I wonder if every war generation takes to the road.

The lost Beat Generation in the shadow of the World Wars, then their resurgence as a Beatnik during the cold war, and then us… The generation of young people, often referred to as Generation-Y or Millennials, who grew up knowing the conflicts in Afghanisan and Iraq as a way of life. The 1990′s of peace is a far off memory, dead along with our fairy tales.

So I, unoriginal, shall also take to the road. Kerouac went from New York to San Francisco, then to the Southern lands.

Many of my peers found solace on a road trip across the country, for a time. Others, yet, went overseas.

I suppose my parents shot themselves in the foot when they took their Filipino-born child from Manila, to Switzerland and the US all within the span of ten years. Then in adulthood, that same little girl spent her first 7 years of adulthood living in 7 states.

Was it any surprise that when the student loans were gone, bills disappeared, and military obligation absolved, I longed for adventure? I was restless. I was in need of something more than a normal, calm, sedentary life.

A life without excitement is a life in Catatonia.

Someone I had known as a cadet, Alex Dudley, will also find his way onto the broken road and, somehow, we will begin a strange venture there that will pay for our way… hopefully it works. If it doesn’t, then no matter. The road is still life, and there will always be a means to feed ourselves.

Restless, discontent, and searching… wandering in search of something. But don’t mistake us for being lost. We wayfarers all have the same story; the conveyor belt life of school-job-retirement as the highest form of stability and success was ripped from us early. We went to school, got our college degrees and there were no jobs for us. There were no jobs for the over-educated, or the young.

“Pay your dues” they told us. Well, paying our dues doesn’t pay the student loans that we had been told to get as we went through college. As College costs rose, the grad school jobs paid less. How long are we supposed to pay our dues? Until the previous generation keels over and dies? How long will that be?

Corporations failed us. Government failed us. Conventional wisdom failed us.

The shining yuppy life became a joke. A symbol of consumerist detritus that did nothing but to take our power from us, push us into debt, and give us the symbols of wealth without any actual wealth.

What is the point, when the most expensive part of an article of clothing is the one-inch label at the back?

“Shop our way out of debt”, “Reaganomics”, and “Pay your dues…” were sold as the American dream. Reason be damned! Reality be damned! This is what you’re supposed to do; it’s what’s expected.

And we watched people lose everything. Their homes, their families, their practices under the same people that preached the American conveyor belt. We watched people go into mid-life crisis and bucket lists because they had spent a life chasing an ideal that left them unsatisfied, unhappy, and unfulfilled.

How I tacitly accepted the ideal role the way a frog stays in water that boils slowly or how a dog allows a leash to be placed around it’s neck while he’s distracted by a yummy treat.

It became less about what we want, and what would make us happy and more into what would force us to fit the mold. What would make us look un-threatening? What would make us a cog in the machine that supports the lives of the previous generation who want us to be their peons in the office, but don’t actually want us to do better than them.

They, the ones that came before us, did twenty years, so I should do my twenty and so on and so forth! Persistence, and bull-headedness in spite of the small pay off is what’s important! It’s the safe bet. It’s also the one that is likely to give you back the least.

And my generation, entitled and spoiled though we may be, are not idiots.

It is better to carve out your own life, in your own way than to allow someone else to do it for you. It is better to fail on your own terms, than to succeed under someone’s wing. It is better to have a chance of being with the stars than to stand with your feet on the ground.

This is my segment of the Generation – the outcasts, the bohemians, the whippersnappers that live on the outskirts of the world we grew up in. We are the nomads, backpackers, wayfarers. We roam, we run, we travel, we are waltzing Matilda. We are the Millennial Beat, just passing through.

———-

I remember the exact moment I realized that the pen was truly mightier than the sword; or, to put a more modern spin on it, the camera was mightier than the M-4 Assault Rifle.

It was a clearing operation in the Taliban-occupied Valley. The valley itself is the most breathtaking sight I have ever seen. From our hastily established Tactical Command Post – no more than a few up-armored vehicles forming a large circle on a plateau overlooking the mouth of the valley – I could see the silhouettes of the blue and purple, jagged, ice-capped mountains that broke the skyline like a serrated knife.

We were searching for a Taliban leader who was responsible for several IED attacks on the main route… No one would tell us where he was – not the villagers, not even those who had suffered at his hands.  Through an intensive campaign of intimidation, night letters, posters, graffiti and the posting of other Taliban-related symbols around the valley, they had intimidated the population and convinced them of their omnipotence.

“The Taliban is everywhere, all the time,” a local had once whispered to me, “You Americans come, then leave.”

We never caught that Taliban Leader. He snuck away when the local villagers warned him of the American trucks coming up the road. We did not stand a chance at catching him. He was like a needle in a haystack. Actually, it was worse than that! It was as if the Taliban Leader was a needle in a haystack that we had to extract without disturbing any of the hay.

This is the future of warfare. We no longer go nation against nation. We go nation against a handful of tricky insurgents who can disappear in plain sight. The concept of a guerrilla war, given the technological advances and continuous media presence, is deemed as so complex that they actually came up with a new term; “Asymmetric  Warfare”. We have fought the Taliban for over a decade, and every step forward is met with step backward because we, the U.S. Military, have yet to learn the fundamental lesson that had been made clear to us by the doctrines on counterinsurgency – we cannot win by firepower alone.

“That’s a Taliban flag,” said Bobhar, as we walked up the long length of Main Supply Route, from where we normally lived in the Provincial Capital, “See? It is bright, bright white. No dirt.”

I looked up the rocky mountain, and at its peak, like an American Flag at the summit of Everest, was a white flag that hung proudly, flying in the wind like a huge middle finger from the enemy.

“I’m confused,” my ignorance showed, but I felt safe sharing that with Bobhar, who had become my cultural advisor, “are they surrendering?”

“Surrender? What do you mean?” Bobhar shot me a confused look, which he shook off, assuming that we were dealing with one of the many misunderstandings due to our different cultures, “White is a Taliban color.”

He placed a hand over his heart and cast his eyes towards the sky, as if he were in the presence of Allah himself.

“The people in the valley have looked at that every day for years, it is how they know that the Taliban rule here,” explained Bobhar, who’s accented English always struggled to explain the more complicated ideas he had about politics, religion and philosophy. His competent English and my lack of Pashto made him like an iceberg, in the sense that I would only ever get a glimpse of what brilliance was behind that language barrier.

He gave me one of the most valuable lessons I would have that evening when we sat around large barrels of burning trash, smoking cigarettes and trying to stay warm on the windy, frost-bitten mountain.

“The Taliban give people something to see, like that flag on the mountain,” he said, shaking his head. “They always have pictures, or flags, or graffiti that remind people of their presence of their power. That is why the hundred of them in this valley can fight against the thousands of you.” He pointed at my green and brown Army uniform, indicating that I was a representative of the U.S. Army as a whole, “because they see the Taliban’s signature everywhere.”

This is where our enemy defeats us. They defeat us with visuals, with pictures, with things that we have not countered because we are so busy moving chess pieces on a map board, winning battles and clearing valleys.

While most Americans might think a soldier in full kit looks like a warrior; to the Afghans, we look foreign, cumbersome and strange. With our somber faces, tired and haggard from the exhausting trek along the unfamiliar terrain, we look more like the Storm Troopers in Star Wars, while the rambunctious, spunky, armor-less Taliban have the appeal of a dashing, young Luke Skywalker.

Our minds are keenly unprepared for the war ahead – too much conventional fighting, and not enough ingenuity in unconventional thought.

“Winning the hearts and minds” became a phrase that was greatly mocked by more traditionally-minded soldiers whose main interest was in shooting bad guys, and blowing things up.

“Two in the heart, one in the mind!” a grumpy old Sergeant Major once said, as he rolled his eyes at the idea of having to work side by side with Afghan Soldiers every time they we went outside the wire.

“Our objective is to give them the ability to establish rule of law,” corrected a Lieutenant Colonel, who had a very good working relationship with the Commander of the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army. “Rule of law means everything out here, and it’s the basis of human civilization.”

“Rule of Law,” he guffawed, “is a higher caliber.”

Most Soldiers in senior leadership are relics of a different kind of war. They are unaware that peace through superior firepower is a thing of the past!

The logisticians won previous wars long before the bullets were fired; without the logistician there was no bullet, no rifle, no food to sustain the soldier that would use the rifle to shoot the bullet that could win the battle on the ground. In contrast, the media will win the War on Terror.

Aesthetics, on a macro-level, can be illustrated in President Karzai’s wardrobe, often praised for being ‘chic’. Little known is that each item of clothing is not just a fashion statement, but a very deliberate, symbolic choice. The karakul, a style of hat popular in the Northern region, harkens back to the long line of Afghan kings who had worn a similar garment and is made from a fetal lamb. The silk chapan (or cape) which often adorned his shoulders is a garment most often worn in the mountainous regions towards the northern and eastern areas, and the colors he chooses are symbolic of various ethnic tribes. The loose-fitting knee length tunic and loose trousers called the peran tamban – something that Soldiers and westerners like to call “man-jammies” – is similar to the style worn by poorer villages towards the South, an area that is often neglected by the more affluent and educated parts of Afghanistan. President Karzai also gives a slight nod to his friends from the Western world by wearing a blazer – a trend that was adopted by many Afghans, including many of our local interpreters who wear a blazer over their peran tamban.

With his wardrobe, he says that he is the president of all the tribes, all ethnicities and all of Afghanistan. He makes a very conscious decision to represent the ethnically divided country in his clothing. It is a powerful statement on how Afghanistan can be so well united.

I have seen the effect of what the Army calls “Information Operations”; it is the message we send to the local population to sway them from the Taliban to the side of the Coalition-backed Government Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. On one brochure, there were two images juxtaposed, one with hands putting a tan Russian land mine into a hole crossed with a big red X, half buried in the dirt; the other image was a small wheat plant, buried in a similar hole, by the same pair of hands. At the bottom of the poster was the phone number of the hot line where one could report seeing suspicious activity, like digging in and around the roads.

I have no statistics on how many people that image might have swayed to help us, or how many people were convinced to report suspicious incidents to us. Maybe no one was convinced. However, the presence of those posters and pamphlets with that image was an indication of Afghan government presence – it told the people that we had a foothold in that area and, most importantly, it told the Taliban in the area that we could come get them where they lived.

Some of the challenges faced by some of the great military minds; how do you measure the effectiveness of your information operation or psychological operation campaign? How do you know that your message is received? How can we quantify the effects of your media message?

I had once joked that this “sorry excuse for an armed conflict has turned into a game of capture the flag” when an elite unit went up to a white Taliban flag, and pulled it down from the mountain top. They paraded it through the streets, back and forth at the front of their bright green Afghan National Police vehicle and even had some fun posing with it, taking pictures of it and eventually disposing of it. While the parade and the games after taking down the flag might have seemed like childishness, it was purposefully done. It was a large demonstration to the locals that we could strike against the Taliban and do whatever we wished to it. We disarmed their symbol. The great support that the people of that village – the people caught between the Afghan government and the Taliban and were simply doing what was in their best interest and what they determined as the best move for the survival of themselves and their family – began to waiver. It opened them up to be more receptive to our message.

The easy part of the job involves tracking the enemy – who is their leader? Who can we arrest or kill and disrupt their entire operation? What areas do we need to concentrate on so we can make the greatest gains? What technology to do they use? What are their Techniques, Tactics and Procedures and how can we counter them?

Those are the easy questions because they are reactive. An astute mind can look at history and do things to not repeat them.

However, the tough question is how do we prepare the battlefield long before the first bullet goes through the first chamber of the rifle? How do we win the hearts and minds of the people long before we send the first Soldier?

Wars of clear-cut surrenders, victories and toe-to-toe conventional warfare are a thing of a past. It is something that has been obsolete long before the Twin Towers fell. Yet, the U.S. government has been slow to adapt to the changing atmosphere for war. Traditional minded men like the Sergeant Major are in charge, with their years of experience in wars that are so different from the one we are in now.

I have seen media messaging opportunities fall by the way side. Those messages could have done wonders for morale, for support and for our own well-being.

General George Patton was famously known for being a warrior-poet. Yet, now we shun poetry as something trite, something un-manly and against the warrior “this is Sparta!” creed.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then surely the right picture can save a thousand lives.

The world is changing fast, and a new way of thinking must be developed or our military will be the savage knuckle-draggers in battle of wits. We will ram our heads again and again trying to break through the wall of victory while our enemy simply climbs over it and laughs at us.

The U.S. Military will fight a war like this again, except it will be in a different country, with different attitudes, and different customs. It will likely be with an illiterate population and we will struggle to get our message out there in a memorable way. In essence, it is time for military leaders to be artists! It is time for us to communicate in ways that stir the heart, enlighten the mind and make us experts in aesthetics. That is what sways the people in Iraq, in Afghanistan and even in the United States.

It is in art that the future of global conflict will be resolved.

It is in art where we will be able to exploit our enemies’ weaknesses and find legitimacy in the eyes of the people.

It is difficult to find the needle without disturbing the hay, but if we can bend the breeze of public opinion in just the right way, maybe the hay will fly just right and show us exactly where that toxic needle has been hiding.

Winning on the battlefield does not matter as much. One must win in the press, in the media, in the books…

At the very least, art can win a war without shedding human life or outright prevent conflict long before the next bomb explodes. Art is the tool with which one can stir emotions, change minds, and express ideas; it is the highest form of human interaction. This is not a war of body counts, but a war of ideals. The only way ideals can win is if people believe them and they will not do so until there is art that makes them believe it is so.

It is not enough for a Soldier to be a decent marksman and tactician; we must also build schools, recite poetry, study art and find a way to apply theories at the ground level. We are losing because my fellow soldiers do not understand that the rock of brute strength will always be beaten by the pen and paper.

Any child can tell you that paper beats rock, every time.

In California, there are seasonal brush fires, a great cause for concern to some, and to others, it is a natural ecological process that destroys the impurities and stimulates newer, better growth. Only through the eradication of the bad can the new have a chance to succeed. Only through the destruction of an empire can a new one emerge.

In that same vein, maybe only it is through blood that a tree of liberty be nourished. Only through the deaths of the old generation and their antiquated and impossible ways of thinking can new ways of thought emerge and progress be made.

Yet, we, as Americans and our perception of ourselves as the shining city upon the hill, the world’s watch dog andsuper hero ready to right wrongs and bring peace, democracy and stability to places that would not manage without our aid, still stand with our intervening, sympathetic hearts, and keep places from descending into the ashes. So, we keep the phoenix from ever rising.

There is a Chinese proverb that says “Save a man from drowning, and you are responsible for them for the rest of their life”. When you save a man, you become the reason for all of their following actions, whether it be good or bad. Does that mean that you should save the man, or no?

One can never know.

Doctors, and their Hippocratic oath would say that you save the man, regardless of who they are. Humanitarians may say that a life saved is worth everything. Humanists believe that all life is sacred. Ghandi, or Hitler… all life is the same.

Yet, is that true? Is all life balanced? What if the man who was drowning is one who then beats his wife, rapes his daughters and murders his neighbors? We then become responsible – complicit in abuse, in rape and murder along side of him.

If we arm a country, and that country uses those arms to ethnically cleanse… then we are responsible for genocide too. It is the risk, the consequences, of when we decide that the enemy of our enemy is worthy of our intervention – no matter who they are or how their ideals, their policies and their goals might contradict our own.

What of utilitarianism; We are what we contribute to society? That there is a greater good, and some must suffer in order for that to come?

I would not want to see this country burn. Yet, my heart grows heavy at the thought that we continue to intervene on their behalf – with or without their request.

It is not to say that, if I saw someone drowning, I would not dive in to save them. The natural human instinct to save, to help when they are beckoned to, to act like a good Samaritan when asked to, is a strong one. Look at how many have rallied around Kony 2012 based on a factually loose youtube video! Save the children! Save Jacob! Act like a hero and save a life!

Yet, is it our place?

I suppose it boils down to what you value – the single life, the one pair of eyes, the soul, the heart that matters… or is it the grander scheme? What if allowing the forest to be claimed by the fire will kill the plant diseases that make it’s trees stunted, barren and dead? What if, in years time, the forest would arise from the ashes with a newer green, a home for fawn and fauna that will deliver more nutrients to the world? What if world peace comes from destruction? A Renaissance, at the end of a great plague?

I have a bleeding heart as well, as most of you know; Progressive lib-tard, feminist, and soft-headed, soft-hearted, left-winger… I have joked that I was always better suited for the Peace Corps than the Army – a greater humanitarian than I ever could be a marksman. It is too late to change this, of course.

I cannot deny what I see, what I think, and what I think I know.

Maybe a descent into hell will be how one pays for the sins of man, and can elevate themselves to heaven. Maybe one should not treat the symptoms – the deaths, despair and destruction – but allow the fever to run it’s course and burn the virus from within.

What is my point?

I suppose I have none, but the exploration of my own morals. I don’t know if I would save this man from drowning, because maybe only after his death can the wife, the daughter, the neighbors be saved from grief.

With greater connectivity, we become more aware of the Rwandan genocides, the plight of Syria, the unrest in Burma. We can see into the faces of the Afghan people, and feel our hearts open with human sympathy. Any decent person would clamor to help – save their lives! Stop the killing! Help!

Yet, to what purpose? What is gained? And what is the cost of feel-good? What is the cost of being helpful?

I mean that in writers, photographers, painters, poets… anyone who considers themselves to be at least a little creative. As a community, they (we) are shameful whiners.

Why will no one buy your painting? Why will no one read your book? Why will no one see how profound your poetry is?

Because art, in essence, is useless.

Art will not clothe you, it will not fill your belly full of food, or shelter from the storm. It will not make your aches and pains disappear like morphine. And that is what most people need. Art is a luxury, at best. It is (and should be) the first thing that gets streamlined when budgets get tight, and circumstances get tough. When all those are provided for, then maybe art will follow.

Sure, you could have chosen to do something useful with your life – become a doctor, a veterinarian, a handyman – but you chose art, instead. And it was your choice, and with that came certain sacrifices, and a voluntary surrender to the terrible aches and joys that come with it. That is art, my friends. That is what you chose. And it is often thankless, often criticized, and often filled with more heartache than it is worth.

The real question is – do you believe in art enough to persevere? Do you love it enough? Do you care for it enough? Would you give your heart, your feelings, your passions over to something that is likely to never pay more than a barista job at Starbucks?

Make the choice and stand by it.

Then quit your bitching.