Tonight is yet going to be another test of nerves. One more night to assume force protection of our beloved Combat Out Post 763. Last time we did force pro it ended up being a two day event for us. Up in the observation posts you can, at the latest of night and earliest of morning, hear the creepiest of sounds that test even the most daring of sorts in the respects of paranormal. The footsteps that scrape across the dirt covered concrete, or the scratching noises that tend to surround your every side. Pretty scary stuff for some. I however have not been as scared as I would have thought, or even wanted to be. I used to get scared over such kinds of things, but lately I have not. It's disconcerting because I tend to enjoy that racing of fear that crawls from the depths up your stomach and through your spine to the back of the neck. The mystery is very fun and daring.
Although this is a very fun and exciting topic to write about, I can't help but express the concerns that have been running through my head.
Over the past few weeks, especially since my return from duty after such a lovely few weeks of leave, something has come apparent to me. I need to write a book about my experience. Not just the experience here in Iraq, but my Army experience as a whole. I don't think it has anything to do with wanting to make a name for myself, or anything of that nature. I really want to open peoples eyes to our military and the poor direction that it's been heading in, and where it stands now. This organization is failing and is in need of a radical alteration to set itself back on course to being the supreme military it once was. I'm not sure America is ready to learn about these things, because I know the overall stance in view that America has about our military.
A concerning thought that runs through my head, is that America has been the major cause of turning our military into what it has become. An institute that cannot act without immediate and overwhelming criticism from vessels like the media and other large special interest groups. Everything the military does is put under a microscope, and has been done so much that there is no action that we can take in the Army now that we cannot do without filling out some kind risk assessment sheet or sign a counseling statement. The softness that I see America becoming has infiltrated into the military, and mostly in the short time that I have been here.
The fleeting disgusting feeling I have realized cannot be summed up in an online open forum like blogging. It needs to be a researched, documented, here's all the facts and not in just some kind of writing aberration. Not only does the public need to know about the poor direction that we are heading in, but also the ideals from past to present and how they have changed. How military leaders are so willing to put American lives in peril due to small political games and public outcry. Because let us face it, the general public, even the political ambassadors in Washington, know absolutely nothing about the way the military should operate. And though this is the nature of the military to protect the outcome politics, to enforce policy, it's not the nature of politics to control the tactics of war.
Public outcry for a now very unpopular war has not been the only staple of our failure here since I've deployed. OIF 08-09 has been a failure for a multiple of reasons. For one, American lives have been lost. The amount of bad people we have been sent here to capture, or kill remains almost untouched or even strengthened. The laziness of a higher, burned out, chain of command as been frustrating to many who have served under it. The Iraqi people, the good people, still have fear and violence constantly surrounding them. When we leave, good families will be slaughtered by those who are supposed to protect them. And though we even know where bad people live, when the idea is brought up to go after mass murders, who have killed not only people of their own country for religious differences or what have you, but also Americans the ideas are completely dismissed, as fear settles into an idea that we would only be stirring up a hornets nest. The only understanding of the laziness of those who can make the decisions to kill these evil people, is that this is their 3rd of 4th deployment. They are burned out and just want to go home and spend time with their families. They send us out everyday passively, hoping that we are not blown to smithereens, and even if we are, that perhaps it will only be a few American losses before it is time to go home. They don't allow us to do our job, to go after those who we know are bad. Those we know want to inflict harm on us. We are not on the offensive, we are not even on the defensive. July 1st approaches, and perhaps this era of the war will be known as the Dark Ages.
We wouldn't want to stir up a hornets nest, would we?
You would think that the mass exodous of experienced troops would teach them that something is terribly wrong.
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