We'll Miss You, Para

A friend of mine died in a suicide bomb attack on Monday. No, not a fellow American soldier over in Iraq or Afghanistan: a Major General in the Sri Lankan Army, who was in my seminar at the War College.

His name was Parami Kulatunge, whom we called "Para" for short. At the Army War College you spend all of your class time the first half of the year, and a good bit the rest of the year, with your seminar. We were Seminar 12, and we had 17 students (2 women, including myself): 10 Army officers, 1 Marine, 1 Navy, 1 Air Force, 2 government civilians, and 2 International Fellows (IFs). Para, obviously, was one IF; the other was Josef, from Germany. In the picture, Para is the swarthy faced gentleman in the tan uniform standing behind me.

Para spoke very good English, in terms of grammar, syntax and vocabulary. But his accent was so strong that half the time I couldn't understand what he was saying. Which was too bad, because he had a good sense of humor. During the annual Chili Cookoff that year, he made a fish chili!! (Fish and seafood being main dietary elements in Sri Lanka, as it's an island). It was awful, but it was really neat that he participated and put up his own booth.

Even back then (during the War College) Para was a major general in his military. The funny thing was, he didn't know how to do basic household things: cooking, cleaning, etc. Sri Lanka was once a British colony, and the military is modeled after the British military system -- but without a lot of modernization, and many old colonial anachronisms are still present, including the class system where junior enlisted soldiers do all the manual labor for the officers: cooks, valets, landskeepers, etc. Para had always had servants, and had never had to do for himself, so the year at Carlisle was a revelation and a learning experience for him in more than just academics.

I remember the day Para gave the seminar a briefing on Sri Lanka, and talking about the terrorism problem, including the group that killed him Monday. I remember his pride in his country, and his hopes that they would be able to resolve the issues with the terrorist groups (or, well, terminate them all, as there was no love lost betweenthe Sri Lankan government, military and the terrorist group, due to all the deaths on both sides). When the tsumani hit Sri Lanka last year, we were all relieved to hear that Para and his family were safe; Para was heavily involved in the relief effort and coordinating with the US military.

I also remember the pictures of his country that he showed in the briefing, and the invitation he extended to the seminar to come visit. Over the last several months, in fact, the seminar had been exchanging emails, talking about having a seminar reunion in Sri Lanka sometime this year. That will never happen now...

The sad thing is that I no longer remember off the top of my head how many people I know (or knew...) have been killed or seriously injured since 9-11-01. It's sad and scary that there's been enough now that I can't count them easily. And sometimes I have to wrestle with something similar to survivor's guilt, partially from not having deployed on OIF or OEF, but also from 9-11 itself. It's not something that can be explained easily, and it can't be rationalized away. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but every once in a while something happens, like Para's death, that reminds me.

Reading Log

My reading log on the left has also been updated; it was wa-a-ay out-of-date. This idea I borrowed from Spicy Rejoinder; I think it is fun & interesting to see what other people are reading.

TL Log #1

"TL" is terminal leave (or transition leave, as it is now formally called).

It's been a week now...and it hasn't been all that good of one. I have done/accomplished absolutely nothing. Which would have been okay if that was what I wanted to do, but there were at least a few things I had wanted to accomplish this week, and I haven't done any of them, mainly because I've felt rotten all week,

The first day I took Jodeo and Tobey to a JRTCA dog show. Ended up being frustrating, although I should have expected it, as I hadn't stripped their coats, nor done any showring training. Plus it rained.

Sunday I had a splitting headache all day, which at first I thought was just from the stress of the last week, but then my period started. So Sunday & Monday were crampy and headachey.

Then I started getting a sore throat in the mornings, and generally feeling cruddy. The sore throat has worsened all week, staying sore all day and expanding into earaches; and then I'm not sleeping well at night, so I feel my worse first thing in the morning, which doesn't get me excited for doing much. Like maybe writing more interesting posts than whining?

So I've been vegging in front of the tv, and playing lots of computer games, and piddling around at other stuff, and just generally sloughing off and feeling sorry for myself. The one really bright note of the week was spending a couple hours with Caitlin last night, showing her how to put up the tent (for Bonnaroo) and just talking.

Ah, well. I'll try to get better at this. Plus hopefully get back in the habit of writing regular posts again.