State of Limbo

I seem to always be in travel. I have been on the way back to Ramadi for some time from R&R for almost a week. I flew into Kuwait on Thursday last week and then ended up in Iraq on Friday and have been stuck here at an Air Base waiting to go to Ramadi for almost a week now. I sleep on a cot and sweat every moment that I am awake and asleep. The food is good though so I wont complain about that. I want to get to a bed for a change and get some real sleep. As of now, all of the flights go at night and so that means that we have to wait all night to see if we fly. Every night so far has been staying up until 3 or 4 for a flight just to be told that they have been canceled or there is no more room. I sleep during the day and then stay up all night. When I try to sleep, I do off and on because the heat is making me sweat puddles. They say that they will get me out tonight but I will believe them when I land in Ramadi.

Until next time...

Great Leave

Well R&R is over now and I am heading back to desert. I loved every moment of leave. Julia and I had a great time traveling and just being lazy. I was nice just to spend time with her watching movies and TV or just playing games and going to church. I hate that I have to go back but its time to i guess.

Keep praying for me and Julia for the next few months as we are finishing up our deployment.

Thank you for all of your prayers everyone.

Entertainment vs. Indoctrination

This post is going to come in two parts because of its length and I am still working on the second portion.

I had the opportunity to watch an interesting and challenging movie the other day. V for Vendetta just came out on DVD abd I watched it for the first time just the other day. I have been impressed with the theatrical adaptations of graphic novels in the past years to include the X-Men Trilogy, the Punisher and Batman Begins which are among my favorite. One thing that I enjoy about them is that they stay along the story of the comic reliably consistently and do a good job of maintaining the “comic feel.”
Before going into depth on the movie, I want to express an observation. Hollywood has a really great thing going for them in the information arena. You see people today, especially in the US, live for ease. We live in the time of instant gratification. Where else can you find a culture with the 15min Pizza delivery? Movies are no different. People would rather watch a mediocre, condensed dramatization of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice then to take the hours to read it and allow themselves to imagine the story for themselves. Impatience and entertainment rule the movie watcher’s decision making presses. When this person goes to the theatre to be entertained, they are going to be immersed in gratification. Their ability to critically interact on an intellectual level with the story is very low if not non-existent. For Hollywood, this is a prime position. This is when writers and directors begin to blur the line between the fictitious entertainment and the social and political undertones often with amazing results.
When dealing with nonfiction social and political issues, with published research (actually even that is in question today, but that is another topic for another day) at least the reader can look at the citations and references to other studies to determine factual information. The reader then can determine for themselves using critical thinking what their position will be. This allows them to weigh the various sides and work out the issues for themselves. There is only one problem: it takes time and effort that people are often unwilling to do. Enter the Hollywood script writer.
V for Vendetta is a perfect example. The movie-goer is drawn into the theater by a story of a vigilante fighting against an oppressive government to settle a vendetta. When the movie-goer watches the film, they find some pretty contemporary coincidences to some popular talking points in the socio-political arena. The setting is England about 3 decades in the future. The government is an ultra-conservative fascist-modeled oppressive government.

Good Story From Ramadi

Here is a great story that Stars & Stripes did from the Infantry company that I am attached to, B Company, 2nd Battalion 6th Infantry. Enjoy the article and the pictures.

The Stars & Stripes article on B Company

This is a picture of Julia and me in Garmish which is a village in the Baviarian Alps. We spent a few days there during my R&R.

Ramblings of a Heavy Heart

While surving in Iraq I periodically have thoughts that weigh heavy on my heart and this is one that I am constantly thinking about.

"Being in the Middle East where the law of the land is with out a doubt Islam, I have come to a sobering realization. Through out my life I have witnessed God’s hand in my life and in those around me in amazing ways. I even went to a Christian College. I have learned so much in the years that I have been on the earth about God and how he works. I have learned to trust God’s will and rely on His plan for not only me but for the world as a whole. In the US we have been sheltered from the darkness in the rest of the world. The history of the US has been one of Christian faith and our culture is surrounded, overtly evident or not, by it. Now that I am in Iraq, I see how the same is true here but with Islam. This saddens me to the absolute core. Tonight I could not sleep because I had this dark cloud just hovering over me. It is not because of the war, soldiers and friends being killed or hurt, rather because I had come to a realization.
In recent days, I have seen first hand the impact of Islam on these people here. We have had to enter two mosques over the course of this last week because they were either used as fighting positions or because insurgents fled into them after conducting attacks on coalition forces. In the first one we found a cache of weapons and in the second we found all sorts of anti-coalition propaganda.
The way this religion works is it preys on the poor, the ignorant and the uneducated. The people are taught that whatever the Imam of the mosque says is truth. The Imams are the highly educated people of the populous and they use this position of power to coerce the people to do what the Imam wants and with devastatingly effectiveness. If the Imam hates Jews or Americans, he will make sure that so do those that come to his mosque. While those that come to his mosque are out killing my friends and on occasion being killed themselves, the Imam is safe away from everything claiming that he had nothing to do with the incidents.
This religion is one of hatred and control. Islam is based on the writings of ONE man that was an epileptic mad-man! Mohammed’s “prophecies” were the result of seizure induced hallucinations. In the end, he used his charisma to give his followers what they want; the freedom to pillage neighboring nomadic tribes or countries under the banner of Allah. Allah is a figment of Mohammed’s demented mind. Allah is a false god and an idol. Satan successfully produced a religion that the embodiment of himself.
These people here have such a hatred deeply seeded and little can be done to reach them except the grace of God himself. I pray that God will help me to understand His will and help me to live my life in love of these people regardless of their hatred and lost nature."