Since I am home and my deployment is behind me, I want to publicly thank Hatton for being kind enough to host my Iraq blog. I am considering writing a book about my units experiences there and the blog will be a huge help in remembering what we did and keeping everything in chronological order. I may start with small articles and try to get them published in American History Magazine and Arm Chair General first and see how it goes. Since my major in school is Military History, I figure I might as well put my newly acquired skills and knowledge to good work.
I also want to thank everyone for their support and kind words. I have said before and I will say it again, we (service members) have never asked anyone to support any war our government sees fit to enter, only to support the troops, the tools used in the sometimes justified, sometimes unjustified expeditions of our leaders. Although we all have our differences of opinions, I feel everyone on this list is a good person and a kind soul. I feel blessed to have friends (real and internet) like you. I am also aware that some or all of you have noticed a change in my attitude towards the war in Iraq. The first half of the deployment I was all for it and felt we did the right thing in going into Iraq as we were doing great things to help the locals there, especially the ones in the very rural areas who literally lived in mud homes. The second half though is where my attitude changed, especially on April 10th. I guess it never really hit me how senseless it was to go there until I lost some very good friends, and seeing first hand how it affects their families. I do feel we did good things in Iraq, especially in Mosul where we noticed a decline in violence toward the end of our tour there, but in the grand scheme of things, going to Iraq was not the best decision GW made. Anyway, my point is that I recognize that I have come home with new issues that need to be dealt with, and I am going to make every effort to get help for these issues once we start the redeployment process on Monday. PTSD is treatable. The first step is to recognize you have problems, and then seek help. Despite the fact that publicly the Army says that they are making every attempt to help us, there is still peer pressure keeping us from getting help. I say fuck peer pressure. I am going to do what I need to do for ME, not some immature "super macho" asshole who thinks that a person is weak if they seek help. Bruce PS. Hatton, contact me off list please. I tried to email you but it keeps bouncing back. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:302271 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
