Chapter One
I was sitting at the computer this evening, just a normal old Marine, stubborn as hell, refusing to quit, feeling my heart pounding as I struggled to finish one last mission, knowing in my heart how important it was.
I was sitting at the computer this evening, in the usual format, trying to struggle with this stupid chat thing. The computer that had helped me so much through life had now turned its back on me, and I couldn’t get an answer.
I was trying to write one more political story for the series May the Scales Fall Off Our Eyes. Recent events had moved me again, and I saw strongly what I didn’t think others could see. Some did, obviously. But “drinking the Kool-Aid” was a phrase I had used for years to describe people who had become so blinded they would follow someone even to their own destruction.
How can someone become that blinded?
Now the very platform that had given me the ability to write and overcome the disabilities I had fought all my life seemed to be changing. What I had suspected all along suddenly seemed possible—that somewhere, someone was changing the programming. Whoever controlled that could influence everyone who depended on it. That was far beyond my pay grade and far beyond anything I could understand.
All I knew was that this remarkable tool had helped me find a voice, and now something was different.
I finally gave up and walked over to the sofa. I could feel the palpitations in my chest. My skin temperature was changing. I knew I was in AFib, but what could I do about it? I was divorced now, lonely, and isolated.
Two years earlier, after the divorce, I had suffered three herniated discs. The pain became so severe that I was beginning to lose control of my bladder, and the muscles in my left leg had started to waste away. Sometimes I would simply be walking and fall because I could no longer feel my leg. Over the last two years I had fought my way from 260 pounds down to 190. It had taken discipline, determination, and an enormous amount of effort.
Do I finally turn my focus toward myself?
Or do I continue to wrestle with this mission?
My heart has issues now. Life is becoming shorter, and I am more aware of my mortality than at any other time in my life.
Do I continue to stand watch and defend this Constitution?
Or do I finally start taking care of myself?
How does a Marine make that decision?
Am I abandoning my post?
I tried watching television to calm myself, but it wasn’t working. Finally, I decided to go to bed. I lay there tossing and turning, praying quietly to myself and out loud.
By three o’clock in the morning, I still hadn’t fallen asleep.
“Lord… do I just give up on this mission? I took an oath to defend the Constitution. I’ve diligently worked through this period of my life writing the series May the Scales Fall Off Our Eyes. Now it seems impossible.
Do I accept defeat?”
I wrestled on and on.
Finally…
I fell asleep.