In the land of the biblical beginning, I have found an enlightenment that has erupted at my very core.
Frosty the Snowman plays cheerfully on TV, sexy women in Christmas lingerie scroll across my computer screen and outside, our sirens are alerting us we are under attack; tonight it's just a drill. Just another hum-drum night on Camp Adder.
I sit back and chuckle silently and know that some day I will look back on my time here and try to make sense of it all. Someday I will be sitting at a desk somewhere doing something mundane that will seem so urgent and important at that time to someone, but not to me. I think I will find it hard to fall back into the mindless repetition that was my life before this war.
I think back to when I was home for few weeks last summer and how I found it hard to stress about things in the real world like I once did. I find it hard not to chuckle when my family and friends complain about things going wrong in their life and remember that I too once lived an over-dramatized soap opera of a life not too long ago.
I have a much different outlook on life these days.
I have different ideas on what I will value most in the years to come. I'm sure I will someday look back at these past couple years and consider it the defining moment in my life; when my life came sharply in focus. I find comfort in knowing that I am a better person than I was.
In the land of the biblical beginning, I have found an enlightenment that has erupted at my very core. I have been blessed with ability to find a better place within myself and accept that the mistakes I have made in the past, have also contributed to character of man I am today.
I am thankful for the many family and friends that have been a constant influence in my life this past year. There was a time when I wanted to forget about everyone and just do what I came to do, but they never let me forget that there is a better life, better times, waiting for me back home.
I am proud to serve my country. I am proud to have been in Iraq during a time when absolute and quantified positive results are so evident in the beginning of a prospering Iraq. I am also, however, so thankful that my tour is almost over and I will be coming home to begin a new chapter in my life as well.