Yin And Yang

As the days stretched into weeks, the weeks into months, the author looks back at how his time before the Army helped to fashion a sense of belonging that he wasn’t yet able to see and fully appreciate. Since then, he has started to find solace within the Army whilst still maintaining a link to reality.


Hard to believe now it’s been over five months since I was living back in Hull training hard for the Army. So much has happened in these past months and yet conversely it seems like so little time has passed, it’s such an odd feeling. Another odd feeling, certainly one much less expected, is that of nostalgia.

I remember with the fondest of memories my days in Hull before coming to ITC. Lay ins where still a regular occurrence, even if they were no longer fuelled by cheap watered down lager and highly cut class A drugs like the last time. It would be up and looking for another short term contract job for a week or two by the docks or in the city centre to keep my boredom down and bank manager happy. That and the local offy. Then it would be round to Luciano’s to catch up with The Independent and introduce my morning pallet with a few over priced cappuccinos. I remember quietly reading a piece on the latest fatalities suffered by the British Army in Basra one morning and how the whole situation was going down hill. To my left were a pair of middle aged ladies going about and discussing their business, totally oblivious to that mornings grim new statistics and thinking ‘what the fuck’. What the fuck does it mean any more to join the Army and fighting for a country who just couldn’t give two fucks? Then I realised it wasn’t anything to do with anyone else, that it was for me. ‘Hu Arr’.

Next port of call for the morning was the local library to research career options should the Army go tits up before it had a chance to get going. I had literally thousands of ideas and plans, one of which I hope to be doing when I leave the Army, whenever that is. Then back home to cook some pasta and munching the kilos down before heading off to the gym for the afternoon to work on weights for the next few hours, always trying to up the weight involved and always feeling better by the day that I was going to be in peak physical condition for when I start and giving me the best possible chance and leaving nothing to fate, the most cruel of mother fuckers, on a par with love. (sic) On the way home I would always cut through Gower and call on Steph and walk Buddy in the park and getting ever more involved with her. I doubt I’ll ever learn. Back home to get pissed!






Up here we get the majority of out weekends off when we can either go home and see loved ones (pay week) or we stay and get drunk in Catterick and Darlington (every other week bar pay week).

The weekends home are something I thought I would have little time for, save for the odd visit at Christmas and pass off at the culmination of our tenure here. Now it seems I’m doing everything I can to go home most weekends and see family and friends. Having lived in so many different areas over the past four years that relationships became one of many fickle and insipid characteristics in my life, and now it appears that finally I have some relative continuity I require something more, and need to keep my family and friends in the forefront of my life. I never expected this would be. Along with The Independent, my link back to loved ones appears to be the thing keeping me sane whilst in the Army, as I know wherever I may go, whatever I may see and experience, I shall always have these people to go back too.

Which is one reason why weekends back home are filled with two very powerful but most contracting of emotions. Whilst I am among my friends and family catching up and getting drunk and meeting girls on a night out I feel so elated and free from the bullshit of everyday life; but that, of course, is because that for me is no longer everyday life, but quite the reverse. And then, of course, is the grinding come down of a Sunday morning; that of a realisation that I will but in a few hours time be back amongst where I belong; shunned away from the very society that employs me to do it’s dirty work whilst it likes to maintain an oh – so – very overlooking stance on the whole situation while they go about their pretentious life’s.

I should have realised that in this ever increasing Yin Yang world of mine I would come to miss Hull and my way of life there. Even though it was a short period of time, it was a very peaceful and tranquil part of my life, one that gave me time to work out what exactly it was I wanted out of the next few years rather than dosing month to month on short term quick fix plans to find my next meal and room. And even if the solution was not what I expected of it, it is no doubt the bed I have made, and I thourghrly intend to make the most of it, no matter what the future brings.

Just so long as I don’t cut links, I feel I’m in for one hell of a good time.

Trouble In America

Never before in recent memory has an election by the sole world super – power been so crucial not just to the short term future of the United States, but for the long term future of the rest of the World.

Up until the last fortnight and before Super – Tuesday clouded the democratic issue further, barring some act of God, it looked almost inevitable that the Republican party would loose come November fourth. Now, in the aftermath of the latest round of primaries, the Republicans have all but settled on their nominee to face the Democrats and can now spend the next six months until the party conventions in August to do as much fund raising and PR to work up the almost impossible task of formulating a successful presidential campaign.

Now numerous hard – core democrats, desperate for real change, are worried that the infighting between the two remaining candidates Obama and Clinton has the possibility to go nasty over the remaining months until a winner is declared, most likely at the party conventions this summer. If no clear winner is recognised then the next few months will exhaust both candidates to the point that it could seriously jeopardise a national presidential campaign.

Two presidencies are in competition here; one driven bottom heavy to top run by a former community worker, the other running top heavy to bottom by a former veteran chief judge. There are fundamental structural differences between the two campaigns and the two prospective administrations, but instead of focusing on them as we should, were still fighting because one of the candidates is a black male and the other a white female.

The Republicans can now consolidate their new found advantage and rally behind John McCain. However, to do that, the conservatives on the far right of the party will have to get over their misgivings of the veteran Arizona senator. Many of these revolve around the views held by McCain to do with the more ‘traditional’ topics of the party. These include his more liberal stances on abortion, immigration and taxes. One of the first policies he has openly admitted to change, which has shocked some party officials, is to cancel Bush’s higher income tax breaks on individuals earning over $200,000 salaries. This, he has rationed, would provide the basis for his ‘universal health care’ system. This early plan is evidence enough for some conservatives that McCain just does not have what it takes to represent this very traditional side of the fence.

Firstly, persons earning over $200,000 in the Republican party have always tended to lean more to the far right and thus think it some what of a ‘birth right’ standard to have to pay lower taxes per proportion of their income, and see it as government meddling. The same applies to a ‘universal health care’ system openly trumpeted by McCain and is resented by the neo - cons.


McCain’s, and indeed the Republican Party’s as a general, saving grace (and it is a rather big one in this day and age of uncertainty and mid – term unpredictability) is foreign policy and national security. Even with the last seven years of an uber hawk administration that has cost the incumbent President the lowest ratings in nearly four decades, America is hungry for a Commander – In – Chief who will deliver against the threat of Islamic fundamentalism, both at home and abroad.

All three presidential hopefuls have varying experience on this matter, some more so than others, but all with a different appeal than the rest. McCain, for example, runs along the line most similar with Bush and Chaney in the need to halt Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons programme, overtly stating that he will do ‘everything’ in his power to make sure this never reaches a conclusion ending with a second nuclear armed Muslim state. He also has a wide experience with foreign policy having sat on numerous Senate comities over the years.

The same with Senator Clinton, she too has a vast understanding of the ins and outs of international diplomacy mainly due to her unique eight years as first lady, combined with her being a third term senator means she has a very popular appeal with the more right wing voters. So much so that numerous Republicans have started to side with her instead of McCain over his more liberal views (discussed above).

Finally the weakest of the three on foreign affairs, having virtually no experience in his still first term as US Senator, has the exclusive advantage of using his perceived weakness to his advantage. One thing more than any other ordinary Americans desire is change. Barrack Obama is alone in being a genuine change to the status quo, having talked before about his desire for open dialogue among some of Americas more undesirable world partners, including Iran.

Whichever party finally ends this most fixating of contests the winner, one thing remains certain; that the Democrats are the sure fire favourites to succeed this coming Autumn, but with the current un – certainty of the coming primaries, time is undeniably with the Republicans.

For the moment, at least.