Back Home

I've been home for about the better part of a month now and I've just been letting things sink in. I've been kicking myself for not keeping up with the blog as I should have especially since so many interesting and just plainly odd things have happened since the last time I've written in this space. I fully intent to write about them all but I have to wait for the right time.

Being home has been quite the surreal experience. People are always asking me how was it but, they aren't really asking me to describe it (becasue for what I had to do it was bland on a day to day basis) but they want me to validate their view of how the war is being run. Those that are pro-Administraion want me to talk about all the good we are doing in Iraq and those that are anti-Administration want me to talk about how fucked up the situation is there. It's funny to me becuase this war has been so sharply and bitterly debated that even the most reasonable of people tend to go on flights of extremes.

It is as if no middle ground exists.

The truth of the matter is that both sides can be right depending on the day. I mean we all get our viewpoint from the media that we view and Iraq is a very dangerous place by the looks of it and I agree but step back for a second and think about what your local news reports first off in your city. Generally it is murder, rape, robbery, car accidents, child molestations, corruption and generally the cess of human existance is paraded to you in the first 10 miuntes of any news broadcast. Do those same reports day in and day out make you feel any less safe in your city? Most of us turn a blind eye to that news. Take the time to make the correlation. If they are showing the most violent acts off the bat in your city aren't they going to do the same thing when it comes to Iraq? The most violent people and acts don't generally define your city and the people in it the same can be said of Iraq. At the same time Freedom isn't that great of a treasure when you don't have food for your children or the ability to walk the streets of your on neighborhood. Iraqis at their core want nothing different than what we want. Safe places to raise our children.

Another thing that people ask me is if I'm going back. Well the anwser is no but the why will suprise you. It isn't the war part that bothered me, I mean that is part of it sure but not the main reason. The main reason I wouldn't go back is becasue everyone smokes. I detest smoking and I have found that smokers if the mean to or not are some of the most inconsiderate individuals on the planet. When they get up the smoke, when the go to breakfast they smoke, when they leave breakfast they smoke, they have their late morning smoke, when the go to lunch they smoke, when the leave lunch they smoke, when the get in the car they smoke, when they get out of the car they smoke, they have their early afternoon smoke, they have their "I'm thinking hard" smoke, they have their "I wish I was home" smoke, then they have their post dinner smoke, and their right before bed smoke. Smoke, smoke, smoke all day and all night. I can't stand it and for that reason alone I'd never go back.

It's odd being back and talking to my family and friends again in such a sanitized manner. The thing that gets me most since I've been home is that I no longer "fit" here. I won't suggest for a second that my experinces were anything near those of the people that had to go outside the wire to kill or be killed or watch as their comrades lives slipped away from them in an instant. But still being in Iraq has changed me it is odd to say how. I don't feel any different, I don't look any different but I am different. My family reacts to me in a "different" way. It's difficult to quantify it's like they are talking to a blur or an after image. I guess the best way to explain it is like looking at a picture on the wall that has always been there but one day you notice that it is the smallest bit uneven. Not so much that it looks off but it does look different. It's more offputting than anything else.

Going back to work has been odd as well. Everything is so bland at the office, I look around and I see people that were sitting in the same chairs that they were sitting in when I left and they have been sitting in that same place for 17 years waiting for that day when they can retire. I just look at them and I'm like is that me? I know now that sitting in an office is not for me I can't live like that can call myself satisfied. As soon as I got home my boss offered me a postion in Korea that I start on Monday. I didn't hesitate to take the offer, I'm not ready to be here at home doing whatever it is we do here. My heart is really in travelling and seeing the world. Stagnation is death to me.

I don't know I'm wierd like that.