Most Dangerous Contest Reviews, another story from Afghanistan, and a question · 2:52pm Jul 30th, 2014
Hey folks,
I was browsing my blog list the other day and I noticed that when I include tidbits or stories about my time in Afghanistan and Iraq, my blogs get more views. Like, a lot more – my blog on the Taliban and Bergdahl got something like a thousand more views than most of my other blogs. Apparently, a great number of people are more interested in my time in Afghanistan than my ramblings about pony stories.
I think that's pretty neat. So, at the end of this blog you'll get a little bit about Afghanistan and Iraq again. If that's all you're here for, you can skip right to it.
There's a couple big things I want to hit up front. First, I'm back from my hiatus! Which wasn't even much of a hiatus, since I ended up writing a short piece set in Lost Cities the other week. But! The point is, I finished my Master's degree two days ago. My thesis is turned in, and I can stop dreaming about South Sudan and Neoliberal International Relations Theory.
Let this be said for fanfiction as a hobby: it makes writing of any sort much, much easier. I remember years ago, back when I was a Freshman in college, and one of our classes had a 20 page final paper. We were all stunned! Twenty pages was a mountain, even doubled spaced. Longer by far than anything we had written to that point in our lives.
Now, when I get an assignment with any sort of page length, I just sort of giggle at it. I have written novels for this site, purely for the pleasure that doing so and sharing them gives me. Being told I have a twenty or thirty or fifty page paper doesn't elicit any sort of fear anymore – it just tells me how much space I must contain myself within. That is a nice, tangible benefit of this hobby, and one I think people overlook far too often.
Anyway, long story short, I'm back. I mean, I'm still deployed to Afghanistan and I only get 30 minutes online a day if I'm lucky, but I'm back in spirit.
So! To the meat of this blog post: I promised the other week that I would review each of the finalists in The Most Dangerous Game contest once the judging was over. If you hadn't heard, Obsolescence’s awesome contest wrapped up the other day, and you can see the results over here.
In the order in which I originally read them:
Aquaman's “Far from the Tree”
Prompt: OC falls in love with a main character
Synopsis: I didn't read any of the other stories until after I had finished “For Whom We Are Hungry.” I just didn't have time to write and read, so I put off all the reading until I was done. When I finally hit the 'submit' button and went looking for other entries, I was feeling pretty stoked. I thought my entry stood a good chance.
Then I actually read some of the other stories, and I started to worry. They were good. Like, real good. Archonix's “Succession” was actually the first one I stumbled across, and it had me sweating. I was confident it was going to make the finals (sorry again, Archonix).
Aqua's “Far from the Tree” was the second one I read, and I really began to panic. This was supposed to be a contest featuring terrible tropes, and it was our job to rescue them. But here's Aqua ponying up a story that isn't just a salvage job of an overdone trope, it's genuinely good on its own merits. He manages to write Applejack, who is by far the blandest, most boring of the main characters, with hopes and fears and insecurities and all the things that make us human. He starts off his story with a kick in the face: Applejack walks in on her sister, Apple Bloom, and a colt snogging in bed, their bodies pressed against each other, limbs intertwined... all the naughty stuff we did (or wish we did) in high school when our parents weren't home.
It would've been easy to take Applejack's reaction too far, and a lesser author would've had her threatening the poor colt, or chasing him out of the house, or something worse. Aqua doesn't fall for that trap, and after a lengthy bit of introspection, we get to the meat of the story, which is Applejack's calm, adult discussion with the colt.
Judgment: This story is what we would call 'introspective,' if we were running a college literary mag (fortunately, we are not). There is very little in the way of action or decision – indeed, the only significant actions are Applejack's discovery of her sister's little affair, and then Applejack's discussion with the colt.
People who've read some of my older blogs know that I'm a huge fan of two things in stories: saying something about the human condition; and making characters make moral choices. This story does a lot of the former; we see Applejack fretting over her own lack of companionship, worried about her looming mortality, and of course protective of her sister. All human things, all deserving of the attention Aqua gives them.
What I wish I'd seen more of was some sort of significant choice by any of the characters. Good stories, in my view, are primarily based on the choices their characters make, and in this, the closest we get is Applejack deciding not to fly off the handle when she discovers Apple Bloom rolling around in bed with a colt. Instead, she heads back downstairs and sets out some cider on the table.
That's a choice, certainly. But does it have anything to do with the prompt Aqua chose? It does not, and in fact, we never see any of the prompt play out in the story, we only hear Chip Shot (the colt) discussing it with Applejack. Aside from a few sentences and languid, twisting limbs, we never even see Apple Bloom in this story, and it's supposedly about her falling in love with an OC.
I am, of course, nitpicking, mostly because this story came so frighteningly close to beating mine. It was excellent, and Aqua should be proud of how it placed.
Magello's “To Love the Sun”
Prompt: All of them
I stumbled across this one when Titanium Dragon listed it as his favorite in the contest. I'd never read anything by Magello before, so I was curious how it would feel.
Synopsis: Pretty good, it turns out. While I didn't quite fall in love with this story like some other reviewers, I can definitely see why some people felt it was a strong entry. Long story short, 'you' are a human who came to Equestria, fell in love with Celestia, was betrayed, became a seventh element, fought her, was defeated by her, and finally gave inspiration to Luna for her own fight.
Synopsis: If that sounds confusing, well, I think it's supposed to be. This story is a ride, and it drags the reader along the whole way. Some reviewers were amazed that it accomplished so much in such a short format (it's less than 3,000 words), but I actually had the opposite feeling. This story was only successful because it was so short; any longer and the frenetic pacing and tone would start turning off readers, and I think they would have bailed out.
So, kudos to Magello for knowing something very important – sometimes, shorter is better. A lot better.
Lucky Dreams' “In The Place the Wild Horses Sleep”
Prompt: Human in Equestria, probably some others that I didn't notice
Like most people, I heard the hype about this story before I actually got around to reading it. A lot of authors I respect put it as their #1 pick, so I went into this story with high hopes.
I can honestly say I was not disappointed. This is a children's story, so it plays by slightly different rules than the stories I'm used to, but right away I got the incredible 'Where the Wild Things Are' vibe from it. The way the author got us into the head of the little girl, right from the start, using all those conventions of childhood that most of us have forgotten, was simply outstanding. I think the first page was my favorite part.
Toward the middle and the end, the wonder wore off a bit, but it remained a heartwarming tale. I gave it my first-place vote (I voted myself second).
Georg's “The Young Filly and the Sea”
Prompt: OC falls in love with main character
This was the dark horse finalist. The other four I pretty much expected, but this one came out of nowhere.
The story's first chapter is its best, by far. It gives us a young Twilight suffering on the beach while Cadence and Shining Armor have fun without her, presumably engaged in innocent, wholesome, teenage fun. The analytic vibe from Twilight is a bit much – imagine the show's Twilight turned up to 11 – but not enough to be distracting, and frankly fun to read.
So in the first chapter she meets a colt, and they become friends, and they go hunting for shells. Then it's time to go home and they say goodbye. At this point it was a fun, short, heartwarming story. Nothing that met the contest's prompt, but hey, there's two more chapters!
Sadly, the next two chapters did not live up to the first. Chapter two involved now-princess Twilight meeting the colt again, and falling in love. Instantly.
Chapter three flashes forward another few years, and Twilight and the colt are on the beach with their children.
That's... about it. In terms of meeting the prompt, I can't really say it does. The prompt was for an OC and a main character to fall in love, but there's really none of that here. It's just Twilight meets a colt she hasn't seen for decades, and they're instantly in love.
In my admittedly limited experience, that's not how love works. It's a process. It takes time. Love at first sight is just a trope, and a fairly tired one at that.
So Georg, if you're reading this, no hard feelings, but I honestly felt this story didn't meet the contest requirements.
Anyway, on to Afghanistan!
How is it that I've never written about the teacher? I feel like that should have been one of my first stories.
It's a fairly well known fact that the Taliban were not fans of girls' education when they were in power. In fact, the number of girls who went to government schools during the Taliban's reign was exactly zero. That tells you a lot about them, I think.
After we came in and swept out the Taliban, we had all sorts of lofty humanitarian goals for Afghanistan. Chief among them was raising the position of women in this society – we had seen too many pictures of women smothered in burqas, those tent-like blue garments that cover their entire bodies, leaving only a mesh screen for the eyes. This preserves their modesty, apparently, though the more time one spends in Afghanistan, the more one suspects that the true purpose of the burqa is to hide the women away, where they can bring no dishonor upon their family by their presence.
Girls' education was one of our first goals. Once the fighting was over, we went on a school-construction spree, usually without bothering to check for things like a local government that could support the school, or elders who were willing to invest in it. We certainly didn't pay enough attention to finding teachers – there are far, far too few of them in this country. The end result was a bunch of well-built but empty schools for the first few years until we figured out the other pieces of the puzzle.
I met my first Afghan teacher in June, a few months into our deployment. His friends brought him to our FOB in the back of their Toyota and begged us to save his life.
While walking home a few weeks earlier, the teacher was approached by a pair of men on a motorbike. One of them had an AK-47, and they warned him, “Son of Bush, stop teaching for the Crusaders or we will kill you.” Or something like that – the details get lost in translation.
The teacher did not stop teaching, and on that June afternoon, when school was out and he was walking home, those bearded men rode up to him again, and they said, “Son of Bush, we warned you to stop teaching,” and then they shot him in the gut.
When I got to the main gate, our medics had the teacher on a stretcher and were applying first aid. There's not much you can do in the field for a gunshot wound to the abdomen – that sort of thing requires immediate surgery. The medics, god bless them, were doing everything they could to keep him alive until then.
However, we had a choice to make. We could call for a medevac flight, and in thirty minutes or so a helicopter would arrive and carry the teacher to the field surgical hospital in Khowst. We have good doctors there, and he would almost certainly survive.
But was calling for a medevac the right thing to do? The Afghans had a healthcare system of their own – his friends actually drove past the civil hospital in Gardez to bring him to our FOB – and we'd spent five years at that point trying to improve it and give Afghans confidence in it. What would we be doing to that system if we treated every Afghan ourselves, simply because we had no faith in our Afghan partners? Worse, if we called for a medevac, that helicopter wouldn't be available to respond to any other medevac requests, for instance if an American soldier was injured.
So we debated. We called our higher HQ and debated with them. The medics wanted a medevac. I wanted a medevac, but I was the lowest ranking officer on the FOB, so my voice didn't get much weight. The PRT commander wanted a medevac, but the maneuver battalion commander wasn't so sure.
While we argued, the sun set, and the teacher on the stretcher grew weaker. There wasn't much blood, I was surprised to see; the medics later told me that most of his bleeding was internal, and as blood seeped into his abdomen, it was placing pressure on the underside of his diaphram, making it harder and harder to breath.
I don't know who made the final decision. I remember being disappointed, but I never felt like I had the grounds to disagree vocally. So I said nothing while the teacher's friend put him back in their Toyota, and they drove him back to the hospital, where a surgeon was called in to operate.
He died that night. They didn't have enough of his blood type. A few days later, we went to his family's home in Ahmad Abad district. Maybe I'll write about that next time.
I sometimes wish I'd said more, or at least said something. It wouldn't have changed the outcome – I was only a lieutenant – but at least I would have tried.
A while later, we heard a rumor that the teacher wasn't killed by the Taliban, that he'd been killed by another family in one of the thousands of tribal dispute that are constantly tearing at the fabric of this society. His friends, according to the rumor, told us it was the Taliban, because they knew that would get our attention and aid.
I don't know if the rumor is true. I don't know if I should even care – he was a teacher, a rare thing here, and a human beside. Does it matter who shot him?
I wish I had gotten his name. All I have to remember him by is his profession – he was a teacher.
So, final topic for tonight. There's another contest over on EqD, about writing from an “Outsider's perspective.”
I want to enter. I've been plotting my entry for several days. I like what I have. What I'm unsure about is whether it's really kosher to enter another contest so soon after winning one here. I don't want to be “that guy.”
On the other hand, Aqua's already called me out for the new contest. Hm.
What do you all think?
Enter, damn you.
Hop to it, soldier!
But seriously, I'm so glad I wasn't the only one that thought Georg missed the target on that one. Granted, I'm so used to having a minority opinion that I'm in the habit of always speaking with a megaphone strapped over my heart, but I thought the point was valid. Again, this is why I was make a bitterly comical quip about how you were bound to lose because I thought 'Hungry stood out so far.
As for the competition: if you will, I will. Can't say fairer than that, can I? A fella has to put his money where is mouth is now and again, right?
Enter the contest.
And your stories from deployment always draw my attention. My cousin was KIA in Operation Iraqi Freedom; it's nice to get an idea of what it's like in the Middle East from your perspective.
Go kick some butt!
Go for it (the contest, that is!) I'll be entering as well, so I'm not doing my chances of placing well any favors by encouraging the participation of a writer of your caliber. But then reading anything you pen is a guaranteed pleasure (and learning experience) in comparison to the somewhat remote possibility of my getting close to being a finalist.
I have this to offer as an explanation to why your blogs detailing your experiences on deployment generate so many comments: this is life-and-death drama IRL, which most folks in the the western world rarely experience – not least because of the efforts and sacrifices of people like you! Some people might say it's vicarious thrill seeking, but IMHO it's also important that folks in general understand more about the consequences on people's lives of decisions made by our governments and of our interactions with the rest of the world. All this to say that I hope you will write more about your life in the military. Service people placing their own lives on the line for the defense of us back here deserve an articulate voice like yours to document their experiences.
Do et. If you have time, There's no reason not to. More things to read.
I think if you keep putting stuff out there for contests no one could possibly blame you for winning a few of them. I don't think it's a bad thing at all - after all, it gives us more great fanfic to read! Enter the contest, I say.
Hear hear. I was never terribly daunted by page length - mostly, it just felt like an imposition - but twenty pages sounds bloody small after writing stuff like Them, Perchance, and especially Pirene.
Yes, very yes.
Your story regarding the wounded man is troubling. I'm not going to sit here and armchair commander. Well, of course I have an opinion, and I'd like to think my reasoning is sound, but that doesn't make it less dickish.
I will say that one of the great tragedies of our intervention is the woeful failure of the politicians to adequately prepare for the invasion's post-op. You can be the best surgeon in the world, but if you then chuck the patient out onto the street, don't be surprised if he dies of a treatable infection.
Or, to put it in a metaphor most Americans are familiar with: you break it, you buy it.
I'm probably entering too, so you scare me, but I will hopefully prove myself against you on the field of battle.
CiG enters new contest => new CiG story =>
ON THE OTHER HAND...
I was thinking of entering that contest myself.
Enter the contest, they are for different sites. If it really bothers you, you can always write for the contest and simply not enter it.
I think I actually gave you a bunch of views on one of your latest Iraq/Afghanistan posts; you'd explained very well the general circumstances behind the guy who'd deserted a while back and for whom taliban leaders had been traded, and I tweeted a link to your post to the guy who draws Terminal Lance (it's a webcomic by a guy who served in 2008 about...Lance Corporals being idiots, mostly. And on what life is like in the Marines. It's very accurate, and I recommend it).
Anyway, he retweeted it, and so that could have caused a bump.
here's an example of his kind of humor: terminallance.com/media/comics/2014-07-11-Strip_333_Oh_Baby_web.gif
Goddamn. For all the scathing rhetoric swirling around our involvement in the middle east, it's easy to forget that there are some genuine struggles, endured by soldiers and civilians alike, and everyone is honestly trying their very best to make things work out. Kudos to you, Gardez. Reading your blog posts has inspired immense respect for our soldiers.
I love the Wild Horses story. It was very sweet.
When it comes to war stories I have more confidence in you as a person in the field and a small horse fan then I do in any news outlet.
As someone who is in school to be a teacher...goddamn.
Do Afghans still treat their girls like trash, and stone them for getting raped? If so, there's no wonder women hide behind burqas... I don't think a couple of schools will change the situation there, but at least it's a nice start. Provided they are used...
Enter the contest. It's really not about winning or losing, but there being more fine stories on this site, and you turn out some really fine ones.
Everypony writes about ponies, but when one writes about something else, it stands out of the fray. Besides, your posts about yourself help us understand you.
I remember a while back you mentioned that you were working on creating a compilation/site to hold all of your stories from Afghanistan and Iraq. Is that project still happening? Because I've greatly enjoyed every single one of the ones you've posted. Feels like I'm reading Tim O'Brien again.
As for the contest, go for it! I'm not a writer, so I wouldn't know about unspoken contest rules, but I'm sure everyone could appreciate reading another of your stories.
2329220
It's not a specifically Afghan problem, it's an endemic problem with that section of the world, it's still back in the dark Ages thanks to reactionary forces trying to stave off their dissolution in the face of a far more powerful, more technologically advanced society. So far the fate of all other less advanced societies has been extinction... it's a shame really, since lack of adaptation is what will do them in, though I guess it's the change itself they see as evil. And so the lonely tyrants oppress their own people. Even better if they can not only get others to do their work for them, but actively suppress half the population in one go...
From an entirely selfish perspective, the more good authors that enter contests, the more good stories there will be to read. So, enter it!
If you enter two contests in a row against some of the best authors on the site, and win twice in a row, you deserve every accolade you get.
If you're worried about how you're going to be perceived … well, stepping back on the grounds that other authors won't have a chance with you there is a pretty strong statement of its own. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, and I'd rather have more CiG fics to read.
I vote you go for it. The world is always a better place with more Cold in Gardez pony stories.
I love "fish out of water" stories and cannot wait to read yours.
Yeah, I’m starting to think The Young Filly and the Sea is one of my best failures, like okra. You either love it or you hate it. Still, 4th place wasn’t bad, although there were only presents for the top three (I seem to be channeling Green Grass there). I think people were either reading too much into it, or just put off by a lack of dating, kissing, and general canoodling.
I’m going into the EqD Summer FanFic Contest with a story that isn’t so prone to misinterpretation: Seeds of Future Past. Think of it as The Lorax, without a Lorax in it (because in Equestria, the trees can speak for themselves). See you there, and all the best of luck.
Not being a regular follower of yours, I did not know that Gardez is the name of a location where you served. Suddenly, your name makes sense to me.
Also, yes, enter the contest, by all means. For Whom We Are Hungry was a fascinating story, and if you produce a new story of comparable quality for this new contest, then that will be a very good week for me.
I suspect the people who wish you would spend as much time as possible writing outnumber by a considerable margin those who wish you would stop beating them at contests. But I also suspect that the second category contains somebody who deeply resents you and already thinks you are "that guy." There's always somebody who takes things way too seriously. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that said somebody would also find winning a contest you didn't enter deeply unsatisfying, and would prefer the chance to try to beat you. Somebody, whoever he or she may be, is likely to be unhappy no matter what you choose, because that's what treating a pastel horse fiction contest like such serious business does to you.
Personally, I would vote for you to participate in the contest, were this a democracy. But I doubt it is.
Actually, it occurs to me that you could create another account to participate in the contest without people knowing it's you. (Although you'd have to hope nobody recognized you by your style . . .) And then eventually the truth would come out, and somebody would find a reason to be really angry about this well-intentioned subterfuge, but nobody really cares what he/she thinks. Everybody else would understand the logic, I'm sure.
Go for it. I can't speak for others, but I know if I was entering that contest, I'd like to test my mettle against the best. If I lost, I would know that I need to get better. If I won . . . well, then I would have out-written one of the most inspiring writers on the site.
The chance to do that is more than worth the risk of failure.
As an aside, I live in Perth, Western Australia. One of the more isolated parts of an isolated country. The media portrayal of conflicts overseas is, while not limited, relatively one-sided. Your stories offer me an insight into what it is actually like that is not easily available elsewhere.
So thank you for writing about your deployment. (And congratulations on the Masters!)
Oh absolutely enter. Doesn't really matter if you win or not, more CiG writing is always a good thing.
Another Afghanistan piece! And yes, we love them. Or at least I do, as I've mentioned before. You could publish them. Damn are they depressing, but they're always very interesting.
And do the contest, if you want!
You should enter the contest.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/44/Juggernaut2.PNG
It's okay to build up some forward momentum, Mr. Marko.
I think you should enter if you wish to do so.
Seventh Element. A downright inspired one, too, I'll say. PLAY makes so much sense I'm surprised it hadn't been done before. (I wonder whether the idea came from the childlike approach, or independently?)
I vote go for the contest, because how can more CiG fics possibly hurt?
Enter the contest. Long have I awaited my chance to test the mettle of these writin' thumbs against your Cold steel.
After ten minutes of debating it was decided there would be no puns in this comment. No true puns, anyway.