Let Slip the Blogs of War

I am absolutely not going to go political; it's way overdone. Plus, I don't want to annoy people or turn them off to my writing just because my perspective is a little different, especially on the topics of the military, war in general, and intelligence reports in specific. A lot of people who get all het up about these things (and this is just my guess here, so please correct me if I'm wrong) don't actually have any practical experience. It's OK; I understand. I started out that way, too.

But then I got my first real job, and George Bush was signing my paychecks. I got a big kick out of it, I have to say. And then Gulf War I started, and I got immersed in the realities of intel and war and oh-my-gosh stress and feeling like people's lives are depending on you and more stress because they are. It was awesome, quite literally. I don't think I got a full night's sleep from August to February. Rotating shifts, sometimes 15 hours long, wracking your brains trying to figure out what this thing means because the whole international community is watching, and no I can't take the call from that @&#!$(# senator right now-- can't you see I'm trying to SAVE THE WORLD?!

Lot of pressure for a 23-year-old. Constantly on. I had to be; I worked with a couple of sailors whose wives were both deployed to the war zone, and boy, were those boys jittery. I couldn't let them down.

So I understand what goes on. I know that the policymakers are sometimes clueless. I also know that there's a lot going on that they can't tell you. They have to just sit there and let people throw rocks at them and call them all sorts of horrible names and slander their families back to the fourth generation. In fact, they have to do it so that you'll go on having the freedom to call them names. But don't mind me. I'm not going to get political.

What started this whole topic was my 4-year-old being hilarious again. This afternoon, he jumped out of the car (as always, in his pirate hat and brandishing a sword) and shouted "Fried haddock!" in his best General Chang voice. After that, I couldn't resist.

"Don't we hear the chimes of midnight?" Not quite yet. I'm off a'pirating...