Friday, March 20, 2009

My stay in Iraq thus far

Iraq is cool and I'm enjoying it ... 

Wait a minute, did I just say that??

Yes, in fact I did. By cool, I mean the weather, which has been blessedly temperate and even cold at night and in the mornings. It doesn't mean that I bundle up or anything, but I definitely feel it. 

I spent the first month or so sitting behind a desk in the command center. While it is kind of cool to see everything going on in Baghdad as it happens, the coolness was decidedly short lived. Basically I stared, zombified, at a computer screen for twelve god forsaken hours every day. 

Then someone came over and told me I didn't have to do that anymore. I was so excited I did numerous cartwheels ... actually I didn't but I felt like doing it. 

So here I am, back in the fold, doing the job I signed up to do. I haven't done anything particularly glamorous so far, but I'm enjoying the work and the freedom that only a journalist in the Army can fully appreciate. 

I love my job ... there, I said it. I love it so much in fact, that I am about to give Uncle Sam another three years of my life. I'm not giving it away for free, however, my dear uncle is sweetening the pot for me. So there's that.

So this is my deployment thus far. I can only hope that I keep having fun for another however many months I'm here. 

1 comment:

Ramenx said...

So you, a U.S. Army Soldier, are assuming that the war in Iraq is good for our country and we, the people of the U.S., are there to help the Iraqis’ that live there. Which, in turn, is understandable, but have you taken much thought in on the full picture. This so called war, has managed to split America and destroy the world’s economy. As a soldier you should realizes that your equipment, rifle, vehicles and chow are made by the lowest bidder. Or is that what you’ve been told like the rest of us?

Your mechanic buddies are getting paid around forty thousand a year in Iraq while the guys across the street working for KBR or a private corporation dealing with MRAP maintenance are pulling in over a hundred twenty thousand in the same time. Hell, a bus driver, most that cannot even speak English, are getting paid around eighty thousand. Maybe you should check out this quick video by Bill Moyers, http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06272008/watch3.html , in it mentions no bid contracts that the people’s money pay for, and how the war for Iraqi freedom is based on putting tax payers dollars in the pockets of the already rich and famous. In it he uses references from Alan Greenspan’s book, The Age of Turbulence, a former Chairman from the Federal Reserve. You might notice how it was released after his leave from Chairman.
Now you come home, from a seven month to a sixteen month tour, to find that economy has dropped just as you have read online or if you’re lucky to have seen a TV. You try looking for a job only to find no one is hiring, or have heard how friends and family members have lost theirs to layoffs. So you decide to stay in, because you’re afraid if you got out you would not be able to support yourself, and the little pay Uncle Sam has provided you with while in Iraq you are forced to save till the economy raises or if you’re lucky enough to find a job. Money you could use to spend on a down payment for property or transportation.

Now worried on just being able to collect the meager government paycheck every two weeks, you’re unable to attend college, and spend at least one year in Iraq out of the three. Which puts you years behind your peers at finishing college and getting a chance for one of those rare opportunities to find a job able to support your family without living pay check to pay check, and in turn you post on the web to say how much you enjoy being in a foreign country armed with a rifle at all times.

You need to open your eyes and see how corrupt every system is, governments being the worst, doing all they can to back stab the person next to them to get a bigger slice of the pie.

Welcome the age of the sheep.