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CAPTURING
STORIES OF NOT-FAMOUS PEOPLE
Near the end of the SciFi movie BLADERUNNER
there is a line spoken by a character who is dying. It
goes like this:
"I've
seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the
shoulder of Orion... I watched sea beams glitter in the dark near the terhausen
gate... All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain..."
Over the years when I read any of the many
diverse no-shitters and sea stories on this magic internet I think of that
phrase:
"All those
moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain."
I think that pretty much sums it up for
most of us "un-famous people" .
The "big picture" stuff normally finds
its way into the better books (fiction and non-fiction) but all the day-to-day
experiences and minutia of each individual's military service will, for
the most part, be "lost in time like tears in the rain".
Dex once wrote that - being a bottom
feeding, low ranked, raghat and one who didn't know the big picture - he
often thought about going to the phone booth at the head of the pier and
just calling up old Arleigh Burke and asking, "what the hell is the big
picture?"
Many of us try to save what we can on
this will-of-the-wisp internet and most of our stories have zip to do with
any "big pictures". But everyone of us who ever served in whatever capacity
has stories.
It would be beyond anyone's capacity
to share everyone's experiences. Fortunately there are a few of us that
spin out our vignettes and save what is possible.
The payoff is that some of these stories
will strike a chord of familiarity in others - and elicit comments like,
"Yeah I did that too - and until I read so and so's story I had forgotten
those 'moments in time'. "
I reckon the best we can do is to assemble
our own small jigsaw pieces so that perhaps the totality comes just a tad
closer to forming that elusive "big picture".
Sid (2008) |