Success...?

Success...?

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, which I'll explain later, but current events compels me to say a little bit. A few days ago Iraqis' turned out in droves to cast their votes for a provisional Iraqi council; one of the first steps necessary for self rule. If any thing else it quells any doubts about whether or not democracy is possible in a tribal, impoverished, Islamic Nation.
As much as I'd like to take some sort of credit for what happened, the credit is due to the people of Iraq. It wasn't my family who were threatened if I voted, nor was it my head on the platter so to speak. They stepped up to the plate, and it would be an understatement to say that I am impressed (not that I'm really anyone worth impressing, but still.) They far exceeded what we as Americans would expect out of ourselves and they did it facing a level of risk that few of us will ever know.
I can't help but think that I take too much for granted when I see the pictures of people standing in line to cast their vote with the destruction of a recent attack in the background. I get frustrated enough to leave if there's more than a 15 minute wait at Harold's Chicken Shack.
However, things are far from over. We still don't know to what extent the Sunni's sat things out, and what effects that will have on things to come. Overall, the situation is still fragile enough that things could go in any undesirable direction.. It'll be a long war and this was just one battle in many more to come. The country still has to draft a constitution and get it ratified with the support of all three of the major factions. If not, we'll be right here again next year waiting on the new council to be voted in and there's no telling how long the zeal for democracy in Iraq will last for both Americans and Iraqis if things don't go well in the following months.
All this just goes to show what has been done, and what is possible in the future. I'm sure a few of the terrorists are re-evaluating their position in things, when their threats and actions proved vastly ineffectual in regards to deterring an election. That's not to say that they should be counted out. I'm sure we'll all see what happens in the near future.





I've been kept pretty busy for the last few weeks. We got re-assigned to another command, the fourth time in four months. At least this time it looks like we'll be here for a while. I'd like to say what we're doing, but whatever penalties there were for op-sec violations before have increased exponentially. It's nothing really too special, but it's just the way things are. The thing is we never go outside the wire to interact with the people, which is a let down but we do have a little bit more satisfaction in regards to our overall role in the grand scheme of things.
In our down time I've pretty much given up on readings for the time being. I still read here and there but I've been doing a lot of other things. I arranged it so I could take a few correspondence courses for my degree while I'm here so I don't feel so bad about putting off full time school for over another year. So, between that and preparing to actually go to school full time my time is pretty much taken up.
It seems like all I can really think about now is the day I'm out of the Army and doing my own thing. In the past it's been pretty easy to focus on the job at hand and block out the outside shit till the time comes, but it's just been getting harder and harder everyday. Trying to figure out where exactly I'll live, how much time off I'll take, If and where I'll work and plain ole figuring out how to get from point A to point B is pretty consuming.
The Army is rough in its own respects but then again it's so structured and everything is provided. You don't have to worry about meals, where you live or many other of the mundane things that accompany “civilian life”. It's been over 4 years since I've been on my own and to say things have changed is an understatement, so I can't help but wonder how the adjustment will go.
I still remember the bus ride I had from Chicago to Ft Knox and the thoughts going through my head at the time.

“well this is it, the first step in the rest of my life”

It's hard to explain the feelings that accompanied leaving the familiar and what you know to completely immersing myself in the foreign and the unknown, with the twist being that I couldn't just turn around because there was nothing to turn around to.
There was only 3 other people on that bus and I doubt it would have mattered if there were 300. It was like the only thing around me were the tangible manifestations of my hopes, fears, ambitions, doubts and anxieties. At times it felt like there was no way I could ever step off that bus, but then I knew that I had to leave whenever that bus stopped and the door opened. Then at other times it felt like getting off that bus was the one thing I had been waiting on my entire life.
Today, I feel the same way, which was just how I felt yesterday and the day before that. In essence, this whole deployment has become one long, dangerous bus ride. I sit here typing away at the dawn of another chapter in my life and I don't know if I can adjust to the civilian life, or go to college full time with other college people as some people around here call it. There is no telling if I'll do as well in school as I did in the military and of course there is the possibility that it's just “not me”.
Yet, I know this is what I need to do, I can't help but feel as if I've been waiting to do this forever and that everything I have done up to this point has lead me to this stage of my life. It doesn't matter that all of this revolves around my going to school and 4 years ago I joined the military because I didn't want to have anything to do with school and the feeling was mutual. All of this is inevitable, it's that simple.
Of course there is the very real possibility that I never make it to next semester, or to next week. My unit is still taking casualties like it's never going out of style, and I could catch one tomorrow. But that's another discussion for another time and that I rarely if ever think about, because the reality is I could go through four tours in the worst shit imaginable and get taken out by a freak plumbing accident at some truck stop in Indiana on my way home.

I really, don't remember where I was going when I started all this, and I don't really know what else to say, so I guess you could say I'm just waiting to reach my stop and until then I'll try and keep things updated a little more.