By Tracy L. Karol
I hear voices. Music, even. Not inside my head, like a song you can't get out of your mind. Actual music that sounds like it's coming from the next room, like someone left the TV or stereo on just a bit too loud and you want to yell at them to TURN IT DOWN, except nothing is actually on. No one is talking, "Boot Scootin' Boogie" is not actually on the TV, I can tear through the house like a madwoman (and I have) to find myself completely alone, still hearing the sounds that are not there. It's literally all in my head.
No, nothing ever tells me to kill people, or that the CIA is spying on me through the walls. There is a perfectly good scientific explanation. I'm not crazy. I have epilepsy.
My temporal lobes fire off excess neurons and cause an electrical storm in my brain. Sometimes this causes me to hear things that aren't there. Or smell odors no one else smells. Even see things in bizarre ways, or have intense moments of strange emotions that you would never understand unless you've had a seizure. Because that's what all of these are - seizures. Not convulsions, though I have those too, at times. But seizures that are much more common. Nonconvulsive epileptic seizures.
The many drugs I've tried over the years have sometimes helped, sometimes made things much worse. The device I have implanted in my chest, which shocks my brain ever 20 seconds, lessened my daily convulsions. But epilepsy has changed my life and the lives of those around me. No, I'm not crazy, but sometimes I feel like I am. The seizures (technically partial, complex and simple) come in so many forms and attack me so often that I can't work, I can't drive, sometimes I can't get out of bed.
March 26 is Purple Day, the International Epilepsy Awareness Day. Please take time to learn more about this terrible brain disorder. I will help you. This small entry is part of a book I'm writing on my life with a seizure disorder.
No, I'm not crazy, I have epilepsy. But sometimes, I admit, I feel like I'm losing my mind.
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Another Great Rapp
Another Great Rapp, Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Kill Shot (Mitch Rapp) (Kindle Edition)
I don't see how anyone can give Flynn less than 5 stars on any of his work. I've read all his books, most several times. I've enjoyed "Kill Shot" and "American Assassin" because we readers get a chance to explore the psyche of our evovling hero, Mitch Rapp, as he becomes the go-to operative he is "now." Flynn also is able to flesh out secondary characters. My only complaint might be the abrupt ending, but I did read the book in a day and wanted more (I'm reading some older novels again). If you're new to the series, AA or this book would be good places to start, and I have to wonder if the films will begin with this sequence. (Any ideas on the actor?) I thoroughly enjoyed the writing style, the plot, the characters, and everything else Vince Flynn did here. And may I wish him a full recovery as well! Bravo! For plot details, please see my blog. Tracy L. Karol
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Rest in Peace Heroes
Copter Downed by Taliban Fire; Elite U.S. Unit Among Dead
Published: Saturday, August 6, 2011 at 5:08 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, August 6, 2011 at 5:08 p.m.
NOTE: By Tracy L. Karol - This is an American tragedy. It is more than that. It is a tragedy of evil over good. Just months ago, this same troop squad was involved in the death of Osama bin Laden, who was evil personified. He was evil on the level of Hitler, Lenin and Saddam Hussein, and so many others. Our troops were on the side of the angels and May 1 was a great day, a day of triumph, of good triumphing over evil. We cannot give up. Otherwise, these brave soldiers who were killed now, as well as all the troops killed in the war on terror, will have died in a vain effort. Yes, we need to get out of that forsaken country. Bomb it to pieces for all I care. But avenge the deaths of our troops. Get our people out and ensure that we wipe the evil off the face of this planet. For if we do not, it will just come back, like it did after the death of bin Laden -- to kill again. They want us dead. If you are reading this and you are American, British, Canadian -- make no mistake -- they want you dead too. You are an infidel to them. Our lifestyles will never be compatible with radical Islam. They have perverted that religion to the point that it is not recognizable as anything near what it might once have been. And their stated goal is to kill us. Why should we wait around and let them do it? Why should we not take the initiative and wipe out the radicals first? Personally if it comes to them and their families or me and my family, I won't hesitate -- I know where my loyalty lies. And diplomacy does not work. I'm sick of our troops coming home injured, in body bags, with PTSD, with post-traumatic epilepsy. This chapter needs to end. And we need to end it. Before another life is lost. If you haven't read about Lt. Michael Murphy, who gave his life in the last major loss of special forces (the only survivor was Marcus Lutrell, who wrote "Lone Survivor"), you haven't learned about our true heroes. And we need to keep our heroes ALIVE.
This article is by Ray Rivera, Alissa J. Rubin and Thom Shanker.
KABUL, Afghanistan — In the deadliest day for American forces in the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan, insurgents shot down a Chinook transport helicopter on Saturday, killing 30 Americans, including some Navy Seal commandos from the unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as 8 Afghans, American and Afghan officials said.
The helicopter, on a night-raid mission in the Tangi Valley of Wardak Province, to the west of Kabul, was most likely brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade, one coalition official said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, and they could hardly have found a more valuable target: American officials said that 22 of the dead were Navy Seal commandos, including members of Seal Team 6. Other commandos from that team conducted the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed Bin Laden in May. The officials said that those who were killed Saturday were not involved in the Pakistan mission.
President Obama offered his condolences to the families of the Americans and Afghans who died in the attack. “Their death is a reminder of the extraordinary sacrifice made by the men and women of our military and their families,” Mr. Obama said. President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan also offered his condolences to the victims’ families.
Saturday’s attack came during a surge of violence that has accompanied the beginning of a drawdown of American and NATO troops, and it showed how deeply entrenched the insurgency remains even far from its main strongholds in southern Afghanistan and along the Afghan-Pakistani border in the east. American soldiers had recently turned over the sole combat outpost in the Tangi Valley to Afghans.
Gen. Abdul Qayum Baqizoy, the police chief of Wardak, said the attack occurred around 1 a.m. Saturday after an assault on a Taliban compound in the village of Jaw-e-Mekh Zareen in the Tangi Valley. The fighting lasted at least two hours, the general said.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, confirmed that insurgents had been gathering at the compound, adding that eight of them had been killed in the fighting.
The Tangi Valley traverses the border between Wardak and Logar Province, an area where security has worsened over the past two years, bringing the insurgency closer to the capital, Kabul. It is one of several inaccessible areas that have become havens for insurgents, according to operations and intelligence officers with the Fourth Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, which patrols the area. The mountainous region, with its steeply pitched hillsides and arid shale, laced by small footpaths and byways, has long been an area that the Taliban have used to move between Logar and Wardak, local government officials said.
Officers at a forward operating base near the valley described Tangi as one of the most troubled areas in Logar and Wardak Provinces.
“There’s a lot happening in Tangi,” said Capt. Kirstin Massey, 31, the assistant intelligence officer for Fourth Brigade Combat Team in an interview last week. “It’s a stronghold for the Taliban.”
The fighters are entirely Afghans and almost all local residents, Captain Massey said, noting that “We don’t capture any fighters who are non-Afghans.”
The redoubts in these areas pose the kind of problems the military faced last year in similarly remote areas of Kunar Province, forcing commanders to weigh the mission’s value given the cost in soldiers’ lives and dollars spent in places where the vast majority of the insurgents are local residents who resent both the NATO presence and the Afghan government.
The dilemma is that if NATO military forces do not stay, the areas often quickly slip back under Taliban influence, if not outright control, and the Afghan National Security Forces do not have the ability yet to rout them.
When the Fourth Brigade Combat Team handed over its only combat outpost in the Tangi Valley to Afghan security forces in April, the American commander for the area said that as troops began to withdraw, he wanted to focus his forces on troubled areas that had larger populations. But he pledged that coalition forces would continue to carry out raids there to stem insurgent activity.
“As we lose U.S. personnel, we have to concentrate on the greater populations,” said Lt. Col. Thomas S. Rickard, the commander of 10th Mountain Division’s Task Force Warrior, which has responsibility for the area that includes Tangi. “We are going to continue to hunt insurgents in Tangi and prevent them from having a safe haven.”
Within days of the transition, the Taliban raised their flag near the outpost, said a NATO official familiar with the situation. Afghan security forces remained in the area but were no match for the Taliban, the official said.
Local officials in Wardak said that residents of the Tangi Valley disliked the fighting in the area, and that though they had fallen under the Taliban’s sway, the residents were not willing allies.
“They do not like having military in that area — no matter whether they are Taliban or foreigners,” said Hajji Mohammad Hazrat Janan, the chairman of the Wardak provincial council. “When an operation takes place in their village,” he said, “their sleep gets disrupted by the noise of helicopters and by their military operation. And also they don’t like the Taliban, because when they attack, then they go and seek cover in their village, and they are threatened by the Taliban.”
However, when local residents are hurt by the NATO soldiers, then, he said, they are willing to help the insurgents.
This was the second helicopter to be shot down by insurgents in the past two weeks. On July 25, a Chinook was shot down in Kunar Province, injuring two people on board. Of 15 crashes or forced landings this year, those two were the only confirmed cases where hostile fire was involved.
Before Saturday, the biggest single-day loss of life for the American military in Afghanistan came on June 28, 2005, during an operation in Kunar Province when a Chinook helicopter carrying Special Operations troops was shot down as it tried to provide reinforcements to forces trapped in heavy fighting. Sixteen members of a Special Operations unit were killed in the crash, and three more were killed in fighting on the ground.
Although the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan has steadily risen in the past year, with a 15 percent increase in the first half of 2011 over the same period last year, NATO deaths had been declining — decreasing 20 percent in the first six months of 2011 compared with 2010.
NOTE: This is an American tragedy. It is more than that. It is a tragedy for good against evil. Just months ago, this same troop squad was involved in the death of Osama bin Laden, who was evil personified. He was evil on the level of Hitler, Lenin and Saddam Hussein, and so man others. Our troops were on the side of the angels and May 1 was a great day, a day of triumph, of good triumphing over evil. We cannot give up. Otherwise, these brave soldiers who were killed now, as well as all the troops killed in the war on terror, will have died in a vain effort. Yes, we need to get out of the forsaken country. Bomb it to pieces for all I care. But avenge the deaths of our troops. Get our people out and ensure that we wipe the evil off the face of this planet. For if we do not, it will just come back, like it did after the death of bin Laden -- to kill again. They want us dead. If you are reading this and you are American, British, Canadian -- make no mistake -- they want you dead too. You are an infidel to them. Our lifestyles will never be compatible with radical Islam. They have perverted that religion to the point that it is not recognizable as anything near what it might once have been. And their stated goal is to kill us. Why should we wait around and let them do it? Why should we not take the initiative and wipe out the radicals first? Personally if it comes to them and their families or me and my family, I won't hesitate -- I know where my loyalty lies. And diplomacy does not work. I'm sick of our troops coming home injured, in body bags, with PTSD, with post-traumatic epilepsy. This chapter needs to end. And we need to end it. Before another life is lost. If you haven't read about Lt. Michael Murphy, who gave his life in the last major loss of special forces (the only survivor was Marcus Lutrell, who wrote "Lone Survivor"), you haven't learned about our true heroes. And we need to keep our heroes ALIVE.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Friday, June 10, 2011
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Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Koran Burning Leads to More Violence
So an obscure so-called pastor in Florida has decided to make a name for himself by burning the Koran and now violence in Afghanistan and other areas is worse than ever.
Terry Jones, the pastor, announced last year that he was going to burn Korans. After public pressure not to do so, he finally backed down and agreed that he and his little band of followers would not pull such a stupid stunt while we are in the middle of a war and our troops are fighting over there.
But Jones changed his mind two weeks ago and actually -- get this -- put the Koran on "trial" and found it "guilty," as if he has the right to do so in the first place. The punishment was to burn the Koran. Now, just as expected, violence has spread, uprisings are worse than ever, our troops are in more danger (and they are spread way too thin as it is) and reports have already come in of beheadings.
I know many of you will say, so what if he burned the Koran? You hate Islam, you hate everything to do with it. I hate the way Islam has been perverted. I hate when any religion is perverted into extremism (the same could be said for Jones and his followers). Some Muslims over there have fought with us and vowed never to turn Taliban. They don't hate America. Yes, many do. I'm not going to argue that point. I am disgusted when I see people in other countries burning our flag, or burning Bibles. Why should we resort to the same? We shouldn't.
The end result is that now our troops, along with civilian works, UN workers, and others caught up in the mix are in more danger than in months. Some who may have come home will not make it. Terry Jones has gotten Americans killed. He didn't pull the trigger and he didn't use the blade, but he incited what he knew would be riots and he knew would endanger our troops. I doubt they appreciate his actions.
I've heard from some who say they are fine with what he did, that there will always be someone, it is free speech, and we can't stop them...well these soldiers, sailors and marines are the reason he has that freedom so maybe he should consider that before he does something as dangerous as put their lives at risk.
As for me, I think Terry Jones is an attention-seeking moron who just cost American and other allied lives, and more will be lost in the coming days and weeks. He should be in jail. This should not be allowed during the middle of a war. But maybe that's just my common sense kicking in, and the fact that someone I love is fighting over there. How about we drop ole' Terry off in the middle and let him burn his Koran right in Afghanistan, and see how long he lasts? If he wants to play the game, let him step into the fire, not play it from the comfort of his cozy Florida home.
Terry Jones, the pastor, announced last year that he was going to burn Korans. After public pressure not to do so, he finally backed down and agreed that he and his little band of followers would not pull such a stupid stunt while we are in the middle of a war and our troops are fighting over there.
But Jones changed his mind two weeks ago and actually -- get this -- put the Koran on "trial" and found it "guilty," as if he has the right to do so in the first place. The punishment was to burn the Koran. Now, just as expected, violence has spread, uprisings are worse than ever, our troops are in more danger (and they are spread way too thin as it is) and reports have already come in of beheadings.
I know many of you will say, so what if he burned the Koran? You hate Islam, you hate everything to do with it. I hate the way Islam has been perverted. I hate when any religion is perverted into extremism (the same could be said for Jones and his followers). Some Muslims over there have fought with us and vowed never to turn Taliban. They don't hate America. Yes, many do. I'm not going to argue that point. I am disgusted when I see people in other countries burning our flag, or burning Bibles. Why should we resort to the same? We shouldn't.
The end result is that now our troops, along with civilian works, UN workers, and others caught up in the mix are in more danger than in months. Some who may have come home will not make it. Terry Jones has gotten Americans killed. He didn't pull the trigger and he didn't use the blade, but he incited what he knew would be riots and he knew would endanger our troops. I doubt they appreciate his actions.
I've heard from some who say they are fine with what he did, that there will always be someone, it is free speech, and we can't stop them...well these soldiers, sailors and marines are the reason he has that freedom so maybe he should consider that before he does something as dangerous as put their lives at risk.
As for me, I think Terry Jones is an attention-seeking moron who just cost American and other allied lives, and more will be lost in the coming days and weeks. He should be in jail. This should not be allowed during the middle of a war. But maybe that's just my common sense kicking in, and the fact that someone I love is fighting over there. How about we drop ole' Terry off in the middle and let him burn his Koran right in Afghanistan, and see how long he lasts? If he wants to play the game, let him step into the fire, not play it from the comfort of his cozy Florida home.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Fray - How To Save A Life + Lyrics
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This is dedicated to my friend, actually to several of my friends. I've spoken some of these words to you. You know who you are. You mean the world to me. I would stay up with you all night to save your life. Please be safe. Please. I'm posting this on several pages just so people know that hurting yourself is never the answer. I love you and care about you.
This is dedicated to my friend, actually to several of my friends. I've spoken some of these words to you. You know who you are. You mean the world to me. I would stay up with you all night to save your life. Please be safe. Please. I'm posting this on several pages just so people know that hurting yourself is never the answer. I love you and care about you.
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