A soldiers letter

I thought about hyperlinking this letter,
but felt like no one would take the time to read it that way.
It is a STRONG letter. Please take the time to read it.

0920 15 NOVEMBER 2004 IRAQ
Mom & Dad,It is with a heavy heart that I write this. Yesterday marked one month since we left home. Yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life. Yesterday we laid to rest a brother in arms. He was just a kid, only 20, from Maryland. He was in B company, I didn't know him well, but I'd seen him around. He was the first KIA in 'Duece Four' in this war and, make no mistake, war it is. I couldn't tell you about him until after his family had been notified. At 1400 yesterday the memorial service took place. The most difficult part was when his First Sergeant called the final roll. The First Sergeant called the names of each member of his squad and each answered in turn. Then his name was called once, no response. Twice, no response. A third time, no response. Then 'Taps' began to play accompanied by the '21 gun salute'. We then filed by his helmet atop his rifle, dog tags hanging from it, all of this behind his boots and a picture of him, and each of us, individualy, turned to his equipment and rendered a final salute.
I know this is probably harder for you to read than it was for me to write, hard to believe though it is. There are some things I have been putting off saying, something I can no longer do. I am a SOLDIER. I am sworn to protect and defend and I will do that until my last breath, be it in the military or after, that is my calling. I have no desire to lose my life, but it is a price I am willing to pay for 'putting foot to ass' for my country in the name of freedom. I love you all more than life itself, that's why I'm here.Mosul is a cesspool of insurgents, they will give us no peace. [D]aily we bring the fight to their door. Before yesterday, even though we were here, it still wasn't real. We were still shooting at 'pop up targets' that can't hit back. Now they hit back. They screwd up. Our innocence is gone. We will fight with honor and obey the laws of war. We will go out of our way to help the innocent, but there will be no mercy for those who rise up against us or against their countrymen, for them hell will be unleashed.
I'm sorry that these things needed to be said, but you needed to know in case they ever call my final roll. I love and miss you all very much and I WILL be home before you know it. All my love, Dustin.

In class I was innocently looking through a ton of letters, and I couldn't find any that really hit home. I wanted a letter that would mean something, not only to me, but to Mr. Kunkle when he read it. I was having a difficult time and thought I should just pick the first three after that.

I came across it, and knew I wanted to use it right away.

It is about a young boy who is fighting over in Iraq. It seems like he is scared out of his mind, and needs some support from his family back home. I think the main reason he writes is because something bad happen. He experienced the first loss over there(it may not have been someone he knew, but a death is a death, and im sure everyone in our school was touched by the three suicides in our school. you may not have known them, but seeing people sad, loosing someone, it still is hard.) I think that is why I felt so passionate about this letter.

I feel for this guy. He is experiencing something that many people will not.
Soldiers are over there missing home, missing family but doing it for us.
God Bless our Soldiers.

Censoredddd

Have I ever been censored?

hhhmm. this is an interesting question.

Yes, as a mater of fact, I have.

I grew up in a family of seven, me being the youngest of 5 kids.

Naturally, my brothers and sisters thought it was hilarious to make me swear.

(I was such an innocent kid!) but the catch was if I didn't swear, they'd tell mother I did.



My oldest brother Pat was the worst! I was probably the closest to him. We'd go shopping and he'd come hang out with me, even though we are so far apart in age. I grew up constantly yelling at him, "Stop using the F-Bomb!" thats what we'd call it.



Time went by, and I grew up and these words started to become more of my vocabulary.

He started going to this church where swearing seemed to be the end of the world.

One Christmas Eve, the whole family was over. It was odd enough that no one seems to like eachother these days, but everyone being so different was the hardest thing.

Pat: The church guy.
Joe: The "Bad ass".
Emily: The worried mother.
Alex: Head in the clouds.
Me: Innocent little sister.

I didn't know that I was no longer aloud to say "Damn" or "Hell" because my 27-year-old brother would be offended.

I was always snapped on, and felt like I was five-years-old again, when someone hears you say something "naughty" and you have to go sit on a time out.

I was almost 18. It had gotten a little ridiculous.

The guy who taught me what those words ment, the one who forced me to say them was the one treating me like a five-year-old.

Story of the absurd. :)

Every year my family takes a vacation to Panama City Beach, Fl. It was April of eighth grade year and Lindsey R came with our family. We met my cousins down there and on the first night decided to take a walk on the beach. Never having problems before, we thought this would be okay. It was 5:30 at night and very few people were on the beach at this point. We continued walking and saw an older gentleman "tanning" right by the water in his pink lawn chair. We thought it was odd, first because the sun is nearly gone, its kind of cold and he is sitting right in the open. As we grew closer to this man we noticed he was wearing a speedo. We continued to walk and all made it clear that no one would look at this man and we'd walk right by like nothing had happened, but as we were growing closer, I noticed this man was completely naked.

We were laughing, but tried to all hide it as we walked by. I dropped my flip flop just feet in front of him, and started SPRINTING to the other three girls. We continued walking for another half mile, and on our way back we noticed he was gone. We started walking faster as we were only a couple hotels away from ours, and were all laughing so hard that we couldn't wait to tell our parents and sibling what had happened. We were not two hotels away and I looked up and saw this man sitting in this chair with binoculars...FOLLOWING US with them. We started sprinting has fast as possible, as we saw him run to the road to get in this car and follow us. It was the scariest moment of my life. This grown man was following four young girls.

A year later we went to PCB again and this time the entire family was walking down to go eat dinner, while my cousins family were running a little late they were somewhat behind us. I told my mom that i thought the guy lived right up here, when we saw his dog and saw him...i started freakin' out. I acted like nothing happened, and when my cousin who was behind us showed up, i told her that I saw the man and his dog... "I PET THAT DOG!" she screamed.

Every year from now on, we joke about it and joke about how dumb we were and how absurd this whole incindent was. : )

Open up. :)

Feeling out of place is probabley one of the most uncomfortable feelings one could have. Being in your norm is just what we're used to. In situations where you are out of your norm, you have to remember that it is probabley just as weird for the people whose norm your in. Make sense? So say your going out for a summer team. One from people all over. Everyone is friends, but just not with you. your the new kid. It is going to be weird for all of the people who are so used to just the "Normal" team. Just be yourself. I've lived this situation first hand, and don't have a doubt in my mind that everyone has felt out of place at one point in there life. So instead of making it awkward. Get out there. Open up. and Have fun! :)

My First Blog

Hello Bloggers. This is my first blog ever and i'm pretty excited about it.



In my College Literature class we have a "Poem of the day."

The day after election day we read a poem called Election day.



This presidential election was my first one, and it was exciting. I took a Poli Sci class last year and learned a lot more about politics. I became very fond of Senator Barack Obama. I knew I was planning to vote for him and I knew that what he had planned was going to help change our country.

It just so happen that a very close friend to me is a huge democrat along with her family. Her father lives in Washington DC and helped Barack, with his company, through his whole campaign. On November 4th we invited their family over for dinner, they said they were going to this democratic party at the Monona Terrace and asked me and my mother if we wanted to go. I thought "What the heck, this won't happen again and this beats doing homework and cleaning my room," I joined them, along with mother. She took a little bit more convincing, but I knew that something like this wasn't going to happen again. We went to this party and we're very excited to finally be there. The room was full of democrats. Everyone had Barack Obama shirts on. There was a band who sang nothing but songs about him. Six screens around the room and even Tammy Baldwin and Jim Doyle showed up.

The experience was life-changing.

I saw "Barack Obama is the President" and it changed my life. I no longer felt scared. I felt a sense of hope come across my body.

My biggest fear was that my children were going to suffer through all of this, when I could have helped save it. And I could see the fear leave the room after Barack Obama was elected president. I could feel the excitement overwelming everyone around me, because it seems like poeple had the same fears as me, and once they were gone, everyone could finally be happy.

Barack has showed me hope and desire to change.

Our country needs change. We need something to hope for. We need something to live for.

I believe he is the thing.