The final countdown

A couple days left before the real fun begins. I'm not quite sure how I feel about it to be honest. A really big part of me wants to get out of here and do something real and tangible instead of sitting in a class room all day. Another part of me is apprehensive because I'll be stepping outside of my comfort zone to train hardcore for the next 2 months. I'm sure I can handle it but that doesn't mean I want to do it.

I have this big fear of the unknown. I can KNOW 100% that something is going to be fine, it's going to be ok, doable, whatever but nothing drives me crazier that not knowing exactly what is in front of me. It takes me a while to mentally prepare for things. I have to go through stages of acceptance before I can cope with something uncomfortable. To me, none of this is even happening yet. It probably won't be "real" until a couple months after I set boots in Afghanistan and by that time I'll have started convincing myself that home isn't real.

I've been browsing youtube.com looking for some footage of the next set of training I'm going to go through and then maybe some footage of the location I'm going to be at. I managed to find a couple of videos but they didn't come right out and scream THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING HERE! I don't know what I was expecting but I had hoped for more than a couple of slide shows with music in the background.

Sorry that this is such a small post; I've been kind-of sidetracked while writing this and can't really think of much else to say so I'll leave you with this:

I've never been a proponent of killing. I'm still not sure I could pull the trigger if/when I needed to. It's just part of who I am. I've definitely not been a supporter of the conflict(s) in the middle east. Outside of getting Osama Bin Laden I think that we should have stayed out and let God or Allah or whomever sort out the mess over there. That being said, I have to ask you one thing: Don't buy into the media coverage of everything that's going on over there. I've been reading comments of videos on Youtube where people have been saying "...[American Soldiers] celebrating by drinking the blood of Muslim women and children" and "The soldiers aren't even wanted over there. They don't do any good."

I can't speak from my personal experience but everyone I've talked to says that the majority of people over there are happy we are there. They didn't ask us to be there and we shouldn't have gone but now that we are over there we've given them something to hope for. In Iraq, since the Iraqi military has been trained, casualties have been reduced to 18% of what they were in 2003. I don't care who you are, less innocent people dying is a good thing. Yes, some soldiers have done wrong and screwed up and have been dealt with accordingly. But don't pin that on the whole military. If I had the choice I probably wouldn't go, and for selfish reasons, but since I don't have the choice I'm going to do the best that I can.

This may be the last post for quite a while but I'll try to get to it as much as I can. In the meantime I'll be shooting guns, kicking down doors, and rolling around in the mud; taking as many pictures of it all as I can.