My Version of the War

When I left for Iraq, I had big expectations. I wanted to be in the thick of it. I wanted to stare death in the face and laugh. I wanted to go to war and come home a hero.

Now that I’m done with all that, I can honestly say that was the stupidest set of dreams I ever had. People can call me whatever they want for saying this, but I never want to go back there again. If my orders come up, and I have to go back to Iraq, or end up in Afghanistan I really don’t want to, but I will. Because that’s my job.

Let me say this first, there is nothing glorious about war. There is nothing noble about hunting people. There is no glory in fearing for your life when there is an explosion. Nothing exciting about hearing shells come in and wondering if one of them is going to land on you. None of that is even remotely what most movies put it out as. I used to watch movies about war, and even if the ultimate message of the movie was that there was no good in war, it was lost on me for the action that I was craving. The things I have experienced are not the kinds of things I want to talk about with my friends over laughs and beers. They’re not the kinds of things I want to tell my father about so he can be proud of me. They aren’t things that I can talk to anyone about and they understand, unless they have been over at some point, they just won’t get it.

Granted, it wasn’t always overpowering fear, there were a lot of laughs and bonding experiences. There was always a raised awareness though. In the movies they show guys throwing a football around having laughs and no worries until they left the wire. In Iraq, we have thrown the football and laughed, but as soon as we heard an explosion or a whistle to be followed by one, we were off cowering underneath some kind of cover. There was no safe zone. For me, the worst feeling was lying in bed, and hearing incoming shells. At least when we were out running around outside we could duck under one of the many indirect fire cement covers, but lying in bed, inside of what boils down to a 20′x10′ tin box,  there was nothing you could do to defend yourself. If a shell hit your sleeping quarters, there was nothing you could do. It would rip through the flimsy metal and explode inside turning all of your gear and beds into shrapnel as a result. No there is nothing about feeling helpless that I would wish on anyone.

In one respect, I’m glad that I went over and experienced it. It definitely made me realize how fragile we are. I know now that I am not invincible. It made me grow up. However, I  watch my nephews look at me like I’m a hero, much the same way I looked at my uncle when he came home from the Gulf and I was about their age. I can’t tell them about the war in a way that will shake them out of romanticizing it. Even if I did, they would just hear the excitement and not be able to put the agony and fear together with it. I hope that there is no war in their time. I know there will always be war, but I sincerely hope, that they will not be able to participate in it. There is no good in war, and fear doesnt equate to anything except fear.

A Thank You

Today I wrote a thank you letter. It was to the residents of the Stonebridge Place assisted living home of Sulphur, Louisiana. The old folks there took the time to sit down and put together a good number of trail mix packages in Ziploc bags and hand write a little note on each one. They sent those bags along with a picture of a few of them putting the packages together and a handwritten letter of support for all of us deployed.

I cannot express how much this simple contribution moved me. At first, I had not realized the packages were from someone other than a relative of a soldier on my team. It’s not unusual for us to share all of our goodies we receive from home and stockpile them in a central location so that everyone can just take what they want as they please.  I read one of the hand written notes on a bag and inquired as to who they were from. Then someone brought out the letter and the picture. As I stood there in the middle of our makeshift office space, mouth full of trail mix, reading the letter, I was almost in tears when I realized who had sent the care package.

It’s not that we don’t often receive packages, we get lots from our families, and from big organizations. The ones from our families are always personal, and they do a lot for morale. The one from companies are appreciated and they  do send things that we really need when we are out in the field, but they just don’t have that special human touch to them. They are frequently mass produced packages with a generic Xeroxed note stuffed into them. Like I said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Reading a hand written message though, and seeing the people that actually worked on the packages for us makes a huge impact. Especially to see about a dozen or so old folks sitting around a table busy stuffing nuts and dried fruit into Ziplocs, and to read a note that they wrote on each package, really touching.

Out here, it’s very easy to forget that there are people who actually remember us (other than our families) and it’s difficult to express gratitude to a company who takes donations to make packages. There is just something very personal to a package of anything that an individual took time to prepare. I’m in no way urging anyone to follow suit or to stop donating to good cause such as the USO, I’m just expressing how much the little touches truly do make a difference. Although the Iraq theatre has died down considerably, we are still out here, and we are still doing the job.

Almost a Year Later…

Well, here it is, almost a year later. I’m in Iraq. All of my legal drama went well in the end. After having my trial set for a date in December of 08 it ultimately after a series of frustrating delays got started in mid June of 09. At the end of three days of trial, it took the jury about 10 minutes to come back and deliver the not guilty of all charges. A few deep breaths and some handshakes later, I was back off to my office to type up and submit my own orders for Iraq. That was done on my own accord. Being in the rear detatchment holding down the fort for the deployed unit wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I wanted so a week after my trial I was on a plane to Iraq. A few mix ups here and there, and here I am, a few months into my deployments and not minding it too much. It was a hell of a ride getting here, I learned alot about myself and the people around me, and overall I think I’ve gotten alot of positives out of what could have easily been an overall negative experience. If everything goes well, I should be home before Halloween. Fingers crossed.

Social Networking

I decided to reenter the social networking world via Facebook. Of the sites I’ve gone to before I believe facebook to be the more mature option. In a way it seems to be a better choice than Myspace, because of privacy and it just doesn’t get as much traffic. I’m starting to reconsider however.

The original reason I dropped out of the social site wave was because it just seems silly. I’ve gotten comments from people saying “oh, you just didn’t have any friends.” Not so, I actually was virtually popular. Yea, that’s ridiculous, but I did have friends on the sites, and they were actually my friends in real life. People I made  contact with on a regular basis. We had something in common past the social slime. But to me, the social sites really do seem kind of silly. To have a friend on a social site that you real time talk to daily doesn’t make sense. Shouldn’t they be one of the last people you would add as a virtual friend? Shouldn’t the people you talk to least be your virtual pals. I had one friend tell me I outranked his brother on his top eight list. Really? You value our friendship enough to put me in front of your brother? That’s absurd. Ridiculous.

Another reason I dropped out of the social networking phenomenon, was because people’s portrayals of themselves. Everyone is happy. No one is sad. Sadness doesn’t exist in the social networking world. All of your pictures are of better times. There are no pictures depicting how a person really feels. All sunshine and rainbows. You don’t  see a picture with the caption, “The day I though I was going to kill myself”, instead you get “SUMMER FUN AT THE LAKE”. Are you serious? That’s all you had. People have entire photo albums devoted to one day of bliss. What about the weeks you sat in your parent’s basement debating whether it was truly worth it to go on or not? What about the day you broke up with your significant other? Or better yet, what about the day that your significant other left you? No, those pictures don’t exist. Only happy goodtimes are recorded and displayed in this lifetimes apparently. No room for reality in a social networking world.

I guess that’s the one that really got me. The pictures. It just doesn’t make sense that people would go to these sites and judge each other to be friend-worthy or not based on the facade you make. Absolutely ridiculous. There is no point in people making these silly self advertisements based on the best times they’ve photographed. I could maybe see people networking blindly. Just a name and a brief description of the things that they enjoy and what make them them. But that’s not the case, instead you get a small thumbnail of someone stuck in perpetual happiness. No pain, no anguish, no boredom, just an ever smiling face, always ready to greet you after a few keystrokes and a well placed mouse click. No, social networking may be just as silly as online dating.

I may not know what I’m talking about, but I do know that I don’t agree with the shift of youth culture recently. I know that people place way too much emphasis on these sites. I have watched people spend hours, “pimping” a profile page. That’s hours someone spent on advertising themselves to the world that they could have spent constructively doing something to work on their real world appearance. Yea, that little thing that actually does matter. Instead of sitting on the couch ingesting empty calories, sipping a diet soda, working on their virtual image, uploading pictures they took of themselves using creative lighting schemes, they could’ve been out running a lap around the block. Doing a little ab routine. Cleaning the goddamn litter box. Washing some way overdue dishes. Something constructive in the real world instead of focusing on the make believe bullshit that they have just completely given into.

Yes, I rejoined the social networking world, no, I don’t believe I’ll be staying long. It is a maintenance free world, but  work too hard in the real, to accept the fake. If you disagree with me, that’s okay. I respect your virtual freedom. But for me respecting you, don’t even try to touch my real lifestyle. The one free of dot com’s and always smiling photos. I enjoy the trials and tribulations that put wrinkles on my face and refuse to falsely inform people of anything other than that.

A.Cat

Today and Days Before

Today I sat around in an office, and did pretty much nothing. Well, I did somethings, but they were pretty lame. I did paperwork, umm, talked with a new guy…typed up some documents. That was about it though. Pretty uneventful, and as I was taking out the trash, I looked around and realized something. This day has been eventful for me in the years previous.

This time last year, I was back in AIT. I was busy, really busy, I was trying to make a name for myself and making one of the biggest mistakes of my life. I was busy falling in love. This time last year (assuming it was a Friday) I would’ve been busy making plans for the weekend, and trying to figure out a way to ask the gal I was falling for to go out with me for the night. I’m really bad when it comes to asking women out, like terrible at asking them out. It takes me forever to talk to them and when it comes to asking if they would like to go out on a date, I fumble over my words and end up sounding like a complete idiot. But this time last year I was working on it. I guess it worked out okay because I ended up dating that one for a good while. That was this time last year.

Two years before that, I was helping the first tru love of my life move into her first apartment. It wasn’t much of a place but it was hers. Sorta ours. We were putting all of her little keepsakes in their places. I was busy trying to look as tough as possible to impress her, even though I probably didn’t need to. It was a great time.  I can remember waking up in her place for the first time and having a feeling of absolute perfection. Everything was great. We were perfect. That was this time three years ago.

A year before that, assuming it was a Friday, I was sitting in the locker room of my high school stadium. Preparing for one of the games that defined an amazing senior year. That year I played on a West Texas football team that went to the state quarter finals. The air was electric. Guys getting pumped up with rock music, the smell of fresh game day jerseys, the stench of the sweaty practice gear. You would think that last bit I would like to forget but that’s one of those things that will probably stay with me for the rest of my life. I can remember our coach walking in and delivering a fiery speech. The sound of our cleats clicking down to the field. Amazing. That was this time five years ago.

But today, I did nothing. I didn’t fall in love, I didn’t start a new chapter of life, I didn’t play in the big game. Today, I pushed papers, talked to a new guy, typed some documents. Today was pretty lame. Maybe this time next year, I’ll be doing something worth remembering, but this year, just another day. Full of memories.

A. Cat

Smoking.

It’s been a couple of weeks now that I’ve actually been trying to start smoking. Really, I have. Everyone makes it look so cool. I used to dip snuff for about 4 years. It was good. It satisfied, it tasted okay, it relaxed me after a long day of whatever it was I used to do. I quit dipping after basic training. At the time I couldn’t wait to throw in a fat pinch of my preferred snuff and sit back and relax with some good country music. Total hillbilly. I tried to get back into that habit and just couldn’t do it, I would gag, get nauseous, spit on myself, it was a habit you had to really work at. Lately though, looking for a stress reliever, and after watching all my friends light up for months, I decided I would try to start smoking. I hadn’t smoked in a while, I mean, I know how and everything but I never really was a habitual smoker. I never bought cigarettes before, I always just bummed them off someone who happened to be smoking. I never cared for the taste or smell but the image always seemed cool. Yea, that’s a silly thing to say but it’s true. As far back as I can remember I thought people smoking looked cool.

I can see my uncle and aunt, firing up some cheap ciggarettes and just seeming so in control. Television always made smokes seem like the thing to do. Any badass on TV would fire one up at sometime or another or make a comment like “Man, I wish I had a smoke right about now.” It was just a thing to do if you were cool. So maybe smoking wasn’t cool, but the people who did smoke, they…were cool. And it’s dumb that a mid twenties male can still watch TV and still feel like someone who is lighting up is cool. Makes me want to run out and smoke one down to the butt right now thinking about it pretty much all of Samuel L. Jackson’s characters. Likewise, alot of the people that I’ve worked with over the years, the guys that I looked up to were always smokers. They were the guys that made the funniest jokes, worked the hardest, got the best women, just great to be around. That basic idea of a smoker has always been the same for me. I mean, I’m sure alot of people I found undesirable also smoked but I never paid them any attention so, doesnt matter. So I decided to take up smoking.

Let me tell you something about smoking, it’s alot harder than it looks. I mean, you’ve gotta learn how to hold it, light it, the brands to buy, your stance while smoking. Forget about trying to learn to enhale again. Coughing fit after, coughing fit. It’s a pretty complicated routine for someone just taking it up. It’s even more difficult because at my age, I’m expected to know all the little ins and outs. It’s been a couple of weeks now and I’ve purchased two packs of cigs. I didn’t smoke all of those, I probably gave away about half of that to people just standing around. Smoking does have the side effect of winning you alot of friends, or at least conversations. Smokers, flock to smokers. They see someone they have some common ground with and there they are, not to mention they can bum a smoke off of you if they forgot theirs or are just too lazy to go retrieve their own. So I guess that could be seen as a positive. Yes, it is a positive, I by nature don’t talk to people just for no reason so, that has been something I’ve enjoyed about smoking.

But is that reason enough? Probably not, smoking is a bad habit. I’m trying to break into the habit, but I just dont think I can do it. Smoking is hard. It cost money. It makes you stink. It stinks. People who smoke make other people who don’t stink, stink. (When they smoke around them.) Right now, the cons far outweigh the pros. Sure it is relaxing, it may make you look cool, cool people do it, but it’s just not enough. No as for this guy, I think I’ll go and pack a fresh can of premium moist tobacco, kick back with some down home country music, kick back and spit in an old beer bottle. But more than likely I’ll just buy a soda and watch TV. Minus any tobacco.

A. Cat

Internet Dating?

In my last post,I mentioned I had a roommate who would troll the internet trying to find women. I mean this guy had his mugshot in at least 4 different dating websites. I didn’t pay attention to it at first, but one day it occurred to me. This guy was just not meant to breed. He was a short, fat, round man with semi-bad teeth and no social skills in his repertoire. I mean it in the least hateful way possible but someone like that just wasn’t meant to spread his genes. I mean, if he were a lion on the savanna, his mating chances would be limited to almost none. But that’s what makes people different, everyone believes that there’s someone for them out there. Natural selection takes a back seat to big bucks and fancy clothes. Understandable, maybe that is the new natural selection. But is internet dating really an appropriate way for two people to meet and begin to forge a relationship that at some point has to be more than virtual?

It wasn’t like he would instantly bed the women he would meet. They would talk and talk on the internet trying to feel each other out. Each of them lying about their physical appearance. After a few “on-line” encounters they would meet at some place and try to see if it was going to work out. Absolutely ludicrous. I just can’t see how this was anything that men and women were ever meant to engage in. If we were meant to meet a person who lives 300 miles away from our location they wouldn’t be 300 miles away, they would be right in our town. It’s not natural, and if this fellow I lived with had spent half the time he did on the internet, in a local coffee shop or god forbid, social drinking establishment, he probably would’ve fared better and with less of the heartbreak. I watched this guy rant on and on about a woman he met that lived 200 miles away. “She seems really interesting, she seems really nice, she seems really sweet.” SEEMS. To her he seemed to be all those things as well. In the end, after three weeks of being, “on-line exclusive”, they finally met with him driving those two hundred something miles. You can guess where it goes from here. Late in the evening he returned, crumpled. “She said she just didn’t want to get started on a relationship right now.” I bet. She saw him in real three dimensional form and realized, he just wasn’t what she was looking for. Poor bastard. Just because mocking bird can sing like a lark doesn’t make it a lark.

I’m sure there are a lot of people who meet their significant others through social dating or even social networking sites, but is it really the way it should be. This fellow doesn’t think so. My heart really goes out to those poor jamokes who just wear their heart on the virtual sleeve, bite their lip and hope for the best. I would like to see stats of the people who find love versus those who never find love through a social dating site. I’m willing to bet that they are pretty one sided. I realize there are a myriad of reason a person may take on a virtual identity to seek romance but people don’t post an accurate image of themselves. Not as in they put up photos of people that are not them but they put up photos that are them. Them at the least trying times of life. No one post photos of the bad day at work, the day my grandmother died, hell, the day I had raging diarrhea. No, instead you get constantly smiling always happy views of people who probably rarely feel like that in real life, less they wouldn’t need a social dating website to get themselves out there.

So maybe that’s where my real beef with the system is. This poor guy who I didn’t particularly care for, it killed me to see him get so spun-up on a woman he met on the internet only to be let down in the end. Because there was no accurate representation of himself for women to evaluate they would be willing to look past he basic unattractiveness hoping that he really was “a man of many talents with a healthy love of life”. Instead they would meet a paranoid, closed off, quiet man who was in a rush to make children before he grew too old. No fault of his, that’s just who he is, I don’t blame him for trying to sell his ground chuck as prime rib. No one would give him the virtual time of day if he listed all the things he really felt. No one would give anyone a chance. In the real world, people meet people and often don’t hit it off immediately, it takes time. People have to warm up to people. They have to see them at good and bad times. It’s just more practical, it gives a person to examine the entire package before committing to a purchase.

I’m not saying that long term a born in real life relationship will be a better than born online one but in the end. What the hell? Forget it. Knock yourselves out online. Keep portraying your video game slightly obese lives as thrill seeking active lifestyles just impress women. And continue posting pictures of yourself from highschool ten years prior to now and describe yourself as , loving and compassionate for men to be drawn to. The whole world is goin to hell in a handbasket, who am I to judge.

A.Cat

Oh well…

Well, I’m sitting blogging. Pretty lame. I can’t go anywhere. I have to be supervised at all times. It’s not very fun, but I’m really trying to make the best of the situation that is. I saw my accuser/ex-fiance’ yesterday afternoon. It was a shaky experience to say the least. It’s really silly because even though she’s done all these terrible things to me I can’t help but still love her. It’s ridiculous that I do, but I do. I don’t know how to explain it. I’ve cared for people before who have hurt me less and when we were done it was just that, done. Now for the life of me I just can’t seem to put this girl to rest. Everyday I think about at her a lot. Not just a here and there “oh this reminds me of her” I genuinely think about her all the time. I wonder what she’s doing and more than anything if she’s happy and alright. Really really ridiculous. I know she could probably care less about me but I still dwell. I see her out with other guys and it bothers me, It really makes me well up over it. A few nights ago I had seen her hanging around a bunch of males and it was really late. Well of course that consumed me for the rest of the evening, I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned that entire night. The whole night, Not one wink of sleep. Just distraught, I know. I’m pathetic.

On a lighter note I got in contact with an old girlfriend of mine who has graciously invited this displaced soldier to Thanksgiving dinner back home. She’s a sharp one. Working on a double master’s up at Penn State. Her and I had hit it off years ago. Problem was I was still too busy dating the hottest thing coming. Constantly chasing the flavor of the week. That was fun but now I’m getting a little on in age and I truth be told I really am wanting to settle down. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. I’m a mess. This girl, she’s smart and funny and sweet as can be, but she’s, not quite my speed. She’s cute but she’s just not in my bracket. I’m an idiot.

On another note, I realize that in a house full of strange-o’s I’m the outcast. Literally, these people find the most mundane interesting. I can’t quite get into the things they enjoy. Silly movies, silly games, lots of video games. Just anti-social behavior, It’s funny cus as I get pawned off from person to person to supervise me, I realize how many people live confined and like it. They never leave the house unless absolutely necessary. It’s just so odd to me. I was used to going out all the time and rarely being anywhere near where I lay my head at night, I would run out as soon as work was over, change clothes, and hit the night life running. A fellow that I first lived with, he would look at pictures of some of my exploits and ask me the stories behind it or just ask me the things I did in general. You know what his response was, “Wow, you’ve lived a pretty full life” . No shit I have. I used to embrace it as it came. This guy would sit in his house as soon as he got off work and cruise the internet, attempting to me women. Silly. I have lived though, and I guess that’s something I can look back and smile on. No matter what happens to me from here on out, no matter how down I get about being left, I have lived. I haven’t done everything that I’ve wanted to do but I have lived a bit. And I had fun doing it. The ride has definitely been worth the cost, and I’ve still got plenty of years ahead of me and I don’t plan on slowing down a bit until I meet that gal that decides we should take the plunge. After that, I’ll let the sails go slack and just ride the currents to wherever they take me.

A. Cat

The Rapture

So today, 9 Nov 08, I said goodbye. I watched my team draw all their equipment and weapons load up on a bus and drive off into history. Off to fight the goodfight. As for me, left behind, I bid my boys goodbye and wished them all luck. I let them know it’s been a pleasure to have worked alongside as well as under them, and it was to be an honor to serve next to them. So now, I get to sit here in a cousy setting everynight, albeit strange, but cousy. While my boys are on the otherside of the world doing what we’ve been trained to do. The job.

Now, I’m not good at much so I take pride in the few things I do well. I’m not trying to blast my own bugle but I was a fucking pro at this job. It wasn’t the job I went to MOS school for, in fact it was far from it. By trade I was trained as a crypto-signals intelligence analyst. A mouthful, but it turned out to be one of the most boring jobs the Army had to offer. By some bad luck turning into good luck, I managed to get picked up into a fairly elite interrogations team. I was a fish out of water. I got spun-up on the new stuff and within a week I was impressing the old pros. I impressed one guy so much he solicted my boss if he could trade one of his guys for me. They knew they had something so my team embraced me. I loved the job, and I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people for a team. I had great NCO’s and fellow junior enlisted. I was flying high but then all the legal drama began.

So, like I said before, today I watched that amazing team take off for the distant war. Going to do what we all joined up to do. Fight. Now I’m not saying that I particularly revel in going to war, but it is what we train to do, day in and day out. Once I had an instructor point out to me that there are only two organizations in the US that will teach you how to kill. Not to make peace or keep order, which is also taught, but to just straight kill, the Army, and the Marines. Another NCO once said on the way to a rifle range, “Make no mistake about it, this hunk of plastic and metal you all are tossing around is meant to do only one thing, kill.” It wasn’t a motovational speech or anything, he was just stating it. He was a grizzled ex-infantry type. He’s been there. So when I got orders to go to Ft. Hood I knew I was going to deploy, and I embraced the idea whole-heartedly. That is what the job is, and that is what we do, we protect American interest in whatever way possible, killing included.

Here’s the SITREP

So I tried blogging a while back and didn’t have as much to say as I had thought. I was in between some really different times in my life and things weren’t looking so hot. Well. Here I am again and this time it’s even worse than before. I figure writing about things might help a bit so it’s kind of like a therapuetic column just to rant about the world around me. Believe  you me, it has been a very interesting past few months.

To start with, the last time I tried this I had zero direction in my life and it just wasn’t going anywhere. It was a blur of crumby jobs and bad decisions. That time ended about a year and a half ago when I decided if I didn’t do something I would be nothing. So, I made what has been the best and worst decision of my life. I joined the Army. At first I was gung-ho about everything my new lifestyle offered and then a little after a year in, all hell broke loose. I dated a girl I met in my MOS school, where you go after basic training to learn a skill, and things were good. Really good. On top of the world good. Once we started dating everything just really fell into place and I actually fell in love for the second time of my life. Something I  had previously sworn I would never do again. I loved this girl so much, back at the end of June I decided I wanted to marry her and ran out and bought a ring and popped the question. She said yes and the world was amazing. Thats when the rollercoaster crested and the real ride began.

A month after being engaged I got accused of assaulting this girl that I loved enough to die for. Of course I had no idea what was going on and she assured me that there was nothing wrong and she couldn’t understand why no one would believe her when she said I was not hurting her. So being naive’ I assume I’m just a victim of circumstance and try to trudge on loving her and pretending everything is going to be okay. Not long after all these accusations started to fly, I was issued a military restraining order for no contact with my fiance’. Of course that didn’t sit well with me but I didn’t let it get me down. One week after I have the order issued I get woken up in the middle of the night by my girlfriend and her roommate and she is hysterical. She had been stabbed. I panicked and called the police cus I had no idea how to treat a stab wound and as soon as the MP’s showed up, my life has began a downward spiral directly into hell. She at first claimed she didn’t know who did it. Then she claimed it was a black male, then eventually, she claimed it was me. I have no idea what provoked this but in her accusing me the entire story was brought to light. From day one of me being accused of assaulting and abusing her she has pointed the finger directly at me when speaking to authorities and then comforting me by saying everything was okay when I was around. Bottom line I’m now facing a general court martial with the potential of doing some very serious time.

My situation has gotten ridiculous in the mean time. For almost five months now, I’ve been under 24/7 supervision because she made additional claims of assault. The supervision is as much for my protection as it is for her because one of her claims was made while I was actually under a semi-supervised event. Only thing that saved me was me being at the event proved that she was completely capable of making up things for the sole purpose of making me look terrible. However. being under supervision is hard on me and hard on those having to supervise me. My lifestyle has become very transient and I have no real home anymore. Constantly moving from house to house, apartment to apartment. I live out of a backpack and my vehicle is my closet. I have zero privacy and my life is constantly under the microscope. I’ve coped with it all pretty well and just try to shrug off all the unpleasantness. Oh, it gets worse though.

It’s been my ambition since I joined the Army to go and serve overseas. I’ve been chasing a combat action badge, and in my opinion doing your time over there is what separates the real Army from those just playing army. So everything was still in motion, all of the people in charge of me had me prepped and ready to go, they all believed or at least had me believe that nothing could materialize from her accusations and I was still on schedule to go to Iraq. My date of deployment was Nov 7. I didn’t get news that I wasn’t leaving until Nov 5. You can imagine my disappointment. When the news was broke to me I felt like absolutely nothing. Just worthless. It took everything in me to not cry in front of my commander. As I walked out of the office with the news weighing heavy on me, I took on a serious contemplation of suicide and how to do it right. Luckily some of the people on my team managed to calm me down and just let me talk it out with them. That’s not to say that I still am not thinking about the subject. Having my fiance’ accuse me of everything she did and then me being unable to do the job that I’ve come to love, has made me fairly edgy.

So that’s the situation report. Life is terrible, but bearable. I don’t know where I go from here but I know it’s got to be forward. Hopefully I can get in and out of court quickly and catch up with my team in Iraq.

A. Cat