CHIMERAS

“…it is one of the fatalities of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms.  It is difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth.”
 
            Chimeras are not real.  They never were.  The lion exists.  A goat is real, serpent too, but not the way Man imagined the coalescence of all three into a figure of His mind.  Despite this, Man imagined the Chimera still and, in believing such as real, the fantasy shaped an ancient world.  It seems foolish to think man ever once believed such a creature to be real, but man has always, and will forever create myths that—in their telling—manifest true effects in consequence to false perceptions. 
            I look at our world today, a CDC study openly referenced expects a million deaths from the virus (which our society is reacting aggressively—perhaps too much so—to curtail) as a “best case scenario.”  I am a simple man with simple questions.  On what evidence are these projections based?  I have never seen a chimera.  I have searched, and until I see with my own eyes, knowing my own effort to discover, I do not accept that they are real. 
            Has anyone in our living time seen a respiratory illness leaving millions dead in a modern nation?  The projected numbers for our own nation mirror nowhere in the world, and in nations with far less resources and ability for treatment than our own, they do not match.  We reference studies showing the disparately high mortality rate of this novel virus in comparison to other illnesses—such as the common flu, but as testing becomes more prevalent, not just for the severely ill, do not these numbers fall?  In testing, as we see greater prevalence of this virus in hosts showing no adverse effects, or flu-like symptoms and recovery times.  Does awareness that mortality rates of the infected—when testing only a limited and extreme end of the spectrum are exaggerated—decrease greatly as testing and discovery of minor cases increases ease worries or merely bring disappointment that the weight of our fears may be excessive?
            I have heard it is better to take too much precaution than to not, that if we are too cautious, we will never know, but if do not take proper precaution, we will.  I have looked for chimeras.  I began, too, with the beginning belief in taking proper precautions for seeking out dangers, threats, and monsters.  In my searching, I found insight, but I have never seen a chimera; misguided men—yes—but never a Chimera.
            The elements of a Chimera are all real, but they do not exist in the composition of the myth.  My first Chimera showed fiction in the aftermath of an earthquake.  It was enlightening. 
*****
            From January–April 2010, we served as a ground element for humanitarian assistance operations in Haiti responding to an earthquake to the nation.  I remember the stories coming to us on ship, of the desperation, death, and exigency of the situation, how locals had been overwhelming helicopters seeking to land and provide aid. 
            We prepared for anything, anything but what we found.  We were on the first Marine CH-53 to land.  It was a rural village of Baussan, near the epicenter of the quake.  We did as we were trained, flushed out of the helicopter, secured the LZ for follow on forces, and after establishing security—we did not need any—I heard my name called and found our Battalion Executive Officer already present.  The only thing our first helicopters brought was curiosity.  Our LZ was a ten acre pasture surrounded by a circle gravel road.  People came up to us, and as we began to feel it out, the next action was not what we had planned for.  They brought us food!
            They brought fruit and fresh-cut sugar cane, and what we expected to be a scene of great destruction felt more like a gathering of fellowship.  We made friends, became entertainment for the village children.  Kids waited for us when we’d leave to “patrol” but what I would more accurately call “go be good dudes.”  We just walked around, met and talked to people, saw if anyone needed medical help.  If it was something small, our corpsmen helped people on the spot, with materials from our own kits.  When someone was found needing higher medical attention, we coordinated for their evacuation transport to higher echelon treatment either on the island or to a hospitalship offshore.
            The only material assistance people needed was something we didn’t have: shelter.  Of the water bottles we gave, they were poured out and refilled from wells.  Our food was not liked, even the candy we tried to give to kids was too sweet for what they knew and favored, and most of the material “help” we brought went largely wasted.  They didn’t need material “help.”  The “help” they needed was simply being shown they were care about and not forgotten.  That wan’t the story told back home, but that was the truth I lived firsthand. 
            The only time there was ever civil disturbance, disorder, and chaos was when we tried to help materially.  Even when what we offered wasn’t really needed, or even wanted at the time—like toilet paper today—because there was a false perception of scarcity and disparate distribution, people fought.  Our material aid was the only point that incited social disorder. 
            I ask, what is the effect of our attempts at bringing safety in our present national condition?  Is it bringing stability and security, or the opposite?  Perception is the lived reality—until we learn more.  Do we feel safer today than a week ago?  Why?  What has really changed?
*****
            I remember another village.  A reporter team from a national news station was attached for us.  They were looking for a story for the narrative back home: hardship, tragedy, crisis.  For a week they lived with us, providing security for non-government organizations providing basic medical aid to locals.  Again, civil unrest arose from a perceived shortage of supplies or resources.  As soon as everyone understood all would be seen, there was zero unrest. 
            The reporters never got their story.  We again played patty cake and soccer with the local kids during the day, and at night, the village sang hymns in the dark until we all fell asleep staring up into the stars.  Everyone slept outside.  The structures were not sound.  They would be leveled and rebuilt, but there was a fellowship and positivity in the experience—not crisis.  The earthquake was real, the crisis was not. 
            It is one of the most moving experiences of my life.  That story was never told because it did not fit the narrative, but now it is.
*****
            My next search for Chimeras came in war. 
            In war, it is easy to permit fear undue influence in one’s decisions.  Fear, and the perceived—and often real—exigent threat to life force one to judge fast on what one sees and senses with their own eyes.  Even when we see it with our own eyes, it is not always true.  Fear distorts visions and adds imagined details that do not exist. 
            I remember a day we witnessed an IED being prepared.  It is a disjointed process, multiple pieces performing a part to enact a final effect so that, should any piece be broken, the process can be easy sustained with the addition of a single new piece.  There is a builder offsite.  Someone digs a hole, another delivers and connects components, covers, and is gone.  They are fast, simple processes easy to miss if constant observation (or perception that it is) is not maintained. 
            I remember witnessing a hole being prepared.  It was a road recently secured that took ten days of patrols hitting IEDs every day, before a clear route and continuous line of sight presence was established.  There were two men behind a motor bike.  We saw their actions, flailing hands, striking the earth concealed from our vision by the orientation of their bike.  I saw it with my own eyes, and I know what I saw.  When another vehicle passed, they paused, and when alone again, they returned frantic to their work.  It was all a matter of a minute. 
            We moved fast and swift, detaining both individuals and the bike, recovering a sharp pointed instrument that appeared to be what they were using to strike the earth.  They were detained, interrogated, and prepared for movement to a District Police Station. 
            Their story never changed.  They were not digging a hole, they were airing up a flat tire.  The tire was not flat.  In the morning, it was.  I had further information, and my understanding of a beginning belief was improved.  I returned to the Police Chief that conducted the interrogation.  I showed him the tire.  I asked him what he believed of the story the two men told.  When permitted the opportunity to give his own honest opinion, he told me he believed that, especially in light of new evidence, their story was true.  We could have held to our beginning position, ignored new evidence and better understanding, continuing the detention of innocents in the wrongful belief we had saved lives.  We hadn’t saved anyone.  We made a sound action on the best perceptions in a split moment to act on a perceived act, but in light of greater understanding, we corrected our beginning flawed conviction. 
            I saw it all with my own eyes, but my eyes—in fear—were wrong.  The Chimera was not real.
*****
            I remember a specific patrol where there was continuous radio traffic of enemy observers documenting troop movements.  The radio traffic was real.  Whoever was observing us was real.  We discerned a group of males in the distance, a glint off an antenna where they rested in a place where they could maintain observation of the patrol.  Radio traffic continued.  It sounded like an engagement was imminent, and while we braced for follow on actions, our own observers requested permission to engage the identified men in the distance. 
            Enemy radio traffic, messaging of pending attack, and visual observation of the antenna and distant group of men—like the parts of a Chimera—all of it was real, but not in the form or fears imagined.  It did not feel right, and having heavy assets on hand, we did not approve the fires.  We “engaged” them, with personal engagement.  We rolled up on them, hopped out with a section leader to speak with them, see what they were doing, and what we found proved our fears to be entirely imagined.  The antenna was for a radio our own coalition forces had distributed.  They were sitting on a distant hill because it was the best point of reception.  The rest of the village was down in a wadi and out of line of sight with the radio towers American assets established, and broadcast our own stations and messaging.  We nearly drew down, and destroyed lives, from a fear created from benign objects and actions caused entirely by our presence and interaction in an isolated world.   The Chimera was not real.
*****
            As we live our present days, I have only my own perceptions from experience with which to judge.  As I live, learn, and gain further understanding, my perceptions—and according actions—change.  I have searched for Chimeras.  They are not real.  The components of their imagined form, yes, but not in the image our fears shape.
            When our actions are to provide security and safety, we must continue to assess if they are.  Intentions don’t matter, it’s the effects, and if we fail to measure the psychological nature of our actions, we miss the end effect on those we intend to serve or make safe.  No one feels safe being told there is great danger, and in our fear, we manifest real consequences in response to erroneous perceived threats. 
            When we look at the data of what this virus has actually done, is unprecedented reshaping of social perceptions and patterns necessary?  Maybe it is?  Maybe our own changed behaviors and absence of a more complete picture are causing greater problems than the one perceived in the beginning.  I’m not pretending to know.  I am only asking the question.
            In my own life experience, I have saved and been good to far more lives with limited, measured action—continuing to build a greater picture—than I have on erring in haste to the side of greatest safety and unleashing the full power of resources at my fingertips.  Sometimes, we must live among our fears to realize they are not real. Power is addictive, and whether it is rightly earned, or wrongly bestowed, those in possession of it should be ever conscious that their acts are truly for the purpose defined and not for the high exercising power can give.  The latter can unleash a different kind of monster, and these monsters, I have seen. 
            Chimeras are not real.
 
“…Let us not apply a flame where only a light is required.”—Victor Hugo, Les Miserables