The world is still out there, just beyond the fog...

Sometimes in a job like this one, the four walls start to close in on you. The day to day becomes all there is, and anything you used to enjoy or love to do seems so far away that it will never come back. It begins to feel like this small place, that's not much fun, is all that's left for you.
Sometimes you don't even know that your beginning to feel this way, until something happens that shakes you up and shows you that HEY, THE WORLD IS STILL OUT THERE, JUST BEYOND THE FOG (read sand storm) OF THIS WAR.

I had such an experience recently. A very relaxed concert. A few people from home coming by to say, hey, were all still here waiting for you. (Craig Morgan; Chris Young) Also some very heroic stories from others who have served and been injured. (Scott Lilley; Joseph Bowser) It was a real one-two punch that I needed. One to slap me and say, relaxation and enjoyment are still possible. And another to remind me that outside of the walls I'm stuck in there is still just as much war going on as there were in my last two tours.

I feel releaved, renewed, and revived. I just wish I could change up my job a little to help keep me from slipping back into the complacency that is this place.

You really begin to get the scale of it all when you see the amazing lavish areas Saddam had dedicated to himself and his fellow Baath party members. This guy was larger than life like him or not. He really had some out of this world ideas, and he ran with them. (Mind you I disagree with nearly all of them)

He was a bad guy who was somehow allowed to run as far as he wanted for a long long long time.

This is a picture of the palace that he named "Victory Over America Palace" Hmmmm that didn't work out quite like he imagined I guess.

Not a good day

So, here is an example of a day I wish I could just forget.
Were at a get together for a unit we just joined, and found out we were going to be deploying to Iraq with. Let's just say this was a day full of feeling like you didn't belong and you weren't wanted. I guess it's akin to being the last one picked for a team.
Before someone drops a comment like, get over it, toughen up, or something of the nature, just let me say one quick thing:

F&^% Off.
I'm just saying how it felt, and oh look... here I am in Iraq doing my job.

OK now that we've dispensed with the formality's,
It was a sort of hot day, one you could sit outside for, and it wasn't bad as long as there was a breeze, but once the breeze stopped you would want to get inside. We spent it aimlessly walking around saying hi to the few people we knew, and generally trying not to look as unimpressed, or unimpressive as we felt. I think the feeling was akin to when you were in grade school, and you realized that you had forgotten to do your homework. Or when you knew your parents just found out you had done something wrong, and you knew they were on the way to talk to you. It's something in the pit of your stomach, and it's not good.
Thank God we had each other.

Our heads, what have you done with them?

Just needed a laugh.

Wish I were there.

 

The rhythmic sound of the waves on the rocks.I hear only part of the battle that takes place day in and day out forever.The rocks are changed by this battle, just as we are changed by our own battles.The water continues on seemingly unchanged, just as life at large continues on regardless of us.The cool breeze and clouds flow along above, totally unaware of the battles fought and lives lost underneath them.

I have what you could call a cronicly terrible memmory, I'm sure there is something not quite right with the way my mind removes whole sections of my life. That being said:

Some moments in life are so powerfull, so wrought with feeling, and energy, that they sear themselvs into our memory. We can smell the air, feel the wind, and hear the laughter years and years after the moment has passed.
You can see one of those moments in my life above.
Another I recall is cruising home on my bicycle as fast as I could (I was about 7 I think) I knew I was almost late as I was turning into our driveway, but the smell of summer in the air, the sound of my bike whizzing on the pavement, and knowing I was pedaling for all I was worth was one of those moments for me.

Even the thief knowen to us all as time has a challange ahead of him to steal away these precious well worn memories. We think of them, and it re-news not just us as we do so, but the path to them, and thier stregnth. I pray time is never able to remove these from my mind.

True Friends will be few and far between, don't forget them. (Even if they won't look at the camera)

The only quote I'll post here.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." John Stuart Mill

Begin with that which is of most importance to you.