That old mud

Thirteen months after the February 24 incident. Ten months after the 54-kilometer force march. Three commanders have led and left. Two magazine issues released. A year after beginning the book. Ten chapters written. A million more citations to embed.

In May 2006 we stood together almost ankle-deep in dense and sticky mud, up in the hills of Rizal, with only leaves and tents for shelter.


Love is in this photo, wafting all around me, and to a greater degree somewhere just to the left of me, and I did not know it yet.

Now most of the boys and those three bosses are in Mindanao, Zambales, Masbate, Abra, Cebu, the Cordilleras, and elsewhere, a different kind of mud under their boots, while I am back to my papers, that old mud from Rizal still under mine.