Fundamentalist American

It's taken me awhile but I have finally come to terms that the GWOT is a crusade. We are fighting a religious war- not of Christianity verus Islam but of Fundamentalist Americanism versus Fundamentalist Islam. It finally makes sense to me. The viciousness of this war is parallel only in other religious wars. It's amorphous, nation-state bouncing nature encompasses much more than what a war used to entail. The GWOT is a war of ideas and beliefs. It is the struggle for dominance between the idea of being an American and the idea of being a Muslim and if we are to win it, we must carefully draw these distinctions to the world.

First of all, what is a Fundamentalist American? This isn't so easy to define. Being an American is commitment to to set of ideas. It's doesn't matter where you come from or who you father was. If you agree to hold faith with the core ideas of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then we are proud to call you Brother and welcome you with open arms. This is something that cannot be overlooked. The French may grant you citizenship though you may not be ethnically French. There is no American ethnicity so we don't have this squable. We have only the idea. Countries where ethnicity and citizenship are confused often have problems integrating their immigrant populations- something we've so far been quite succesful at. Whatever our problems with racism and we do have them, we have more minorities in high positions in government than any country the in the world. In fact, most Cabinets are usually of one ethnicity. The only realy exception I can think of is Fujimori in Peru. American citizenship being about ideas, our indoctrination is something akin to a religious conversion. Our popluace is more congregation than mass of subjects.

So what separates a Fundamentalist American from another American? I am a Fundamentalist American. I believe in the primacy of American power not because it is always unquestionably good but because it seems to be the surest way to happiness for the greatest amount of people and it has a penchant for self-reflection. Most of the soldiers, Marines and businessmen I know are Fundamentalist Americans too. It's not that we blindly follow the flag. We actively believe in what that flag stands for whether it is pushing Americanism through globalization throughout the world or a ruthless meritocracy that provides the best of us with the best rewards. This is something other nations often fault us for. They hate our ruthlessness, preferring the warm embrace of a soul-sucking, manhood-stealing, inspiration-leeching socialism. It is true that many may fall in the stuggle and their stories may be tragic but I can live with that if the process provides us with the one example that can stir my soul and light the fire in my chest. Striving for excellence has its cost. We are also lambasted for globaliztion- for McDonald's, for EuroDisney and the like. Though these artifaces may lack character, they are distinctively middle-class and able to be enjoyed by practically anyone. More than any other nation in the world, we have pushed wealth down. Say what you want about globalization, the real poverty level in the world has been steadily deacreasing and will continue to do so if market forces are allowed to continue.

When there's talk of who's a "real" American, what is our standard? The only realistic one would have to based on ideas. A Spaniard may say to a Moroccan born and raised in Spain that he's not a real Spaniard because his veins hold no Spanish blood but no ration American would say that even a Daughter of the Mayflower would have the right to say such a thing to the lowliest immigrant who has just taken the oath to be an American. But humans are competitive so we find other ways to say who's more of an American than the other much like you see in some churches. I don't know how many times I've heard stories of conflicts in churches over who was a good or bad Christian.

This brings me back to the GWOT. If you look around most major American cities, you'd never know we were engaged in a way. If you talk to the youth out in bars or clubs, you'd have no idea than their brothers and sisters were out there bleeding adn sweating for them. If you asked them how they felt about it, you'd mostly likely get an answer along the lines of: "I never asked them to go there for me" as if gratefulness was an emotion that burned their skin.

I don't use "fundamentalist" as a pejorative here. For me, it implies strict adherence to an idea or ideal. If you look at it from this point of view, it's clear why the GWOT has been so vicious and why our conflicts are intractable. One of my professors once said that he thought Sesame Street was absolutely the wrong thing to show kids because it gave them the mistaken idea that there is a solution to everything that makes everybody happy. Fundamentalist Americnism and Fundamentalist Islam are diametrically opposed. No amount of talking will ever reconcile them. It is by the sword and sword alone that one will triumph.

I'm a drug addict.

I can't believe the amount of medication I'm on. It's truly silly. Yesterday, I had another scare and went to the ER for a check up. I was shitting blood again but of a different hue this time. I had really bad abdominal pain and since my pain tolerance is well above normal, I thought it would be a good idea to get looked at in case it was something serious. Well, they stuck a tube up through my nose and into my stomach again to see if the bleeding was in my stomach or lower in my G.I. tract. For those of you who haven't had this procedure, let me tell you that it's rather unpleasant. This was the second time in 3 weeks so I wasn't too stoked to say the least.

Anyway, the docs decided that whatever was causing my bleeding wasn't life threatening this time and could be sorted out with outpatient care. Cool. No hospital stay for me. I'm on more medication now though. It's gotten to the point to where if I didn't have medical coverage, there'd be pretty much no way I could pay for my meds, much less my hospital stay. I don't believe that it's the government's responsibility to provide medical care and I can't imagine how poorly they would run such a program but this most recent stay has made me rethink current insurance protocols. I'd be resigned to death with coverage. There's simply no way around that fact.

The scariest thing about all this is how it's affected my thinking. I have to concentrate harder to thing conceptually now and I often lose my train of thought. My doc says that this will sort itself out as my blood chemistry balances out. I hope so. But in the meantime, please accept my humble apologies for the self absorption as of late. As soon as I'm able, I will try to write things of more substance. Please bear with me.

Yup, I live still.

My apologies to my readers for my month long hiatus. As most of you already know, I've spent the month in the hospital. My transplanted kidney failed causing the initial reason for my stay. During my stay, I developed an esophageal bleed. Sounds rather benign right? Well, I've never been so scared in my life. I was crapping large quantities of blood every 30 minutes which is a lot more painful than it sounds. It got to the point where I couldn't even get up to go and had to use a bedpan. I lost so much blood that my doctors like to say that my blood quantity was "incompatible with life." I was down to 25% capacity and every time they poked me with anything, I wouldn't stop bleeding. They pumped 8 units of blood into me and somehow I didn't die before they cauterized the wound in my neck. The doctors can't believe I'm not dead. All of them say they've never seen a patient come back from such a shit state.

So yet again, I live and I don't know why.

The run down looks like this.
1. Kidney failure
2. Malignant hypertension
3. Esophageal bleed leading to catastrophic blood loss
4. Throat infection
5. Staph infection
6. Life threatening sodium levels (low)

So now I'm back on dialysis and back on the transplant list. I said once that I would rather die than be back on dialysis but that's not true. Dialysis sucks to be sure, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that I live for a reason that has yet to be revealed to me. And if suffering through dialysis is what it takes then I will endure.

I should be dead more times than I can count. I don't know how many times I've heard a doctor say that they've never seen a patient recover from such a devastating situation. It's pretty much my MO at this point. Is it just my will to live? Could it be that it's pure stubbornness that keeps me alive? I don't think so. There's got to be more to it than just that.

A lot of it is my support system. My family support system is nonexistent but my friends stepped up in the strongest way possible. Two of them dropped everything and flew thousands of miles to be by my side and to keep the doctors and nurses honest. It is certainly no exaggeration to say that I wouldn't have survived it without them. I'm grateful beyond words.

Two of my docs were really there for me too- Dr. Heath Chung and Dr. Sherwin Cheng. Both have lots to do with why I'm still alive. Dr. Chung in particular went out of his way to make me feel comfortable and develop a rapport- a skill sorely lacking in most doctors today. I've seen my share of docs in my life and most of them have been sadly lacking particularly in this all-important skill. I actually like Dr. Chung as a person and look forward to seeing him. That in and of itself contributes more to my compliance with his directives that any complicated doctor-speak ever would.

Lastly, I would like to thank all of you who took the time to call and/or write to check in on me. I’m particularly grateful to the folks of and affiliated with the USMC Security Division who kept my spirits up with calls, emails and flowers. I live in large part just to attend the next conference! I believe that a man is blessed with ordeals so that he may discover his true friends are. I have no doubt who are mine.

According to Job, happy is the man God correcteth. If that is so, then I must be the happiest man alive today because the Almighty correcteth me a lot. If only I could figure out what I’m meant to learn…