Only did 4 years and I've been out for a long time. It goes by fast. In a few days it will have been 17 years since the day I lost some of my guys and for some reason I survived. 2 feet to the left and I would've been gone.

It gets slightly easier every year, not to drink myself into a stupor on the anniversary day, and I have a kid now so I have to maintain. The first 10 years were a struggle, the last few slightly better. Honestly, my views have changed and if Im being honest, I would never encourage my son to join, or anyone else for that matter. You can find honor, discipline and camaraderie in many aspects of life, not just the military. The days of any sort of "just" war are long gone. 

My government seems to be run, truly, by the worst sort of people imaginable. It used to be we all knew that politicians were greedy and self serving, only wanting to accumulate wealth and power, but nowadays, these people are not even human. They lust for the darkest and most horrifying reasons. Things that any moral and upstanding person knows are absolutely disgusting, these people crave it. 

A quote from Hemingway: 

"They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason." 

Smith, Reynolds, White; Rest in Peace. Soldiers die, but for those who were with them, they will never be forgotten.

Its that time of the year.......