http://www.facebook.com/ListeningHorse

Listening Horse is a free horse therapy program based in Santa Fe, New Mexico that helps wounded veterans and others reconnect with their spirit, their humanity, and their will to live. Listening Horse is the sole Professional Association of Therapeutic Horsemanship International (PATH Intl.) Equine Service for Heroes program currently active in New Mexico. Gus Jolley, director of Listening Horse and certified therapeutic riding instructor since 2003, recognizes that the most important aspects of the program are the horses, their connection to the participants, and program safety.

Promise, Zorro, Sugar, Doc, Concho and Socorro are the horses available in the program. Because of the unique philosophy of Listening Horse, the horses are allowed to exist in as natural a state as possible, which means they are not shoed, and for purposes of riding, a simple hackamore is used rather than a bit.

Listening Horse adheres to all the safety guidelines of PATH Intl., which include the use of helmets and the presence of a primary and assistant instructor at all times. Additionally, a former VA physician, Dr. Como, assists Listening Horse with monitoring and assessing the safety of participants as they progress through the program.

Wounded and struggling veterans and members of the public often rely on drugs (prescription or otherwise) and destructive behavior to manage their conditions and escape their pain and anguish. Listening Horse provides an alternative, known informally as the “Third Herd Way.” (The term “third herd” comes from the practice of military units referring to their third platoon as “third herd,” a term meant to evoke the sense of unity, trust, and acceptance often present in a platoon of close-knit soldiers.)

Typical animal therapy, including horse therapy, is intended to connect the participant with the mindset of the animal. A relaxed dog or relaxed horse can have immense benefits on those experiencing stress, trauma, and pain. But these are often short-term benefits, lasting only so long as the animal is near at hand.

By contrast, the “Third Herd Way” is dedicated towards achieving long-term healing. It does so by acknowledging that veterans and members of the public can work at creating lasting and durable bonds with horses so powerful that a transformation is possible: over time and with persistent cultivation of “mindfulness,” the veteran can gain acceptance into the herd, a vibrant and healthy reality grounded in the present moment and not in past trauma.

The “Third Herd Way” recognizes principles long understood by Native Peoples but largely overlooked in the Western world: that animals inhabit a world that has grown increasingly apart from our own, as we have become increasingly denatured through our modern lifestyles. For the “Third Herd Way” to work, the world of horses must be recognized as no less precious than our own, with their sense of reality just as viable as our own, etc.

Listening Horse is predicated on the belief that we can heal ourselves through persistently courting this beautiful and alternate dimension of the animal experience, which is grounded in the present moment. To this end, every veteran is expected to approach the horse on the horse’s terms. By doing so, the veteran begins to enter the reality of the horse and actively form a meaningful bond with them.

The experience of this bond may result in personal transformation. For some, it may be the first time they are assisted into the saddle of a horse they have bonded with, and realize the exhilaration of doing something they never thought possible.

For others, it may be the first time they ride bareback with the reins slack in the hands, and feel an absolute sense of oneness with the horse, grounded in the present moment and filled with trust. It is here in this dimension that lasting healing may occur.

To sign up for classes or for more information, go to www.listeninghorse.org

The closest approximation to Operation Skywalk is the Bata’an Memorial Death March (held annually since 1988 at the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces, New Mexico). The Bata’an Memorial Death March commemorates the sacrifice of thousands of Filipino and American POWs during WWII on the Bata’an Peninsula (pronounced BA-TA-AN). Due to rugged conditions, vicious treatment, and lack of food and water, approximately 5,000-10,000 Filipino fighters and 600-650 American fighters died on the march. Many were killed for attempting to escape or for being unable to keep up with the group. Many died of heat stroke. My father, 16 at the time, remembers Japanese guards slapping away water that villagers attempted to pass to the soldiers along the road.

Operation Skywalk commemorates the death of an American soldier, Colonel Ted Westhusing, who died at a secretive training facility in Iraq on June 5, 2005. Like our brothers in the Philippines, he could keep up physically and was highly trained, but he could not keep up with the desecration of his values. He could not keep pace with the indignity and dishonor he encountered while serving in Iraq. But in commemorating the life and death of one man, we commemorate many – for there are many of us “warriors with Westhusing.”

This year’s Skywalk will be held on Saturday, June 2, 2012. Participants are encouraged to depart the Tunnel Springs trailhead in Placitas (just past the community library and fire station turn right on Tunnel Springs Rd.) no later than 7:00AM in order to avoid finishing in the dark. The Ojo del Orno shortcut, although steep and rocky, is recommended. To take it, bear right up the large and obvious canyon some 100 feet from the trailhead. After a little under a mile, you will rejoin the Crest Trail. Make a right and continue climbing. Carry plenty of water to make it to the top (12 miles) where you will have opportunities to replenish your water at either the tram station or the Crest House. Average time for completion of the hike is between 12-14 hours. Make shuttle arrangements if you are unable to be dropped off in Placitas and must leave your vehicle. Keep in mind that temperatures at the crest can be as much as 30 degrees lower than at the trailhead when considering clothing.Proceeds from Operation Skywalk will go to Listening Horse, a free horse therapy program in Santa Fe dedicated to the recovery of afflicted and recovering veterans.

A $20 donation will be solicited from those who are able to make it to the South Crest trailhead and complete the march before 8PM. Those who wish to contribute and who would like a t-shirt may choose one. Those who wish to contribute to Listening Horse but do not wish to participate in the march can do so by sending a check directly to: Listening Horse, 3237 Rodeo Road, Santa Fe, NM 87507. Those who complete the march after 8PM are encouraged to start earlier in subsequent years. Dogs are welcome but should be well-conditioned and well-watered. Booties are recommended for rocky sections of trail.

Private queries can be directed to myself at alimkin@hotmail.com. Public queries can be made in the comment section of this posting.

In memoriam.

Situation: normal – afu
Mission: traverse the crest
Execution: drive to tunnel springs in placitas. range south to south crest in tijeras.
Distance: 25+ miles
Terrain: varied
Concerns: the usual*

*the preceding is not a standard 5 paragraph operations order
but for Westhusing

Note: Operation Skywalk is not a pleasure stroll. It is a death march. If you don’t feel like a piece of you has died somewhere among those rugged peaks – among the screaming ravens and frost bent trees – among the shards of stone and shadow – all morphing to silence beneath a flailing sun – keep on.

REPRINTED FROM THE ALIBI

During the time I served as a rifle platoon leader with the 5^th Battalion 87th Infantry Regiment (Light) from 1998 to 1999, we had the distinction of being the only jungle battalion in the Army and the only infantry unit in the Army’s Southern Command. Oddly, although we were specialists in jungle warfare stationed in the Republic of Panama, our unit crest featured a ski pole, ice axe and snow-capped mountain. This was because prior to becoming the only jungle battalion in the Army, we were known for something else—being the only battalion trained in mountaineering, Alpine and Nordic skiing, and cold-weather survival. Because of this, our Latin motto was Vires Montesque Vincimus (We Conquer the Strength of the Mountains).

Once we moved to Panama, there was talk of changing the motto to “We Conquer the Strength of the Jungles,” until a bright E-4 volunteered that there was no word for jungle in Latin. After some discussion, the decision was made to just keep the motto the same—as well as the ski pole, ice axe and snow-capped mountain. The only thing that ended up changing was the translation of our Latin motto, which a field grade officer objected to as being obtuse. He proposed as an alternative: “We Conquer Power and Mountains.” As there were no Latin scholars among us to demur, and the E-4 had been sent to clean the latrine, his translation was adopted. This is known as the tyranny of rank.

Once established in Panama, our training consisted of rotations through J.O.T.C. (Jungle Operations Training Center), jungle and infantry training in general, and platoon exchanges with our Latin American counterparts in Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru and The Dominican Republic. During these exchanges, there was no shortage of inquiries about the ski pole, ice axe and snow-capped mountain on our crest, as well as our Latin motto. Since the Spanish-speaking soldiers of these various countries had never skied or used an ice axe, and were no more Latin scholars than we, some fun was had explaining our coat of arms (which included a single red horseshoe at the bottom for good measure!). Most of the explanations, not surprisingly, were lewd.

But all was not fun and games in the infantry. Before I was able to attend Airborne training—commonly known as jump school—I had to have a rectal exam. The rectal exam was standard procedure for those of us who wanted to become paratroopers, and consistent with the general unpleasantness that characterized life as a grunt. I mention this because at the time, back in the last millennium, a rectal exam was something unusual. This was prior to the recent 5-4 decision by our Supreme Court that all persons arrested can be subject to a rectal search even if authorities have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.

It is my understanding that none of the current Justices have ever served as paratroopers, so it is likely none of them have undergone a rectal search. If they had personal experience with such a search, no matter how cursory, I think the majority would have reservations about ruling that such searches should be given the green light as a perfunctory matter.

For instance, if you get arrested for not wearing a seatbelt—rectal exam. If you get arrested for not having your dog on a leash—rectal exam. If you get arrested for unpaid parking tickets—rectal exam. If you get arrested for resisting arrest—double rectal exam. You get the picture.

Now, there may be some among us for whom this is not humiliating or intimidating, but I am not one of them.

Nor am I one of those people that buy the Justices’ explanation for their ruling.

“Correctional officials have a legitimate interest, indeed a responsibility, to ensure that jails are not made less secure by reason of what new detainees may carry in on their bodies,” Justice Kennedy wrote in the court’s decision, speaking for the majority.

Really? They’re motivated by concern over the health and welfare of other inmates? How compassionate of them. Still, I don’t buy it.

In fairness to the Supreme Court, four of the nine got it right. Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenters (which included all the women on the bench: Justices Ginsberg, Sotomayor and Kagan) said rectal exams were “a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy” and should be used only when there was good reason to do so. Unfortunately for those of us with rectums, the dissenters in the Supreme Court don’t make law. They, like the rest of the American public, are just along for the ride.

If anyone warranted having their rectums searched for contraband, it was my platoon in Panama. They were a rowdy bunch and given to all manners of excess. But there wasn’t enough money in the U.S Treasury to compensate me for looking at the rectums of my soldiers, even if just in a friendly towel-snapping way, and not in the ugly authoritarian way the conservatives on the Supreme Court envision it.

Normally, given this decision, I would say that Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito, Kennedy and Roberts should have their heads examined. But I also think, like any aspiring paratrooper, they should have other parts of their bodies examined as well.

My battalion is still looking for a lucky red horseshoe that went missing from the HHC building following a particularly rowdy deployment to Puerto Rico in February 1999—back when it was still considered un-American to have to stand and spread your ass cheeks for the government like an Abu Ghraib prisoner.

If a poem is not handmade
then what is?
The heart is present where
the hand is.
Everything that is
good and beautiful is
made by hand.
I discovered this
while building a door
with my father*.

*born 1925 in Tarlac, Tarlac

With the use of intoxicants
he was able to go to
another world in his mind.
Just like he used to do
with the morphine
when he was all
split in half.
He begged for the morphine then,
demanded the morphine then.

“damned if you are administering
the correct dosage
on this particular machine”
he whispered hoarsely
to the black nurse.
“I know this particular machine.
I have been here that long, yes,
and you have just given me
one tenth, A TENTH
DAMN YOU…
…A TENTH…
OF WHAT I AM
SUPPOSED
TO
BE
GETTING!!!”

You know what
that nurse told him.
you know what
that nurse told him.
you know what.
you know what.
you know what
that nurse told him—
“You living high on the hog, mister”
that nurse
told him.

He was both wildly furious
and cowed.
He was 36 years old then.
He had such a long way to go
to get

Here.

REPRINTED FROM THE ALIBI

I was in the garden planting onions in my underpants when my neighbor, Moisés González, a documentary filmmaker, poked his head over the fence. After a few pleasantries, he got around to the point.

“I was wondering if you maybe wanted to write an article about a project I am working on.”

“What about?” I asked.

“Vietnam veterans.”

I rocked back on my heels.

First off, no one has ever approached me about writing an article. It should feel like an honor, right? But it also felt like a task, and I felt a scrunching in my gut as I anticipated the bad feeling I would have demurring. So I tried not to think about it.

Second off, Vietnam veterans? Hasn’t that been played out?

Born on the Fourth of July. Saw it.

Rambo. Saw it…a bunch.

Blood on the Tracks: The Life and Times of S. Brian Willson. Read it.

AK-47. Shot it. At a berm. Almost put my eye out.

“No, this movie is different,” he said. “It’s about veterans that have gone back to Vietnam to heal the wounds of war. Guys helping clear unexploded munitions, working on Agent Orange issues. We’re working on the funding now.”

“Really?” I said, not buying it. “You’re talking about Americans? American soldiers going back to Vietnam to disarm bombs and replant the jungle? And they’re over there now? Never heard of such a thing.”

“That’s why this film needs to be made,” said Moisés.

I suspected he was standing on something, given how much of his head was showing above the fence. “No one knows about it. Some of them have been there for years, even decades. Healing, making peace with themselves.”

There’s a phrase I wasn’t ready for. Maybe Moisés knew how to talk to me, and maybe he didn’t. But he had my full attention.

Soldiers are always trying to make peace with themselves, with their conscience. It might be because they feel bad about not being able to stuff their buddy’s guts back into the gaping hole where his stomach used to be, how he died right there, choking and stuttering some pitiful shit about “tell my momma this” or “tell my momma that.” Or maybe they shot up a vehicle that seemed suspicious at a checkpoint and it turned out to be three adults and in the backseat two small children. (It is not every person that can shrug off this kind of stuff and just get over it. See Waltz with Bashir.)

So how does a soldier go back to Vietnam, where we killed 5 million people, or roughly 13 percent of their 1965 population, and make peace? (In comparison, using today’s population, the equivalent number of U.S. citizens would be about 40 million.)

Do you first acknowledge, openly, “What we did to you was like you killing 40 million of us, and we understand any resentment. Trust me, our people would be very upset with you for killing 40 million of us. But that being said, we come to you now not with guns, but with open hands, in peace. Because we have a conscience that does not let us sleep. Even after all these years.”

Whatever the case, it is a story I want to hear more of. A story I will put my onions down long enough to write about. Because if enough soldiers turn out to have a conscience, and enough soldiers are filmed having a conscience, and word of this gets around, this sort of condition may gain some traction among those who need it most—the ones who send us to war without themselves serving, without themselves ever knowing or tasting the blood of war, treating our courage as a commodity and never, not once, partaking in our sacrifice.

Make your film, Moisés.

(Read about and support the documentary film project, Same Same But Different by Moisés González and Deryle Perryman, at kck.st/samepeace )

I was a good soldier.
When asked to transpose the image
of a green pop-up target
over the image of a
live human being
at 300 meters
I was successful.
When asked to transpose the
image
at 200 meters
I was successful.
When asked to transpose
at 100 meters:
again, successful.

They could discover no distance
(prone, running, crouching
running to prone,
crouching to prone,
kneeing to crouch)
at which I failed
to perform due to years of
intensive “Ivan”* training.

*“Ivans” were 3-dimensional green and red plastic silhouettes used for bayonet, rifle fire, machine gun fire and grenade training purposes. They were intended to mimic a Soviet enemy soldier wearing a large fur hat.

You could say I’ve gone completely undercover.

I don’t even go to parties anymore

unless they’re killing a pig

peeling strips of back fat off it

and draping them over the fence.

You’ve maybe been to this kind of party,

where only two or three of the guests speak the language

and there is a lot of bowing and nodding among the

Old Men and Women.

Older than that.

Even older than that.

Much older than that.

(Picture of

REALLY OLD MAN!

OLD TOOTHLESS WOMAN!)

(Laughter! Applause!)

(Take 1)

Obama is much too young a man to be president.

The president can’t be that young. It ain’t seemly.

Kennedy was young—handsome too—but he was

after all,

white,—

Innit!

(Take 2)

Obama is much too young a man to be president.

Should be someone much older, like a

Morgan Freeman

or

what’s another

black president

lookalike?

Oh, yeah,

Geico man.

Innit!

(Take 3)

Obama is much too young to be president.

Maybe if his kids were a little uglier…

more bucktoothed say… … … … … …

(giggles, chuckles, not full applause, a small cough

in the front

but mostly modest

laughter)

…Innit!

When a black man can be the

CEO

of a big ol’ insurance company

like GEICO (Laughter!)

now that’s

ALL CAPS— (Booming relief of laughter!)

G-E-I-C-O,

Period! (Flood of laughter! Relief! That guy is so funny! CEO!)

ACT 2 SC. 1

after all

you tamed

what could not

be tamed.

you with your

young and rosy cheeks.

you tamed what could not be tamed

you by the shade of a river

you by the

(BO-ring.)

(cut to crazy brown man

climbing in the mountains

with a dog at his side—

Eat you an energy bar, fool!)

Hell yeah I’m still protesting

the Vietnam War,

and this is how I show it.

(cut to crazy white man

in Florida swamp

wearing jean shorts

nothing else

real deep tan

wild eyes)

This is how you show it, sir?

By getting drunk out here,

disturbing the peace

out here!?

You lookin’ to excise

some force against me—

and my brothers here,

back up in them there jungles?

(Six to eight patrol officers

with drill sergeant hats and

wearing plastic gloves

look downward, upward

outward)

(Cut to stern

white man

wearing a wool sweater

and reasonable pants

but a crazed look in his eye

just the same)

forest rangers with drawn guns

this time

different clip—

could be Washington where that

Bear Man guy got mauled—him and

his girlfriend. (Dumbasses.)

You can’t live on this island, sir.

This is a protected island.

There are protected species here, sir.

(cut to stern white man)

I am a protected specie, too!

I have a right to live, too!

Undiminished! Amidst this wild

and precious place! (starts to

strip off his clothes standing on

polished black stones

at the water’s edge)

(cut back to Florida swamp man)

Is that it! Use your m—— force

against me! For your information

I am not done protesting

the Vietnam War!

Park rangers capture him with a net,

rough him up—

then shoot him with

rubber bullets in the groin,

kick over his campsite,

write the report

two fingered:

Soiled shorts

en route

to station.

Resisted arrest.

Indecent exposure.

(Laughter! Applause!)