I had this God awful dream at 4 a.m. today.  I dreamed about the British Foreign Secretary Hague.  He was acting all splenetic, and I was desperately trying to find the right piece of information to please him.  I woke up drenched in sweat, and I could not fall asleep after that.

I honestly think that the British government is conspiring to take over my life.  It seems like I cannot pick up a rock and throw it anywhere without hitting a Brit.  I mean, there is a British guy who kicks my ass in CrossFit in the mornings.  My toddlers play with a British toddler at their childcare center.  I could swear I even heard a British accent when they gabbled recently.  There is this British guy here at work, and my desk is next to his.  I have to register every time I hunt with a British lady that works at my military base.  A British landlord takes my money for rent every month.  Even my GPS speaks to me with a British accent, for crying out loud.

 I should have started seeing indicators that this was bound to happened back in 1998, when I saw real Brits for the first time in my life.  They were the instructors at the British Interrogation Course that I attended, and I could not understand like 90% of whatever they were saying.  You see, I had been only speaking (American) English for six years at that point of my life.

I will never forget the final exam at that interrogation course.  We were to do a complete interrogation, from the start to finish.  We were to interrogate our instructors, so they can properly evaluate our tradecraft.  A complete interrogation always starts with a full body search.  When I told my “detainee” to drop his pants so I could search him, it turned out that he was wearing thong underwear, and the front part of it had a happy elephant face.  I am talking, the elephant was complete, with a long trunk, at the end of which there was a little cute jingle bell.  And it is not even that my British instructor was some handsome chiseled Secret Air Service guy, because he wasn’t; he was a middle aged male with a prominent Guinness belly.  I think I have been traumatized for life that day.

Word of the Day

splenetic \spli-NET-ik, adjective:

1. irritable; peevish; spiteful.

2. of the spleen; splenic.

3. Obsolete. affected with, characterized by, or tending to produce melancholy.

noun:

1. a splenetic person.

You see, she stoutly maintained the belief that beneath this splenetic and ogreish exterior there beat a heart of gold, though this I imagine was something she had to do, the idea that her father was splenetic and ogreish all the way through being just too grim to contemplate.

— Patrick McGrath, The Grotesque, 1989

It is true, when the wind is easterly, or the gout gives him a gentle twinge, or he hears of any new successes of the French, he will become a little splenetic; and heaven help the man…that crosses his humor.

— Washington Irving, Samalagundi, 1807

Sharing its root with spleen, splenetic entered English at the turn of the fourteenth century, and comes from the Proto-Indo-European splegh-.

Here is the next part of the story.  I am sorry for not starting it with a cute short story in which I sneak in a Word of the Day.  It just did not seem appropriate.

Vet’s Story, part IV

Right after Christmas I left for Germany.  It was probably the worst mistake I’ve ever made.  At first everything was ok, but the people above me just didn’t seem that smart.

I felt bad for the new guys the guys that hadn’t deployed yet; I was scared for them not like in Afghanistan, scared that something bad could happen.  I was worried that the leaders had no idea what they were doing, even before we ever left Germany.

My wife shipped out to basic and her advanced NBC training.  After she graduated, she came out to Germany.  Although we were married, we lived in separate barracks and in separate bases.  My wife and I did get to spend a few months together, around three, I think.

I knew I was deploying when I first got to Germany; they already had orders for us to deploy to Iraq.  So in June we deployed to Iraq.

Iraq sucked from the time I arrived.  From what I got from the soldiers who already have been there, we just made things worse.

I spent the first few months in Southern part of Baghdad.  At that time the word on the street was that there was a sniper problem.  It was more than just a rumor.

Honestly I had no idea what we were doing.  I mean I knew what the mission was for any given day, I knew who we where raiding where we were patrolling, but as far as an overall goal I don’t think we had one.

My wife was now a mother; my newborn son’s name is Jahred.  My mom was trying to take my son, yes, while I was in Iraq.

She told my wife that she wanted to make up for her mistakes.  Really, I have never thought I would have to protect my son from my own mother.  I always knew that I had to protect myself from her but not my son.   Any trust we had soon faded.

So now I didn’t feel good.   People where getting hurt mainly due to incompetence of people above me.   I told them we were gonna get killed doing this stupid shit; of course they would never listen to me.

As a result of all the events surrounding me, I developed an attitude.  Well, actually I already had one, now I was just pissed off as well.

So, they were “nice” enough to send me to the Green Zone.  I was supposed to work in the Detention Center along with the MPs.

I took the night shift. It wasn’t what I was used to, but not difficult at all.

I learned a lot from them not just from the MPs but from the Iraqis as well.  They had time, it’s not like they had anywhere else to go, so we talked.

It was a few months before I was sent back to my unit.  Soon I went on leave after 13 months in that country.

I never went back.  I’m not the kind of person that plans anything.  Deep inside I know why I did it.

I didn’t know what to do with my son.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  All I knew was that I had to be there for my son.

I didn’t go back to Louisa or any family, I didn’t trust them.  I mean I trusted Louisa,  just not anyone else.

I had NO idea what I was doing, I really didn’t.  I can only honestly say that the final reason for me not returning to war was my son.  I know it after all these years.

So, for the first two years of his life he didn’t have his daddy.  They did find me though.

They were actually really cool about the whole thing. In just a few weeks I was cleared out of the army.  Still I didn’t go home after all. I think my wife hated me at this point. I understand why. I hated me.

Word of the Day

gorgonize \GAWR-guh-nahyz, verb:

To affect as a Gorgon; hypnotize; petrify.

Shorten it, then, to what is functional, direct and bluntly, derogatorily descriptive. Of his awful power to horrify, to gorgonize, to chill.

— Christopher Rush, Last Lesson of the Afternoon

Mortimo Planno could gorgonize foes with a stony stare, but his deep baritone voice was seductive and unexpectedly disarming.

— Colin Grant, The Natural Mystics

Gorgonize is the verbification of an ancient Greek mythological figure. The Gorgons were three sister monsters commonly represented as having snakes for hair, wings, and brazen claws. Their eyes turned anyone looking into them to stone. Thus to gorgonize someone is to turn them into stone.

If I might say so in the epexegesis, here is a third part of the Veteran’s story.  suggested to the guy that he starts a blog, he is good with words, and has a writing style that just pulls the reader into his world.  His story deserves to be heard, wouldn’t you think so?

Vet’s Story, Part III

My year long tour in Afghanistan came to an end and I returned to Hawaii where I spent another year.  I wanted to go home.  Finally, on my 21st birthday, I was waiting for my flight home.

They say everything happens for a reason I am a firm believer in this.  I do wish that right there and then I would have realized that I didn’t have a home.  I was already home.

Stupid me.

I went to San Antonio, Texas.  Life was difficult.  I still had some money left, but I had no idea where to go or what to do.  I was completely lost.

I stared drinking.  I drank a lot.

I met a girl who is now my wife at the bar.  She was working there.

I didn’t really want to talk to anyone, but we started talking and we hit it off right away.  We started dating.  Sure, it wasn’t the “perfect relationship” but who has one anyway, right?

She quit working as a bartender and I had no job, no education, and no civilian training.  I had nothing.  This is when I proposed to her, and of course, she said “yes”.

Times got harder as you can imagine; we couldn’t pay any bills and soon our electricity and water were cut off too.

With nowhere to go, my father-in-law took us in. What a great guy.

I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing any longer.  Well, I guess I could, but it didn’t feel good on the inside.

So I did the only thing I knew I could do.  I joined the Army, again.

I told my wife what I was going to do, and I guess she thought it was great.  We talked for awhile about it.  She always wanted to join too, so she went with me to talk to the recruiter.

It was a lot easier for them this time, not much really to do, just sign right here and we will put you right back in the uniform.  I had to even convince them to let me stay until Christmas.  They agreed.

My wife had to go through the whole enlistment process but she was not alone like I was a few years back.

When I got to the MEPS in San Antonio, they actually gave the choice of where I could go.

Anywhere, really.  Anywhere in the world where the US Army had infantry brigades.

The recruiter just made a list of all the places I could go and I thought it was pretty cool that I got to pick.  I was a master of my destiny for once, not merely requesting and hoping that my request will be approved.

After talking to my wife who was also at the MEPS with me at this time, I decided I would go to Germany.  Both of my parents were in the Army when I was growing up and I spent a lot time in Germany.  My wife hadn’t been in many places.  I really wanted to show her something “new”.

Word of the Day

epexegesis \ep-ek-si-JEE-sis, noun:

1. the addition of a word or words to explain a preceding word or sentence.

2. the word or words so added.

But you did establish personal contact? In epexegesis or on a point of order?

— James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake

One of the most striking peculiarities of colloquial speech in Dutch, and of natural free talk in general, is what is called epexegesis.

— Jan Gonda, Selected Studies

Epexegesis, a late Renaissance word, is derived from the Greek epexḗgēsis meaning explanation.

A friend of mine asked me yesterday why I am doing this, why I am writing these Words Of  The Day.  For me writing is therapeutic, I love to fill blank pages with my writing, it helps me feel better.  I also try to learn a new English word each day, hence the Word of the Day.  Once I write something, I like to share it with my friends.

But the story below is not my story.  Please don’t see it as a pseudepigraphy, I am not claiming a credit for it.  I do think that the guy who writes it is a natural; I honestly can hardly stop reading the stuff that he sends to me.  It is really good.

Continuation of The Vet’s Story…

Eventually I was assigned to Charlie Company, 2^nd Battalion 35^th Infantry Regiment.  I spent about a year on the island learning, training, and playing in my time off.   It was a blast.

Then we received orders to deploy, at first I didn’t know if it was Afghanistan or Iraq but it really didn’t matter.   I was scared not just for me but for everyone I knew.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was scared. I didn’t have a family but some of the others did. I was afraid for them as well.

Afghanistan is where we ended up.  Kandahar airfield greeted us with a wave of hot air, when the airplane opened its doors it seemed like you stuck you head into an oven.

The first few days i didn’t feel anything.  I didn’t want to feel anything.

It was a slow start for us; the airfield was safe so we were able to get our stuff together.   For the first few days we slept in big hanger right there bythe tarmac. Army is a small world they say; I came across a few friends I made in basic training.   They were there with the 2^nd of the 22^nd Infantry Regiment from the 10^th Mountain Division.  We were taking over their mission so they could go home. I felt bad for them; I left Fort Benning, Georgia and went to Hawaii while they came straight out here. I felt guilty in a sense, so I was happy that I finally got to theater, ready to do my duty.  All I wanted is to take over their mission, so they can go home. I think that was the day I started to realize that we were ALL in this together one way or another.

I could probably talk for days about Afghanistan. It was the proudest time of my life.

I was just a private then, so I couldn’t see the big picture, but I knew always what we were doing.  The more time we spent out there, the more I understood why we were there.  I didn’t really care what the politicians were saying.

The Afghanis really needed our help, they probably still do.

We flew in helicopters; we walked through mountain ranges and we drove all over the desert.  We visited farming villages, small towns, and even a city.

I sat there in my hummer and watched as the Americans brought them food, water, supplies, toys and school items: books, colors, pencils, and things like that.

We actually did more than just deliver these things.  I watched as the contractors paid with American money built wells in the towns and villages that had no access to fresh water,  as they built and repaired schools in areas when not too many people could read.

And I’m sure there was so much more that I didn’t even notice.

The best moment of my trip there, was the day when the local kids finally went back to school.   They were so exited.  I was excited for them.

To be continued…

Word of the Day

pseudepigraphy \soo-duh-PIG-ruh-fee, noun:

The false ascription of a piece of writing to an author.

But the apocalyptic seers were usually not content with mere anonymity; they generally practiced pseudepigraphy.

— Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah

Even this gimmick exactly parallels the ancient scriptural practice of pseudepigraphy whereby a later, undistinguished writer, would hide behind thename of a greater figure of the past, claiming venerable authority for his own innovations.

— R. M. Price, C. A. Smith, The Book of Eibon

Pseudopigraphy was first used in the 1830s, but a related word pseudepigrapha dates back to the 1600s. In Greek, the word epigraph meant “title, ascription to an author.” With the prefix pseud, it literally means “false ascription to an author.”

Today we will try something different. When I was in Afghanistan I had an honor of serving in the same platoon with a guy who wrote the following story. I strongly believe that a story like this belongs in feuilleton, that it needs to be published and heard so I got his permission to share it with you. Today is part I.

I am a combat vet. This is my story. Well I guess I will just start at the beginning.

I was born February 19, 1985. When I was young just a baby, my father shot himself. My mom was in the Army at this time. She remarried and he eventually legally adopted me. I think I was around 12 years old then.

Growing up my life wasn’t too difficult; I spent most of my time alone. It bothered me at first, but by the time I got to high school, I just didn’t care anymore. My grades dropped with every report card.

I remember I was in English class on Sept 11, 2001. We sat there in the classroom and watched it all live on T.V. Both my parents where in the Army and I was scared. They both had been to Desert Storm years ago when I was younger. As I sat in my room later on, I realized that my life sucked and I wasn’t heading in any direction.

Soon I dropped out of high school. I got my GED and then went to talk to an Army recruiter. I had a few job options to pick from because I scored well enough to get in on ASVAB.

I honestly don’t know why I picked the Infantry but I did.

On March 13, 2003 I set off for my new life. Ft Benning, Georgia is where we all go for infantry training. I arrived early in the morning by bus.

I had no idea what was going on. I just did what they told me to do. In a way I was scared, I wasn’t scared for my safety or my well being, it was a fear of the uncertainty of what the future holds.

At first I was at the reception battalion, I believe they call it 30th Replacement Battalion. I had been there for only a few days and I hadn’t received a combat uniform at this point, just an Army Physical Training uniform, when the drill sergeant came in banging on trash cans a little earlier then we had expected this morning. Everyone jumped out of bed and toed the line through the barracks.

He told us that we were at war with Iraq now. They had just started the air raids. We all already knew about the war in Afghanistan. Everyone got this uneasy feeling. Then the drill sergeant told us to back to bed, we were going to need the rest, as we were shipping down range the next day.

I can honestly say I enjoyed basic training. It was like my college, I had made friends, I learned so much about things I didn’t even know existed. We trained all the time, all day, and when I left that place I was in the best shape of my life even to this day.

I remember that my first road march was only 3 miles and I thought I was going to die. The last march we did was 12 miles and it just hurt.

Hawaii is where they told me I was going; that’s all I knew. I’m not going to lie I was so excited I always wanted to go to Hawaii. For the first time in life I felt like I was right where I was supposed to be. I couldn’t really begin to describe how I felt when I got off the plane. The cool fresh air, the bright blue skies, the beautiful flowers of every color made a real impact on me. This was just the airport. I just stood there outside breathing in my new life as an American Soldier. It was awesome.

I wasn’t the only new guy there that day; they had a non-commissioned-officer there waiting for everyone to arrive to give us a ride to Schoffield Barracks.

He took us on a nice ride from the airport to the base down by the beaches with the clear blue ocean that seemed to never end over the horizon and past the Aloha stadium. The stadium really stuck out in my head.

To be continued…

Word of the Day

feuilleton \FOI-i-tn, noun:

1. a part of a European newspaper devoted to light literature, fiction, criticism, etc.

2. an item printed in the feuilleton.

The editor is impressed by my work and says he will consider my feuilleton, if I submit it this afternoon.

— Selden Edwards, The Little Book

The novel in numbers is known with us, but the daily feuilleton has not yet been tried by our newspapers, the proprietors of some of which would, perhaps, do well to consider the matter.

— William Makepeace Thackeray, Jerome Paturot

Feuilleton originally referred to the light fiction or serial articles that commonly appeared in French newspapers in the 1840s after the fall of Napoleon. It is a diminutive form of the French word feuille meaning “leaf.”

So, yesterday I started a new course.  I figured that I need to get smarter, if I am to survive the rest of my assignment here.  Yesterday’s classes were pretty good, but today…  Oh my God, I seriously considered putting an end to my misery.  I mean, the classroom environment was classified, so did not even have a phone to play with.  Yeah, sure I had a computer sitting right before me, but the computer was classified too, which meant no fun, just work.  If there was a classified version of Facebook I would be all over it.

I thought it was just me, but one look at the antipathetic faces of my fellow students told that the feeling was universal.

Word of the Day

antipathetic \an-ti-puh-THET-ik, adjective:

1. Opposed, averse, or contrary; having or showing antipathy: They were antipathetic to many of the proposed changes .

2. Causing or likely to cause antipathy: The new management was antipathetic to all of us.

The Psalms are really antipathetic to the modern mind, because the modern mind is so abstracted and logical, it cannot bear the non-logical imagery of the Hebrew hymns, the sort of confusion, the never going straight ahead.

— D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse and the Writings on Revelation

Collingswood’s teachers had either been indifferent or mildly antipathetic to her. One man, her biology teacher, had more actively disliked her.

— China Miéville, Kraken

Antipathetic stems from the Greek root pathos which meant “suffering, sensation.” The Greek word antipathḗs meant “opposed in feeling.”

So, I have two toddlers. I love them to death, but I have to admit, I don’t get a whole lot of sleep lately. This makes it really hard for me to stay awake in classes. Not that the classes are boring, but for the most part of the day I am in that hypnopompic state, just struggling to keep my eyes open.

Today, however, it was different. We had a class on the nature of the threat, and it was a bit humorous to watch how the instructor step danced around trying to talk about the threat to the United States to the audience that included officers from the Middle East, Japan and Germany.

The guy was good I have to admit. He was a bit nervous when he talked about the Islamic extremists, he kept nervously checking out the reactions of our officers from Jordan and Lebanon. Then he switched to what he thought was a safer subject, the history. He analyzed the war in the Pacific, still choosing his words very carefully, trying really hard not to say anything that could offend the Japanese guy. He was even more careful when he talked about the war in Europe, considering the fact that we have not one, but two German officers.

I could almost hear him sighing with relief when he ventured to what he thought was a country neutral subject, the breaking of the German Enigma code. But that is when I stepped in. “What do you mean we broke the code”? – I could not resist. “It was the Polish guy who did it!” – I pretty much sharp shot him on the front of the class. Yeah, I can be a jack ass sometimes, I know, but I was not going to get him off without giving the credit where the credit was due.

Word of the Day for Thursday, January 17, 2013


hypnopompic \hip-nuh-POM-pik, adjective:

Of or pertaining to the semiconscious state prior to complete wakefulness.

He shudders, snaps himself out of it; as one can, with effort, do, to escape from a bad dream, working one’s way in stages, toward hypnopompic state until finally, fully awake.
— Mary Caponegro, The Star Cafe

He woke fitfully, from a dream where his work had gone terribly wrong. He was still hypnopompic.
— Richard Powers, The Echo Maker

Hypnopompic literally means “sending away sleep” in Greek. It was coined in English in the early 1900s from the roots hypno- meaning “sleep” and pomp meaning “sending away.”

So, I got an email about the Under Secretary of the Army visiting the Agency that I work for. I deleted it immediately, we get visits like all the time. Things like that don’t apply to me, I get to sit in the basement and I rarely get see the daylight anyway.

And then I see the email from the First Sergeant. It started “You have been selected to speak with the Under Secretary tomorrow. Please…” Holly crap. That means that I actually have to meet the guy!

Why me? I have no idea. I am just a douce major, I am neither the smartest, nor the most experienced, not even the best looking guy in my office. But for some strange reason I was selected to meet the Under Secretary for his “Talk with the Troops”.

And then I panicked. I’ve got to have a question or two prepared for him. I mean, what in the world do you ask the Under Secretary of the Army? First of all, I have no clue what the guy really does, second of all, what kind of question do you ask so you don’t make a fool out of yourself on the front of the others? I spent half of the day trying to think out a semi-coherent, semi-intelligent questions. I came out with something, but to be honest, it was crap. I threw it out right before the visit started.

Turns out I worried for nothing. The “talk with the troops” was squeezed into his agenda at the very end of the day, you could tell that the guy was exhausted already. I did not ask any questions. I let others make fools out of themselves by asking dumb questions.


Word of the Day for Sunday, December 23, 2012


douce \doos, adjective:

Sedate; modest; quiet.

“So should I have been, in my interview with Sir Thomas— how shall I put it— more douce?”
— Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall

Port Glasgow is to the east of Greenock, Gourock to the west. The latter town combines a douce middle-class residential area and a Ken MacLeod.
— Edited by Gardner Dozois, The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Nineteenth Annual Collection

Douce comes from the French word of the same spelling meaning “sweet.” It became widely used in English after it was used in the Chanson of Roland, a epic poem written about Charlemagne.

It is not a secret to anyone who knows me, that English is not my native language. I’ve been struggling with English since I got to this great Nation. The switch from the enlisted side to the officer corps was especially hard for me. I suddenly found myself among people who used words and phrases like “rotary wing aircraft”, “rail infrastructure” and “in order to” when they really meant “helicopter”, “railroad” and “to”. The general trend always was: “why say something with fewer and simpler words if you can say the same thing with more and fancier words?” This technique works especially well with power point presentations. The more complicated your presentation is, and the more words like “paradigm shift” and “synergy” you throw into it at random, the less likely a high ranking brass will try to sharp shoot you in the front of everyone.

I mean, I struggled at first. Since I became an officer ten years ago I made a conscious efforts to learn to write in hyperformal militareese jargon, because I did not want to look stupid on the front of other officers. In reality it was a nothing but a pseudology for me, because I wasn’t really speaking like this in the real life, I only used words like this when I wrote memos, evaluation reports and power point presentations. I got pretty good at it, I shall add.

And then today, I took a writing class for the Agency I work for. You could not believe the state of shock I experienced, when the instructor sacrificed almost an hour to pound into our heads to use simple words when writing reports, and that an average reader will not think more of you if throw some million-dollar-words into your writing. Wow. What a novel and genius idea. Why haven’t I thought about this earlier?

Word of the Day for Tuesday, January 8, 2013

pseudology \soo-DOL-uh-jee, noun:

Lying considered as an art.

For example, listening to the life history account of András Albert, a Transylvanian lumberman, the outsider may wonder how to distinguish fact from fiction, poetry from lie, and how to regard the relationship between pseudology and storytelling.

— Linda Dégh, Narratives in Society

So many people would love to get their hands on a machine that can inhibit pseudology, mendacity and falsehood. The police, Intelligence services, all sorts and conditions of interested agencies and institutions.

— Stephen Fry, The Liar

Pseudology comes from two Greek roots, pseudo- meaning “false” and -logy meaning “study of.” The word does not literally mean “the study of lying” but has come to embody the sense of “the art of lying.”

So, yesterday the jackpot for the Powerball was at its highest.  Half a billion dollars.  Wow, a lot of money.  People were going crazy here, at the Pentagon.  The few convenience stores, conveniently located in this symbol of National Power that sold lottery tickets, had mile long lines of government workers and military, some svelte, some rather big, all blinded by the hundreds of millions to be won.

Back in the office was no better.  The lottery jackpot was on everybody’s mind.  Everyone talked about it.  People pooled their money to increase their chance of winning.  I think if there was a new crisis that erupted unexpectedly somewhere in the world it would have gone unnoticed, all due to the lottery madness.

I had a share in that madness to be honest.  I bought a few tickets for myself too.  Two of the numbers fell on my sons birthdays, unfortunately I did not plan the birth of my third son right, so I did not win anything.  Sigh…

***

Word of the Day

svelte \SFELT, adjective:

1. Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure.

2. Suave; blandly urbane.

      In 1944 his mother had been a relatively svelte one hundred and eighty pounds.

      — Stephen King, It: A Novel

      “When I walk under one of the pathway lamps and look down you can indeed see the silhouette of my body which doesn’t look quite as svelte and hourglassy as I believe it did just an hour ago when I was admiring myself in the mirror.

      — Terry McMillan, How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Svelte enters English in 1800s from the French, and originally derives from the Latin verb exvellere, “to stretch out.”