Memorial Day

On this day of remembrance and gratitude I can't help but think about a line from Saving Private Ryan following the final battle just before Ton Hanks dies. He says "Earn this" to Pvt. Ryan. Ryan, as an old man wonders if he earned the gift of life that he was given. He stands in front of the cross at Arlington National Cemetery and as it pans out you can see the field filled with crosses. Each on, a man who gave his life for me. As I think of this I begin to wonder.

By the time I get out of the service I will have spent 5 years in the army 4 of which are active duty in the infantry. I will have had 2 deployments to Iraq, a total of 27 months deployed. More than half of my active duty career over seas. I have served and I am told that I did my part BUT I wonder.

Have I earned it? I have seen little and done little compared to many from the revolutionary war to today. My contribution is little compared to many who have and are serving. I am humbled by the thought that compared to the hard men who have truly fought I have done little more than go on a trip carrying a lot of gear, a weapon, and talked to a lot of people and read and wrote a lot of reports. As I think of this I feel a sense of shame that I did not do more and I did not choose to stay in to fight more, to fight in Afghanistan or some future conflict.

The vikings believed in living with courage and honor, that there was no other way to die than to die in battle. The believed that if they did not prove their courage enough in this life that they would not be honored in the afterlife. I know that this is not so. My time as a soldier bears no weight on my salvation but still I feel that I have not done enough.

Friends, family, my home town, a country that I love and call my own and my freedom are worth the cost, and sacrifice of a life of service or life given in service. I am glad and proud of my service. I didn't understand what military service meant and what my liberty meant before I joined. I knew the concept but I didn't truly understand it or know it. If I hadn't joined I would never have understood. I can't help but think how ashamed I would have felt if I understood like I do and did not serve. If I didn't earn it even after service then I really wouldn't have had I not served.

It is not for everyone to serve nor should it be. Our armed forces are made up of about 1/2 of a % of the united states population. So at most only 2%  of those alive in our nation are serving or have served at some point. We have no need for more. This is not about whether others have served or not. It is about how I feel about my service. I can spend the rest of my life trying to earn what I have on this Earth and you know what I think that I would fail. The price is blood, life. A price I have not paid. But I will do my best to honor them with the life they gave.

TO OUR HONORED DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kaleidescope

Many nights I have a difficult time getting to sleep. Actually since I deployed it has been every night. Part of it is because I got used to a different times schedule and part because I didn't adjust to the time difference and part because I can't have a few beers to help on nights I just can't sleep. My mind runs a hundred miles an hour and almost never stops. My heart goes even faster. This is the root of the problem. It is not too much caffeine or PTSD it is that too much goes on in me. This has been true since I was a young child. Eventually I got to the point where I would be worn out nearly every day and could go right to sleep. I have lived that way for most of 14 years. Now I find myself mentally exhausted but not physically and my  mind is awake once the day has passed. So I can not sleep. The alcohol, my beers before bed, was used to quiet my mind and relax me so that I could sleep. I didn't need it but it helped and I enjoyed having a few. My  heart and mind just think and feel too fast.

I have know this for some time but I realized a little more tonight. I was wondering why it is when things grow quiet that my mind races so much. Then I realized that my mind was trying to interpret and sort out what my heart was saying, feeling. My heart always feels like a jumble because there is so much there. It is like if you took a thousand different colors and splattered them on a pallet and started to spin it around. The colors become a blur and they mix and you can not tell one from another unless you put it in slow motion and concentrate on them. After a while you can pick out some of the feelings, memories, thoughts or dreams and explore them. It is difficult to focus on just one color or piece in a turning kaleidescope but if you can it is amazing to see what shapes it can take and help produce.

Silent nights, when no one is awake or around, when the TV is off when the distractions are gone the quiet takes on the sound of a symphony orchestra, a rock band or sometimes a train wreck. The sound is not audible but it is heard as loud as blaring speakers at a concert. The silence becomes loud with the echoes of the heart and mind. It is the silence that I find the most deafening. The noise and distractions help dampen the noise within.

Every night seems to be silent. I guess it is good. I have had some time to explore some of what is going on in my heart and mind. I have learned a lot but still have so much I haven't figured out. It is not because I can't work it out but because I can't focus on those colors or haven't gotten to them yet. I suppose eventually I will get to them but some seem elusive. Something like they don't want to be understood or perhaps that I am not ready to understand them yet. Maybe I am not supposed to be able to focus on them yet or I am not in a place or haven't grown enough to be able to.

Many times I am afraid of what I might find in those moments of silence. I have found things out about myself that I didn't like. I have thought about times, memories that hurt and were not pleasant. Sometimes I see something about the future. Things that are going to be, that might be and things that I might hope for but will never be. I see things that I would hope for or wish for but I don't have the time to do them all. I see things that might have been but were lost because I squandered my time and opportunities. I see the fires I have escaped and others I created. I also see things hoped for and never could have been for all my time and might.

I see all of these things and I think that after the few years I have lived I am afraid of my potential, afraid of hope and dreams. I have lost the things in life that I have hoped for the most. I have been hurt and I have failed and disappointed myself. I find more of this then victories. Perhaps I am afraid of more than loss but also of getting what I hope for. I'm not sure what I would do if I had dreams come true. Exploring this pallet of color is difficult and I am afraid every time I do.

Tonight I am having a hard time focusing. The colors are just an explosion of color a collage of emotion, memory, dreams, ideas and possibilities. I am trapped in the whirlwind of my heart and it's music is loud tonight. It doesn't sound like a joyful song but it does have hope. My heart is restless, another constant problem. I think it will be until I find someone who can calm it. Deafening silent nights.

Valentines Day 2011

As Christians, believers, followers of Christ, we are by the very name we call ourselves to be Christ like. There are too many areas to cover on that so I will cover a piece of just one, love. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son." "For God demonstrates His love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." There are more passages. These were the first two to pop into mind.

Christ died for us because He loved us. That was His ultimate act of service, sacrifice, love. Christ served us. God served us by giving us more than what we have. We have taken those gifts and many times unknowingly cast them aside. That is why life is not perfect. In our sin we cast aside His gifts like, love, grace, and His perfect will for us.

Love. Christ served us by giving us everything, by giving us His life. In the same way we should be giving our lives to Him and the ones we love. I don't mean that we should die but we forfeit our lives in love. When you look at that man or woman you are married to you should think to yourself, "what can I do to serve you today?" Love fails because we get caught up in the glitter like Hollywood image of love, because we get caught up in an idea of love, we get caught in lust, because we lose focus on the love for those special others and start focusing on ourselves. If people would just stop worrying about getting mine and start serving those that they love, that means you marry the one that you would serve the rest of your life and who would serve you, divorce would start to disappear, couples would grow old together, children would grow up with fewer problems and be more successful, and this world would hurt a lot less.

True love is not a feeling or something to fall in and out of. It is something that just happens and when it does it has nothing to do with you. Love is not about getting married or having sex or Valentines day or even about feeling good. Love truly hurts a lot of the time. It is sacrifice and service. It is what happens when one realizes that they care so much more about another that their well being and happiness is more important than your own.  I don't think that everyone had had the pleasure of suffering love because some, or many, can't get out of their own way, can't stop focusing on the person in the mirror. True love is about them.  Something to think about.

Happy Valentines Day 2011.

Johnny

And so it begins

Ok, the last several days, maybe even a couple of weeks I have been chatting with several friends on Facebook. I know nothing spectacular. One of these friends happens to be a beautiful country gal who has caught my attention. She has actually had it for some time though I could not remember why. That will come later. I find myself extremely attracted to her and it is not just her looks. I won't bore you with the details. I could list several reasons why I like this woman but in the end I really don't know why her and not someone else or others I have met in the past. I haven't even seen her in a year and even then in the last 4 or 5 year I have seen her just a handful of times and never for very long.

This is a problem for me. During this deployment I have once again shut our many emotions and I have started looking at some things more clearly. Things like what I am going to do when I move back home and how I am going to live my life. I plan on starting over and living closer to right than I have been in nearly 10 years. I know I can do it now. I suppose I just needed to live, be a young man, and then grow up. I did want to eventually find a young lady, settle down and start a family. I figured that would be a long way off. There are women who are potential that I was going to go out with have fun with spend time with but nothing serious, friendly get togethers and eventually, hopefully one of those friends or another would be the one.

I had a plan. that is the point. A plan to do things right and go slow. I guess there was little to no hope of anything else. I am not saying that anything would happen or that she  would be anything but an amazing woman who is an amazing friend. For all I know that is all she wants to be and that would be fine. She really is that good. Now, on to the beginning.

I met her at the bar, she was actually 21. I was in the army reserves about to go active duty. I can't remember if it was when I was in the reserves or when I was active duty but back home visiting but I ran into her at the mall one day. I had somewhere to be in a couple of hours but didn't want to drive home and didn't feel like sitting down for coffee so I went to the mall just to walk around. We chatted for a minute and she and I spent probably an hour walking around the mall and doing some shopping. We visited the pet store and took a look at the puppies. I think I started to be interested then. At this point is was nothing serious. Honestly I didn't think I would ever cross her radar. That may still turn out to be the case.

After my first deployment I went home on block leave and got engaged to another woman, a good friend who I had known for a long time and who I had called and talked to while in Iraq. 2 weeks after being engaged I go out to the bar for the night before the wedding bachelor party. I drank way too much and my friends kept feeding me. They all knew this was a stupid idea, me getting married that fast, and they knew I wasn't going to back down on it. So they got me more drunk than I have ever been and got me to admit that it was a bad idea. It had nothing to do with the girl just with the timing. They wanted me to do it right and take some time. I was being young and foolish and rushing it. I was 26 and tired of being alone.

Well at the end of the night I drank myself beyond drunk. I ended outside of the bar puking my guts out in a trash can as one of my friends interrogated me until  cracked and admitted it was a bad idea. The whole time I was puking, too drunk to even hold myself up to puke this woman was holding me up. Not my best moment actually one of my worst.

I had forgotten about that until she brought it up last night. When I remembered, I remembered her arms around me holding me, then helping me to the car the whole time talking to me making sure I was ok. Oh she got a good laugh out of it but she took care of me. I remember for at least a split second thinking how awesome she was that night.

We have never really spent any time together but somehow now I talk to her on Facebook every day. I have called her once with many follow ons planned. Funny, I lost my phone right before I deployed. So I put a message on FB for people to send me their numbers since my phone was gone. My sister, my GF at the time, and this girl were the only ones to respond. I never even had her number before.

Either there is potential there or the universe is messing with me. That is exactly what I am scared of. Both. I have messed up every relationship I have been in which are few. I would like to say that they weren't meant to be but still. I have also gotten hurt many times by women who never were. I pursue quality women, only the best and most rare. I'll hook up with just about anything, but pursue only the gems. To this point I might have to say that none of them, these gems have said yes to me. I have dated, literally a couple(2) quality women, but they were not as scripture would say "more valuable than rubies" but I have pursued such women and been turned away. She is one such gem. Perhaps a little rough and hidden in the sand but a priceless rarity she is. That scares me.

A great article I found that describes things well.

On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs - Dave Grossman

By LTC (RET) Dave Grossman, author of "On Killing."Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997
One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me:
"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. They would prefer that he didn't tell them where to go, or give them traffic tickets, or stand at the ready in our airports in camouflage fatigues holding an M-16. The sheep would much rather have the sheepdog cash in his fangs, spray paint himself white, and go, "Baa."
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog.
The students, the victims, at Columbine High School were big, tough high school students, and under ordinary circumstances they would not have had the time of day for a police officer. They were not bad kids; they just had nothing to say to a cop. When the school was under attack, however, and SWAT teams were clearing the rooms and hallways, the officers had to physically peel those clinging, sobbing kids off of them. This is how the little lambs feel about their sheepdog when the wolf is at the door.
Look at what happened after September 11, 2001 when the wolf pounded hard on the door. Remember how America, more than ever before, felt differently about their law enforcement officers and military personnel? Remember how many times you heard the word hero?
Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones.
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference." When you are truly transformed into a warrior and have truly invested yourself into warriorhood, you want to be there. You want to be able to make a difference.
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.
Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs.
Seven months after the attack on September 11, 2001, Todd Beamer was honored in his hometown of Cranbury, New Jersey. Todd, as you recall, was the man on Flight 93 over Pennsylvania who called on his cell phone to alert an operator from United Airlines about the hijacking. When he learned of the other three passenger planes that had been used as weapons, Todd dropped his phone and uttered the words, "Let's roll," which authorities believe was a signal to the other passengers to confront the terrorist hijackers. In one hour, a transformation occurred among the passengers - athletes, business people and parents. -- from sheep to sheepdogs and together they fought the wolves, ultimately saving an unknown number of lives on the ground.
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision.
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.
For example, many officers carry their weapons in church.? They are well concealed in ankle holsters, shoulder holsters or inside-the-belt holsters tucked into the small of their backs.? Anytime you go to some form of religious service, there is a very good chance that a police officer in your congregation is carrying. You will never know if there is such an individual in your place of worship, until the wolf appears to massacre you and your loved ones.
I was training a group of police officers in Texas, and during the break, one officer asked his friend if he carried his weapon in church. The other cop replied, "I will never be caught without my gun in church." I asked why he felt so strongly about this, and he told me about a cop he knew who was at a church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. In that incident, a mentally deranged individual came into the church and opened fire, gunning down fourteen people. He said that officer believed he could have saved every life that day if he had been carrying his gun. His own son was shot, and all he could do was throw himself on the boy's body and wait to die. That cop looked me in the eye and said, "Do you have any idea how hard it would be to live with yourself after that?"
Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.
Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"
It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.
Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.
Gavin de Becker puts it like this in Fear Less, his superb post-9/11 book, which should be required reading for anyone trying to come to terms with our current world situation: "...denial can be seductive, but it has an insidious side effect. For all the peace of mind deniers think they get by saying it isn't so, the fall they take when faced with new violence is all the more unsettling."
Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level.
And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself...
"Baa."
This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth.

Family Part 1

I don't know how many parts of this blog named family there will be but more than one. This I know. Tonight I want to talk about on aspect. I have my parents and sister, my grandparents aunts and uncles, my cousins, my family extended beyond that and I have MY family - those who I have chosen and adopted to be family. That family includes blood relatives and those not related to me..

I watched the Blind Side tonight with my buddy Harry. This was the first time for me to see it. Afterward we talked of family and one of my cousins had left a message on my facebook page. Age, my 18 year old cousin said "I miss you". She and I were never really close but we are family. When I go home to visit I feel I don't know her anymore. The same could be said of most of my cousins. One of them doesn't even remember me. I called back home on Christmas eve and the phone got passed around the family, my grandparents, their kids and their kids. There were 2 not there but there were about  21 people in all. One didn't know who I was. I have been gone a long time. It hurt but I understood.

My little cousins are together one of the true loves of my life. There were 4 of us to start with. We are the old ones. Then came the rest. To those that came after I was old enough to be more like uncle Johnny rather than cousin Johnny and I fit the part. During family events when the whole family would come into town we had fun. I would undoubtedly end up laying on the floor at some point watching TV and I would get attacked by about 6 kids. We would wrestle and tickle and have great fun for a good 20 or 30 min. Every time this would happen. I looked forward to it and so did they. They called it Jonathan time. Everyone else in the room would get a kick out of it for about 3 minutes then get tired of it because we were louder than the TV. There were times when a couple of the girls and one of the young boys would climb on me and sit and watch TV with me. I remember falling asleep and waking to these angels in my arms. I loved and still love those kids. That is when i knew I wanted children.

I love those kids. I am cousin Johnny and more like Uncle Johnny but I would protect them and give everything for them. I will have been gone for 5 years when I move back home and due to deployments and scheduling I have not been home for a holiday or gathering with my family the entire time. Now it seems that the kids are grown or growing up. I will never have those days again and it breaks my heart.

I think that they all know why I am gone, most of them understand and appreciate what I am doing and it is worth it. I am here for their future but I lost all of that time, little as it was, with them. I can't wait to see them all again. Somewhere in my heart, they are my kids and I love them all. Part of my family, part that I choose to be my family.

Restless

Another night but with a new twist. If I were back home or back in garrison at least this would not be new and I would be able to deal with it. Here however I can not. I am restless. Not the type where one might be nervous or just hyper but restless. I have this overwhelming desire to get into a fight or something. Normally I would go out and dance, drink or hit the weights. I could work out now but it was already late when this settled in and I am beginning to work out again tomorrow morning. Bright and early. I would rather start off good especially since I am working out with one of my soldiers. I have to set the example even though he has been at it for some time now.
This restlessness was caused by many things, not all of which I can isolate into a specific feeling or thought just yet but there are reasons. The benefit to self psychoanalysis is being able to find out what the problems are and therefore start fixing them. The curse of it is sometimes I don't have the answer or the reason behind the happenings.
Tonight my problem, best that I can determine, is being couped up and missing that special part of me. I didn't lose anything or change. Well I have changed but that is not it. This thing that I am missing is something I never had and for the first time in my life since I started the trek down romantic row I don't have a muse to inspire me or a star to set my gaze upon. I am a dreamer caught in a sea with no current, no wind and no stars to move me or to navigate by.
I have one or two interests that are voices and smiles from a past that feel like they came from a different life centuries ago. The fact that I am half the world away does not help nor does the fact that I have been gone for a few years. One was trapped in my mind tonight and I could not release her. I wanted to talk to her so bad and tried to no avail. I do not wish to say that she is or would become my muse but I felt that she was the only one who could bring peace to me. I would call now but my roommate is asleep and a light sleeper. He has training he has to conduct in the morning and I don't want to keep him up. It is already 0200 here and I should be going to sleep now seeing as I have to be up early to motivate my soldier.
The answer to my question is yes I will find HER someday but that brings a scary dose of reality. If I pursue the wrong woman or invest too much time into the wrong one I could miss or choose one other than the one intended for me. I could ruin the best for both of us. Another question beckons at me, is she the one? I am not asking if this one woman is the one, at least not yet but the blanket question can and by no intention of my own will be asked about every woman who COULD meet the standard.
Soloman wrote that much wisdom brings much sorrow. This is true and it is a burden, a blessing and a curse. In the same way not knowing what tomorrow will bring allows for hope and fear. Knowing some of what the future brings caused strain and turns hope to fact and concern to meet the mark set forth. The key is I suppose is to be "more then conquerors", to go into battle know it is won and not worry about the details. The die is cast the outcome known, all that is left is to carry on the that end honorably and to take each step as God guides it.

Another glorious day in Iraq has come and gone. I sat behind my desk in front of my computer and did not do what I signed up to do. Yes, I joined to serve but I joined as an infantryman and not as an analyst. I joined the infantry to be out in the field on patrol and to do what many can't or won't do. I sit at a computer every day just waiting for the day  to be done. The problem is it is kinda like the movie "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murry. I basically live the same day over and over again. I still have about 5 or so months left of this day.

Along with this day and every other like it I find ways to fill the gaps. Whether it is reading, playing video games, chatting online, or a movie I find something to do. It is not that I couldn't be busy, but busy is all I would be. Not productive, just busy. I fill the gaps of time because when those times are free so is my mind to wander. We all deal with being away from home, friends and family and though I am not married or have kids there is a struggle that we single men have and that is that we have no one or few that wait for us to call them. We check our messages on Facebook or our emails and many times find nothing. The quiet becomes even more silent and the cold, colder.

In the past, last deployment for instance, we had each others company and that was good enough but this time around it is different. In the lack of hard times and in the absence of combat we have not bonded together as we had in the past. The few who came last time or in past tours remain at least somewhat tied together but the rest tend to themselves. There is a lack of comradery that makes this tour harder. I suppose since there really is no enemy to find, fight or chase we lose focus. Training for the soldiers is conducted regularly, which in the past was unheard of because there was little to no time for training because we were on mission or had to be ready to go on mission. Now we have to train our soldiers to keep them prepared in case we meet a real threat. The lack of mission, combat soldiers deployed with no combat, gathering intelligence on enemies we won't go after and training to meet an enemy we will never face puts a weight on us that no one could have guessed. While we are not humping it hard every day, losing friends, or up for days on end, we are always ready to do what we were trained to do. Always waiting for the opportunity to do what we joined to do, to be infantry. We work with the threat always there, travel the roads waiting to get blown up while our younger soldiers are weary about using their weapons against an enemy for fear that they might get in trouble. It seems to us much of the time that one of our guys have to get shot before we can defend ourselves. Politicians and diplomats have made it almost more dangerous for us to carry weapons to defend ourselves than if we walked the streets without them. Sometimes we wonder what would happen if we did get in an engagement. Damned if we do, dead if we don't I suppose.

This mix of things along with other ingredients creates a tour that is not physically hard but it seems to suck a mans soul dry. We are all tired and unhappy. We would be happier in a cold mud puddle training in the states or over in Afghanistan. They don't need combat soldiers here. They need a security detail for those still in an advisory role. Send combat troops to combat and send the extras to help elsewhere. If one were to look at us here they would see the look of caged beasts. We are trapped here within the walls of diplomacy but we remember and dream of times when we were fighting soldiers and hope for the honor to be so again.