Today America chooses a new President. Not sure how it will affect how we fight the war. I’m guessing not at all. I got back recently. I couldn’t wait to get to UCLA and experience a “higher learning and progressive free thought.” I especially, could not wait to see free thinkers hold up signs calling guys like me baby killers. However, there has been NO anti-war protesters in sight for the past fucking two months. They used to do shit like wear orange jumps suits with bags over their heads reenacting waterboard torture on campus while people were walking to class. I loved laughing at their antics. Where did they go?

I have a feeling it’s because of the election. They figure if a guy with the middle name of Hussein gets in the White House everyone will join hands for world peace. I’m sure as soon as that happens the Sunni and Shiites will drop their AKs and suicide vests and sit down next to a burning Humvee singing “Kumbaya.” I’m pretty sure Afghanistan will become a hotbed for potatoes and not insurgent firefights. Only time will tell.

But it’s kinda weird not seeing anti-war protests anymore. I miss them. Those were good times. I’m guessing no one really gives a shit so much anymore and people are more worried about getting a job with their sociology *degree* then helping war victims in the Middle east. Shit, the only time things got uppity here on campus recently was during the Olympics when all the Tibetans and Chinks clashed.

Man, seeing all those Chinese pinko nationalists come out of the woodwork was a trip. I thought I was in the Cultural Revolution all over again.

Honestly from my own experience looking back, the scariest moments there were random sniper fire. *We didn’t know where it was coming from and then there was that mortar attack too close for comfort. * I guess it was cool to see a mortar land so close to you that you could see the pretty little sparks without seriously fucking you up. But when it happened, we all scattered like cockroaches when you turn the light on. I don’t know what it is about random people trying to kill you. It’s fucking way too surreal. But I ain’t going to shrink anytime soon claiming PTSD.

Now, I can tell you this grunt I know who was in the Battle of Fallujah. That city became a free fire zone after Americans were burned alive and hanged. He never wants to talk about anything he did in Iraq. Then I got him fucking drunk. Holy shit did he have some stories. He starting telling some gnarly shit like shooting this guy in the face with his M16. He told me it’s just like that scene in Full Metal Jacket where Gomer Pyle kills himself with a rifle. The brains shootout the other end like a cherry pie.

He got out of the Corps and he became a paramedic of all things. He seems all right but I would never get drunk around that guy again. What sets me off is that he has that “thousand yard stare.” That shit is no joke, some guys get it when they go through shit like that. It’s almost a lizard like gaze. I had a Drill Instructor who had the same thing. Weird.

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