*Caution* If you have a weak stomach you probably dont want to read about mine.

I was on post when the Afghan Army yelled over to us to ask if we could give them coffee. H— jumps up and wants to make a trade for Naswar. Ive heard about this shit from Steve on the last contract Im not sure if it was the same thing for sure but I figured Id give it a ride. I hadn’t dipped in about 45 days but I figured how could I pass on a local experience. H— puts it in a cup and I look down at it. It resembles brown cigarette ash. I ask do I pinch it in and he instructs me to hold my lip out and let it fall into place and pack it down with my tongue. As I hold the cup up to my mouth the smell was awful and hard to place but lets just sum it up as something I should not allow to have contact with my body. It slides down the cup and into my lip I pack it in and it instantly starts to burn my lip. A searing feeling almost as if the ash was parasitic size razor blades. I sit back down and Im initially disappointed with the amount I have but that changes within the next 2 min. I feel a slight buzz that slows my thinking and speech. I try to reengage in conversation and find my faculties are are impaired to the point of omitting words and really trying to focus on what I have to say. The buzz spreads to the rest of my body and I am starting to enjoy this local take on Copenhagen. I check the time and its almost time to move… To the bathroom. I get steps away from the door before I losing everything in my stomach not once not twice but 3 times. I take whats remaining in my lip and curse myself for putting that god forsaken poison in my mouth. Then I lumber over to grab a couple of water bottles and dilute my mess hoping no one will notice but of course that is a vain desire. The men I work with smell weakness and wont let anything go without rubbing your face in the mess. One positive take away from this whole experience is that it reminded me of how clean ive been running my machine and how my body responded to something unhealthy. Really makes me question all the unhealthy choices Im about to make once I get back to America.#AllTheDranks

Id like to imagine myself continuing on this path of physical health but when I only get so many days of freedom and such a limited time with those that matter. I live life in a way that the only chute I have is for riding riding back to start and once there I make that long climb up the ladder so I can make it to the top. But what waits for me there? What can I consider a win that will allow me to put away this game that gives me such extreme highs and lows. I feel its the only game I know and anything else will drive me to find the same outcome. Do I only know one game but will just call it by several names. I guess Im just looking for sympathy for the devil and everything I do is just apples to apples.

“Its funny while I was in the Marines I dreamed of getting out so I could “Start my Life” Now that Im out I realized all I did was end it.”

With the 10 Year Anniversary of Phantom Fury and the Marine Corps 239th Birthday to celebrate this 10 November 2014. I found myself watching moto video’s on youtube about 1st and 2nd Recon. I was left thinking about how Ill never be that cool again. The only thing cool about my current job is the paycheck. It was sobering to watch that shit and in all truth it just made me hungry. I wanted to be locked in I wanted to fight but not for my country or even my brothers in arms. I just wanted to fight the enemy and go to Valhalla. I feel like I pushed fast forward on life and now Im stuck in slow motion praying Im given the opportunity to hit rewind. As much as I didn’t want to admit it to myself at the time the main reason I took my current job was so I could go to Afghanistan. I had thought that what I wanted was a safe job where I could make money and prepare for a transition back to a family man. Ive come to realize being armed in Afghanistan with no bad buys to engage stirs a hunger inside me and Im looking to eat.

Was I born this way #LadyGaGa or was this created? I always remember wanting to be in the military but Ive tasted a life without violence in San Francisco and it was good. If I had never of joined the Marine Corps would I have this hunger or would it have consumed me back in America for not having served. If I truly was born this way it gives me hope to know that different types of people #Jung make up a functional healthy society. If that is the case and we are predestined to fill these roles wether it be hippy artists or Marine respecting the different types of people will allow a society to function in a healthy way. So one shouldn’t hate a cop for his/her love of law and strict adherence/enforcement of the rules. Just like I cant help thinking some rules are meant to be broken. As long as all of us are allowed to have the freedom to exist and be ourselves gives balance to the whole. Otherwise look at nations where that balance is to one-sided they are dysfunctional and oppressive. Much like how families are dysfunctional if the members are locked into very specific roles. #Hero #Rebel #Ghost

All I know is that thank god for the terrorist otherwise what would we do with the monsters we send to go kill them.

Happy Birthday Marines and Semper Fidelis

I spoke to my brother today as he is settling into his new life in CA and he had quite an experience to say the least. He went to the Doctors for a skin rash that had been bothering him and it turned out that his previous doctor had misdiagnosed his condition. No Worries he gets a cream and the rash should be gone in 48 hours if not come back get some more. My brother as you can imagine was a little upset about his previous Doctors mistake and that he had to deal with a month of irritation due to incompetence. As he sat brooding waiting on his cream he got a good dose of perspective because in the same room he overheard a young man about his age (early 20’s) getting diagnosed with HIV. Which he received when he was raped in Jail a few months prior. (sentenced for violation of probation) The young man pled with the doctor to give him Drugs so that he could die.

“Ill never have kids.”
“My life is over.”
“People die everyday please just give me something so I can die.”

On Nov 2nd a young lady named Brittany Maynard decided to take her own life because she was diagnosed with terminal Brain Cancer. Brittany did not want her quality of life to slowly wane down and her final days to be spent in embarrassment and agony. Her final act of living was to “die with dignity” at her own hand by drugs given to her by her doctor.

I recognize the situation is not the same and people can take anti-virals and make life choices that will allow them to live very long and healthy lives. #MagicJohnson Where as Brittany had a much shorter timeline but one could make the argument that the psychologic damage is a suffering that cant be compared. With that said I have a friend who has been living with HIV for 10 years and is healthy and happy but that is his choice on how he wants to live and see the world. Since this other young man choices to see the world differently should he have the right to “Die with Dignity.”

I now would like to pose a couple questions. Would you support this young man and his desire to end his life with Doctor/Drug assisted suicide? Do you feel Mrs. Maynard had people like this young man in mind when she decided to fight for the right to “Die with Dignity”?

In closing I would like to pray for peace and comfort for all people who are facing untold suffering and feel hopeless or lost.

A friend of mine who sits on the left side of the aisle politically speaking (it is good to have friends with different political views and opinions because you have to evaluate your stance and potentially grow.) told me she shared some of my work with a kindred soul who was mortified by some of the things that she read.- “continue to fuck the enemy in a way I am only allowed to remember!!!!” I was asked “does that mean you wish you could still kill people?” The problem I feel is a miss communication between myself and the reader.

The true nature of my articles (as a body of work) is i am trying to express my view’s and experience’s to people so I can be understood and seen as human. In turn that help’s make me feel “normal”. The last thing I would want to do is instill hate or glorify the killing of innocence. To me the “enemy” are the people who wish to do harm to my friends, family and people anywhere who cant defend themselves. I only lose sleep on the enemy I didnt pull the trigger on due to limitations imposed by my superiors and of course myself. (Knowing someone is dirty but is not doing something wrong at that time.) For professional warriors it is not as easy to take a life as one may think. For a coward kills out of fear a professional kills out of code. It is never the Kung Fu master who kills someone in the street it is the skinny guy with the 38. special in his pocket who will hide behind his weapon.

My friend said “people know combat is a unique life changing experience that “normal” people will never see and want to know what its like.” My response “It is a a life altering event that there is no return from. adrenaline aside the scars and your perception of reality are forever skewed.” When you live at the speed of light that carries over into every other spectrum of life. The only people I can truly relate to are my brothers in arms because they have all the same addictions and social dysfunctions as myself.

When I spoke of the nymphomaniac and the blood thirsty war veteran. I was not glorifying either. “I cannot trust a man to control others who cannot control himself.”-Robert E. Lee. Those people are sick and without balance in their life. They are consumed with their perspective addictions and will ultimately destroy themselves.

To me the truest enemy to myself and brothers are the politicians who are so quick to send us to war. (“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.-Voltaire”.) War has taken from me more than it could ever give but what it has given in brotherhood can not be measured. So when I say “To my RECON brothers continue to maintain the tremedous reputation of those who went before you and continue to fuck the enemy in a way I am only allowed to remember!!!!” What I am trying to do is encourage my brothers as well tell them I miss living with them at the speed of light. My true feelings about war are best summed up by Robert E. Lee when he said ” It is well that war is so terrible – otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”

Beaux

SEX and COMBAT are both physical acts of love.

Yeah, I said it. A physical act of love. In the warrior culture to say I never had the honor of serving with him in combat is saying I never got the opportunity to physically express my love for my brother. For in combat you truly see that affirmation of love in the willingness to give yourself for your brothers because “Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (JOHN 15:13)

The best lovers and warriors are truly selfless and a bit crazy. A nymphomaniac and a bloodthirsty veteran are one in the same because sex\combat becomes so desensitized that they need some next-level craziness to get off and there is no such thing as enough. For the rush you receive before a shot is fired is far more exhilarating then release. It’s the unknowingness of whether or not it will go down and once it starts you can get lost in the moment and it can become mechanical.(to me sliding off panty’s is like watching someone emplace an “IED” Improvised Explosive Device) Then finally after its all said and done no one likes the cleanup either mess.

The battlefield or the cause is irrelevant to the warrior but the love is real. (In all my years of service. I never served one day for the US government. I protected the constitution, the citizens of the United States and my brothers in arms but sadly I feel as though all 3 were exploited by the former.) Cowardliness in battle is as despicable as adultery because at its core you are being selfish. You care more for your own selfish desires (i.e your life or release) than that of your team/mate and when one is found out it is the betrayal and the lies that hurt more than anything else because all the love and care that was put forth was taken for granted and spat upon. Then from that moment on your brotherhood or relationship will be seen as a failed fraud from an outsider’s perspective and to the warrior, a stain on their honor is the greatest insult of all.

Ahhh but when the sex is good or the mission successful. You’re just a couple of sweaty people breathing heavy and sharing a smoke. Then you try to explain your experience’s with your friends who just don’t know but have only fantasized or played Video games it’s like talking to a virgin about sex.

To my RECON brothers continue to maintain the tremendous reputation of those who went before you and continue to fuck the enemy in a way I am only allowed to remember!!!!

In the end SEX without love is just fucking and COMBAT without love is just violence.

David “Beaux” Engelbert 

Ive come along way stamping out my own personal preconceived notions about people but I would be lying if I were to say I wasn’t prejudice. I prejudge people everyday and I know in doing so I am not giving human being’s an equal chance. I also know I have no intention of changing nor do I think I can but hey at least I’m honest.

Now for the fun part the people who am I judging the short answer is everyone and I do it without thinking and so do you. Physical health, car, fashion sense, manners, intelligence, teeth, smell/BO, political preference, ethnicity, profession, socio-economic background, education, religion, voice, motivation, region (city, state, part of the country) they are from, cleanliness, breath, tattoos, sexual preference, diction, gate, looks, how well they can hold their alcohol and so much more. Every time I look at someone all these things compute inside my head on how to interact with this person before I even say hello. Is that a bad thing? It can be when you make sweeping generalization’s that are outside of their control but when judging someone as a matter of personal safety I feel its very healthy and we use these prejudices to navigate ourselves through life from avoiding danger to attracting friends. I mean who would want to be friends with someone in a Raiders Jersey? #AlbertPolay #ThisGuy

How you look and present yourself to the world really shapes the world you live in. I remember walking through the streets of Georgetown with my friend Phil who was dressed like a young professional and all of a sudden we were stopped by police. I forgot to mention I was wearing a Rad gnome “ugly” sweater courteous of Toddland.com #StayRad with a MoHawk and Thor Life shaved into the side of my head. The cop literally threatened to arrest me for J-walking and he didn’t even look at Phil. Had I not switched to confused German tourist who knows how that could have ended up.

Dressing like a hooligan or a round about douche aside. Your face, body and how you present yourself are a perceived perception of your character. Is it fair? no, but neither is life. When people have health problems that are generally equated to long time abuse is when you start to really limit your options. You can only hide a meth addiction for about a week before everybody knows. Even if you haven’t told a soul your jack-0-latern smile is telling the world.

I mention all this because success is a conscious decision you make everyday and to borrow from my own personal experience more doors open when I am in good shape, maintain excellent hygiene and present myself well. “A man doesn’t have to be well dressed for the job but well presented.”-Nick Naylor #Nails. Look at your interactions with strangers and if you don’t like how others treat you be a little more modest or less threatening when you go out. Don’t be stopped on the street for looking like an asshole and if you are learn a little German or just be hella polite. Cops like it when your polite.

Inequities

Recently in the News a women filmed herself walked around NYC for a few hours and it shows the various forms of harassment she faced while moving through the city. As a man I do not understand the various inequities, fear or harassment women face on a daily basis. The closest to understanding I can have is to roll through the Gay District of any metropolitan city. Thats not just comedy thats a fact. I have been propositioned by homosexuals with the use of the most graphic language imaginable. Im not going to lie unwanted advances in that manner are not fun.

The spirit of what Im writing about though is not about comparing inequities its about facing reality. People on the left have all these lofty ideas about how to make the world come together to play and share like its kindergarten. What my well intentioned friends on the left fail to admit is that there are still bully’s in every kindergarten class and outside of the idiots and jerks there are different body types, skin colors, personalities and a myriad of other difference that come along with being an intelligent complex organism. Everyone faces difficulties and struggles that are unique to the individual and last time I checked every man made Utopia was a far cry from fair or perfect for everyone.

The reality of it is the only way to eliminate inequities in wealth, color, gender and sexual preference is to be make everyone the same but wouldn’t that destroy the diversity the left claims to love another popular idea is redistribution of wealth and resources which involves taking from the haves to give to the have nots. The supposed justification is due to past inequities the less fortunate weren’t provide with the same opportunities as those who have or they were born into a society that was built by men of a different color and they weren’t asked to come there.

Well I got news for these people who cry foul “My President is Black” #JayZ and the most influential women is too. #Oprah #AndYouGetaCar If you work hard and get an education you can achieve anything you want in this country. In turn you can be born with every advantage and still end up a total fuck up. It has been my experience that the human problems that exist in Inglewood are the same ones that exist in Brentwood. How you define success and happiness is the real difference.

The arguments and opinions that define people by their color or circumstance are essentially what holds those people down and the reason why is it is an excuse that makes you a victim and drives a wedge between you and your fellow Americans. America is far from a post-racial egalitarian state but we will never get there if White people are told to shoulder the guilt of their ancestors and minorities are told they can’t achieve do to a system that was put in place by white men. (but some how Asians do fantastic in)

I know I know I sit here a Rich White Republican who is 6’1 with blonde hair and blue eyes but I was born a half-Puerto Rican Democrat #Dukakis88 to a single mother whose natural father spent my entire life in jail. The town I grew up in idolized a thug culture and the result was personally knowing at least 5 friends who overdosed on drugs. I introduce these facts not for street cred but for proof that the individual is not a slave to their circumstances and everything I have today is due to hard work and sacrifice not skin color.

In the end it life isn’t fair we all face problems and there is no one size fits all solution that doesn’t alienate or enrage one group or the other. It would be nice if we could all treat each other with equality, respect and not be marginalized by the bureaucrats in Washington but I don’t see change there until Blacks vote Republican and Southern Whites vote Democrat.

Im rereading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky because the first time I read was about 12 years ago and I remember enjoying the book but I couldn’t remember anything about it other than SPOILER ALERT Raskolnikov murdering an old women. As I started to get lost in the chapters I remembered the first time I read the book I was more interested in finishing the book as an accomplishment rather than enjoying the experience of climbing inside the mind of a murderous madman. I suppose its the equivalent of going to Paris and getting your picture at the Eiffel Tower to post on Facebook but forgetting to enjoy the walk around the park, haggling for a bottle of wine with an arab teenager, tasting a fresh croissant and sketching your own memory of the experience.

One thing Im beginning to focus on is having patience and enjoying my journey threw life. It seems like everything around me is being abridged: TV shows that have four, 5 min sketches in an episode #Brooklyn99 , text messages taking the place of actual conversations and dating sites built around 1 second pass/fail picture qualifications.#Tinder The struggle of the journey is the story I have become more interested in than just the view from the summit. The time and effort that it took to overcome hardship is where character is formed. I look around at people who just complain about why they have not and their answer is always the same its someone else’s fault.

Its too easy to blame society or the internet for all this. iBlame myself for occasionally getting caught up in this instant oatmeal throw away mentality. Shaking my finger at everyone for being addicted to social media while I scroll threw my newsfeed is hypocrisy at its finest but hey Im a Rich White Republican #RWR so I’m afforded that luxury. In the past we seemed to equate happiness to material reminders now we post digital reminders. The true problem is we are a society that values achievement without effort and having no personal accountability or standards.

When you “spread the wealth” of value to everything you find it’s easier to say good bye and the ultimate aim in this pursuit is to be absolutely devoid of materialism. Which I feel has made us more petty because we now tend to value all things the same… like shit. We collect clothes, cars, toys, girlfriend’s, boyfriends and pride ourselves in not putting any value on anything… It’s all replaceable. Fuck that!!! If I label something as mine I take care of it and responsibility for it. Whether its my car or my reputation I own both. The high I receive when I earn something in life can’t be bought on the street and the feeling I receive when I loss friends or say goodbye to my children is pain… but its a beautiful pain. It’s a pain that shows that I care about something or someone more than my own personal satisfaction. The sacrifices I make to and for them and all things I value is a representation of what they mean to me. You can’t earn something once and rest on that past glory or that prize will slip away. You have to go out and earn it everyday.

So value and take pride in Your Country, Your Culture, Your Job, Your Faith, Your Family and Your Wife/Husband. All of which are Yours and all of which are a reflection of You. Life is not a rush to collect a bunch of shit that doesn’t matter stop hitting fast forward and enjoy the time and experience at hand because food spoils, clothes go out of fashion, youth fades and the finish line is a funeral hopefully attended by people who valued you.

PS Communism is Bullshit

“If a man is Conservative at 20 he has no heart. If he is Liberal at 40 he has no brain.”- Churchill

If that is the case the people who knew me at 20 will contest I had no heart. Anyone who knows me now will probably say I am losing my mind. I can take that because I see it as growth. It’s not so much a loss of reason but rather a gain of understanding. You could also say I haven’t turned off my mind but I have turned on my heart.

To understand how this transition came about in my life you would have to understand my relationship with God and personal faith. To me God is not some imaginary friend named Jesus who I talk to when Im bored, scared or in need. The philosophies of Christ have taught me how to love, forgive and realize that I am not perfect. I use the Bible as a guide to live my life, not as a tool to condemn others for how they live theirs. The Man who crafted my faith hated organized religion and stated that the church is not a place. The “church” is alive inside of me. I do not go to some building out of obligation, I go to church to grow in my understanding of my faith and ultimately my understanding of myself. I am empowered by the knowledge that salvation and wisdom is exclusively up to me, which can only be achieved through my actions and my own free will. That is why I have made it the mission of my life to strike down oppression and anyone who imposes their will on others. I do not push my faith on others I share it and the peace it gives me.

When I look at nature I see chaos. I feel science is man’s way of understanding the natural world. The problem I have with science is that it is too clean and black/white. The reality of it is, Life is dirty and there are many shades of grey. If our Societies and Lives ran as clean and mathematically sound as Science, our world would be a pretty boring and robotic place. All the societies that tried to view and apply Science (whether social or physical science) to the world have done some pretty gnarly things.#Hitler #Stalin #Mao Their actions may not have been in the name of Science but in the name of Progress and those dreams of a man made Utopia turned into real life nightmares.

Jesus brought chaos to organized religion and put the power of salvation into the hands of everyone. All you have to do is give up the concept that man can be perfect or a god. I would prefer to believe in an incomprehensible omnipotent force than on the precision of German engineering.#SeeWhatThatGotUs

I have spent 2 years of my life deployed as an Infantry or Reconnaissance Marine, saw combat on several occasions and earned a medal for valor but the closest I ever came to death was when I was in America at my own hand. After my third deployment I was forced into taking a job stateside training Reconnaissance Marines. I was told I should take the time to decompress and spend time with my wife and 2 kids. At that point I could no longer shoot at my demons I had to face them. Looking back at my marriage the best way I could describe it was unhealthy. I could try to push the blame in any direction I want but in the end. Only I can be accountable for my actions. No matter how justified I may have felt at the time to YELL, SCREAM, hide or drink. Those are ultimately the decisions I made to deal with my issues.

I remember looking in the mirror several times and questioning my life, Driving excessively fast letting go of the wheel ‪#‎FightClub‬ but grab it before something happened and standing on the ledge of a couple of hotel rooms several stories up contemplating a LANO Jump (Low Altitude-No Opening). One day I was maintaining a buzz while watching my children and started to feel overwhelmed. Recognizing how fucked that was I called for help. MILITARYONESOURCE.com and I started the long process of counseling and facing my Demons. When I initially started counseling I wanted to fix my marriage so I stopped drinking and avoided medication because I didn’t want to replace one crutch with another but after 3 months of absolute sobriety I found myself addicted to a new vice… Anger.
Apparently after being in sustained combat your Mind remaps your brain to turn any situation into combat.My brain would give me huge dumps of adrenaline and later a rush of dopeimean to mellow me out.

ALERT- If this sounds like you congratulations you have PTSD

When I would get these rushes of endorphins I would retract from the arguments because I new I had lost control. At that point my therapist asked me if I wanted to save my family or provide a safe home for my children “Shouldn’t I try absolutely everything.” So I relented and started the medication and much to my disappointment I felt absolutely normal for I had hoped that I would be drugged up and numb to my day to day. Then one day I got into a fight with my wife and the anger came but the physiological response didn’t. My body maintained a normal heart rate and there was no flood of endorphins. I had nothing to calm me down but the realization that I had been hiding behind my anger.

Soon after I had another appointment with my therapist and I told him I couldn’t wait another week I had to get out of the marriage. At that moment he told me his job was not to tell me what to do it was to hold up a mirror and show me what I was saying. When I first came into his office I talked of how in 2 years maybe I would leave and now just a few months later I couldn’t stay one more week. He helped me understand not only my anger but also that the world is so much bigger than the one I had been living in and the healthiest thing for my children was for my wife and I to separate. I finally chose to remove myself from the unhealthy marriage and do my best to re-establish a friendship with my now ex.

I share this in the hopes to highlight the Importance of mental health and that asking for help is not a sign of weakness. If you feel trapped in a seemingly hopeless situation and regardless of how justified you may feel. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ACTIONS not them. Leave and get help. I am by no means the model of mental health but I honestly evaluate who I am and how Im feeling. I am not powerless to anyone or any situation. I still fall down but having an honest dialogue with myself I don’t fall as far.

PS Kill your Ego