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