people who live in cali [Archive]

Buazag Bonesteel

04-21-2003, 09:46 AM

Round trip ticket from Syracuse please and I'll come hang out. Doing pretty much nothing atm so I have the time on my hands ;)

Grats on getting through Boot and such. I went through that in the Navy 12 years ago. Very difficult in a lot of ways as you might expect...but also one of the most rewarding times in my life. Probably not quite as intense as if you are with a group of guys in a wartime situation but the tense conditions are somewhat similar. You find yourself closer to the people you go through it with than maybe at any other time in your life. Not neccessarily in the sense that you will be lifelong friends or visit each other or name kids after each other hehe. But in the sense that for the weeks you spend together you all are forced to depend on each other in ways that most people don't have to. To an outsider...even to yourself maybe when you look back on it...some of the things that are made to be so important in boot camp seem silly. The inspections of every little thing from whether your boots are polished enough to if the racks are made properly and lockers stowed right with every piece of clothing folded just so. It all does make sense though. Not only are they teaching you to follow orders even when they are trivial so that when they AREN'T trivial it's second nature....they are teaching you to not only depend on your brothers in arms so to speak...but to be able to BE depended on. There are many things that if they are done wrong in boot reflect on the whole company even if it was one persons mistake. Therefore a cameraderie is built. You watch my back and I'll watch yours. What's learned there when it's just a matter of whether the floors are buffed right or your blanket is folded right on your bunk carries over to when it really matters if you are in a place like Iraq and suddenly it's yours and other people's lives on the line.

I was lucky I guess...even though I was in the Seabees and would have most likely not ever seen actual combat...I was still never sent anywhere where any combat was a possibility. Never even left the states heh. That feeling of brotherhood was still there, however. Boot camp was amazingly hard work. The endless stream of seemingly meaningless tasks. The endless pushups for a myriad of minor misdeeds. Rarely getting more than 4 hours of sleep at night. Getting up at 3am because I had drill team practice. There were times, especially in the beginning, that I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into. By the end and afterwards looking back I realized that not only was it worthwhile....but was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything.

So congratulations. You have choses to protect our flag, our country, and our way of life. I, like many of us, have differing opinions at times over our policies and actions in many areas. I don't always agree with the things that we, as a country, do. But I live in a country where I am allowed to have those opinions. If those opinions are held by a majority of people then that voice is actually heard and listened to. That is what makes this country great...and that is why I have such great respect for those who fight for it.

War is an ugly thing. I could actually cry for those over in Iraq right now that in reality are just like you and me. People who do there best to live there lives in the place that chance placed them. They eat, sleep and go to work...try to raise their families and do the best they can. They don't have the same freedoms that we do to neccessarily voice their opinions about their government that we do. Therefore they endure. How a man like Hussein managed to grab power and keep it for so long sometimes amazes me....but money will buy a lot of things including support of a lot of men. There is corruption about across the entire world and sometimes we don't even realize how lucky we are to have managed to start our country having such a good system in place that makes the kind of corrupt evil that a place like Iraq has had almost impossible with the checks and balances we have in place. Even with that corrupt, greedy, self serving, seemingly evil power structure running the country though....Iraq is full of ordinary people just like the U.S. is. They don't differ from us in very many ways that matter. Maybe the biggest difference lies in that when they pop on the TV they have to watch the state run propoganda machine. They get a very skewed vision of Americans that way. We may get a skewed vision ourselves...pretty much everyone sees things mostly from their perspective, but at least over here the journalists aren't controlled by the government and will give you more of the real story.

Anyway...my point was about war being ugly. Those ordinary people over in Iraq are looking at a lot of large craters and piles of rubble where Bahgdad once stood. One of, if not THE, oldest civilized area in the world is being peppered by bombs and ravaged by scared, confused rioters and looters. Even the most level headed and intelligent Iraqis have been inundated with propoganda about the evil, capitalistic American empire and now they see there homes being destroyed, they have no certain supply of food, water or medical attention. They see american troops walking the streets now with their M-16s and their tanks. They have even seen a few times, the American Flag being raised as if we were conquering heros. So yes, even those Iraquis who may logically know that the Hussein regime was evil and oppressive. Who know that being out from under his thumb may in the long run mean that their country will have a chance to change for the better now. Even those people....have a hard time looking past the fact that they have no power or water. Have a hard time viewing the Americans as anything but an occupying, FOREIGN army.

Despite how the above sounds(assuming anyone reads this far;) ) I fully support the actions we have taken. I felt that we dropped the ball 12 years ago with Saddam to some extent. I suppose that maybe we didn't have the right at the time to dictate what another country di within its own borders....but it's a shame that so many people had to die or live under the conditions that existed under Saddam for so long before we did take action. Despite all the whispered ideas and notions about why we may have gotten into this...from oil to Bush wanting to make up for what has been percieved as a failure on his father's part, I think we got into this for both a combination of many of those things and yet mostly one very simple reason. The UN placed many sanctions on Iraq follwing the persian gulf war. For 12 years Saddam played a game of hide and seek. He misdirected, misinformed and basically played with the system as much as he could. As evil as he was...all he had to do to stay in power was commit to not making and/or using any weapons of mass destruction and to allow total access to all the inspectors to any area they wanted to go at any time they wanted to go there. If he had done this then we would have done absolutely nothing to remove him from power even if he was an evil dictator who treated his people miserably. We would have maybe jumped in had his people rebelled and asked for our help...but even that isn't a given.

He didn't do these things and therefore we acted. I agree wholeheartedly with the fact that we NEEDED to act. That doesn't take away from the fact that like I said...war is ugly. I feel for the people over there who just wanted to live their lives and are now homeless refugees. I feel for the families of our fallen soldiers. Almost most of all though....I feel for the soldiers over there as we speak. I can't imagine how hard it must be to be doing your duty for your country and have that duty mean that you are overseas in some country supposedly helping free the people of that country from their oppressors and yet pretty much have them hate you. In all honesty...how hard would it be to NOT hate the people who just came and blew up your home regardless of the reasons.

Anyway...this turned into a long ass ramble on the war that only about 3 people will read all the way through heh. I think my major point here was this....Famor....you're a Marine now. I respect the hell out of that. Do us proud :)