One for the Road...

This will be the last post that I put on here before I am at home, because this is the last night that my computer will be plugged into the internet before then, so hold on here we go…

I really do not want to move- I love living where we do it is much nicer than where we are going. The living conditions aren’t as nice but there is an international quality to this area that we won’t have anymore. I can work out in the morning with a Special Forces soldier and a guy from the British embassy, and then go to lunch with some Black Water contractors and a few Australian soldiers and in the evenings I can sit down and talk to local nationals about how they think we can make their country better. Of course none of that happens on the same day here, but when parts of it do happen it makes for really pleasant day to day life. I can sit outside, look at the dome of the mausoleum and watch the sun set in the west on its way towards home. Only here can the Muslim prayer beads sitting on the shelf next to my Cavalry spurs look perfectly normal. Packed away inside of my tough box is my Bible with the picture of my friends casket inside of it and next to the Bible lays a fragmentary grenade. That is life in the box right now. If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone is trying to kill everyone else around here it wouldn’t be so bad. There is a quirkiness that makes things special.

You can have great days here shattered in a moment, things can be going so very well then someone says “hey look at this” and they lead you to their computer to see the video of what the terrorists did to those two soldiers that they captured. As you watch it your heart sinks and a terrible anger swells up inside of you, but you get angry because it is a man’s reaction when in all honesty tears might be more appropriate. You walk out of the room confused about what you just saw and wondering how anyone could treat another human being like that. There is an obvious difference between killing someone and stepping on their head in front of a camera. You think of the buddies you have lost to IEDs and you are thankful that they were killed instantly with other soldiers around and that there was no chance for a terrorist to pick up their body and drag it through the streets. The hot metal ripping through soft flesh versus the cold steel of a blade sawing its way through your neck- your family watching the video of you on Aljazeera versus your friends dragging your body back to the truck tears in their eyes- these are the realities of this thing.

The situation here is fragile and desperate, we filled the ears of the people with promises and dreams of great free country, but didn’t expect people to keep fighting us for so long and we sure as hell didn’t count on them fighting each other for so long. VBIEDs are a daily occurrence here; someone drives up to a police checkpoint, a coalition convoy or a Mosque and attempts to kill as many people as possible all in the name of Allah. A loving kind God is not what these extremists know- they know a God of anger and hate looking to exterminate the infidels. Why though? I don’t know. I have typed about 15 different follow-up sentences and none of it makes any sense, I can’t understand the hate- I can’t stomach the evil that men do. Sometimes you see the blood on the streets or on you gloves or boots and wonder if the other guy has the same thoughts that you do when you look down at what you have done. You hope that there is part of them that regrets having to do what you did, you hope that maybe there is that same small part of them that wishes you could’ve worked this out differently. You take solace in the fact that you haven’t yet so abandoned humanity that you are happy for the terrible things having been done. There are moments directly after learning that someone has been shot or blown up or right after you have been attacked that you wish you could bring the sword of justice down upon them all, but then as time passes you realize that that sword is not yours to wield. Justice is not served out by the foot soldier from the barrel of his rifle; it is reserved for the Almighty. I have asked more than once for the courage to do what is right and the strength to overcome the temptation to do what would feel good though it is wrong.

Being the better man is not easy, it never has been but in this game it is all the more difficult; the stakes are higher here, you aren’t playing for pride or honor, you are playing for something much more final… Life. Life is transient people are born and die everyday, perhaps all we can hope for is to be important to somebody- to make a difference to someone- to touch their life in a special way.

Well… that is about enough for tonight, I need to get some sleep before tomorrow it will be a long day and I am afraid that the next few days will be long days. So I will drop you all an email when I get home and I can’t wait to see you.

Peace and Love- Roadshow 6

When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse. - Hannah Arendt

Me, the Garden State, DPRK and the Zionists...

So every now and again here, things work out for your benefit and you have a couple of free hours to catch up on some reading, maybe some emails or even a chance to write the loyal readers of the Show. Speaking of my beloved Traveling Roadshow I will be home for a short respite in about 25 days give or take a few. So the loyal readers of the Show can once again become faithful participants. I of course have my obligations, Roadshow 5s’ wedding, visiting my niece and a very old bottle of scotch that my Mother has informed me that she purchased. I will drop a note on here, a day or so before I arrive home and you can call me or drop an email if you would like to get together while I am home. Being home is going to be such a relief, I wish only for the Lord to endow me with a short spell of indefatigableness so that I can accomplish all that I hope. Hopefully he will also grant me the good sense to sit down and relax for awhile, the last few months have been hard, they have taxed me more mentally than I could’ve expected. When you head off to war you expect to be physically tired- which I am a good portion of the time, however I bring a lot of that upon myself; what I didn’t expect was for it to be so mentally draining, things here are so unclear and everyday the smell of the burnt rubber and flesh from the VBIEDS (car bombs) reminds you just how unclear everything is and how unclear it is going to remain for a very long time.

It is so much more complicated here than I think you can understand without seeing the evil that men can bring upon one another. Of course you can read about the conflict and understand the root issues, but I don’t know if you can see just how much of it is a part of the everyday life here until you live it for a few months and even then I come back to my room in the relative safety of this camp, at times within the concrete walls and razor wire it is almost possible to forget where you are, at least for a short amount of time. If it wasn’t for the fact that everyone in the gym was wearing the same thing- it could be a perfectly normal stateside gym. Of course the constant buzz of the helicopters overhead and the tendency for your morning drive to work passing the charred remains of what was a car yesterday- brings you quickly back to reality, as if you could’ve missed that fact while strapping on near a hundred pounds of gear and checking the cleanliness of your rifle before mission. Sometimes the work day is a few hours and sometimes it is the better part of the day, when it is over you do just about the same thing every time; fuel the trucks, check for damage, file your reports, shower, eat and try to relax awhile before doing it all again. Now the entire day isn’t consumed with that so very monotonous schedule (at least most days- some days it is just that); most days you can squeeze in a trip to the gym, watch a film on the laptop, read a book and sometimes even a nap.

Now when you read that you think to yourself, well why doesn’t that sumamabitch call/ write more- because of the things I have to say, I can’t or at least most certainly shouldn’t share over the net or a phone line and conversations about the weather can be quite taxing when it is so hot outside that it is 90+ degrees in my room. I tried for awhile to keep a paper journal but I hate my handwriting so that hasn’t faired too well.

All in all though I am well and very much looking forward to coming home…

A few short quips on today’s news…

I was reading the news today as I normally try to do and I saw a story about New Jersey shutting down its government because it was unable to reach an agreement on a state budget. How is New Jersey so backwards that with a Democrat controlled Assembly and Senate that they cannot get together on a budget? By the by the governor is a democrat as well. So the New Jersey state Democrats are doing their best to set the cause of the DNC back as much as humanly possible. The DNC and Democratic party take most opportunities to make themselves look bad through indecision, usually they can’t get together to decide on what issues to run on in an election and lets not even pretend that they could put together a national platform worth getting behind- in recent history they are the party of bleh; the platform has been “hey at least we’re not Bush, vote us.” There is hope that maybe all of this is because they are trying to take a stand on so many different social wrongs that it is impossible for them to just concentrate on a few key issues. Well the Democrats of New Jersey are single handedly killing, that idea- if one party controlling an entire state can’t get said state a budget how can the American people expect them to do it on a national stage? The only thing that we can hope is that America and the RNC sleep through this morning’s news cycle and that they have a budget before lunch.

On to North Korea, or as they preferred to be called the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea we all know that if you have to put the word democratic in your name, you’re not democratic- by the by though that is not the point. DPRK released a statement, "The army and people of the DPRK are now in full preparedness to answer a pre-emptive attack with a relentless annihilating strike and a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent," its communist party newspaper said on Monday. One word: Awesome. North Korea in all its communist grandeur has threatened us with nuclear war- so at this point if we don’t want them to test the missile we need a bombing strategy so complete and total that they can’t launch that aforementioned nuclear war. Or we need to figure out how to buy them off. Here is another question when it comes to nuclear war do you really want to see if they are bluffing? There are plenty of times in life and international politics when it is perfectly acceptable to stare down the barrel of the gun and dare the guy to fire, I’m not sure that this is one of those times. Hopefully our intelligence is better in North Korea than it is the Middle East. Our support in the international community has not significantly increased as of late and our list of friends willing to fight a war for us is shockingly small, let alone those that want to be partly responsible for bringing the world into full frontal nuclear conflict. Now so as not to be labeled as a doomsday theorist, the statement does say that it will answer a pre-emptive strike with a relentless annihilating strike- not necessarily nuclear. It then goes on to state that it will answer a nuclear war with a mighty nuclear deterrent, now war implies two sides not just one and if you are already involved in nuclear war what is the mighty nuclear deterrent? The suitcase nuke on the steps of the Capital, that would be a mighty deterrent, but if they already had it there and it was the only bargaining chip what other possible outcome is there than them blowing it. Being much more likely to encounter a BMW loaded with 155mm rounds is slightly comforting- the lasting outcome of the BMW is much less detrimental to society.

Lastly before I leave you for today, a look at our Zionist brethren, I am sure that all of you have seen the news about the captured Israeli soldier. You probably also read about the American soldiers that were captured in Iraq. Now what is disturbing to me and maybe to you is how I read about the Israeli’s rolling tanks and troops into Gaza as well as almost continuous missile strikes. They took Hamas’ leaders hostage, they bombed homes and issued statements threatening all involved including the Syrians. They have given every appearance of wanting this kid back, unlike what happened in Iraq. Egypt and Jordan have both urged Syria to exert its influence on Hamas to get the soldier back to his people. Why are other countries stepping trying to get this guy home? Because people view the Israelis’ as a little off, a sandwich short and utterly prepared to blow the hell out of anyone it thinks might have been involved. No one is afraid of the United States; we are licking our wounds and trying to get home as soon as possible before public opinion falls any lower. Being a responsible nation you just can’t carpet bomb people, but sometimes it would make the people on the ground feel better for at least a couple of minutes and it may show those people that their leadership cares about them. No one doubts that the soldiers have the overwhelming support of the people, but the soldiers doubt that they have support of their higher. Sometimes the leadership needs to ask itself what is more important soldiers or their next promotion.

Maybe the Israelis’ should act like a responsible nation, my personal opinion get your guy back then work on it.

I hope that wasn’t too disappointing a return, I am going to try to get to the gym and run for a bit, before enjoying my night off, maybe I’ll even look into calling home this evening. Seriously let me know if you want to set something up for when I am home, I am hoping to see as many of you as possible.

Until next time…

Peace and Love- Roadshow 6