It's never that bad

We had a guy at one of the units that I support kill himself the other day. Young guy, I didn't know him, hell he was only here for two or three days. There have been a couple guys try and kill themselves around here with varying degrees of success (or failure depending on how you look at it). Suicide is something I can't fathom even as difficult as my life has been at times I know that the good far outshines the bad. What can you do? life, death it's all the same around here and the only thing people do is pick up and move and at the end of the day the statement he was trying to make will be lost and he just like the rest of us will be just another number.

God have mercy on us all.

Been doing this for a year now.

Wow, it's crazy I've been doing this blog for a year now. I actaully went back and took a look at some of my work. I never really look at it but, I figured I'd take a quick scan to see where I was this time last year. I can tell you this much I had no clue what the hell I was thinking.

Everyone changes overtime but, for me I feel like I've really changed, being here has turned me into a different person. My outlook on the war is much different that it was when I left. I mean when I left the states you could say that I lined up perfectly with the Howard Dean outlook on this war. Now that I've been here for a nearly a year I can say that I'm more aware of the daily realites of the war and while I'm not crony of the GW school of thought I am more sympthatic to the plight of the warfighters and their daily stuggles. To me it'something you have to experince, no matter how many American flags you put on your car you don't know what it is like unless you are here. I think both sides in America are blinding themselves from the truth. The reality of this place is one big shade of grey.

If someone were to ask me what lesson I learned out here I would respond "When it comes to war the less you put into it, the more you get out of it."