I was part of some group, no, I working with them, that did covert military ops. they were all skilled in one-to-one unarmed combat and despite formal military rank, they ranked themselves according to the outcomes of frequent combat contests. one of the guys in the group was Dave Cowings from my work.

we were in a field outside of a town. I was with a friend and we had to work with these folks. they were regarded by the likes of us as kinda crazy. to get to where they were I had to cross a little bridge over a gully that cut through the fields. then the camp was to the left. to get from where they were to the town, one had to jump in the air, do some sort of a spin, and then when hitting the ground spinning one would then have the power to tunnel through to the town.

our mission had to do with determining the whereabouts of Armando Hasafat. Armando Hasafat was some like Turkish dude who was a big-bad-guy but I dunno why. like number 3 dude with whoever the bad guys were. apparently it was not clear if our government had captured and were holding him, or if he was sick with syphilis or some other horrible disease and in a hospital in the town, or if he was at large.

we went into town and took some pictures of this Turkish guy with a mustache that we were sure was him. meanwhile another team also took, the same days, some picture of him back in Washington or some other big American city. so nobody knew what to think.

back in the camp, because the ops for this town were done, everyone was starting to celebrate, which of course meant that they were doing the combat challenges. I was not a part of it but it was hard to resist. I kept acting like an asshole just to see if I would be drawn into the fighting. the actual formal contests were on the "near" side of the field - i.e. not across the little bridge, and to the right of the footroad leading to the bridge.

I started talking to some of the folks there and we actually started comparing assigned military ranks. E-5, E-8, whatever. it was all printed up on little blue cards everyone had to carry. some grades were called the "monster grades", and some the "mouse" grades. it was unclear which was which until we finally figured out that "mouse" grades were the ones for petty officer (E-4 through E-6?) and the "monster" grades were CPO and higher.

I went indoors after that and was in this big rec room where it was the 4th of July. folks were watching a baseball game on TV and there was lots of flags and whatnot. there was a tired flag and other memorabilia in a 4" deep glass display case filling a wall. the TV was backed to a big glass window or maybe sliding glass doors, and the outside was sunshiny. it was in a corner. to the right of it (or on its own left) was my piano, this big black old upright, also against the window. it was cluttered with patriotic things.

people - including my dad - were watching the TV, but that didn't stop music from playing in the background. I think the idea was supposed to be patriotic, but one of the songs was "cabaret". then the "bridge over river kwai" was playing, which is more military but I had always thought was a British thing. anyhow I liked that one so I tried to play along with it on the piano. the piano was mostly in tune with the music but nto close enough to avoid jangling a lot. the folks watching the baseball game were distrubed by this, they had liked the justaposition of the ball game and the music; they made me stop. I did NOT get it.

after I stopped playing the piano it kept playing along by itself, but software and more in tune with the background music. I thought this was pretty weird too.