We fight not against flesh and blood...

Morning Prayers
Originally uploaded by []Aaroneous Monk[].

October 30th, 2006 - I arrived at the airport with two large duffle bags and a long thin rectangular case housing an M16 A2 assault rifle. At the Northwest check-in counter an attractive middle-aged woman asked me if I had any bags to check. I said, “yes, two duffle bags and a weapon”. That last word felt so strange in my mouth. I’d joked with the rear detachment NCO who brought me to the airport that I felt like a mafia hitman lugging this rifle around in an elongated black case. The proclamation of having a weapon brought me to the attention of the male attendant who asked me to unlock the case. “Please show me that there is no ammunition in the rifle,” he said. I pulled back the charging handle and locked the bolt to the rear sensing that the eyes of other passengers were on my back. I angled the butt of the rifle towards him so that he could see that the chamber was empty. Satisfied he said, “thank you,” and I hit the bolt release mechanism causing it to slam forward with a loud CLACK! It was that sound that drove home the fact that this was not an overseas vacation I was going on, but a deployment to a war zone.

I found the curiosity of the attendant towards my M16 disquieting. “Is it true that the bullets from this rifle tumble instead of spinning in a straight line?” he asks. I tried to dig back more than fifteen years into my memory as a former infantryman and vaguely remembered something about a “tumbling” bullet and I say, “yes.” The female attendant asked why that was significant and the other replied, "it does more damage that way.” She accepted his explanation matter of factly and I quickly walked away from this conversation only then remembering that the bullet only tumbles when it hits its “target”, but I had no desire to return to the counter and clarify this particularly gruesome fact.

In one of the duffle bags I carried was a hand-carved “prayer box” wrapped inside my sleeping bag for protection. It was lovingly fashioned from walnut and banded with hammered brass to include a primitive brass latching mechanism to keep it shut. Affixed on the inside lid are three icons, the middle of which is surrounded by a carved frame. It is a thing of simple beauty, yet somehow exotic and mysterious. It is my true weapon, containing a prayer book, prayer rope, holy water, and a small sealed wooden sandbox for candles. It is a curious weapon, life-giving, unlike what is in the black case. One is hidden and the other is painfully visible, clunky, and cold. It troubles me that I am more proficient with the rifle than in saying my prayers. Lord have mercy on me…