I was not particularly looking forward to what came after dinner that Friday. I had been in a couple of smokers. A smoker is a three round boxing match. I got into the ring and I did somewhat enjoy the large crowd that showed up to watch. On our base almost everyone showed up to watch the Friday fights. I believe somehow I managed to go the first round with him and get in a couple of shots. The bell rang and it was the second round, I began to swing. The gorilla got low and buttoned up. My punches were being blocked, he burst upward with a right hand landing squarely under my chin. I remember feeling my heels come off the ground and bouncing my head off the ring floor. I woke up to a smelling salt in the back of a nearby FLA (field litter ambulance). I had a headache for a week and he broke a rib during the first round. The gorilla's best friend was the referee and I had never been hit so hard, it felt like a lead weight hitting me. Now that I think about it, the gorilla would train with lead weighted gloves. The ref was his best friend and the only person that inspected the wraps under our gloves. I am almost positive the gorilla wore the training weighted lead gloves during our fight.
It was a cold brisk day, November 21st 1994 in Barstow California. The boy, his younger sister and the boy's mother were on their way to Meadview Arizona for Thanksgiving with family. They stopped off in Barstow for gas. The boy was lying down in the pickup bed, inside of an old sleeping bag, of a 1990 Dodge black and grey compact pickup truck, while his mother drove and his younger sister (by two years) sat shotgun. As they pulled into the 76 gas station on the corner, the boy saw a homeless family to include the Father, mother, daughter and son. I believe this to be a desolate place and thought the boy: life could be worse, I could live in Barstow.
As the family left Barstow the boy laid down in the back of the truck trying to fight the chilly Fall day in the Mojave Desert traveling east through Interstate 15. We finally arrived in the small town of Meadview and pulled up to a shop and rob convenience store. Just outside the store was a payphone. The mother and boy got out of the truck and approached the payphone and on a small 3x5 card sitting on top of the payphone and written on it was a phone number to my cousin's home. The mother called the four digit number and received directions to my cousins a few blocks from the convenience store.
The homes all sat on approximately acre lots in this small desert community, most of the homes were double or triple wide trailers with residents living below the poverty level. We all entered the double wide trailer to a very pleasant greeting from our relatives. People were cooking and talking, some were sitting on the couch watching television. The family was busy catching up on things going on in each other's lives.
Around 9 PM that evening the boy sat down and begin to read the Bible, as he often did in the evenings before sleep. The boy experienced something that evening almost too extraordinary to explain.
An audible voice said clearly to the boy "you are going to die soon". That night the boy had a dream and in the dream the boy stood alone in a dark desolate desert. In the sky appeared large round metallic silver in color orb. The boy felt unworthy to be in the presence of this majestic orb. The entire surroundings reflected clearly on the surface of the orb, everything but the boy. The boy realized that the orb was Jesus and He had returned for his people all his people but not the boy. Because the boy had not acknowledged Jesus in his life the orb would not acknowledge the boy now.
The boy had only started reading the bible in the evenings again after going through adolescence full of complete disregard for school, academics, indulging in large amounts of various drugs and normally a drunken stupor. The boy had hit rock bottom and was searching for a God he once knew of as a young child.
After hearing this audible voice out of the thin air, the boy decided to continue reading the bible and read it from start to finish. The boy still had a hard time changing his old ways of drugs and alcohol. So the boy saved some money and decided to hitchhike to Alaska in order to get away from outside influences.
Again the boy found himself in Barstow on his mid tour leave from Iraq. During an army tours you generally spend 12 months deployed and are allowed to go home for two weeks. The boy was home and happy to be home but it seemed as though the boy's wife was unhappy, distant and the boy was unhappy. The boy had seen war and how ideology, hate, jealousy, fear and loathing played a part in the Middle East at home and in the boy.
The boy's wife had told the boy had seen the boy's company commander at the bank where she worked and the commander was asking for a loan. The boy's commander had decided to go home on leave and surprise his wife. While the army unit was deployed to Iraq from the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert a National Guard unit had come in and taken over our role as trainers for units deploying to Iraq. Some of them not only took over our training role but also took over our beds our paychecks and our wives. The boy's commander had come home to an empty home; his wife had left with a specialist from the National Guard unit and was spending the weekend in Vegas spending the Commanders money. That money that was blood money. Blood money, money earned by the blood of men and friends.
Another World
Start from the beginning
