Brent’s Thoughts

I recently spoke with a friend of mine that I ran into at TJ Max. She said that she was intending on voting republican in the next election and that she supported the war because she believed if they weren’t fighting over there, then they would be attacking us in the US. I don’t really believe that. I think that if they wanted to bomb us over here, then that is exactly what they would do. Just our presence over in Iraq isn’t going to stop the terrorists from crashing a plane into a U.S. building if that is what they want to do. I guess that the strategy is supposed to be: we bring stability to the region and then the terrorists won’t have any power to attack us. I guess I don’t really know… Anyways, I thought I would post another comment that I got in a email from a soldier I know over in Iraq right now. I hope everyone finds his viewpoint as interesting as I do.

We are fighting in the wrong places to stop the war on terrorism.
Iraq was not a major threat to us. We took 2 major divisions of the
Army and stomped its ass into the dirt, don’t get me wrong it was two
of the more elite divisions the army has but still, we used minimal
force to destroy our enemies. To me that does not yell out major
threat to the United States. Afganistan was needed, I will admit
that, Iraq was not in the least bit needed.

I occationally receive messages from a former high school friend of mine that is currently serving in IRAQ. This last message, summing up 2007, really touched my heart. He said that of the 365 days of 2007, only 48 of them was spent with his wife and family. I have put his message here to share with the other people I know lucky enough not to be in IRAQ.

As you read this, you see that he is missing important time with his smallest son, he has a sick child that he has to worry about and can’t take care of and that his wife is having to look after 3 children, 1 toddler, 1 sick child and 1 other all by herself. I also find it somewhat humbling that he closes by hoping for better things for everyone else in the coming year.

Happy New Year everyone. The one thing that is always a challenge, exciting and disappointing, about the new year is when you reflect back to what you did and what happened during the past 365 days. I have to say it was a decent year for myself, some ups but sadly alot of downs as well. The biggest thing I am happy about is I am still alive, which can be more of a challenge in this place then normal. I made some great friends over here, something that I do not think I would have accomplished if I would have been in the states. But as I said above the bad things out weigh the good by a good portion. Of the 365 days this year has I spent only 48 with my wife and children, this is probably the worst part of the year 2007. I have missed a good protion of them growing up and many first in Andrews case. The little bugger is up and running now (much to the agravation of Kara) and has grown like a weed. When you look at the guy it is hard to believe that he was a 4.5 pound baby. Mikayla seems to be doing better with her seizures. She has not had a full blown seizure for several months now, so I hope that reflects the new medicines are working for her. Xavier is getting taller and lankier and still a little goof ball. Kara has probably gained some gray hair from this experience, poor girl I will have to buy her some dye when I get home :). In closing I would like to say Happy New Year, I hope 2007 treated you well and that 2008 treats you better

I have had the opportunity to correspond over email with an old high school friend who is currently serving in Iraq. Since I am interested in the conditions over there, I have asked him lots of questions. I thought that others might also be interested in getting some info so I have posted the questions and answers here

His email
I am in Iraq now, in the suburbs of B-dad. Right now it is the rainy season so there is alot of water collecting everywhere and the mud is horrid. You end up being 5 inches taller when you finally make it to y our location and it takes 10 minutes to clean the stuff off

me
Sorry that you are over in Iraq. I didn’t know they had suburbs over there. From the news you get the impression that everyone is just living in horrible squalor and that once we bring stability to the region, their lives will be sooooo much better. I really don’t know what to think of all of it. I don’t really trust the news and I definately don’t trust what the president says. I can’t imagine it being boring though???

him
Other then when getting attacked Iraq is boring, there is not alot to do here. We are in a area called Taji. You can look it up on google earth. Iraq is a dirty country but its not the shit hole alot of people think it is. The northern parts of Iraq in Kurdishstan are nice and clean but the other parts are not so nice. Southern Iraq is horrid. The live in mud huts.

me
Do they let you guys watch the news over there? they did a special the other day about how they are trying to increase the number of facilies they have dedicated to Tramatic Brain Injury (apparently from bombs) and they are supposed to be increasing funds for veteran health care and are moving any veteran disability claims to the front of the line so that they can get their needs taken care of first. what kind of entertainment do they have for you guys over there you are not looking in mud huts for osama? I know alot of entertainers supposedly go over there and put on shows for you all. Have you seen anybody interesting?

him
I can not speculate on the health benefits because I have not had a reason to try yet. We have MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recriation) areas were they have everything from movies to gyms as well as internet and libraries for the Soldiers to use. Normally I go work out, watch a movie or read a book at night. I do not get the greatest amount of free time but I still have enough time to do some things. Working 7 days a week 12 hours a day does not afford alot of time for fun stuff. The first time I came over I saw Robin Williams, John Elway, Leanne Tweeden and had a chance to see Toby Kieth and the band Adema. This time so far I saw one of the comedians from In Living Color ( name escapes me but I remember seeing him on the show).

questions and responses

do you guys form good friendships,

Well like a family there are some you like and others you can not stand. While I am frieldly with some of the people here I would only call a small few actual friends. I would guess the number around 5 or so and maybe another 5 that I could form a friendship with. When I say friends I mean like our old click in High School.

>>> is it mostly guys or are there some women over there too?

We have some female Soldiers over here with us, not as many as last time though. This FOB (Foward Operating Base) has a large number of female Soldiers on it from what I have observed.

>>>when you get to come back home do you get back together and hang out,

Some of us hang out, as I said above here are about 5 or so that I call friends and we hang out and go drink together or just go out and have fun or they come over to the house and have dinner (bringing their families if they have one).

>>>when you ship back to Iraq do you usually get to go out with pretty much the same
> group or do you have to get to know all new people?

We always get new people before we deploy but I can”t really talk number here, OPSEC (Operational Security) risk.

Do any of the Iraqs know english? do you speak to them at all? Are you part of the group that is supposed to be training the Iraq police to take over?

I know a little arabic and they know a little english so we can normally comuniate one way or another. Can’t answer the question about our mission here, once again OPSEC.

Everytime Bush Says: al qaeda
Everytime Kerry says something that doesn’t make sense.
Everytime either canidate doesn’t answer a question
Everytime Bush says something that isn’t a real word
Everytime WMDs are mentioned.
Everytime 9/11 is mentioned, but not the the 9/11 comission.
Anytime either Canidate tries to hide a slam against the other.
Everytime Saddam Hussein is said instead of Bin Laden, or vise versa.
If Bush says Strategery Drink everything in the house.

For the Vice Presidental Debates:

You just use the previous rules, but you only take half drinks of course, because it is only half as important.
Very Happy

For the domestic section of the debates:

Everytime Bush/Chaney blames Clinton
Everytime Kerry/Edwards mentions Big Business/Corporate
Everytime either canidate mentions tax breaks
Double drinks for any mention of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden since these have little to do with domestic policy
Anytime either canidate speaks directly to the other.
Anytime the rules stated at the beginning of the debate (you might want to write them down) are violated or changed.
Drink at the use of the word bracket
Anytime any canidate answers a previous question in their answer to a new question.

Original thread from my old forums

Had some real weird feeling going on the other day. Thought I would try and throw them down on here, for all the world to view. Y’know because that is what you do when you have personal feelings. Smile

You spend your whole life with a core of family members. In my case it has been my mom, dad and sister. I mean I have always had grand parents around and stuff and I am thankful for that, but pretty much no matter what if you are doing something, you are either doing it by yourself or with at least one member of the core family unit. Most of the time we have been together doing something memorable all together. Working on the farm when we got it is a perfect example. We would all go down there for the weekend and accomplish some goal and at the end of the weekend we would be tired as hell, but we would be saying things like, “Remember when dad pushed the building over and it hit me?” or “Did you see me when I hit my head on that tree while we were on that trail?” or “”Chisuuuummm….. John Chisum!!!” and everyone would know what you were talking about, because we were all there.

But then as you grow older most kids start to seperate from their parents. Kinda, “growing into their own” or some such. I on the other hand didn’t have to seperate from my parents to become my own person. Mainly, I think, because I like my parents. Oh sure sometimes they can be a PIA, but on the whole they are fairly cool and fairly content to let me do what I want without much interference. Only, stopping me every now and then to say things like, “Are you sure you really want to stick your finger in that light socket?” Which on the whole is a good thing.

So now comes the time in my life, where I can’t stick around with them. It just really isn’t an option. I would love to. I really have no issue hanging around with my parents and sister, but it just can’t happen anymore due to the fact that they are going to live an hour away from where I work. That coupled with the fact that I don’t think Pauline would like to live with them all the time(*) and it just really becomes impossible.

So that means that things like what happened yesterday start up. I want to stay over at the farm with them, I think they want me to stay over at the farm with them, but I have to head home for work and to do somethings at my own home. It is weird. I mean my Mom said something to me along the lines of, “I miss you already.” Like I was heading off to war in Iraq or something. My dad wants me to take time off of work to stay over there with them and Stacey is asking me when I will be back. I spend the time watching the clock while I am there, not because I want to leave, but instead because I want to stay as long as I can, but still have time to get home and gear up for the week of work. I want to spend the time with them. I wish I could stop working, grab my girlfriend, head to Cumberland county and setup residence in the new house, but it just don’t work that way.

It is weird.

(*) It isn’t her fault really. I mean they aren’t her parents, they aren’t the people she has grown up with her whole life.

So I recently got a few Xbox games and I thought I would take some time to give you guys a quick review of them.

WWE2: Wow terrible. Not much else to say. Might be fun in a multi-player enviroment, but playing it by myself was like eating glass shards cold.

Freaky Flyers: Mario Kart in Planes!! Except it is hard to keep track of what is going on. The maps are expansive and there aren’t any tracks. Plus you can go up or down. What it really makes it is hard. Hard to keep track of where you are supposed to be going and hard to meet the various goals that it sets for you.

Freedom Force: This is a pretty bad ass game really. It suffers from one thing. It is hard to aim. The control for where you are looking is sorta jacked up. The concept of the game is awesome though and I would say it is a definite must play. In the game America has been invaded by the USSR. At the end of WWII it was Russia that dropped the bombs not us. As a result of that and other events they became the dominate Superpower. Now it is your job as a freedom fighter to attempt to battle them out of New York. The interesting thing is that a close line could be drawn between this scenerio and perhaps the one in Iraq now. It is set off nice by news reports from the now Russian run media about how they are helping people and “Have always been worried about the dictatorship government of America”. Good stuff, if only the controls were a little better. Of course I never played a lot of Tomb Raider so perhaps I am just not practiced at it.

Dungeons and Dragons, Heroes: Great game and I have only played it single player. Multi-player can only be fun since it is just the game with a bunch of your friends there to play with you. It is a lot like Hunter:Reckoning, but is more enjoyable to me since it adds on all the stuff that Hunter seemed to be missing. Plus the attack button isn’t the trigger (Man that wears you finger out). Typical D&D style leveling and magic with some real twists to give it that brawler feel.

I also got a copy of Futurama. It is pretty decent and would probably be worth playing through if I didn’t have these other ones to play. The controls are fairly decent, but it suffers from something that I have found to be a problem in all 3d platform games: Poor landing detection. It is too difficult to find the edge of a platform and make the jump to another one that is really far away. You either walk off the edge of the one that you are on, or don’t get close enough to the edge and miss the one you are trying to land on.

To step away from the stuff going on in Washington and New York and to look at something that I am noticing as a side effect of it I guess. Sites like slashdot and c-net have talked about terriorists using things like SSH and other encrytpion technologies to send each other messages. (Apparently Osama bin Ladin is a big cyrpto user) This tells me that they are using the internet, so I was looking at some of the posting on sites like Slashdot and Userfriendly and have noticed that there are a lot that are very anti-american and pro-arabic. Several of the posts that I have read tell straight lies about the sanctions that we have against Iraq saying that we are holding out on medical supplies and such from them, when it is well documented that there are no sanctions stopping the influx of food or medical supplies to Iraq, only other things. There are also several posts that say things like “We should not fight back, that will only make things worse” which in and of itself doesn’t make them from the terrorists, but it is the way that the messages are phrased and the fact that almost all of them make sure that somewhere in it they put “I am an American Citizen” that tends to make me think that there is also a movement of another sort going on. I am sure that there are people in this country that feel this way, but I cannot beleive that they would carpet bomb sites like these were you can post your thoughts and feelings like this. I mean there are several hundred posts to these sites saying things like this, while the number of posts disagreeing with them is in the range of 20-30. And since according to several polls and surveys America is overwhelmingly for attacks and sanctions against these people I think it should be more the other way around. That is the thing that I am starting to focus on now. The fact that there are no boundries on sites like these and anything could be put on there to swing public opinion toward a goal. I guess this is one of the problems with internet polling and surveys. You cannot limit it specifically to the group that you are attempting to survey.