M.B. Dallocchio

“When you’re persistently deleted from history, media, and any other channel to access information – or that information is distorted – it’s far worse than physically killing someone. It, instead, induces a form of psychological death. How can you truly be alive, how can you genuinely breathe, when everyone around you believes that you either don’t exist or are dead?”

“Veterans being sent into unjust wars for corporate profit is a perversion of trust, at best. I found the emotional manipulation of both sides, the propaganda at play so incredibly revolting that I couldn't stand to idly wave a flag or flaunt yellow ribbons without asking serious questions regarding motive.”

“There are people who come home from war and want to talk about the pain, but no one wants to listen; there are others who want to keep silent and repress the memories, and all their family and friends want is to talk about it. I call this the war veteran reintegration paradox.”

“Czechs simply don’t say they’re going camping or spending time outdoors. They say, in Czech, that they are going “into the nature” as though nature, příroda, is beyond a place in the woods or other forms of terrain, that nature was a state of mind and had the ability to reverse the crippling, chaotic aspects of life.”

“Get acquainted with your shadow, or find yourself surprised when a crisis emerges.”

“It is not enough to hope for something to happen and throw it into the universe. You, too, must also work to make it happen.”

“I left a piece of my soul that will always rightfully belong in the desert.”

“That seductive aroma of unchecked power was more than enough to commit genocide and mass sexual assault while unashamedly carrying their nation’s flag draped around a crucifix. People completely devoid of introspection, flaunting their entitlement and a self-importance that masked an endless pit of dejection that demanded more gold, land, and power. The Spanish crown was a plague of miserable dimensions for Chamorros.”

“A woman in combat? Yes. Since when? Since Native American warrior Buffalo Calf Road Woman knocked that prick General George Custer off of his horse. Since Pantea Arteshbod propelled herself to become one of the greatest Persian commanders during the reign of Cyrus the Great. Since Hua Mulan disguised herself as a male to engage in combat and became one of China’s most respected heroines.”

“Travel can sometimes push us to lose ourselves and find ourselves at once. The shedding of old prejudices, dead skin, and the opening of one’s eyes is far better than what any mainstream news outlet could ever tell you.”

“The most insidious of our country, the greediest and highest rung of our socioeconomic ladder, line their pockets with misappropriated funds as military personnel and hordes of civilians are maimed or killed. It’s not their children out there, blinded by manufactured patriotism or lured into the service with the promise of economic stability, all with the sanctimonious blessings of misguided public consent by way of corporate, state-sponsored media. It won’t be their children who are terrorized by Wahabbist insurgents tearing through city blocks and rural areas as only an ever-devouring plague could. It won’t be any of their loved ones watching thousands of years of civilization unraveling like an old sweater as each thread of wool is lit on fire or stolen to sell on the black market for greedy consumers with a fetish for hijacked Mesopotamian artifacts.”

“With even the slightest upset, detachment soon followed. I didn’t lose sleep over men, and I was too restless to be tied down. The grass didn’t even have time to grow around my feet before I was planning my next escape – whether it was to another state or out of someone’s life.”

“Stigma's power lies in silence. The silence that persists when discussion and action should be taking place. The silence one imposes on another for speaking up on a taboo subject, branding them with a label until they are rendered mute or preferably unheard.”

“Aside from clinically-diagnosed psychopaths, I have not met one person in war who thoroughly enjoyed killing. If someone ended up bragging over a kill, it was safe to assume that their story was mere fabrication or that they were one bad day away from an inpatient psychiatric ward. No matter how much someone may appear to deserve to be killed, something dies within us when we kill. It's contradictory, the antithesis of our species survival instinct.”

“To stay alive, you have to keep moving. Running, relocating, driving, doing everything in your power to stay in motion and make it to safety.”

“Home.” This was my mantra, my four-letter savior.”

“I have been cheated out of being treated like a human being. In my reflection I saw an empty vessel. They had cheated me and I was desperate to make the sharp pain in my head stop.”

“How often do the poor in the US get to stand in front of their nation's Marie Antoinette's and shove the stale, mass-produced cake of lower class reality back into their mouths?”

“A moving target is harder to kill, and I didn't stop running, maneuvering, until I reached home base, where I could breathe between death-defying sprints. I just need to make it home alive, and this will all be over, I told myself. Home.”

“Adversity has the remarkable ability of introducing the real you to yourself.”