Thank God its over! No more Fort Polk I hate that place. I spend a month away from my Family and Friends for 7 days of war games. Nothing like fighting in the swamps to get ready for the mountainous country of afghanistan. Such a waste of time, money and assets. I just happy its behind me unfortunately that means deployment is yet again so close. Its rough trying to be a father to a five year old girl and be constantly gone a year at a time. I wonder if she understands. Yet again I have to get my life into order and deal with that uncertainty will my number come up this tour. i hate this part of the Job.

Ah so the Iron Guantlet is over now on to J.R.T.C.. I hate gearing up for deployments, you preparing to be away from your family and friends with the possiblity of not seeing them again due to dying, the Army decides to make you spend all this time in the field that you only have about 7 months of family time in between 12 to 15 month deployments. So in two weeks of sleeping in mud, poison ivy, chiggers, ticks,wolf spiders, and the biggest damn copperhead ever, we had a relatively low casualty rate. Though we had trenchfoot and hypothermia thrown into the mix this year, no real hyperthermia cases, dislocations, sprains/strains, muscle spasms one acute case of celluitis, and skin rashes. It finally over now time to repack replan and do it again. Yeah

So here it is block leave is over. Now back to the daily grind of the war machine. Only one new Soldier has arrived we where due eight. So one week of packing and last minute training to see if our preparation pays off. I personally think it gonna be a cluster fuck, but what do I truly know. The news in afghanistan is bleak at best I hate finding out were you going in advance especially when it is a remote shit hole. Good news is I found what I had lost, the reason why i do this job. It came to at the St. Louis fair watching the Counting Crows perform and it hit me where else in the world can you do this without the threat of bombings, secret police, or any horrible act of violence? Not to many and especially to the degree we do it in the US. It sounds stupid but it makes it worth it it really does.

So signed out on block leave which is nice except it means that from when we sign back in everything starts moving full speed. It is the first nice and actually its gorgeous day in a long time, no freak thunderstorms its not a sweltering mess. Heading up to St. Louis spend so time with the parents and siblings. Counting crows are opening fair St Louis the year so hopefully i get to see them. Oh and almost cured of my shingles,, damn are they painful and some how i got them on my thumb. Anyways trying to reality of work out of my head for now....

So maybe there is someone out there who can explain to me why man thinks he is so inevitably right. Why does one hold so tightly onto what they feel is the truth. Do we need to perceive this way in order to survive. Is this just an condition of man or does this exist in the animal world as well.....

Another week scratched away. So I am undertaking Emt-I/Advanced Emt which is normally a year long in a college enviroment in just 27 working days. I dont know what I was thinking. The first four days we covered 360 pages and then were tested on it. First trying to retain that much that fast is extremely difficult then i had to chose what info is gonna be on the test on day five. Well i made it thru the first test but now i start working in the ER/OR/ambulance all why in class. So everything i miss is on me to get caught up on. Well I hope the next week goes better.

So its been a few months since redeploying to the states. It has been good to see friends, family and once again be active in their lives. I might as well be still gone, dont get me wrong, It is nice to try to interact but all i know is Army. It seems that I am just a welcomed stranger observing these moments then actually belonging to these moments. I cant stand the ignorance or the self righteous attitude it seems the youth has adapted. Walking these kids no nothing of what it took and takes to give the opportunity to do what they want when the please, it sickens me to the core. When they finally do get called on being an oblivious idiot they have nothing but excuses of why they are this way or why they felt they could degrade society. Is this really what we have become. I also have been put on notice for my next deployment this time to the lofty altitudes that are the Kush Mountains of Afghanistan. So now it time to start training like there wont be a second chance to get it right.