jgates
<font color=teal>Must vow NEVER to toggle the tags
- Joined
- Oct 12, 1999
- Messages
- 3,072
OK - while you are paging thru your Ent Bks looking for that page - did you guys read this from your wdwinfo email? It's beautiful and yes, I shamelessly admit - totally off topic.
The Meaning of Doing "Nothing"
By Chaplain (MAJ) Carlos C. Huerta
1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery
101st Airborne Division
Mosul (Nineveh), Iraq
We just sit here doing nothing. We waste our time all day sitting around doing nothing. We get up at 0Dark:30 in the morning after going to bed at ODark:29 and run around in the dark doing PT and are tired all the time. We dont eat what we want and we never get enough good food. The weather is hot, unbearable, and we sweat all the time. On top of this, we dont fit in. Some of the people here hate us, they want us to go, and they tell us we dont belong.
The worst is we are lonely, lonely, and lonely. There is nobody to talk to that understands how we really feel, nobody to listen, nobody that we love. Everyone we care about is so far away. It seems as if they are on another planet, another world away. We almost never get to talk to them, the phone connection costs and quality is inconsistent, almost no e-mail, and snail mail takes weeks. So many of us, I included, left young or unborn children at home who will be walking and/or talking by the time we get back and wont even know whom their father or mother is. We go to bed at night in the dark, thinking we cannot make it another day. We wake up in the morning knowing we cant go on, but somehow we do. Why? Because we are American soldiers, and because of words like Duty-Honor-Country.
We dont like being here but we know that the nothing we do here is important. Who wants to leave their family, children, loved ones and watch them live a separate life without them? Who wants to have a baby, then watch it grow up from thousands of miles away? None of us want it, but we do it nevertheless.
If you ask why, it would be to do nothing. Nothing like getting up before sunrise, that is, those of us that is not standing guard all night making sure our buddies sleep safely. Nothing like checking our weapons, checking our ammo, and saddling up with our battle rattle (Kevlar, body armor, web gear) to move out to do different missions.
Some of us do nothing by standing guard on gas lines that go on for 500 plus cars, keeping order. Some of us run TCPs (Traffic Control Points) where we randomly check cars for weapons, explosives, or bad guys. Some of us stand in front of banks guarding payrolls for teachers, retirees, government workers. Some of us organize propane runs to neighborhoods ensuring that all homes in the city have enough cooking fuel for their families. Some of us supervise school construction projects, water construction projects, guard electrical utilities, grain factories, and fuel depots.
Some of us do nothing by going to neighborhood health clinics, ensuring that the clinics are up and running and that there are enough medical supplies for the sick. Some of us start the day at ODark:30 and run firing ranges, teach in classrooms, run field drills, help establish and run Iraqi military in-processing stations to train and stand up a national army so we can go home to our loved ones. Some of us do nothing by finding mass graves filled with the bodies of other peoples love ones, innocent men, women, and children, shot execution style in the back of the head, while some of us engage those that filled those graves in intensive fire-fights.
We do all this in the hot sun, dressed in full combat gear in temperatures that exceed 110 F, while getting shot at. Why? Because if we dont nobody will. If we dont then this Country will descend in chaos. If we dont then children, like the ones we left behind, will go hungry. If we dont then many innocent men, women and children will die to disease, hunger, or violence. We do it because it needs to be done, because if we dont fix this thing the right way then it will be our children we will have to send over here to fix it. We do it because Duty-Honor-Country, because we are American soldiers.
Yes, we prefer NOT doing nothing here, but as the old WW1 song goes, "..we wont be back, till its over, over there..." So to our families, we say, we love you, we miss you terribly, but we, you and us as a team, are affecting the world for good. You hang in there and help us to hang in there, because we cant do this without you being there for us. We will come home. We want to come home, but we have to come home the right way.
We may wonder if it is worth it. If we hold value to the smile on a grateful childs face because now he or she has running water at school where before they didnt, then it is worth it. If we hold value to the tears coming down a mothers face because some newly acquired medicine just saved the life of her child, then it is worth it.
If we hold value to fundamentally changing a dictatorial society to a democratic one and giving people their lives back, then it is worth it. If we hold value to our wives, children, and loved ones living in peace at home, free from the fear of terror attack, then it is worth it. The pay isnt much, the hours are long, the food sucks, but the satisfaction is high because we sense in the depth of our souls that here, in Iraq, in this ancient land where the Bible began, that the nothing we are doing is truly Gods own work.
PS Mom P - love the Xmas photo
The Meaning of Doing "Nothing"
By Chaplain (MAJ) Carlos C. Huerta
1st Battalion, 320th Field Artillery
101st Airborne Division
Mosul (Nineveh), Iraq
We just sit here doing nothing. We waste our time all day sitting around doing nothing. We get up at 0Dark:30 in the morning after going to bed at ODark:29 and run around in the dark doing PT and are tired all the time. We dont eat what we want and we never get enough good food. The weather is hot, unbearable, and we sweat all the time. On top of this, we dont fit in. Some of the people here hate us, they want us to go, and they tell us we dont belong.
The worst is we are lonely, lonely, and lonely. There is nobody to talk to that understands how we really feel, nobody to listen, nobody that we love. Everyone we care about is so far away. It seems as if they are on another planet, another world away. We almost never get to talk to them, the phone connection costs and quality is inconsistent, almost no e-mail, and snail mail takes weeks. So many of us, I included, left young or unborn children at home who will be walking and/or talking by the time we get back and wont even know whom their father or mother is. We go to bed at night in the dark, thinking we cannot make it another day. We wake up in the morning knowing we cant go on, but somehow we do. Why? Because we are American soldiers, and because of words like Duty-Honor-Country.
We dont like being here but we know that the nothing we do here is important. Who wants to leave their family, children, loved ones and watch them live a separate life without them? Who wants to have a baby, then watch it grow up from thousands of miles away? None of us want it, but we do it nevertheless.
If you ask why, it would be to do nothing. Nothing like getting up before sunrise, that is, those of us that is not standing guard all night making sure our buddies sleep safely. Nothing like checking our weapons, checking our ammo, and saddling up with our battle rattle (Kevlar, body armor, web gear) to move out to do different missions.
Some of us do nothing by standing guard on gas lines that go on for 500 plus cars, keeping order. Some of us run TCPs (Traffic Control Points) where we randomly check cars for weapons, explosives, or bad guys. Some of us stand in front of banks guarding payrolls for teachers, retirees, government workers. Some of us organize propane runs to neighborhoods ensuring that all homes in the city have enough cooking fuel for their families. Some of us supervise school construction projects, water construction projects, guard electrical utilities, grain factories, and fuel depots.
Some of us do nothing by going to neighborhood health clinics, ensuring that the clinics are up and running and that there are enough medical supplies for the sick. Some of us start the day at ODark:30 and run firing ranges, teach in classrooms, run field drills, help establish and run Iraqi military in-processing stations to train and stand up a national army so we can go home to our loved ones. Some of us do nothing by finding mass graves filled with the bodies of other peoples love ones, innocent men, women, and children, shot execution style in the back of the head, while some of us engage those that filled those graves in intensive fire-fights.
We do all this in the hot sun, dressed in full combat gear in temperatures that exceed 110 F, while getting shot at. Why? Because if we dont nobody will. If we dont then this Country will descend in chaos. If we dont then children, like the ones we left behind, will go hungry. If we dont then many innocent men, women and children will die to disease, hunger, or violence. We do it because it needs to be done, because if we dont fix this thing the right way then it will be our children we will have to send over here to fix it. We do it because Duty-Honor-Country, because we are American soldiers.
Yes, we prefer NOT doing nothing here, but as the old WW1 song goes, "..we wont be back, till its over, over there..." So to our families, we say, we love you, we miss you terribly, but we, you and us as a team, are affecting the world for good. You hang in there and help us to hang in there, because we cant do this without you being there for us. We will come home. We want to come home, but we have to come home the right way.
We may wonder if it is worth it. If we hold value to the smile on a grateful childs face because now he or she has running water at school where before they didnt, then it is worth it. If we hold value to the tears coming down a mothers face because some newly acquired medicine just saved the life of her child, then it is worth it.
If we hold value to fundamentally changing a dictatorial society to a democratic one and giving people their lives back, then it is worth it. If we hold value to our wives, children, and loved ones living in peace at home, free from the fear of terror attack, then it is worth it. The pay isnt much, the hours are long, the food sucks, but the satisfaction is high because we sense in the depth of our souls that here, in Iraq, in this ancient land where the Bible began, that the nothing we are doing is truly Gods own work.
PS Mom P - love the Xmas photo
It's comparable to the SPG prog, which will upgrade PLAT. members to a deluxe room/Jr. Suite (when/if avail), but not any higher (@comp). So my Exec. suite is not included in the upgrade~! (LOL)
Congratulations, Uncle RobMax!
! 15 nights at the Dolphin--- a dream come true! And, your PBH stay sounds wonderful, too.
Good Morning to the room 
It's the FIRST visit for the little prince. He'll be mesmerized by all the sights, surely! 
