<p>There are a few changes I would make in the way things are that I think would help.</p>
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<p>Seven month deployments. The Marines do it, we should too. Yeah, they have less time in between deployments, but the difference between 7 months and 12 months away from home is huge.</p>
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<p>(Holy crap, just a second ago they dropped a huge bomb about a quarter mile from here. Shook my whole hooch. There's a second one, damn. I'm kind of living across the street from the Kandahar offensive.)</p>
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<p>Anyway the 12 month deployment is probably the biggest factor in broken marriages, depression, disassociation from friends and family, etc...</p>
<p>We are in the eighth month of our deployment and everyone here is dragging ass. Motivation is high the first few months, then it gets old. Now we are past it getting old and it just sucks, and there are still four months to go. Friends and family lose enthusiasm too, I don't blame them, but it's hard for the deployed soldier. I've heard the Army is considering changing to 7 or 8 month deployments, I hope they do.</p>
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<p>As a senior NCO I consider it one of my main jobs here to keep my soldiers distracted, besides keeping them motivated and accomplishing the mission. I have 200 water balloons in my footlocker. I'm going to stage a surprise water balloon fight, but there's not enough water to waste on it yet. Soon though, and I will take pictures... <img alt="" src="http://files.kickrunners.com/smilies/lol.gif" style="width:15px;height:15px;" title=""></p>
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<p>Another thing that sucks is that being military is to be isolated. We are out of the mainstream. People care, people support us, I have never felt so appreciated as I have the last 10 years and it's wonderful. But it doesn't change the fact that when I walk through a restaurant or the airport in uniform, people stare at me like I'm a bug. There probably is no way to change this. We are not going to expand the military or reinstate the draft (and I wouldn't want to,) so it's just the way it is.</p>
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<p>But the real effect of the military being so small a portion of the population is that almost all of us feel misunderstood. I could type for an hour and post 20 pictures and I could never make you understand what this place is like. And I'm not even a grunt out there hoping my next step isn't on a bomb. But four people were killed on my FOB a couple weeks ago by a mortar, so it's just random. And this goes back to where we are in this deployment. Right now all we have is each other. My platoon is tight, we take care of each other, and we'll get through this in good shape I think, as long as everyone makes it home. Some units aren't so tight, and the kids in those units suffer. I don't have an answer for this one but I think my next point would be a good start.</p>
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<p>I'd like to see just one goddamn movie or tv show where the hero is a GI. A regular guy who did a job. Or even, God forbid, an actual movie about a heroic act in the war, without the apologies and without the judgements. After all, the guys who died earning Medals of Honor didn't start the war.</p>
<p>Maybe it's a dumb thing to want, I don't know. But can you understand how disheartening it is that every representation of a military person in the movies or on tv in the last ten years is a victim, a fool or a bad guy? (The "fantasy soldiers," like GI Joe, don't count.)</p>
<p>There was one show where the good guy was a veteran, and I was hopeful, but it turned out he was, of course, "disillusioned by his service and haunted by the memories of what he had to do," blah, blah, blah. Shit.</p>
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<p>Everywhere we turn when we get home we get a mixed message. "We're proud of you, you poor, poor thing." How's that got to make the 22 year-old, just got back from Iraq, feel? He's not watching the "Salute to America's Veteran's" special on July 4th and Veteran's Day on PBS. He's going to see hollywood movies at the mall. And everytime a GI is on screen, it's a beat-down for him. "What you did was wrong." "What America did to you was wrong." These are the messages he gets bombarded with, from MTV to hollywood to comedy central.</p>
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<p>When the GI's got back from WWII, every one of them was John Wayne, or Audie Murphy, or Jimmy Stewart. A lot of them probably couldn't watch those movies for a long time after the war, if ever, and I'm sure some vets of the current wars would feel the same way. But I can't believe it didn't feel good to know that people were going to see movies portraying you as a hero. I know for a fact it sucks to know that people are watching movies that make me look like a victim or a fool.</p>
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<p>I've babbled on far too long on this. It's late, I'm tired. But I feel pretty strongly about this, so you got it dumped on you. Sorry.</p>
