomas Saunders. I saw them periodically, sharing a quick word, a handshake, or a sarcastic comment. Then all seven died in a helicopter crash on March 10, 2015, along with the four members of the air crew, a stark reminder that ours is an inherently dangerous profession.
On Dec 11, 2016 I found myself on a plane to Washington D.C., looking forward to 90 minutes of reading a book and not talking to anyone. Then a Gold Star Mother, easily identified by her pin and the shirt with her son’s photo on it, sat down next to me. We talked for the entire trip. She was on her way to visit her son, buried amongst his brothers and sisters in Section 60 of Arlington Cemetery. She told me about coming twice a year, in summer and winter, to spend a day with her son. She asked me if I thought her son’s sacrifice was worth it, whether America would remember her son and what he gave up. PFC Jalfred Vaquerano was shot in the head in Charkh District, Logar Province, Afghanistan on December 11, 2011. He died two days later in Landstuhl, Germany. His mother and sister were with him when he passed. He was twenty years old. He couldn’t drink a beer in America but he could die with his face to the enemy.
On July 10, 2017, the unthinkable happened. Again. Sixteen Marines died when the C130 cargo plane they were aboard crashed into a field in Laflore, Mississippi. Nine of the Marines were aircrew from a New York Marine Reserve Squadron. I didn’t know Maj. Caine M. Goyette, Capt. Sean E. Elliott, Gunnery Sgt. Mark A. Hopkins, Gunnery Sgt. Brendan C. Johnson, Staff Sgt. Joshua Snowden, Sgt. Owen J. Lennon, Sgt. Julian M. Kevianne, Cpl. Daniel I. Baldassare, or Cpl. Collin J. Schaaff, but our tribe is small and a friend assigned as their active duty Inspector/Instructor described the impact of losing nine Marines from one geographic area to me. The remaining seven Marines were fellow Raiders assigned to the same Team that lost seven members in the 2015 crash. They died in a plane crash as replacements for men who died in a plane crash. It’s another piece of information that I can’t categorize, a coincidence. But it’s another weight that must be carried. One Raider, SSgt Billy Kundrat, was a man I’d known for the better part of a decade. We’d both recently left duty at the Marine Raider Training Center, I for the Pentagon, he for a Team. Hospitalman First Class Ryan Lohrey was the U.S. Navy Special Amphibious Reconnaissance Corpsman assigned to the Team. The other five Raiders were new men whom Billy and I had trained for nine months in the year before they were killed. Staff Sgt. Robert Cox, Sgt. Talon Leach, Sgt. Chad Jenson, Sgt. Joseph Murray, and Sgt. Dietrich Schmieman were young, smart, and enthusiastic Marines who carried themselves with the confidence of young men who know they’ve been tested and found fit. There’s a bridge in Frederick, Maryland named after SSgt Billy Kundrat now. It’s next to the bridge named for his childhood friend and fellow Eagle Scout, SFC Lance Vogeler, a friend of friends who was killed during my first tour in Afghanistan. In Richland, Washington, there’s a Post Office named after Sgt Dietrich Schmieman. It seems unnatural to know the stories behind the names on so many structures. It makes me think we ought to ask our leaders just how many generations of bridges we mean to name.
Sergeant First Class Nicholas Sheperty, US Army Special Forces, was US Marine Lance Corporal Nicholas Sheperty when I met him. He was an individual in an organization that doesn’t have much tolerance for such. We deployed to Iraq together, in adjacent Platoons, where he fought in Fallujah in 2004. After that battle, on a particularly bad night, he performed an act of valor for which he was never properly recognized. It’s not my story to tell. It belongs to Shep and the men with him that night, but I know it and I hold it close as an indication of who he was. He left the Corps and eventually joined 19th Special Forces Group in the National Guard where he was killed in a free fall parachute accident on April 17, 2019. Almost 15 years after he fought through the most significant urban combat the Corps has seen since 1968, I stood at Arlington and watched a long line of Marines and Soldiers slam their unit insignia into his casket lid and say farewell.
When I initially wrote this essay in 2016, I never considered that it might still be unfinished in 2020. I met Marine Raider Captain Moises Navas when he went through initial training for my command. He impressed me on first meeting and nothing about the following nine months changed that. When I got back to our command from an intervening assignment, he was three years more seasoned and experienced and had been selected for a special opportunity based on his abilities and reputation. I met Gunnery Sergeant Diego Pongo a few times around work, enough to know he enjoyed a great reputation as a man and as a Marine Raider. Then there was another deployment and they were gone, killed fighting ISIS in the mountains of northern Iraq on March 8, 2020. Now they are two more names on a long list of people I wish I had gotten to know better when I had the chance.
I hoped I was done writing these inadequate remembrances, but I wasn’t. Now, on this Memorial Day, as friends and compatriots are still deployed to hard places around the globe, it seems unlikely I won’t add another name. That’s a wearying reality. Ours is not a safe or easy profession. Our work is not to be taken lightly or begun blithely by people who have never stepped through the door with muzzle ready, or walked the streets scanning trash piles, or squatted in the dirt with a village elder. It is a deadly, dirty, necessary business that demands blood sacrifice. Our Nation is worth that. But to deserve men and women like these, our Nation and its leaders owe a debt to remember, to learn, and to consider the possible outcomes of our collective actions. That debt is absolute, because even when the Nation fails us, we will not fail to answer its call. It is the way of our tribe.
Blissful Death - Douglas Patteson
Doug is a former CIA case officer who now teaches and writes on the intelligence world. He enjoys living in northern New England where he and his wife (also a fmr CIA officer) raised their family of 4 on a small farm. He passionately believes in the mission of the IC and knows we need our best and brightest to take up the challenge of combating future threats.
Randy crammed some cash in Jawon’s hand, Jawon trying to smooth out the crinkled bills so he could count them as Randy anxiously shifted from one foot to the next. It was kids like this that made Jawon’s job easy: rich, discontented, following their parents' models of addictions, not just to alcohol and serial sex. Satisfied, Jawon pulled a wrinkled plastic bag out of his pants pocket and handed it to Randy, Randy quickly shoving it into the pocket of his unintentionally ironic hipster shirt from Hollister.
Randy immediately pushed past Jawon into the doorway, intimately familiar with the hallway path to 110. Down the hall, first turn to the right, second door down on the right arm of the cross shaped building. The door swung easily at his touch. Entering, he could hear Kid Cudi singing his latest teen anthem from someone’s phone, tinny in a red solo cup ghetto amplifier. Ironic hearing this UPenn educated golden boy singing songs about teenage angst, his life unfathomable to the teens in the pit of a room.
Randy flopped on an open section of couch, next to a girl passed out. He thought he might have known her, or would have liked to, but his mind quickly flitted back to the escape he was anticipating. He pulled the bag from his pocket and unrolled a small washcloth from his satchel.
As he placed the rock from the plastic bag on the spoon from the washcloth, he was immediately transported back to Holy Week mass at St. Marie’s 12 years ago. Clad in a white alb, Randy nervously held the censer on a chain and lifted the lid, providing an opening for Father Mike to spoon in the incense crystals. A sneeze tried mightily to burst forth, a herculean battle between competing physical and emotional senses, betrayed by a tear squeezed through clenched eyes as the smoke rose straight up his nose. Another spoon full of candy brown crystals…
Randy balanced the spoon and crystal in his right hand as he held the green Bic lighter in his left, the flames gently caressing the bottom of the spoon as the heat of the flame transformed the rock from a solid to liquid state. Unbeknownst to him, a thread of drool slid down his chin on to his shirt, not that anyone else in the room was alert enough to care.
Setting down the lighter, he picked up the syringe precariously balanced on the washcloth on his knee, inserting the needle in the pool of honey filling the bowl of the spoon. He gently drew back the plunger, filling the syringe. He tapped the side of the syringe to float the air bubbles to the needle end, laughing. Did anyone else see the irony? This weird effort to not kill yourself with an air bubble while injecting yourself with a potentially fatal narcotic?
Satisfied, he laid it back down on the washcloth, picking up the last unused item in his kit, a short length of surgical tubing. He used one hand, and his teeth as a second, to secure it around his bicep just below his rolled up shirt sleeve. Thumping inside his elbow with a couple of fingers, he finally caused a vein to rise. “I’ll quit before I become one of those junkies who has to inject between his toes to get high.”
Moving faster now, in anticipation, he pushed the needle in the vein and depressed the plunger. At the same time, he held the tag end of the rubber tuning between his teeth, pulling it open to free the constrained blood flow so it could carry the nectar of reverie throughout his body. Randy collapsed backwards against the back of the couch.
His head rolled to the side as he looked at the girl again. “She’s kind of pretty. I should get her number”, he thought, oblivious to the sunken cheekbones, bad skin, loose teeth, all marks of someone addicted to meth and other substances. “I wonder who Lou is?” he thought as he looked at the tattoo on her neck, “Lou’s”, behind her ear.
His head lolled to the other side and his eyes lost focus as the pattern of the couch covered in dust and bodily fluids and who knew what else overwhelmed his brain. He sunk deep in to himself, warmth radiating through his chest and limbs, almost immediately replaced with a bracing cold as he thought,
“Wait, what? No!”
Vandal Dome - Jeremiah Granden
Jeremiah Granden has placed work in literary magazines, screenwriting festivals and contests, crime noir publications, comedy websites, and other venues. He has a BA in English with a Theater Minor from Missouri State, as well as a Master's Degree in International Affairs from Georgia Tech (where he also worked as a researcher and program manager for an international security think tank). He is a Marine Corps veteran.
Brenneman knew the camera.
It was an outdoor Hi-Sight vandal dome unit, white. The lettering on the camera’s base, rendered in a sweeping yet tasteful red font chosen to evoke East Asian dynamism in the imaginations of westerners, told Brenneman that the model in question was at least three years old. Hi-Sight had since switched to a light-gray logo, something more anonymized, something self-consciously invisible. There had been a lot of conversation back in Hangzhou around the change. Would light gray and plain fonts come across as an admission of wrongdoing?
Cedric Brenneman was on the patio of Merle’s, an upscale steak and seafood place on the Tampa Riverwalk, with his Air Force Academy buddy Danny Broussard. The men sipped domestic beer as the Hi-Sight vandal dome camera gazed outward, indifferently recording the waitstaff, the dinner crowd, the tops of pedestrians’ heads, everything in its line of sight, from a black, smooth sphere.
“I think I got out too late,” Brenneman said.
Brenneman had changed clothes since the job interview, replacing his navy-blue C-suite exec suit with a green Polo and pair of slacks. It was a wardrobe choice that screamed “former military officer.” Broussard wore a Polo as well. His shirt was pink, faded to match the soft, dreamy hues that showed up in the Bay during a representative Gulf Coast sunset.
“Man, I wouldn’t worry about it. The goddamn Chinese economy permeates this country. We’re all complicit,” Broussard said. “It’s tech, it’s pharma, it’s Wal-Mart. China is everywhere.”
Broussard held up his steak knife, brandishing it. “See this fucker? Made in China.”
Brenneman didn’t curse anymore. It was inappropriate for a CEO. People could feel victimized by profanity in a corporate setting.
“Your steak knife doesn’t violate the National Defense Authorization Act, partner,” Brenneman replied. He appreciated the pep talk.
“My whole family is on TikTok, and they’re backwards-ass Cajuns. Nobody in the United States is an angel when it comes to China shit.”
“Backwards-ass Cajuns” was a stretch. Broussard came from an educated, middle-class family in Lake Charles, Louisiana. His father was an engineer, his mother a social worker with the Catholic Church. Broussard himself served as CTO for a government contractor in the UAV space, based out of Tampa. Broussard’s beard, thick and ash gray, did, however, suggest a classic Cajun, the type of man who would be comfortable behind the tiller of a john boat in the outermost reaches of Terrebonne Parish, a loaded .45 holstered to his belt.
“Well, shit, maybe I am overthinking,” Brenneman conceded, forcing out a little serviceman’s talk for old time’s sake.
Brenneman, with his strong jaw line, ramrod posture, and Nordic blue eyes, was a more recognizable American type than Broussard. Brenneman had been a starter on the Academy basketball team who flew B-52s at the tail end of the Cold War. Brenneman had completed his military obligation and went on to become a pilot for a major logistics firm. Brenneman had risen into the executive ranks, earning the requisite MBA and holding a sequence of leadership roles until he was finally christened “CEO,” setting himself up for subsequent recruitment by a billion-dollar electronics distributor. What else could a Cedric Brenneman be at age sixty, other than a CEO?
But sales had crashed in the post-COVID economy, and now Cedric Brenneman was back on the job market.
“You are overthinking, brother. We’re all capitalists here.”
Broussard’s voice dropped a level. He continued, “Yeah, man. There are sensitivities around China and especially Chinese tech. NDAA, you said it. But fuck, you are separating from that world now. At Trust Logistics, you couldn’t get the Chinese in on a deal if you wanted to.”
“I just hope they trust me, in spite of my prior overseas relationships,” Brenneman answered.
“It helps that you still look like John Wayne, Cedric. Unless there is like, a Chairman Mao-sized skeleton in your closet, you have nothing to fear. Doesn’t mean they’ll pick you for the job, but they won’t disqualify you either. That’s my take,” Broussard said.
Brenneman glanced over at the Vandal Dome camera, unobtrusively lurking. Hi-Sight had long since done away with a feature of the original logo, a red stick figure with its arms extended in a celebratory Y (was the Y-gesture celebratory, or did it represent an individual whose hands were raised as he or she was being apprehended?). The red Y-logo made certain Americans and Europeans think about Uighurs. The red Y-logo therefore had to go.
“No skeletons here,” Brenneman said. The out-of-work CEO paused reflectively, then continued, “My old firm sells that camera over there. Hi-Sight Vandal Dome. I might know the guy in Tampa who installed it.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, local pro named Tony Stone. Loyal customer. I never met him. Judging by his online presence, he seems like a real card.”
Tony Stone could be trusted to install a Hi-Sight security camera, old-school Y-logo and all, without giving Uighurs in western China a second thought. Brenneman was certain of that.
***
Brenneman sat alone at the hotel bar. There was a dome camera installed there too. No visible logo.
“Excuse me,” Brenneman asked the bartender, a tan, twenty-something Floridian with her hair tied in a bun. “What kind of security camera is that?”
“That one?” the bartender replied. “I don’t know. Does it say on it?”
“It might,” Brenneman answered.
She sighed, just a little, and said “Let me find something to stand on.”
The bartender, who was only around five-foot-three, fetched a nearby chair, climbed up, and aimed a mag light at the unit’s base. Brenneman, who was accustomed to giving orders and seeing people obey them, silently watched her from his barstool.
“It’s hard to tell. “Sight” something?” she said, squinting, standing on her toes.
“Hi-Sight. Yes. Thank you.”
As far as brand names in the surveillance sector go, Hi-Sight was always a little too British, a little too on-the-nose. But that was the company’s legacy. Hi-Sight captured market share in the UK as a value brand in the late nineties, established a footprint in Western Europe and the States shortly thereafter, and went on to become one of the top three manufacturers in the world. These days, Hi-Sight offered cameras with facial recognition, advanced analytics, spectacular night vision capabilities, explosion-proof casings, the works, in addition to carrying the more affordable solutions that one would use to guard a storage shed or residential backyard.
You couldn’t install Hi-Sight cameras in federal buildings anymore, not since NDAA. Hotel bars in Tampa might soon become off-limits too. MacDill Air Force Base, home to CENTCOM and SOCOM, was just down the road. Even if the PRC wasn’t actively hacking in to eavesdrop on hotel goings-on (and there was no clear evidence that they were), the presence of Hi-Sight tech could alienate the national-security types that booked rooms there.
“Are you a camera salesman?” the bartender asked, signaling a measure of irritation about the chair escapade.
If she only knew. A few months ago, Brenneman sold security cameras by the tens of thousands. He ran a distribution business for security pros with an online and a brick-and-mortar presence throughout the U.S. and Europe. Tony Stone gets the surveillance gear he needs at the Tampa store, located in an industrial park seven miles away from where the inconvenienced bartender stood.
“I was in the business for a few years,” Brenneman said.
“Cool. Ready for another?” she asked.
“Sure. Let’s make it a Scotch. Neat.”
Did Tony Stone install the cameras here too? Probably not. Tony seemed like the classic “guy in a van,” the one-man operation cruising all over Tampa, installing security systems in local bakeries and bait shops, drumming up jobs in church or at the local bar. The hotel, whose core clientele consisted of people like Brenneman, would book a way less colorful vendor through their corporate office. They would contract the job out to a company with a name like Florida Security LLC or Surveillance Plus. Not a guy in a van like Tony Stone.
Tony Stone would always comment when a certain trade publication ran hostile articles about Hi-Sight, Brenneman, the company Brenneman led, or some combination of the three. Tony would post responses like:
“My customers down here in Tampa don’t care if Hi-Sight comes from China. They just want good cameras that will keep their families and businesses safe. Get out of your own asses!”
“You talk about Brenneman like he’s this red commie. If you want to talk about the guy, talk about how much the experience at the local store has improved over the last two years. It’s so much better! Dude served in the military. Don’t tell me he’s not a capitalist.”
“Your obsession with Hi-Sight is bullshit. Delete my comment if you want, but my customers love that brand. Hi-Sight is the best on the market and has been for the last ten years!”
“Marlboro makes cigs. Remington makes bullets. Talk about that for a change.”
“Do you know how much Athena (an NDAA-complaint video surveillance brand) marks their product up? Half my customers can’t afford it and, honestly, Athena makes junk.”
Tony Stone, the little brother that Brenneman never had.
Brenneman settled into his Scotch, picking up a light buzz. As with profanity, drunkenness was a vice Brenneman rarely indulged. He was glad that Broussard had to go home. His buddy’s positivity and loyal support was appreciated, but lonely drinking and solitary examinations of his own conscience was the direction that Brenneman’s night seemed to be heading.
He raised his glass, silently toasting the Tony Stones of the world.
***
Brenneman, drunk from the Scotch, returned to his room. He buzzed himself in, using an access-control device that his former firm kept stocked in its distribution centers. Brenneman didn’t know anything to speak of about the company that manufactured it. Not like he knew the big Chinese brands.
Brenneman gazed out the picture window, inspecting the pool several stories down. A pair of swimmers, toy soldier-sized from Brenneman’s altitude, congregated near the steps. They were doubtlessly being watched over by a Hi-Sight technology. It would be an outdoor Vandal Dome, sturdy enough to withstand a passing hurricane or a hard whack from an unruly hotel guest, feeding footage to an NVR staged near the front desk.
It would be nice to relocate to Tampa, leaving the cold and excessive cost-of-living of the Northeast behind. There would be fishing expeditions, golf all year round, and an enclosed porch where Brenneman and his wife could sip sweet tea on the Fourth of July. Brenneman was closing in on retirement, and Florida is where the northern retirees go. The price of landing a CEO gig with Trust Logistics would be that Brenneman would be signing onto a smaller firm offering less money than he was accustomed to, brought into the business by a personal connection. He would be leaving larger and better opportunities on his plate, untouched. Those opportunities, those more lucrative paths, all revolved around Brenneman’s most in-demand skill – getting controversial Chinese technology into American and European markets.
Brenneman used to experience the occasional misgiving around his former role. They would bubble up, out of nowhere, in certain closed-door strategy sessions or during the genial, all-too-relaxed meetings that took place in mainland China. Brenneman was always able to push the misgiving back down. He would tell himself:
It’s a free-market economy. “The troops” (as he called his team) and the shareholders were depending on Cedric Brenneman to get results. The risks around Chinese espionage vis-à-vis technology exports have been breathlessly overstated by a sensationalizing media and xenophobic axe grinders. Uighur repression (which Hi-Sight surveillance solutions were said to play a central role in facilitating) was a concern so murky and entrenched in Asian geography, history, and politics that an American CEO couldn’t influence the matter, even if he wanted to. Robust U.S.-Chinese economic relations helped stabilize an increasingly perilous international situation, maybe to the point of forestalling or preventing war. Trade made peace.
Everybody in the surveillance vertical sold these brands.
Tony Stone down in Tampa loved Hi-Sight, and so did his customers.
Brenneman gave in to a strange impulse. He got on LinkedIn, looked up Tony Stone of Tampa, Florida, and sent him a message:
“Hi Tony, Cedric Brenneman here. While I am no longer with the Company, I am both intrigued by and appreciative of your consistent support over the last several years. I am in Tampa until tomorrow afternoon and was wondering if you were free to get a cup of coffee.”
That’s what Brenneman needed, a real customer, someone who could tell him he had been right – morally, practically, strategically – about everything.
Brenneman hit send. He regretted it immediately.
What would coffee with Tony Stone be like? What would the two men, the corporate CEO and the guy in the van, make of each other? Would Tony shower Brenneman with admiration in an awkward, local-yokel way? Would Tony use their meeting to bitch about conditions at the Tampa store, citing mundane irritants like the high price of CAT6e cabling, the long wait at the will-call counter, and the COVID-era removal of the complementary popcorn machine, even though Brenneman held no sway in these matters anymore?
Brenneman studied Tony Stone’s sparse LinkedIn profile, complete with a recklessly cropped pic of a suntanned man in a t-shirt standing near a palm tree, and reflected on his own silly, drunken miscalculation. Maybe Brenneman could skip coffee with Tony Stone, claiming that his social media accounts had been hacked.
He shrugged and went to sleep.
***
Brenneman’s bladder and Scotch-dried mouth woke him up at four AM. When Brenneman returned to bed, he checked his phone. Surprisingly, there was an afterhours message from Tony Stone himself:
“Nice to hear from you, Cedric. I’ve been very sick and won’t be able to meet you tomorrow. I haven’t been able to work for awhile and am staying with family in another city. Can we meet next time?”
Brenneman immediately realized that Tony Stone was not real. There was no guy, there was no van. There was an internet presence designed for the conduct of international business and, possibly beyond that, the facilitation of PRC foreign policy. Tony Stone was somebody else’s mouthpiece. Judging by the late hour, Tony’s puppeteer could be a Chinese national, located abroad. Alternatively, an American connected with the company’s domestic subsidiary, Hi-Sight USA, could be the one stuffing blue-collar idioms in Tony Stone’s mouth. Tony Stone could also be someone who once worked for Brenneman, a zealous employee who had seen the numbers and correctly comprehended the company’s true strategic position.
Tony Stone could be anyone.
It then occurred to Brenneman that he himself, with his military bearing and distinguished looks, had been ruthlessly selected by the parent company and the board of directors to get Hi-Sight products in the hands of indifferent consumers. He was their all-American cover.
The hostile trade publication made this claim about Brenneman more than once, but the publication’s hysterical, pious editorial voice had a way of positioning Brenneman as a Manchurian Candidate figure, a sinister sleeper agent huddled with CCP overlords in a smoke-filled room in Hangzhou, gulping down Kweichow Moutai. Brenneman read these portrayals and found them so over the top, so out of touch with what he knew about himself and what he had seen with his own two eyes, that any residual truth failed to sink in.
Of course, no smoke-filled room in Hangzhou was necessary. What was needed was a vast apparatus of quarterly reports, performance reviews, marketing campaigns, strategy calls, business metrics, web analytics findings, an infinite number of corporate structures and relays. Brenneman pictured an immense blob that no one person controlled at any one time. The blob slid downhill toward money, market share, influence, enlightened self-interest, all the things that everybody in the world was after.
Hi-Sight was good business, Brenneman decided, and good business was all that could be expected of anybody.
In other words, there was nothing to be done. Brenneman went back to sleep in his hotel bed. He dreamed of pregnant women huddled together by the hundreds in a lush, green valley (a seven-foot-tall bartender materialized to inform Brenneman that “There are Uighurs and other folks to be sorted down there”). On a nearby ridgetop stood the retired Hi-Sight stick-figure logo, redder than ever, with its freakishly long arms extended skyward into a triumphant Y.
The World Today
In depth analysis and journalism to educate the warfighter on the most important issues around the world today.
Cognitive Warfare: Infinite complexity, Part II - Jason Wang
NATO ACT, Communications – Navanti, Account Manager – Johns Hopkins Public Health, Toxicology and Human Risk. Views and opinions in this article represent my own and do not represent any official views of NATO or any other entities.
Previously, our discussion on Cognitive Warfare focused on laying a foundation of understanding, particularly as a background framework. Hopefully you have had some time to consider how aspects of Cognitive Warfare apply. Here is a piece that I recently wrote, covering a bit more on this key concept. A quick and shortened refresher:
Cognitive Warfare: activities affecting attitudes, cognition, and behaviors that result in change. Generally conducted by parties with a general/specific intention, in synchronization with other efforts of warfare, to include singular/multi-domain operations.
Possible applications: degradation of civil infrastructure, lowered mental resilience, increase in societal distrust, aggregation of central powers, situational dependency/desensitization
A deeper dive into the 5 W’s will illuminate a few more practical applications of Cognitive Warfare, to which I am sure you can add your own analysis and examinations. I will highlight how Cognitive Warfare displays in both theoretical and applicational settings.
Who: Who are the aggressors, who are the targets?
Theory: Consider the standard force structure in an engagement. Allied/enemy compositions/dispositions, military/civilian objectives, clear command structures, unit alignments, etc. As the world continues to become intertwined, this becomes a key part of strategy: every additional node in a network becomes an additional point of potential cognitive exploitation. This is quite different from operational preparation of the battlefield, or systematic CARVER/COA analysis: again, ALL NODES that are potentially involved in competition or conflict are now potential targets, and simultaneously, potential aggressors. Thank your local influencer.
Application: Typical phising attempts against service members or their families have already evolved to influence campaigns; convincing a child to trust the motto of the state or that their parents are “bad” is a classic Marxist/Communist strategy, read up on some historical examples like the Chinese Cultural Revolution. However, a whole-of-society approach to this in a Cognitive Warfare application would look much more subtle, with the intent to damage mental acuity, lower cognitive resilience, increase societal conflict, and inhibit self-regulation. Sound familiar?
What: What are facts?
Theory: Manipulation of perceptions, influence of beliefs and actions, etc.
Application: InstaTok’s algorithm says it will show you all data, all the time, with unbiased generation of recommendations. InstaWeChat’s algorithm also says it will show you all data, all the time, with unbiased generation of recommendations. Yet, in testing, InstaTok and InstaWeChat produce different results: one shows funny dog videos, the other shows depressing self-harm messaging. Apply at scale, and consider the population behavior changes are happening. No, swiping is not a natural biological behavior, and if I see another 3-year-old try to swipe at thin air, I am going to ask their parents about how they formed said pattern.
Where: Media and locality
Theory: If you and 99 strangers arrive in resource-rich Pineland for 1 year, with no possible external stimuli, my guess is that most of your lives would continue on, adjusted for practical living standards and behaviors. Live off the land, make friends, survive, have fun, don’t die of dysentery, hierarchy of needs, etc. Now, think of the last place that didn’t have a screen or an artificially induced sound, image, experience, etc… see an issue with a modern landscape? Where, as it pertains to Cognitive Warfare, for most people, is everywhere. Not a pessimist, just an observation: go out and touch grass, it will be harder to convince you that grass is racist.
Application: Digital dependency is one of the greatest acceptances of modern slavery. Most of us don’t know how to build 3nm chips or MIMO-antennas, or become self-sufficient internet service providers. So why become totally dependent on something you aren’t willing to engage in? Sure, we will continue to technologically integrate, but the more you depend on an artificial setting, the more risk you incur. Ask anyone who spent prolonged times locking themselves inside (whether out of fear or obedience or whatever else is another discussion) how it felt =, and don’t get me started on the cognitive modification that China just induced through its lockdown campaigns for the past few years. Once again, no screens, go out and touch grass for 48+ hours: amazing how much the mind can fortify itself.
When: The 24-hour news cycle is replaced by a 24-hour *insert notification sound here*
Theory: If you are tired and exhausted, you have increased risk of physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, etc. damage. I guess making an enemy tired is a logical theory.
Application: Why feel refreshed when you can porn-out and feel depressed? Why feel relaxed when you can hyper-stimulate and feel anxious? Why feel balanced when you can compare to artificial standards and feel inadequate? Of course, there’s always moderation, but Cognitive Warfare isn’t the high-tempo patrol base activity you might be familiar with – it often runs akin to a slow leak in the tank, one that an enemy would do much to conceal.
Why: All warfare is deception, victory through unconventional means - Sun Tzu, probably
Theory: Autocracy and Democracy are not friends, regardless of what a few hundred years of law suggest. If you want power, you must enforce it. If you want peace, you must defend it.
Application: See 1984 – “Don’t you see that the whole aim… is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” Too bad for our enemies that it’s impossible to influence our courageous, disciplined, and lethal military into a weak and apathetic blob of shit…wait a minute.
We will analyze an ongoing scenario in the next series, hopefully this sheds some light on the power that individual liberties bring. Be pragmatic and willing to engage in freedom of thought, but always remember that your mind is the most powerful thing in your possession; how you think makes who you are. Get up, train, study, rest, socialize, respect, and be the good troop.
Opinion
Op Eds and general thought pieces meant to spark conversation and introspection.
The Perfect Circle - Johnathan Wittcop
Johnathan A. Wittcop is a Active Duty Marine currently with Headquarters Battalion, Marine Corps Base Hawaii. Born in Buffalo, New York, he had initially had the idea to serve in the United States Military through his uncle, who served in the United States Army for 14 years. I would personally like to thank Donald Reynolds, Julian Tsukano, Justice Cash, Garret Adcock and Kabrion Rolle for their support and recommendations for submitting this thesis.
This all started with two questions; how can one learn, as fast and effectively as possible? What makes what I’m doing possible?
Through my own experiences, after having played games like Killer Instinct, Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter in my youth, there was always a concept that hit me like a brick: “The Fundamentals”, which was having an understanding of all the frame data and spacing of your moves in the game and how they affected your matches. Essentially, what were the rules, what made everything work?
A lack of understanding the fundamentals would show in your online matches.It especially showed in mine, until I actually took the time to learn the fundamentals. I would’ve rather been practicing combos(things that just looked cool). Once I actually did practice fundamentals, though, I rapidly progressed, getting to a competitive level in those games.
This can also be applied to shooting, which in every way is fundamentally based.One cannot shoot well without having good fundamentals. Even if there are outliers(people that can pick up a gun and shoot a bird that’s 300 yards away) they couldn’t have done it without a grasp on how to shoot, however innate the skill might be to them. That is not what I’ll be discussing today, though. Everyone who goes through basic military training will learn their fundamentals in shooting: stability of hold, aiming, breath control, trigger control, and follow through. The application of which will be on display on our chests in the form of marksmanship badges.
In drawing into the experiences of a mentor of mine “…I became very good at Urban Operations, room clearing etc. but, I have never been good at Jungle Warfare, because I haven’t done it. If you were to give me an actual map of a place like Okinawa, the moment I saw the elevations, I would be lost”.
This told me that he never learned how to apply his skills cross-disciplinarily. He knew how to deploy himself and his team on flat land, but in the midst of it all, missed a key fundamental in land navigation, which weakened his understanding. Though I guarantee you, he could go on all day about explaining PICMDEEP and the employment of Machine Gunners.
In any SOF selection, the instructors will look for people that have extra skills, and will achieve this by giving people random, unrelated tasks during selection. What they want is a team of Polymaths. By definition, “a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas; such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems”.
This is desirable because it makes your team adaptable, and prepared for virtually any situation. Understanding a broad amount of skills is a power, and this desire should be standardized in every boot camp in the DOD.
A historical example of someone who used fundamentals to get ahead in their profession is available in the late 13th and beginning of the 14th century, during a period of time known as the Italian Proto-Renaissance. A Florentine painter, sculptor and architect named Giotto di Bondone (Giotto of Florence), generally considered the first genius of the Italian Renaissance, had risen to fame across Italy. His rise to fame began when Pope Benedict XI, between 1290-1295, sent out a courtier to have a viewing for a commission to decorate the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in the Vatican. When the courtier arrived at Giotto's studio in Florence after making stops in Siena to collect drawings from the other artists that had also been subject to the viewing, he asked Giotto for a drawing to take back to the Pope.
Mind you, there had been other works that would’ve been considered to be masterpieces, to the same degree that many of Van Gogh’s paintings are to this day. But rather than taking a considerably painstaking amount of time, Giotto simply drew out a perfect circle, free handed in less than 5 seconds, visually the same as if he used a drawing compass. The courtier dismissed the drawing and asked for another one, to which Giotto replied “this is enough, and more than enough”.
The courtier took this drawing, along with all the others that had been collected, and gave them to the Pope for viewing. When the Pope saw Giotto’s circle, he was understandably dismissive. Until the courtier explained how he had drawn it unaided. The Pope and his advisors had then realized just how much Giotto surpassed all the other painters of the era, andGiotto received the commission. That perfect circle was a better example of his mastery than a painting like the Mona-Lisa.
Fundamentals are basic in nature; devoid of creativity and boring to practice. However, they more clearly communicate to a seasoned practitioner that the individual has reached a level of competence.
Many in the field of artwork, when first starting out, will draw spontaneously, drawing without deliberately practicing and refining the core rudiments that make art, art.
Based on the merit and other forms of art Giotto had attained mastery over, such as sculpting, painting, architectural design: it can be deduced that mastery over the basics transfers over cross-compatible skills and disciplines. I.e. fundamentals are synergistic, specifically to a body of skills that don’t interfere or impede with each other, and actually aid in the process of developing interdisciplinary skills. This is important, because pulling this thought into the profession in arms, it is important to not have a singular specialty, and not just be a one trick pony.
“If we look at the world we see art for sale. Men use equipment to sell their own selves. As if with the seed and the flower, the seed has become less than the flower. In this kind of strategy, both those teaching and those learning the way are concerned with coloring and showing off their technique, trying to hasten the bloom of the flower.”
-Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings, pp. 9
Recommended follow-on reading:
Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin
Mastery by Robert Greene
Curious by Ian Leslie
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
No Answers, Only Questions - Jared Prewitt
I’m spit balling here, I don’t know the answers, but I have questions and maybe a suggestion or two.
As former or current warfighters we must be able to reconcile the nature of our job, killing the enemy, and dealing with the enemy killing us.
We dehumanize our enemies for a reason.
It makes them easier to kill.
Back in the early aughts of the 21st century, we dealt with suicide very differently than today. We never talked about suicide and when we did, well…
Back then, grunts busted each other’s balls with no worries about being politically correct. A common retort going back and forth exchanging jabs was, “go kill yourself.”
It was in jest, but did those “go kill yourself” retorts have an inadvertent side effect?
Did we dehumanize each other just like we did the enemy?
After all, it makes our death easier to live with if we’re just another marine.
A trooper.
A grunt.
A statistic.
But we’re humans.
Life is not something we should give up so easily nor is it something we should turn up a cynical nose at.
Yet, what if we thought our life should be given up easily. As in, I’d give my life for my country without a second thought.
I’m a burden to my family.
I can’t go on like this.
It’d make everything better if I wasn’t here.
Can that patriotism become so blurry that killing oneself seems the same as dying in defense of our country?
Removing the veteran suicide stigma shouldn’t require us to be inundated with it. I don’t see the benefit of being asked if I’m suicidal every time I step into the VA. In fact, one could argue it revitalizes suicidal ideology.
Just because it’s ok to talk about it, doesn’t mean it should be.
I’m all for awareness, but is it possible that it goes too far? So far that it becomes skewed into glorifying the thing it’s trying to stop?
I don’t know the answer.
I don’t think there is one.
I believe we can reduce suicide, but it will always exist just like evil.
We get one life on this planet.
Be a human, not a statistic.
What do you think?
Poetry and Art
Poetry and art from the warfighting community.
Remnants - Erik Huertas @wandering_lottie
Mato Heton, Little Big Horn, MT. -The hollowed ground where Mato Heton took his final breaths on 25JUN1876
To the Last Stand, Little Big Horn, MT. -The Hollowed ground where two 7th Cavalry soldiers took their final breaths, 25JUN1876
Industrializing the Fields of the Fallen, Chalmette, LA -A smoke stack paints the horizon beyond the Andrew Jackson Headquarters House during the Battle of New Orleans
Guns Forward, Chalmette, LA -A cannon aims towards the near-forgotten Chalmette Battlefield that saw the Battle of New Orleans
The Guns of Piti, Piti, Guam -A Japanese Coastal Defense weapon is overtaken by the Jungle at the Piti Guns
Ga'an Point, Ga'an, Guam -An anti-aircraft emplacement is overtaken by the jungle at Ga'an Point
Salted Dog - Nicholson Kennedy
Nicholson Twidale Kennedy is a Marine 1stLt stationed at Camp Pendleton. He lived in Decatur, Georgia until age 13 and Denver, Colorado from the age of 13 to 24. He graduated from CU Boulder in December of 2017 and was commissioned as a 2ndLt in the Marine Corps in March of 2020.
Angry man
Grizzled man
Why do you growl and smolder?
Your life here
The one you chose
Has made you so much older
The days are long
The weeks are short
The years fly past like cars
You watch the young
Past versions of you
Cut their teeth and blow their checks at bars
You gave yourself
Time took the rest
You shouldered its inevitable toll
You lost friends
You found God
The grinding waves of life and death swept and shaped your soul
You’re still here
Watching over us
Though you glare and growl the day through
Maybe someday
I too will smolder
Maybe someday I’ll stand as tall as you.
Choices - Douglas Patteson
In the darkness
Left to your own guises
What do you choose?
Virtue? Or vices?
Trying to Remember - Douglas Patteson
I should sleep
But rest escapes me
My mind races
Snippets, ideas
Past is prologue
The future uncertain
I need to write it down
For in the morning, only
Traces
——————————
This ends Volume 12, Edition 1, of the Lethal Minds Journal (01JUNE2023)
The window is now open for Lethal Minds’ thirteenth volume, releasing July 1st, 2023.
All art and picture submissions are due as PDFs or JPEG files to our email by midnight on 20 June.
All written submissions are due as 12 point font, double spaced, Word documents to our email by midnight on 20 June.
lethalmindsjournal@gmail.com
Special thanks to the volunteers and team that made this journal possible: