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Having had a total of six hours of sleep in three days, too much sunlight, and given the circumstances in which I found myself, I was manic as a rabbit on blue meth. My thoughts were numerous and interwoven, leaving me with a sensation of static or thousands of ants flooding across the surface of my brain. This, of course, was happening ten minutes before we pulled into Sacred Stone Camp to peacefully protest against men who were armed to the teeth and brainwashed into thinking what they were doing was right. Or at least good enough.
Luckily, I brought with me an alpha-wave stimulator, a battery powered mechanism that sends small electric volts through my ear lobes, tamping down mania and panic to manageable proportions. This may sound crazy, but for people who suffer these sorts of episodes, they’re a game-changer. Plus, if you don’t look closely, you appear to be listening to an iPod. So, secure that I brought it, I collected myself, then turned to Walid to get the hearing protection I’d use against the sound cannon that was going to be employed against us.
“Hey, man. Can I get those ear plugs?”
“I thought I gave them to you…”
I began to immediately brood, gritting my teeth in anger, tamping down my frustrations and looking inward to my dark, safe place, where everything is cruel but also bleeds. It was around then that my stomach growled because in the mad rush to get all the appropriate gear on the bus, I didn’t have time for what I've been told is the most important meal of the day. I smiled a little. The harder life gets, the more I feel at home. But I needed the calories. The cold we’d be walking into was the sort that cut through cloth, through meat and vessel and sinew to close its grip on your bones, your marrow, and in turn, your very soul. I had to eat. Though I’d brought an MRE with me, it was packed away under the bus and given how much of a debacle the morning had been, I didn’t know when I’d have a chance.
Stupid metabolism...
Unlike other members of my family, I’m the opposite of a “Foody.” It’s not that I don’t appreciate culinary excellence. In fact, I try to appreciate art in as many forms as I can find it. But having to eat has often been a source of obnoxious inconvenience. It’s expensive, takes time to prepare and ingest, and anything you swallow is only the introduction to your relationship. But necessity doesn’t care about your needs. As though he heard my stomach growl or read my mind, Walid chimed in with his typical motherly style, the sort that makes me want to chew through living things.
“Hey, man. I forgot that I got you some Cliff bars for you from the chow hall.”
With that, he dug into his pockets and handed me my meal for the morning, cutting through the anger and mania I’d built up toward the world and allowing me a deep sigh and a moment to recollect myself. After accepting my thanks, Walid continued.
“The RTL called.”
The RTL was our contact, the woman put in charge of telling us where to go and what to do. The one from the night before that fell of the map when we needed her most.
“Apparently she got into a car accident last night. Those slick roads got the best of her. She’s fine. So are the people she’s with. They’ve got another rental car and are on the way.”
I raised an eyebrow, impatient.
“Why didn’t she respond to our calls?! Why didn’t she let us know what was going on?”
Walid shrugged and that was the last we would ever hear from our RTL.
As the buses pulled around one final bend in the road, the camp stretched wide, a confusing shantytown of tipis, military-style and camping tents, and a wooden lodge used for a community hub.
As we got closer, the traffic squeezed to a standstill, with people climbing the steep, snow covered hills to either side, looking for the best angle to capture the moment with a wide-angle lens. The VETERANS had arrived. I shook my head, knowing that our coming was the only reason why the press were circling like buzzards. Because veterans are a “sexy” story, and not because of the overt social injustices happening right next to them.
Refocusing my attention back on camp, we inched ever closer, cars pulling off the side of the road to let the VETERANS through. I didn’t like the special treatment. We were all in this together. But like it or not, it was happening. Right before we reach the entrance, I saw this:
It reminded me of Kandahar back in 2001, when one of the people in my platoon carved I heart NY into a pomegranate tree. God, I love meaningful graffiti...
Beyond the sign, our buses turned down Flag Row, a six hundred yard stretch of quasi-road slippery with frozen mud. They drove achingly slowly through the teeming crowds of people, a dozen or so on horseback, many of whom were giving us the thumbs up and shouting gratitude. They were self appointed greeters to a tiny city of innumerable variety, where hundreds of cultures, from collections of indigenous tribes to international correspondents, flittered in and out and past us on their way toward shared goals. Some smelled like patchouli, some had face tattoos. It didn’t matter. In times of hardship, humans pull together with humans, putting down anger and contempt of petty differences in order to celebrate their shared experiences. A self-actualized Jungian collective, fleeting and precious, like a flower that blooms only once in a lifetime.
Our bus came to a halt roughly 100 yards from the front gate, leaving us to collect our gear and sign into the tent where we would get our lodging information. The cold had its icy grip on us, but damnit, we were stronger. Helping Walid carry some of his gear as well as my own, I at one point fell flat on my back, the traction of my boots not enough for the smooth surface on which I was walking. Any and every person around me would flood to help, each of us chomping at the bit in a rabid fervor to do Good by any means necessary. But I’m typically a solitary sort of cat. I don’t often let people buy me beer, let alone look after me. It keeps my powder dry, if you get me. Add to that that subconsciously I thought everyone there was in the infantry and you have a surly man whose main gift to everyone is mission accomplishment and not emotional gratification. I don’t mean offense. I never mean offense. I just cut to the point. I like to think of it as "succinct."
“Fuck off! I’m a goddamned grown-up!”
It worked like a charm.
Once we arrived at the tent itself, the debacle began again. There were two flustered women shouting redundant phrases to bring some sort of order to this living entropy. Standing behind a desk in a tent that could hold 30 people comfortably, a fire stove burning a couple of feet away, they were doing their best to tread water, yet still drowning in confusion.
“Find your RTL! They’ll get you your housing for the night!”
I swore under my breath, the ineptitude of military logistics reaching its tendrils from my memory to be dragged before me like any deep regret. After filling out the necessary forms and getting mixed information from people equally as frustrated, Walid approached, saying that he found another RTL that would allow us to tag along.
“Where is he?”
Walid pointed at a man walking past us, wiry with red hair and a goatee, an heir of authority about him as he stormed past on a mission incredibly dire. After grabbing our gear and chasing after him, we started walking as quickly as we could, still sliding, but wary.
After roughly ten minutes of me trying to both keep up with the ginger twat that was leaving us while at the same time making sure Walid knew where I was going, I became a little concrened. Not for Walid, though he had a lot of bags to carry. He was, according to him, “in good shape for a 45 year old. But still a 45 year old.” Both of those things are true enough. I wouldn’t have brought him if I thought his physicality would slow us down. I was, however, concerned at what I was getting into as far as the rest of my company.
Regardless, we soldiered on, both not yet focused on finding markers to know where we were. I was trying to follow and be followed. I still felt excited, though. With no map, no grid system, and few landmarks to speak of, it was sink or swim. This place was a wonderful chaos.
We walked along confusing lines of sporadically constructed tents and tipis, some more lived-in than others, with cars and SUVs scattered like metal bushes in a human forest, a “Bernie” sticker gracing bumpers far more often than not.
Because THIS.
Turning left, then right, then doing a u-turn, and I had know idea where we were when we finally arrived at the tent where we would set up for the night. It turns out our makeshift RTL wasn’t on a dire mission. He just wanted to get out of the cold and was willing to leave us behind to do it. This style of leadership is based on ego, rather than responsibility, and is incredibly dangerous, both at war and in the real world. I thought about how I would have handled this when I was in the Marine Corps. I thought about beating him, selfishly, but with divine right. Then, as always, I recognized that that was just a bipolar reaction, and, to Walid’s delight, put on my alpha wave stimulator. From there, our feckless leader pointed out where the obvious prayer fire was, where and when to meet up later that day, and left.
After smoking a cigarette, I, along with my companion, decided to walk the camp and familiarize ourselves, not simply with necessities like food, water, shelter, and warmth, but how to get back to our tent in spite of all the rampant, frantic disorder. We arrived at the prayer fire, flames licking out of a pit in the middle of a frozen, muddy circle, where announcements were being called out of loudspeakers, which were hooked up to a fickle microphone that worked just long enough to build the announcer’s confidence before going out again.
We got in a long line for coffee and free hand warmers, people still thanking us for showing up, then watched the Native American’s do a prayer dance, of which I got a pretty fantastic picture. Immediately afterward, someone turned to me and said “This is sacred. No pictures.” So I erased it. It’s now gone forever. I’m okay with that.
Going from the prayer fire to amble around the camp further, Walid would find himself constantly being interviewed by journalists. He’d worn a keffiyeh draped around his neck, with long hair, a beard, military fatigues, and a hat that said Marine Veteran on it, whereas I was wearing black ski pants and a black ski jacket, both one size too big in order to hide my armor. On top of his garb, he’s originally from Kuwait, which adds to a story he is forever excited to tell. This style of thinking is, in fact, perfect for his chosen pastime of protest and the press needed therein. He's built for it. In between interviews, we kept walking, looking for each variable we could adopt to make this our home for the next few days. This was going to be a hard week, but by God, we were excited to show what we could do. Excited to have such profound purpose.
And we weren’t alone. Thousands of veterans and civilian protestors were continuing to pour in, their cars stuck in gridlock from the camp entrance for such a distance that we couldn’t visually see where the line ended. This would be a protest of epic proportions.
And then they announced the victory.
The pipeline would be halted while the Army Corps of Engineers reassessed the environmental impact of the drilling that would happen underneath Lake Oahe. There would be relief. We weren’t needed anymore. At least, that was the initial thought.
When I heard this, I felt a pain in my diaphragm; a slow, nagging pain that spoke of disappointment on too many levels to realize at once. On a selfish level, I wouldn’t have my chance to fight against a tyrannical system. On another, far more important level, the credit for this would be placed on the shoulders of the veterans that showed up that day, rather than those who had been there for the last 6 months. I also seriously doubted the Energy Transfer Partners weren’t going to stand for this. They have the money to not only act outraged, but to act beyond laws because they could afford the fines. Capitalism at its most raw. In the wealthy sectors, they call this “Fuck You Money.” But they would still need time. I’d only be there a few days. My moment was gone. And of course, there was the guilt I felt because I wasn’t celebrating.
We decided to go back to our tent to find out what we were going to do from there. Maybe, through all of the insistent confusion, there was some solid word on what our plan of attack was. As we continued through the streets and makeshift alleys, we tried to find the landmarks we had acknowledged to get us to our gear. We couldn’t find them. We had a vague direction, but for the life of us, we found ourselves backtracking and walking in circles. One of us joked that we were two Marines and somehow got lost. I little bit of fury rose in me to tamp down the panic of being away from my medication, but roughly 30 minutes later that feeling dissipated as we, having opened several of the wrong tents, eventually found ours.
I'm pretty sure our tent was in the back... one of the green ones...
The word on the street was that, due to the massive amount of people showing up, as well as the recent victory, that in order for the camp to remain sustainable, there needed to be a mass exodus. And the weather was going to get worse. The next day would be 9 degrees, the day after that, 4. Oh yeah… also the blizzard. The options were this: Stay for the next month or more, living off of what the locals were receiving, or get out while you could. I had to move out of my apartment three weeks from then, had a book I needed to revise one last time (fingers crossed) that will have its own impact, and a trip overseas that would soon be approaching. As heartbreaking as it was, there was no option for me but to leave. Walid politely fought this tooth and nail.
“We didn’t come here to leave. We came here to protest.”
I knew that. In retrospect, the idea that he would have to point that out is vexing. Not only was his excitement contagious, I had to be the boring voice of reason. Imagine that... Anyway, we were in this together, so it eventually fell to “Yeah, but I have the keys to the car.”
So, after another cigarette, we kept walking through the encampment, this time looking for food. There were three different main spots where we could find some, each tailoring to your dietary needs. If you were a vegetarian, you go here. If you eat meat, here. If you have a gluten allergy, good luck.
While in line, Walid did what Walid does, which was strike up conversations with random strangers. I'm not complaining. It's just what he does. and it was through him that we spoke to Leif and Rob, two people who had been there for weeks and had found themselves as friends. Rob was a jazz musician, a man in his early 20s, looking like he was plucked from a beatnik catalogue. Leif was a viking of a guy, goofy, but intelligent. We hung out for an hour or so, eating and discussing camp idiosyncrasies.
“Be careful which wifi you use. The police have set up their own and they can manipulate your phone. There have been dozens of reports of people whose passwords have changed on their email accounts and the batteries on some people’s phones are drained within seconds. They’ve even erased pictures and video. Just be careful.”
This threw me off a little bit, as hacking into an iphone was next to impossible earlier this year. But then again, it is 2016, where the great men and women die while the rich get richer, police protect and serve themselves, and our president-elect is Donald Fucking Trump. It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if manipulating our phones and emails were now possible and utilized.
One of them gestured to the long line of cars still trying to get into camp and said “I have no idea what we’re gonna do with all these people. Where are they gonna stay? How are they gonna eat? Shit, where are they gonna park?” I didn’t have any answers.
Once we were done, we all exchanged contact information, then Walid and I went back to the tent so that he could put on more cold weather gear and I could change my socks, which had soaked through to my now-numb toes. As an infantryman, one of the first things you learn is to look after your feet. I had to follow Walid back to the tent, as he apparently had a better sense of direction, all the while paying astute attention to landmarks. This tent is here, this bus is here, we're X amount of distance from this or that. You get the idea.
250 yards from the propaganda snowman, for example...
Anyway, after adjusting our clothing, we went back to the prayer fire for coffee and more conversation. The indigenous people had started a retrospective of the camp’s events, celebrating their victory with reticence, doing their best to walk the line of reminding everyone of the impact they had all made before the veterans arrived while at the same time showing those same veterans gratitude. And, to the comfort of my rational, they assured everyone that the fight was far from over. Still, even a small victory was more than they'd previously been given.
After that, the anouncer urged those that could to seek shelter elsewhere to do that while they had the chance.
Once the announcer was done, one of the tribes began singing to the sound of drums, their wavering tones echoing through the ether, held aloft by the spirits of those that came before them, those that swirled and mixed with the smoke that occasionally glanced us. I looked to the fire, where a man whose visage was chiseled from rock and age raised his arms while peering into that same flame, entranced in the elemental transcendence that runs through all of us. I don’t know how much time passed, but earth’s shadow had begun to cover the village, fires sprouting up like stars from random tents and tipis.
Walid clapped me on the shoulder and said “I’m beat, brother. I’m going back to the tent.” I looked over at the man staring into the flames, realized sleep could wait, and responded “I’ll be there in just a bit.” I would doze like the innocent that night, but not before I soaked in all the culture I could. About thirty minutes later, as the night threatened to swallow us up, I decided to find my way back to the tent while there was still light.
Two and a half hours later, after most of those fires had burned to embers and having walked through feet of snow, I concluded that I was lost.