R-0 Retirement - Rent's Paid Till The End Of The World

 “The service to others is the rent you pay for the room you have here on earth.”

Muhummad Ali

“...after 60 days and nights of constant combat, 98 percent of all soldiers became psychiatric casualties....What about the other two percent? They were aggressive sociopaths. They were apparently having a good time. (At least that is the conclusion of two World War II researchers, Swank and Marchand.) But recent research shows that that two percent breaks down into wolves and sheepdogs....

"Here is the point…. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn’t have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.

"If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior’s path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.”

Dave Grossman, "On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace"

“Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8

Done Now

And now, well over 50 uniformed years later, barely out of high school till today, I'm sandblasted down to near-nothing. Bled almost dry, I have but a small allotment left that, selfish pig that I am, I’m hoarding for myself.

I have been in combat now nonstop for decades more than many of them — many of you — have been alive, and more and more often these days it all seems for nothing. Is that true? Or just burnout talking? Doesn’t matter. There's no bitterness, not really. I'm just old. And I am tired.

I'm hard-headed though, and believed right and wrong really meant something. Still do, if it gets to that. But it’s a stark and lonely religion, simple and plain as a sun-bleached skull and, so far as I can tell, about as distastefully regarded by many. Most? Yeah, most.

But I stood the line, carrying with me the ghosts of my brothers, friends, mentors, rabbis, and blood kin who died for it. And lately in the whiskey-fumed dark I also increasingly bear their acid, mocking whispers.

The dead know the real secret, did you know that?

That it's better to be alive; all else is fading vapor and illusion.

Some nights their bitter laughter softly echoes through me for having wasted this gift of my life, the years they never had, on so pointless an exercise.

Was it a waste? I don’t know. It’s too big a question to undertake this late in the Game, far too late. I can only think that if I didn't like it, or at least wasn't getting something out of it, that I'd have done something else. 

No. Wrong reading. Take some responsibility: Yeah. I loved it. No one had a gun to my head.

But if the dead somehow rolled back the rock and stood living and breathing, blinking into a new sunrise, with another chance to live, would they take up their shields and swords again and stand their place on the line next to me? Would I if I were them? Would I let them?

No. Not even if they would, not if I could prevent it. Even now the sheepdog would try to protect them, drive them back from the crumbling edge, tell them to run from this collapsing battlement, to not die again for so little gain. And, yes, I’d die on that line to bring them back and let them escape if I could so they'd have the lives they should have had.

So, I'm stupid too, I guess. But I have learned some things. And stupid time is over. I'm finally ready to withdraw to my deserts and mountains and let the fucking place burn to the ground behind me. 

The sheep can line up for their turn on the altar for the ritual slaughter with no interference from me. I've done my time watching over them, trying to keep the silly, lemming-brained creatures safe while they wandered cluelessly about their pointless lives, peacock-strutting their colorfully useless ability to pretend they have the slightest idea how the world works.

How many of them have I saved? How many have I lost? How many wolves have I dragged from their predations into the dark? Have I paid the rent on my space here? That's the difference between sheepdogs and wolves, you know. That it matters. Wolves don't care. 

The sheep, of course, can't tell the difference. All they see is similar-shaped animals, toothed, clawed meat-eaters, capable of extreme and sudden violence -- as far as the sheep are concerned, we're all the same until the wolves begin tearing a bloody path through the flock. Then they suddenly cluster around us. And the next morning when the immediate threat is past, they cast us out again.

The answer is, I don’t know. I’ll never know. I only know it was all I could do. I hope it was enough and I hope that there’s another to step into my place. Because I’m not going to do it anymore.

And should the wolves and the bleating Quislings who have sold their people to them get their fill of the blood of the mewling flock and decide to turn their eyes to me and mine, they should come heavy.

Because even an old broken-down sheepdog — or will it be a wolf then? does it even matter these days? did it ever? — still hears the battle echoing in the distance and will not go down easily.