Strange Timing For Such A Strange Meeting

I’m relieved to have had a few extra days to prepare. I would have been a mess otherwise. Who knew the iPod nano is such a hot ticket these days? It took a trip to three different stores to find one. And I managed to get the last one there. Nor did I think it would be so difficult to find a deflatable neck support pillow for the flight. I finally found one at Walmart today. Go figure.

And one of the final things I threw into my bag was an electrical plug converter for my computer. It’s nice that all laptop power chords have a built in power converter. The clunky black box attached to your laptop’s power cable is there to protect your computer from being plugged into either a 110 (United States) or 220 (Middle East) volt socket. Pretty nice, eh? But the actual plug isn’t compatable. Thus a converter is necessary.

While in the mall today, I went to Radio Shack to hunt one down. For some reason, Radio Shack is always my last ditch effort at finding anything electronic. The place has always come off as shoddy to me but it was there and convenient and totally empty of other customers. My shopping patience had long since left me and I was in no mood to start another shopping goose chase. I went straight to the chick working behind the counter and asked for an international plug converter.

She looked younger than myself. Maybe 22 or 23 years old. She was wearing a hijab which is a headcovering many Islamic women wear. She did not seem foreign to me. No accent. Very American besides the hijab. Anyway, here’s our conversation:

Me: “Hi. Do you sell international plug converters?”

Sales lady: “Oh yes. Right over here. Where are you going?”

Me: “Well, I need it to work in Europe and the Middle East.”

Sales Lady: “Where in the Middle East?”

Me: “Israel.”

Sales Lady: She smirks and almost seems to break out into laughter.

Me: “Where are you or is your family from in the Middle East?”

Sales Lady: After a moment of pause her face turns harshly earnest and she says in a low voice, “Palestine.”

INSERT MASSIVE WALL OF AWKWARD SILENCE HERE

Me: “I’m sorry.”

Yep. That’s right. All I can say in this strange situation is “I’m sorry”??? Of all the reactions to have, I had to do the one reaction that clearly wasn’t enough. At this point she’s already walking my plug converters to the check out counter. Of course I’m completely fumbling for words and want nothing more than to make my purchase and leave.

Just like the jack-ass I am, I said to her at the register, “If it makes you feel any better, I’m neutral in the matter.” If it makes her feel better? In afterthought that seems like one of the lamest things I could have possibly said (besides ‘I’m sorry’). Would she even care if I was for or against any one side? Does my neutrality some how make her feel better about her history and the conflict continuing today? Of course not. But it made me feel better to say something.

In the end, I made my purchase (I have absolutely no idea how much I paid for the damn converters) and walked out of the store. Behind me I could hear her say, “Enjoy your trip”. But we both knew there was more to that sentence than a simple courtesy. For the first time, I felt the energy between Israel and Palestine. It’s different from reading it in the news. It’s strangely embarrassing and viscious and historical.

Strange days.

24 hours before take off.

Popularity: 17% [?]

A Short Interview With the San Francisco City College Campus Magazine

A student journalist approached me via email to answer a few questions for an article she’s writing for the San Francisco City College campus magazine. She came up with some really great questions and I thought I would repost them here (with my answers, of course) for all to see.

She’s writing an article about the American populations current attitude towards the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and specifically focusing on the books and plays that give voice to soldiers who have fought there (Aftermath of War, Doonesbury’s The Sandbox, Letters From The Front Line, etc).

Do you think it’s a forgotten war?

I think that after five years, the war has become boring to the public. The American public gets bored easily anyway and their attention span can only take so much. I think the American people support the troops 100% and are deeply grateful for the sacrifices that myself and other soldiers have had to make, but they’ve lost interest in the daily death reports, suicide bombings, and terrorist attacks being reported by the media. I think the current public attitude was best put by Bryan Catherman in an email he sent to me which he wrote, “We’re in a season of ‘Iraq Fatigue’ (meaning the public has lost interest in movies, documentaries, books, and news about Iraq) and 2009 and 2010 are probably going to be worse.” I couldn’t agree more.

Do you feel the media could do a better job at covering such an important
issue that our nation is deeply involved with?

I think the media puts far too much effort into trying to entertain and attract readers/viewers than simply being informative to them. There’s a marked decline in the last year of news items about the war that’s continuing in the Middle East. During this Presidential election season, it’s difficult to find copy written about the war. It simply isn’t what the public wants to hear. Sure the media could push more of the news coming from the front lines, but it would be at the risk of losing their audience. It simply comes down to what the public will find more interesting to read about. In my opinion, the media could do a better job of looking past their bottom line figures and go back to providing solid and informative news items reporting on the Middle East.

Do you think collaborative projects such as this play [Aftermath of War], and books about the war (ie Letters from the Front Lines) are helping to raise awareness to the war, or do you think they just touch those who are already involved with or are interested in the war?

At this point in the war, I believe a majority of Americans will either have been a soldier, a family member of that soldier, a friend, a past veteran, or someone else touched by a person who had served their country in the Middle East. With that being said, I believe these wartime collaborations have an affect on a largely personal level with a huge variety of people; not just veterans. It’s very touching to hear the personal thoughts of actual troops and it brings the event onto a whole new level of understanding. It’s one thing to hear the news about the war and it’s a whole other thing to get into the head of the soldiers fighting that war.

Without any doubt, these projects bring a vast amount of awareness and understanding from the front lines to the home front. And I believe they’ll be equally important projects to see and read again after the war has finished and we can look back on them as historically significant.

Popularity: 35% [?]

The Aftermath of War: In Their Own Words

There’s an interesting play being put on over in Berkeley, California, that’s being described as “a performance collage of the words of American soldiers in or returned from Iraq and the families of some of the war’s casualties.”, says the San Francisco Chronicle.

Bryan Catherman did an excellent write up of the play here. He was lucky enough to see it a few weeks ago and met with some of the actors and director before and after the production. As for me, a five hour flight from Chicago to San Francisco is a bit too far for me to journey for just one show. (Unless perhaps it was on someone else’s tab?)

I admit that my attention to this “off-off broadway play” is more than just a kinship to my fellow veterans. Even though I find myself deeply moved by the project, the honest truth is that I’m actually a “character” in it.

gasp.

I found myself hyperventilating a bit when I listened to a radio interview conducted with the director, John Wilk, and actors Gregory Rowe, Maria Leigh, and Adam Morgan.

Please check out the interview here. I encourage you to pay special attention at minutes 9:25 and 14:25 of the interview (hint: Jami Gibbs = Ms. Babble). This may actually be the first time I’ve ever been publicly deconstructed. It’s very surreal to say the least and I’m very humbled by it.

The piece of mine that the actress is monologuing in this interview is called “Eden“. And in the stage performance, two additional pieces are used called “Tower Duty” and “Normal Boogers“. Also included in the performance are a handful of other great military writers/bloggers. Here are some links to their exceptional work:

• The Blog of War by Matthew Currier Burden
• Here, Bullet by Brian Turner
• Warrior Writers edited by Drew Cameron
• Letters From The Front Linesedited by Stuart Platt and Duffrey Sigurdson
• Charles Ziegenfus’ Blog
• Lee Kelly’sWordsmith At War
• Mary Cahill’s Life After Iraq
• Neil Prakash’s Armor Geddon
• General Milblogs at Blackfive

The performance just wrapped up a month long stint at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley, California.

Popularity: 40% [?]

My Return To Israel, or, Don’t You Wish You Had The Guts?

Expect to see a lot more bloggage about Israel in my future.

I’m convinced that there’s a drop of a famous adventurer’s blood inside of me. Sometimes I wonder if this strange blood was overlooked because the pages stuck together in a chapter of my families history book. I can’t deny it’s calling. I’m some sort of a bastard child spawned from Earhart, Fossett, or Lindbergh. But I’m admittedly a cheap copy (with far less money than the afore mentioned travelers), even though the passion is there none-the-less.

It’s no secret that I’m not content with laying down in comfortable defeat within the confines of an office cubical at the ripe age of 28. At least not yet. While it may be my fate eventually (and I’m perfectly content with accepting this), it isn’t right for me now. I’m sure it isn’t a shock to anyone that I’ve still got the itch of realizing life. I’ve reasoned that leaving my job isn’t the end of the world. It’ll always be here. Or at least an almost identical corporate gig will always be here.

My tour in Iraq was certainly a catalyst for my Middle Eastern interests. It all began there. I am not the same person that I was when I left for my deployment. I’m sure there are many people that can attest to that. And the biggest change in me was finally realizing that if we want something, we’ve gotta just go for it. Or more importantly, we can’t live with regrets because (and please excuse the cliche) life really is far too short. Apparently, those aren’t just words we’ve been hearing since the first moments of our lives. For me, personally, it took having to see my own mortality face to face in the sand box to finally make those words mean anything.

I’m going to a land that I’m familiar with and feel a kinship to. A place that I can look forward to being with someone that I love and who can be my partner in discovering the beautiful and soulful place that is Israel. There is a strange connection that my life has made with that part of the world and the person that I’ve met there. It’s a part of the world that many people in the States fear and look at with digust and anger. I’m past all that. That’s the lazy way of looking at it. It’s full of beauty, history, guts, passion, and a country (I feel) that I fought for in Iraq just as much as I fought for America. The more that I educate myself and the more I analyze my life and what I want out of it, the more I feel the urgency to be there. And the most important part of my realization is that we should never be content with being content.

I’ll be studying there and writing and creating and doing everything that I need to do in order to feel full. It’s been in my mind and I’ve been planing it for several months but it hasn’t all materialized until now. I apologize for any shock this may bring to some, but I have a feeling that it really isn’t going to make many jaws drop. I think I’ll just get the, “There goes Jami again” response more than anything else. April is when I’ll be jumping off.

With that being said, I ran across this video from another world traveler’s blog that I’ve been following and getting a lot of planning guidance from. You can visit him at GoBackpacking.com. Lots of updates to follow.

Feedburner subscribers may need to view this post directly at americanbabble.com in order to see this video.

Popularity: 32% [?]

An Unlucky Experience Made Me A Lucky Writer…Again

There’s some really great things happening with the book sponsored by Gary Trueau of Doonesbury which features such amazing writers as yours truly.

What kind of a writer would I be if I didn’t publicize my work?

Ego aside, it’s actually full of some AMAZING stories that have harpooned tender and heartfelt emotions inside of me. At over 300 pages, it’s well worth the $12. Not to mention, all proceeds go to the Fisher House which supports American families of service members.

They’re currently on a book signing tour and doing fun interviews on my beloved NPR. I’m not sure where they’ll be next but they’ve got my numbers. No wagers, please, on if they’ll call me to join their troupe.

Popularity: 26% [?]

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