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2002-09-12 - 12:08 a.m.


I've read a few news articles, some editorials, and hell, even some rants here on diaryland.

some telling me how I should feel.

some telling me what I should be afraid of.

some telling me to fuck off for not having had to run from smoke and fire and having it happen to me first hand.

I read one, in fact, telling me to fuck off, because I didn't see the buildings go down with my eyes, unfiltered, but rather in my safe office in Orlando, and all I could really do was pull my dev staff off their projects and tell them to go home to their families, if they wanted.

I'm a gulf war vet.

I've had two tours over during the war. One was cake. (THE SECOND ONE.)

The first one, I had a rifle, an environment that required it, had to dive into bunkers from scud attacks, and had to pull bodies off of cots with a fucking tent stake, so they could fit in a bag.

You see, the corpse was designed to hold a body...not a blanket, a radio, and a cot, that fused to the poor girls carcass because she didn't have time to get up and react, no time to do anything at all, except die.

So when I went home the first time, and saw all the ribbons, maybe I felt a little bit of disillusionment and a bit of self-importance thinking my personal perspective granted me far greater insight into the "big picture" than people who weren't there.

I didn't go around making people feel lessened because of it, I just kept it inside.

Everyone was touched and effected by the war, and by the things that happened as a result.

In fact, you could probably make a good case that our direct involvement in the situation that escalated to today's quagmire got the first spark with our involvement with iraq 12 or 13 years ago...

Do I know anyone who's died in "the war on terrorism?" Sure...I guess if you want to go back to us chasing iraq out of saudi....I had 4 friends die when their b-52 bomber's electronics failed and they went crashing into the ocean short of their return destination of the island of Diego Garcia.

Dead. No more softball games and beer parties at Bupp's apartment after that.

I don't remember telling anyone who said "welcome home!" at the corny little gulf reception centers they had at the bases in processing centers, to FUCK OFF YOU DONT UNDERSTAND!! YOU WERENT THERE!!!

Granted, writing words is a shotgun approach to dissiminating information, and a journal, can be labeled "personal" and "private" but if it's on the internet, and accessible by anyone with a modem...well, it's fairly public.

So when someone has an opinion on it, shut the fuck up and deal with it.

Everyone has dealt with it. It's horrible that certain people have felt such intimacy with the tragedy. I'd rather be them then be the guy jumping from a window so I didn't burn alive though.

Or a girl who spent 12 hours in Saudi before being burned to crisp by patriot missle shards and blown up scud missle chunks.

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