A Line In The Sand

Iraqi Voting Disrupts News Reports of Bombings

I thought this humorous article was great and wanted to share it with you.  From ScrappleFace, Scott Ott writes:

(2005-01-30) -- News reports of terrorist bombings in Iraq were marred Sunday by shocking graphic images of Iraqi "insurgents" voting by the millions in their first free democratic election.

Despite reporters' hopes that a well-orchestrated barrage of mortar attacks and suicide bombings would put down the so-called 'freedom insurgency', hastily-formed battalions of rebels swarmed polling places to cast their ballots -- shattering the status quo and striking fear into the hearts of the leaders of the existing terror regime.

Hopes for a return to the stability of tyranny waned as rank upon rank of Iraqi men and women filed out of precinct stations, each armed with the distinctive mark of the new freedom guerrillas -- an ink-stained index finger, which one former Ba'athist called "the evidence of their betrayal of 50 years of Iraqi tradition."

Journalists struggled to put a positive spin on the day's events, but the video images of tyranny's traitors choosing a future of freedom overwhelmed the official story of bloodshed and mayhem.

Mesic for President

I thought this one was kind of funny...  The new president of Croatia appears to be a distant relative of mine.  Stipe Mesic was recently elected the new President of Croatia and with my name having slavic roots, I imagine that we are somehow distant relatives.  I actually know very little about my family history, and outside of my family, have never met another person with my last name.  Obviously, some spelling was probably changed at Ellis Island because I have seen different variations of my name on the web.  Whatever the case, I wish President Mesic the best of luck!  (Incidently, the runner-up, a darkhorse candidate who lives in the United States, is named Boris Miksic.  Perhaps he's the real distant relative, I doubt I'll ever know.)

Pictures That Make You Smile

It is amazing how quickly attitudes can change here.  I find myself feeling great at one point, thinking of how close we are to getting home, of all we have accomplished this last year, and how honored I have been to have been given the opportunity to make my small contribution in OIF.  It seems the desert can do things to you though, and perhaps later the same day I find myself feeling down, like this life is the only one I have ever known.  Sometimes it feels like I have snapshots and memories in my mind of other times, but they don’t feel real.  They are only as solid as the thoughts of the last movie you watched.  It’s as if there never really was a life before all this, just a wonderful film I once watched that was ingrained upon my subconscious.  Sure, I am lucky enough to be able to call home frequently, and the internet gives me the ability to keep up on the news from home.  It’s just that when home is a fading memory, the news seems less poignant, and the talks begin to seem even further than the long distant call that it is.

When I feel like this, I tend to go through the pictures I have with me.  Whether they be ones I brought from home, or the digital stills I have taken along the way.  One of them made me laugh as I was going through it today.  Thinking about even the course of this deployment feels like a lifetime in itself.  We have been away from our homes and families for nearly fifteen months.  As a reservist, you don’t simply receive the call one day and head to the desert a few days later.  Rather, you receive activation orders, spend some time with the unit, head to a mobilization station and train for weeks on end.  From there you finally board a plane to begin your new life at whatever camp your unit has been assigned.  Looking back on some of our days in Texas, I found this picture of my friends Trevino and Jacobo.  While in Texas, after weeks of training behind us, we went to a football game on what was deemed a “mandatory fun day.”  All said, it was a lot of fun and many of the guys made posters out of empty MRE boxes hoping to get their messages to their family on television.  Trevino is a pretty humorous guy, and made this one as a joke.  He is what’s referred to as a cross-level, integrated into the 319th Signal Battalion from some other signal reserve unit.  For some reason, seeing this picture reminded me of the good times out here, the camaraderie that many of us have established.  It also reminded me of just how much we have behind us and how close we really are.  Sometimes it is true, a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand uplifting words that remind you that you’re almost there. (This picture was taken by SPC Albaugh, photographer extraordinaire.)

New Blog - Soldier's Mom

I wanted to mention a new blog that has a fascinating spin on soldier blogs.  It is kept by the mother of a soldier in then 3 ID who has just arrived in theater.  The address is www.somesoldiersmom.blogspot.com.  For anyone who is a mother or father of a deployed soldier her writing will be especially poignant, and for everyone else extremely insightful. 

Iraqi Elections

Today is not simply a day for the courage and fortitude of Iraqi citizens who are exercising their right to vote to be displayed throughout the world, it is a day of celebration for all free peoples everywhere enjoying the benefits of representative rule and freedom of choice.  Today, we welcome Iraqis into the circle of freedom’s beneficiaries, and can take pride as a nation that we helped to make this possible.  Regardless of the various opinions one has on everything from our mission in Iraq to the opinions I express on this site, today I hope we can at least pause and recognize the bravery of Iraq’s voting citizenry and stand welcoming them with open arms to freedoms ever expanding circle.  It is hard for us as Americans to recognize the sacrifice many of these folks are taking.  With leaflets declaring that their lives are at risk for voting littering the streets, and polling places being bombed and riddled with small arms fire, they truly are taking a step on their own today to benefit their nation.

Obviously, I have no idea who will win this election, and in all honesty, I believe that the fact that the election is taking place may be even more significant in the long run than who the short term victors are.   After the tragedies of the last month in regards to the tsunami, I hope that we stand today on the edge of a tsunami of hope.  The initial earthquake is taking place today in Iraq, and it is my hope that the effects of that political quake will send tremors throughout surrounding nations, inspiring a region to do for itself, what it had previously determined would be impossible.  Like Jason, who expressed in comments a few days ago that we have major problems with the governments of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran, I hope that the tide of republican rule sweeps across Islamic nations, empowering the people who advocate peace and a coexistence of Islam and republicanism, and that we can begin a new phase in Middle Eastern history .  Of course, reality dictates the road will not be easy, but let us pray that the road is at least being paved today.

It was fascinating to see soldier reactions today all around camp.  One particularly poignant moment came for me at chow today.  Huddled around one of the televisions that air Fox News, a group of soldiers stood eagerly watching the reports.  Of course, a few sighs came from some of the soldier’s when Geraldo came on the screen, but after the incident in the early days of this war, I guess that was to be expected.  There is a nervous excitement among many soldiers here today.  There is a genuine desire for the elections to go well, for freedom and republican government to succeed in Iraq.  There is also the ever-present thought that all soldier’s have, that when Iraqi’s begin to accomplish more on their own, we will be able to go home sooner. 

Blogging Technology

Just to update some of you on the technical aspects of my blogging, I was excited the other day to find a feature in typepad that allows me to post on designated dates at specific times.  Knowing that I was going to be in a different location without a lot of internet access, I was able to set up my last blog entry answering those who claim America is in her decline.  It was a test, but I was happy it worked.  For those of you who have never blogged with typepad, I highly recommend it. 

Washing Vehicles

It was a process that seemed as though it may never end!  We are in one of the final phases of our deployment, as I mentioned a few days ago, and as it stands we have been busy washing the vehicles and trailors we had brought with us.  It is amazing just how much mud and sand you can accumulate on a vehicle in a years time.  Months of sandstroms, freak rain showers and driving hundreds of miles definately took its toll as we stood with pressure hoses in our hands for hours on end cleaning the years filth from every nook.  We still have more to complete, but moving in phases has definately made things a little easier.  I was joking around with one of the soldiers I was working with a few days back at lunch, and said how it seems the Army always takes things you would normally enjoy doing to the extreme, so that you never want to do them again.  I enjoy camping, but a year in a tent has been just a little too long, and about the nice weekend afternoon spent washing the car...  Well, let's just say I have no plans for washing my car when I get back to the States. 

Seriously though, it is arduous but absolutely essential.  US Customs clears every vehicle with rigorous inspections before you can leave the wash-rack, all to ensure that the bacteria present in the soil here does not come back to the United States.  It's just another one of those small missions you may not enjoy, but must be done.

America In Decline?

A college professor of mine once declared in class that the height of American power had passed. With a grandiose level of rhetorical certainty, he stated that America had reached its peak and began its decline around August 30, 1953, somewhere between 3 and 5 pm eastern central time. The hyperbole of knowing the exact moment of such a change was taken in jest among my college peers, however, the mere idea of the statement was not. Pretentious chuckles echoed momentarily throughout the classroom as most of the students seemed willing to accept that the American century had reached its peak, and sitting in that classroom in the fall of 1999, had concluded that we were now a graying power who would follow in the policy paths of Western Europe. Of course, I see the diametrical way in which the world is changing, and I am aware of some of the drastic changes we as a nation need to undertake to preserve our economic, military and social well-being, but to think that America has lost its luster, or that America is now beginning its gradual fade into a role as simply a world power among many, is something I am not convinced of.

Readers of this blog know I possess nothing, if not the spirit of American patriotism. That spirit can be quite rare today, especially when you step outside of the military environment and head back to college campuses and bureaucratic work environments. The encouraging note to what has sounded like a dire chorus resounding from the fourth estate the last few years, is the recognition that we have endured times like this before. I am hardly trained in psychology, but I have noticed a parallel between my own life, the lives of friends, and our national life as well. There have been periods in my life where I have felt extremely successful, where everything seems to go flawlessly. Suddenly, I find myself after months of moving forward towards my goals, in a bit of a stalled state of motion. I felt this shortly before we received word of being deployed as a unit. It seems as though a funk settles over my optimistic outlook, and I am beset with a short period of relatively little forward motion. At these times, I reevaluate my life, take inventory of what I have accomplished and what I still yearn to do. I see where I may have made missteps in my master plan, and figure out ways to correct them. Ultimately, find my way once again and realize that within a few months I am propelled back into the state of busy forward motion I remembered leaving behind. In a way, our nation has gone through periods like this as well.

In the post WWII era, we experienced rapid national development and then were thrown into an era of chaos in the 60’s and 70’s. More recently, the 90’s were a period of unparalleled success and peace keeping. There were questions as to whether America would ever be setback again, whether the end of history had occurred. Before long, we found ourselves in a post 9/11 period, in the midst of two wars and frightening horizons of even more with little international cooperation, poor economic outlooks and a falling dollar. I believe that this is period is an era of national self-reflection, much like the periods I experience in my own life. This does not mean that we can take our eyes off the rest of the world, but it does mean we must find the inner strength of our nation once again, and unite to straighten out the situation we currently find ourselves in. In many ways, this is what I believe the President inaugural address was all about. He was reminding us of who we are, of what those who have come before us have accomplished, and of what we must do for the future of our children. This period is not over, and we still have a lot of analysis to accomplish on the national spirit, but I believe that this is nothing more than a period. Can American power continue in perpetuity? Certainly not in the way we experienced in the 90’s, after the fall of the Soviet Empire. This does not mean however, that America’s influence is now in the early stages of a perpetual decline. Just as the celebrations of a new century ushered in by President McKinley and President Roosevelt signaled a change in the role of America in the world, so the scares over Y2K and the falling towers represented a new era of overcoming obstacles for the American people.

My advice in this tumultuous time is to pay no attention to those predicting the downfall of America. Their predictions have always fallen far short in the past, and today, such predictions will continue to fall short. They make exciting and captivating headlines, but they are nothing more than the hype of an over-eager world waiting to see the hegemon fall. America has a renewed mission, and as with past generations of Americans, we will meet the call and rise above any adversity. With the lessons learned in this first decade of the 21st century, we will continue to provide a leadership alternative for millions around the world craving freedom and prosperity.

I leave you today with a great quote from England’s, “The Times Online,” in which Gerard Baker states:

The rise of rival economic power centres does not necessarily spell America’s end. The resilience of the US economy through the past four turbulent years — in contrast to Europe and Japan — is a monument to its capacity to recreate itself. But more important even than America’s dynamism and economic resilience is the durability of its central ethos: the power of freedom. The genius of the founding fathers, which was celebrated again yesterday, has created the world ’s most stable, successful, and, for all the current phobias, still the most appealing model of society for humankind. The world may grow and change around it, but I would not bet on America’s eclipse just yet.

And this is a must read by Victor Davis Hanson on just this subject.

The President's Vision

Unfortunately, I was not able to watch the Second Inaugural address of President Bush. Throughout the election season, when I was carrying out a communications mission at a different camp, I was working nights and was afforded the opportunity to scrutinize for myself every word of both presidential candidates in their debates. In recent weeks, as we have been tending to all the required duties of preparing for redeployment, I have been working during the day, pretty much guaranteeing I would miss any major address by our nations leaders while they were occurring live. Regardless of my lack of specific knowledge on the subject, I had one gut reaction after viewing the numerous editorials and commentaries that proliferated the web in the aftermath of the national event.

First and foremost, my thoughts in reading the criticisms of the president’s speech, was that it was one that will have potentially generational impacts. Although the cliché’s of freedom may have become commonplace for many folks to hear from this president, it is his cries of freedom that resonate most with me. Each time he retorts that freedom is the only thing that can sustain peace, or that it is our duty to carry forward the torch of liberty to bring light to a world darkened by tyranny, I am reminded of the fact that my small role here in OIF is about something larger than myself, and that it has the potential to bring striking change to the world for the century that lies ahead of us. Dissenters may call me a sucker for idealism, but I will not recognize those criticisms. Rather, I am a sucker for the idea that Jefferson illuminated the most profound vision in the Declaration ever to be enunciated at the foundation of a new nation. I am a sucker not just for the rhetoric of freedom, but for the belief that freedom under republicanism is the only thing that has the potential to establish peace amongst nations.

I think we forget these days, when reading the Declaration, that when Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self-evident…,” that such a statement was remarkable. The colonialists and patriots that demanded independence believed the concept that “all men are created equal” was a concept that was intrinsic in what is human nature, but it was not something that was self-evident to the world at large. Freedom, liberty and representative government was still a foreign concept to the world. In casting off the chains of British rule, the framers exclaimed their divorce from a government that did not hold such values to be self-evident. We have seen however, in the centuries that have passed, that governments not founded on such principles pass away as those who enunciate the ideals our framers laid at the conception of the world’s most powerful nation, grow in strength and influence. The framers not only established the vision that was to be fulfilled for our own nation, they set in motion an agenda that the entire world would one day cherish. What was once self-evident only to radical colonials and political philosophers, is becoming more so for the global masses everyday.

Lincoln’s second inaugural address is heralded as the most important inaugural ever given by a president of the United States. Lincoln eloquently bridged the gap between a war torn country, he exclaimed the vision of the framers and believed that we were moving ever closer to the vision of freedom ad equality in our nation. His speech was about building an enduring freedom, where there were no masters and there were no slaves. It has become the benchmark of presidential speeches, and is a cornerstone in the rhetoric of what is the great American experiment.

Today, I believe that although the language of George W. Bush is not up to par with the wonderment that Lincoln’s words invoke, his vision is set to become a new benchmark in our continued national experiment. I say this based partly on the immediate reaction of many of the prolific writers of our time. The reactions I read most quickly stated that his vision went too far, that it was frightening, that it was bound to fail. I imagine much the same was said after Jefferson had written the Declaration, and I am sure that there were newspapers around the country that disparaged Lincoln’s address as too fanciful, too idealistic. I believe that the reactions in the days after President Bush’s address are proof enough that this address will have a resounding impact on the direction America takes in the decades before us. It is the idealists and radicals that breathe life into decaying political corpses, and I believe the resuscitation that George W. Bush has given to the ideology of freedom will bring to life the decaying value of freedom that has afflicted the world in this post Cold War era. This is not to say I believe we should embark on a path of conquest in the name of freedom. Rather, I believe that the models we are establishing around the world as we speak will impact generations in every corner of the world.

In many ways, America has always been several bold steps ahead of the rest of Western civilization. At times, that leadership is comforting to our allies, and yet at other times it serves as a cause of trepidation for those following in our footsteps of freedom. We are in a transitory period right now, one in which we must possess the fortitude of the framers. I rest assured however knowing that in the years that follow, the spirit of our nations fathers and mothers lives on, and has not left. President Bush is freedom’s new radical, just as the great presidents before him articulated the radical ideology of freedom. Let us not forget that we American’s have always had a tempered fanaticism for obtaining the rights assured us by our Creator. President Bush’s second address was nothing, if it wasn’t a reminder of where we came from and where we are going. If we were to be true to the intentions of why our nation was founded, such a speech had to happen in such a time as this. The vision has been laid before us, the direction illuminated once again for the American people. Now, it is time for us to continue in our role as American’s to elect leaders that will fulfill this mission in the spirit of the framers, not necessarily to jump into every war, but to protect American’s safety and promote liberty throughout the world. The means of continuing the march of liberty are contingent upon the situations that present themselves, but let us never forget that as American’s, we were born with a duty and responsibility that we can not shirk. Let us disagree on the means of achieving this presidents vision, but let us never stray from that vision.

Closer Every Day

My latest, and almost assuredly final move took place a little over a week ago. In many ways, I am right back where I started so many months ago. I have returned to our main company element and have been tasked with assisting in our preparations for redeployment. For OPSEC reasons, I don’t want to go into all the specifics of activities and stages we move in to prepare for heading back to the States, and unfortunately, I can‘t give any timelines either. I can assure you though, all of this is a bit of an arduous process. Just imagine being on a camping trip for a year, becoming comfortable where you are and having the ability to order from Amazon while also receiving numerous packages from the most incredible patriots I have ever been fortunate enough to come in contact with. After that year, and after everything is sufficiently covered in sand, you have to pack it up and prepare to it be sent thousand of miles home, all of it in pristine condition. I have been told there are dozens of bacterium in the soil here that don’t exist in the US. Customs, for obvious reasons, doesn’t want any of it in the US either, so all that dirt and dust must be gone. You can see how the fun begins with all of that in front of you. I must say that it has been great spending time with folks I haven’t seen since last April. One of the other great aspects of where I am now, is my relatively easy access to the web. It seems to come in phases; at one site I’ll have all the time in the world to blog and at others it seems like a headache to find access and time. Hopefully, we’ll be together for the next couple weeks as I bring you along for the final phases of this deployment.

One of the things you have to be cognizant of at this point in the deployment is short-timers thinking. It really does happen, you get into the mindset that home is finally on the horizon and begin to pay less attention to the crucial details. To counter that, our leadership has addressed the issue on an individual basis, taking aside NCO’s and reminding them that we aren’t home yet, and there is still a lot that lies before us. My First Sergeant did this a few weeks back and it really helped to keep me focused and in the right state of mind. I do find myself dreaming in my free time though, of what the year ahead may hold.

For many of you who have followed the blog for a while, you may also know about my goal of going to law school. Hopefully that dream is one step closer as I received confirmation the other day that two of the school’s I am applying to received my application. Very few times in my life have been as daunting as the last few months, with so much on my plate and so many things to prepare for when I return, but after what has felt like endless months, everything seems to be coming together perfectly. Sometimes, you just feel the winds of personal destiny at your back, and all you can do is smile and thank God for your good fortunes.