Samson

Listen before reading.

I've been listening to my iPod a lot lately, and the song "Samson" by Regina Spektor keeps coming up. This is probably one of my top ten favorite songs ever, so I really don't mind, but what with my new, shall we say, military mindset, I've started to hear a different meaning behind it.

(I'm not sure that this song actually pertains to the military at all, but I really wanted to share it, so I'm going to make it relevant. I knew that creative writing degree would be useful someday.)

The song is a pretty obvious reference to the biblical story of Samson and Delilah. In the story, Samson is a warrior chosen by God. He possesses enormous strength, but only as long as he never cuts his hair. He falls in love with a woman, Delilah, who is bribed by Philistines to find out the source of Samson's power. After many false answers, he tells her that it lies in his hair, and she has it cut off while he sleeps. God forsakes Samson for cutting his hair, and he loses his strength. The Philistines chain him in his weakness to the pillars of their temple to sacrifice to their god, but by then Samson's hair has grown long again, and he regains his strength. He pulls down the pillars, killing himself and the Philistines.

Ta-da, the original story of Samson and Delilah. Just in case you missed Sunday School. Now to the song.

On first listen, it just sounds like a sweet, simple love song. Spektor's voice is beautiful with a tinge of heartbreak when she sings lines like
You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first , I loved you first
Beneath the stars came falling on our heads
But they're just old light
They're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

I have to admit, at first I was kind of confused by the song, especially the line, "And the Bible didn't mention us, not even once." Because it did. There's a whole story about it. I've read some theories about what the song means, and most people seem to think that it's just saying that they actually loved each other, which the Bible doesn't mention. Though some also think it's not about Delilah at all. I doubt that.

But I think it's a bit more than just "Yes, they loved each other," though that's part of it. After many listens, I've come to the conclusion that it's Delilah saying how she wished the story had gone. How she loved Samson (ignoring the bribery and chains and such), and how she knew that while he had all this power, he could never really be hers. He would always be a hero first.

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors and the yellow light
He told me that I'd done alright
and kissed me till the morning light the morning light
and he kissed me till the morning light

This is such an intimate, beautiful scene, in which he's clearly choosing her, forsaking his strength, his destiny, and God, leaving him free to "kiss [her] till the morning light."

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonder bread
and went right back to bed
He couldn't break the columns down
No, he couldn't destroy a single one
and the history books forgot about us
and the Bible didnt mention us
not even once

He didn't pull the pillars down on himself, and he didn't die in that temple. He simply went home to Delilah, living out their lives together and not being heroic at all, and so they were forgotten by history. That's what seems so heartbreaking about the last line, the way Spektor sings, "I loved you first." It sounds like such an aching plea, Delilah telling Samson that she loved him before he was chosen by God, before he became strong and brought the Philistines down on him. She loved him first, and now she just wants him to choose her.

(And now for the tie-in.)

I've been thinking a lot lately, for obvious reasons, about servicemen and women and the people they leave behind. I had mostly been thinking about it from the perspective of the people who leave (again, duh), but especially while keeping up with Amber's blog, I've been considering more the side of the people left behind; husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, parents, children, friends. I wonder, is this how these people sometimes feel too? I'm sure they're all very proud and grateful for their loved one's service, but I imagine there's also a strong feeling of simply wanting to tell them, "Choose me. Leave all these big things behind, and just come home to me. I loved you first."

Complete lyrics:

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth
I have to go, I have to go
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
He ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed
And history books forgot about us and the bible didn't mention us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first, I loved you first
Beneath the stars came fallin' on our heads
But they're just old light, they're just old light
Your hair was long when we first met

Samson came to my bed
Told me that my hair was red
Told me I was beautiful and came into my bed
Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I'd done alright
And kissed me 'til the mornin' light, the mornin' light
And he kissed me 'til the mornin' light

Samson went back to bed
Not much hair left on his head
Ate a slice of wonderbread and went right back to bed
Oh, we couldn't bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn't destroy a single one
And history books forgot about us
And the bible didn't mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

A hitch, or a possible opportunity

Well, I just got my first taste of the concept of "the needs of the military." That didn't take long.

About three weeks ago, I went to my first DEP meeting with all the other Air Force people waiting to ship out. Going in, I really wasn't thinking anything of it. Until he said he'd found me a job. At first I was just surprised, since I way wasn't expecting one so quickly. Then I was nervous, because I hadn't expected to leave so soon, and just general early nerves about leaving, boot camp, etc. And then I was excited, because I've been feeling ready and anxious to start my life, as it were, and head out to Cali and start learning a language.

And then he told me that my job was not as a linguist, but as an air traffic controller. And I could just feel my face fall.

I knew going in that this was a risk, and that I might get picked for a different job. At MEPS, they had had me pick five jobs, and I had agreed that I'd be able and willing to do any of them. Of course, everyone kept saying that with my high DLAB score and the military's need for linguists, I'd almost definitely get that job, so I didn't need to worry too much about the other ones on my list. Wrong. But, I had agreed to it, and it was a risk I accepted, so I really couldn't be mad about it. That didn't mean that I wasn't really disappointed and a bit confused, though.

So, after a few minutes of me sitting very very still while he tried to sell me on air traffic control by telling me how much money they make (I did manage to tell him that that really wasn't one of my concerns), I recovered enough to start processing, and then to start looking at options.

I know that the needs of the Air Force came first, but I'm also pretty certain that I'd be able to serve them and myself much better by being a linguist rather than an ATC, due in no small part to the fact that historically, I'm not the greatest with the being-under-pressure. And ATC is a super stressful job. As in, you make a mistake and 300 people die. No wonder it has such a high suicide rate (also a problem).

But, that's the job they've assigned to me. So, there we are.

And, to make matters more frustrating, there's another kid who had just sworn in that day who actually wants to do ATC. My recruiter called his superior to see if they could just switch us and make everybody happy, but apparently the paperwork had already gone too far for that. Boo.

BUT, if a linguist job happens to come up before I leave for basic for ATC, and as long as no one else wants it, then to fill all the job openings, they can move me to linguist and move this other kid into my ATC spot. That would be super sweet.

I've also started considering an option I'd pretty much written off a while ago, of becoming an officer. I think I'd become so single-minded about being a linguist that I hadn't really considered any other jobs, and since there are no linguist officers, I'd didn't really look into it. And I still say that leading people isn't my favoritest thing in the world, but there are certainly perks. The substantially better pay and housing, for one. And the opportunity to travel more than I would have gotten as a linguist. And while there isn't a linguist officer, there is an intelligence officer, which is pretty much who linguists report to, so that could be pretty cool. I still think I'd rather be a linguist, but I do definitely think it's worth considering.

Regardless, the whole thing has at least made me take a serious look at why I want to join the military, what I want out of my time there, and ultimately the general path I see my life taking in the relatively near future. At first, I just started looking into it because I couldn't find a "real job." I wanted to learn a language, and I figured the Air Force would be a pretty sweet way to do it, but up until then I had had no military aspirations whatsoever. It was mostly just a means to an end.

So whenever my recruiter first said that it looked like I couldn't be a linguist, it was like watching that entire future I'd been so excited about just crumble away. No California, no learning a language, no getting paid to translate things.

So then I thought, now what?

But when I thought about going back into the job-hunting foray, that made me even more depressed than air traffic control. Mostly, it all came together (as many things seem to do) when I was talking to my mom about it. She asked me a question that I hadn't thought to ask myself. She said, "What's more important to you, joining the Air Force or being a linguist?"

And I realized, much to my surprise, that the answer was joining the Air Force. After all, even if I do end up doing ATC, I can always try to retrain into linguist later. They still need linguists. And I'd still be significantly more secure financially, and still have many more options open to me in the Air Force than I would as a civilian, regardless of the job. And I could always teach myself a language later, or get Rosetta Stone, or use some of that money that military personnel get for school to go take more language classes. And even if I got out after four or six years, I'd still be able to call myself a veteran and still have the personal pride of having served my country and done something so entirely outside my comfort zone.

So, surprisingly enough, even if it ends up that I can't be an Air Force linguist, I'd still like to be an Airman. Very interesting. And pretty nice to know.

Of course, if they'd just let me be a linguist, that'd be pretty awesome too.