Whose Prayers Will Be Answered?
Reflections on the Beaches of Boracay
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
One of the best kept secrets as a tourist destination in the southeast asian region would have to be the island of Boracay. For whatever unexplained reason – (locals and immigrant Westerners wanted to keep the island for themselves ? lack of advertising budget from their Dept. of Tourism?), you don’t see the clear road signs pointing to it like Phuket, which it could very well rival. Everybody just ends up in this mini-harbor on the nearest main island of Panay where colorful outboard motor-fitted bancas ferried group after group to and from the island. Well, everybody of course except those who could afford to come using their own watercraft or seaplane.
There was a smile of relief from my hosts who bade me goodbye at the harbor knowing that finally, they could get on with their operations without worrying about their “guest’s” safety. For me, it was a welcome sideperk , of course.
Boracay was an island community that slowly, due to its natural beauty and powder-like white beach sand grew from a small fishing village to a small international community of sorts where some Europeans and Asians from neighboring countries decided to adopt the place as their home, if not second home. Some introduced touristy water sports, some went into pension houses and restaurants, which was partly encouraged by the cash-strapped government. As you strolled down its beaches ,meeting friendly people from distant parts of the globe, you almost get lulled into believing life was lanquid and tranquil. I was able to practice my German with some folks, query on the weather in Sweden and got an invitation to see a technical exposition in Aichi, Japan all in a single stroll. Equally, it was developing a culture of its own with its drama and intrigues. The only crime or calamity reported was the slaying of a German national due to business competition some years ago and the fire that ruined their flea market recently.(why do these things precede me ?) The evenings were still alive . They always had something going. A new Reggae band. A candle light show with beach sand sculpture , spontaneous singalongs and discos. Since it was a tiny island that was enclosed by an archipelago of bigger islands, there was natural protection from tsunamis, which would hit the bigger islands first and dissipate before reaching Boracay, - unless, of course, the quake epicenter would be at or near the island. (heaven forbid)
Know what? It just wasn’t a place to be alone. I mean it was a place where you could easily fall in love in. But if you’re already in love, you tend to act like like that Cole Porter song. You know, even with a bevy of beautiful and voluptuous females passing before you smiling, you tend to sing, “it’s the wrong face, tho’ your smile is lovely , it’s the wrong smile. It’s not her smile..” Aughhh.. Then you tend to ask yourself, “What am I doing here?”
So before I go mushy here and try to forget myself thru one-night stands, lemme get on with what I wanted to blog about - some very human faces I’ve encountered in this war directly or indirectly.
There was a sergeant in Iraq who mentioned that everyone else in his unit was asking how long they still had to stay on . He had this mandibular injury from a shrapnel and had to undergo corrective surgeries. It wasn’t that he was unafraid of dying or had a death wish or something like that , but he believed it was the right thing to do, to stay on and accomplish the mission. It’s difficult to ascertain if an Administration spin was behind that article that appeared about him later, but even if it were, I just wanted to say to the sergeant, “ I salute you, man, and I hope you mean it. If there was something that had to be predictable in the war effort, it had to be the frontline soldier and his focusing on the mission. I know you know there have been debates going around, but the bottomline in these debates have always been concern for you and your buddy’s safety. The concern was if there were more deaths on our side to prevent by applying a better strategy. The luxury of debate belongs to the staff meetings and maybe to a certain extent ,websites like JU ,to make ordinary people understand how important your lives are to us. The debate stops at the battlefield when you press on the trigger to cover your buddy’s back and defend yourself. You, of all people, constantly remind us to strive harder to win the peace.”
There was this newly promoted captain. Scout Ranger par excellence. He led the raiding team that scaled the cliffs to make the assault on the Abu Sayyaf camp successful. An M-16 bullet grazed thru his frontal lobes making a bifrontal craniotomy and partial resection of his frontal lobes necessary to save him. Here he was now, struggling on his feet, with his spastic gait and managing a salute as he approached. After several medals and a promotion what did it all mean? He was facing Complete Disability Discharge for his condition, reverting into civilian life with bleak job prospects. He rambled on with his plans, a salad of ideas starting from forming a group of war wounded to leading a national spiritual revolution. What could Occupational Therapy do for him? Jeez. Even as smiled and listened to him, I almost couldn’t get myself to face the man. People who enjoy war must be really sick in their heads. People who enjoy sending other people to do the war must be sicker.
Then the sergeant. What was I suppose to do about the sergeant ? He was now battling ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome). Bad prognosis. It all started with the War Exercises, his wearing a newly prescribed Kevlar helmet and his getting hit on the head by a shrapnel that came from an explosion that somehow went off course. His head wounds (intracerebral hematoma) that developed got adequate surgical treatment but his lung infection seemed to have progressed despite antibiotic coverage and now he was critical.
What impressed me was this visit he had from a senior official. What was that, sir? You wanted me to tell you if his Kevlar helmet was bent inwards or not? For a minute there, I thought you were concerned about the sergeant, Sir. Oh, that too? Well next time, Sir, we’ll make it a point to make special beds for the helmets so you can go straight and visit those beds, Sir. Jeez.
The next face is that of Mahmoud. ( No last names pls.) At first glance, the guy could pass for a Norwegian fisherman, with his features. Nothing Middle Eastern with him. Well, maybe his accented English. Why would a 36 year old Jordanian suddenly sell all his belongings and just move to this part of Asia? And it wasn’t even Boracay. Just the thick jungles in southern Mindanao.”Sir…Sir”, he called out to me. “Please let me see my wife and children . I have 14 children..” Really now. The only thing going against him was his expired visa and pending deportation back to his country.14 children in three years? Maybe he meant the other children in Jordan which made it doubly puzzling why he left them in the first place, if indeed there were. He looked like sh_t but had no physical signs of injuries and had no other complaints except for his temporary detention when he began his hunger strike. For a hunger striker, the guy was physically fit, preferring to stand the whole night rather than rest in bed . Having been brought in for a medical evaluation, there really wasn’t much that could be done except for antidepressants which he refused. I told him there were lost lives and terrible crimes committed against his host country and that people really thought he had something to do with those bombings having been caught in an enemy camp where he stood out like a sore thumb. His blue eyes which seemed to bore into his listener’s soul slowly dropped its gaze. I left him coming back hours later to find him squatting with hands outstretched. I wondered what his prayers were for, how rage built up inside him when he heard harangue after harangue against “infidels” in the mosques and that he , in fact was praying for death for the “infidels”…death for us.
With all the guys having some kind of amulet or good luck charm with them in a hostile environment, you just had to grab to some of the things that were being passed around. One of them, which looked familiar was Psalm 91. It was told that there was this British regiment in WWII under a certain Col. Simon Whittlesy .All officers and men memorized and repeated the “Psalm of Protection” regularly and served for more than 5 years without losing a man. It began as “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty..” Some striking words in the Psalm were “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked..” I was not, what you might call, a religious person, and I try to avoid putting a religious slant to this war and just deal with it as expeditiously as I could. But whenever danger lurks, I just tend to pray this, for whatever peace it could bring to my soul.
If it were true that there be only one God and different religions leading to Him, whose Prayers would He answer – mine or Mahmoud’s ?
There was a smile of relief from my hosts who bade me goodbye at the harbor knowing that finally, they could get on with their operations without worrying about their “guest’s” safety. For me, it was a welcome sideperk , of course.
Boracay was an island community that slowly, due to its natural beauty and powder-like white beach sand grew from a small fishing village to a small international community of sorts where some Europeans and Asians from neighboring countries decided to adopt the place as their home, if not second home. Some introduced touristy water sports, some went into pension houses and restaurants, which was partly encouraged by the cash-strapped government. As you strolled down its beaches ,meeting friendly people from distant parts of the globe, you almost get lulled into believing life was lanquid and tranquil. I was able to practice my German with some folks, query on the weather in Sweden and got an invitation to see a technical exposition in Aichi, Japan all in a single stroll. Equally, it was developing a culture of its own with its drama and intrigues. The only crime or calamity reported was the slaying of a German national due to business competition some years ago and the fire that ruined their flea market recently.(why do these things precede me ?) The evenings were still alive . They always had something going. A new Reggae band. A candle light show with beach sand sculpture , spontaneous singalongs and discos. Since it was a tiny island that was enclosed by an archipelago of bigger islands, there was natural protection from tsunamis, which would hit the bigger islands first and dissipate before reaching Boracay, - unless, of course, the quake epicenter would be at or near the island. (heaven forbid)
Know what? It just wasn’t a place to be alone. I mean it was a place where you could easily fall in love in. But if you’re already in love, you tend to act like like that Cole Porter song. You know, even with a bevy of beautiful and voluptuous females passing before you smiling, you tend to sing, “it’s the wrong face, tho’ your smile is lovely , it’s the wrong smile. It’s not her smile..” Aughhh.. Then you tend to ask yourself, “What am I doing here?”
So before I go mushy here and try to forget myself thru one-night stands, lemme get on with what I wanted to blog about - some very human faces I’ve encountered in this war directly or indirectly.
There was a sergeant in Iraq who mentioned that everyone else in his unit was asking how long they still had to stay on . He had this mandibular injury from a shrapnel and had to undergo corrective surgeries. It wasn’t that he was unafraid of dying or had a death wish or something like that , but he believed it was the right thing to do, to stay on and accomplish the mission. It’s difficult to ascertain if an Administration spin was behind that article that appeared about him later, but even if it were, I just wanted to say to the sergeant, “ I salute you, man, and I hope you mean it. If there was something that had to be predictable in the war effort, it had to be the frontline soldier and his focusing on the mission. I know you know there have been debates going around, but the bottomline in these debates have always been concern for you and your buddy’s safety. The concern was if there were more deaths on our side to prevent by applying a better strategy. The luxury of debate belongs to the staff meetings and maybe to a certain extent ,websites like JU ,to make ordinary people understand how important your lives are to us. The debate stops at the battlefield when you press on the trigger to cover your buddy’s back and defend yourself. You, of all people, constantly remind us to strive harder to win the peace.”
There was this newly promoted captain. Scout Ranger par excellence. He led the raiding team that scaled the cliffs to make the assault on the Abu Sayyaf camp successful. An M-16 bullet grazed thru his frontal lobes making a bifrontal craniotomy and partial resection of his frontal lobes necessary to save him. Here he was now, struggling on his feet, with his spastic gait and managing a salute as he approached. After several medals and a promotion what did it all mean? He was facing Complete Disability Discharge for his condition, reverting into civilian life with bleak job prospects. He rambled on with his plans, a salad of ideas starting from forming a group of war wounded to leading a national spiritual revolution. What could Occupational Therapy do for him? Jeez. Even as smiled and listened to him, I almost couldn’t get myself to face the man. People who enjoy war must be really sick in their heads. People who enjoy sending other people to do the war must be sicker.
Then the sergeant. What was I suppose to do about the sergeant ? He was now battling ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome). Bad prognosis. It all started with the War Exercises, his wearing a newly prescribed Kevlar helmet and his getting hit on the head by a shrapnel that came from an explosion that somehow went off course. His head wounds (intracerebral hematoma) that developed got adequate surgical treatment but his lung infection seemed to have progressed despite antibiotic coverage and now he was critical.
What impressed me was this visit he had from a senior official. What was that, sir? You wanted me to tell you if his Kevlar helmet was bent inwards or not? For a minute there, I thought you were concerned about the sergeant, Sir. Oh, that too? Well next time, Sir, we’ll make it a point to make special beds for the helmets so you can go straight and visit those beds, Sir. Jeez.
The next face is that of Mahmoud. ( No last names pls.) At first glance, the guy could pass for a Norwegian fisherman, with his features. Nothing Middle Eastern with him. Well, maybe his accented English. Why would a 36 year old Jordanian suddenly sell all his belongings and just move to this part of Asia? And it wasn’t even Boracay. Just the thick jungles in southern Mindanao.”Sir…Sir”, he called out to me. “Please let me see my wife and children . I have 14 children..” Really now. The only thing going against him was his expired visa and pending deportation back to his country.14 children in three years? Maybe he meant the other children in Jordan which made it doubly puzzling why he left them in the first place, if indeed there were. He looked like sh_t but had no physical signs of injuries and had no other complaints except for his temporary detention when he began his hunger strike. For a hunger striker, the guy was physically fit, preferring to stand the whole night rather than rest in bed . Having been brought in for a medical evaluation, there really wasn’t much that could be done except for antidepressants which he refused. I told him there were lost lives and terrible crimes committed against his host country and that people really thought he had something to do with those bombings having been caught in an enemy camp where he stood out like a sore thumb. His blue eyes which seemed to bore into his listener’s soul slowly dropped its gaze. I left him coming back hours later to find him squatting with hands outstretched. I wondered what his prayers were for, how rage built up inside him when he heard harangue after harangue against “infidels” in the mosques and that he , in fact was praying for death for the “infidels”…death for us.
With all the guys having some kind of amulet or good luck charm with them in a hostile environment, you just had to grab to some of the things that were being passed around. One of them, which looked familiar was Psalm 91. It was told that there was this British regiment in WWII under a certain Col. Simon Whittlesy .All officers and men memorized and repeated the “Psalm of Protection” regularly and served for more than 5 years without losing a man. It began as “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty..” Some striking words in the Psalm were “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked..” I was not, what you might call, a religious person, and I try to avoid putting a religious slant to this war and just deal with it as expeditiously as I could. But whenever danger lurks, I just tend to pray this, for whatever peace it could bring to my soul.
If it were true that there be only one God and different religions leading to Him, whose Prayers would He answer – mine or Mahmoud’s ?
