An Observation
This is my second post of the day, and really the first public post I'll make since I started this thing back in '05, right before I went to Afghanistan. As I was perusing recent public posts, I noticed that people have a lot of worries these days. That's fine, 'cause Lord knows there's a lot to worry about in today's world. The interesting part to me was how my priorities and worries have shifted so dramatically in the past four years...or, more accurately, since I joined the US Army. Do I worry about gas prices? Yeah, 'cause even though I'm in Iraq right now, here soon I will be returning to the States, and however fuel efficient my little car is (and it is) I will still feel it. But a more pressing concern, right here, right now, is the health of the guys who had an IED explode near their truck today. Sure, I'm concerned about the economy and finding a job, since I'm out of the Army in a year and I'll have to work somewhere. However, for an hour and a half everything else took a backseat so I could clean my rifle. If my teammate knocked on the door right now and said he needed to talk, then on would go the sneakers, tuck the shirt in, put my reflective belt on, and he could talk my ear off all night if he had to. I'm 10 days away from my 22nd birthday and I'm 11 months into my second deployment, and I've seen, experienced, felt, heard, tasted, touched, DONE more things than most of the people I graduated high school with four years ago. In fact, four of those peeps that I loved dearly were taken from me by this damn country, and our president's outrageous concept that we have to fix everybody's damn problems. It is by turns amusing, frustrating, and downright shocking to hear what people complain about in my hometown these days...people in their senior year of high school, hell, some of the very peeps I graduated with. And all I can think is "Did I really used to be like this?" and "I will never take things for granted again." Such is the train of thought that embeds itself into your very being when your best friend is killed by a roadside bomb less than three months into her Iraq tour, and three months before her 19th birthday. But I digress...those that haven't had to live through these things, be thankful, and don't complain about what you don't have or the life you lead or whatever. Fix it, improve it, change it, do what you need to, but please don't complain to me. I'm too cynical and jaded to give a damn about normal people's worries anymore. And that's just fine with me.