Sometimes things just don't work. Soon I'll be back at work. Things change all the time. I look back over the connections I've chosen to keep and ask why now.

I revealed something deeply personal and secret to my counselor the other day. Something I've only told my parents and maybe one other friend who is very dear to me. The only other person ( Read more... )

My martial arts instructor told us that you can only really focus on one thing at a time. He meant -really- focus and engage with a task. Everything else was autopilot--muscle memory so to speak. So he told us that practicing individual techniques, combinations, and sparring could break down the thinking behind fighting. He related to a fire drill ( Read more... )

I joined the army in 2006. Between then (MAY '06) until the end of my middle east contracting (OCT '20) a lot has transpired. I'm not going to go over it all here; that's what this whole "A Look Back" retrospective is. No, instead I want to talk about why I chose to go about things the way I did in certain respects.

The army was very difficult for ( Read more... )

This happened a few times...

Deploying puts a unique stress on me that I've learned to deal with after nine years of it. To put it bluntly, it's like being at work 24/7 and there's no privacy. Any sort of privacy that one might obtain is generally in a shared space and the walls are thin. It's something one has to live to understand, although I'm ( Read more... )

I'm not going to look back at my previous entries, I think I'll just go with how I'm feeling. My counselor asked me "why did you join the army." I've never been completely honest when this question has been asked of me.

I guess the best thing to do would be to look back as to what got me in a situation wherein I'd consider joining the army, the ( Read more... )

My counselor asked me, "Why did you join the military?" I think the default response people assume most soldiers have is, "to serve  my country," "as a career," "to sponsor my education," "to go new places." I'm sure some people felt that way. Personally, I just wanted to escape--permanently. My idea of what deployment to Iraq was skewed. I just ( Read more... )

I'm leaving this post and future "Look Back" posts visible in the event something should transpire and people should stumble upon this blog. For a very long time I've wanted to log how I've perceived individual events. I've been told that my memory is impressive, down to specific details. I think this is because I stew and dwell on things. I've ( Read more... )

Sometimes when I'm having a bad day or things are't that great, I remember looking down on all those people who got blown up for no reason. People trying to go on their religious pilgrimage who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Then I remember all the people who just kept walking, because that's life for them.

Man, I'm lucky.

And thus the old year ends and the new one rolls in. I don't have any resolutions this time around; experience has taught me that the best practice is constant diligence rather than yearly well-wishing and pining ( Read more... )

My leadership just told me that I might not be getting leave this deployment.

My morale is gone.