Ok, so I was away from my computer most of the weekend, but I've been meaning to post here. I've been living in the U.S for exactly 10 years and I have undergone quite the transformation while being here. The biggest one has been going from hating the country for a few legit reasons and hundreds of dumb ones to simply understanding that no country is perfect. The other one has been from believing myself a socialist to simply having a better understanding of all systems and their flaws. What I am trying to say is I am living a rather comfortable life. I'm not immediately threatened by violence and war, I am not starving and I have a roof over my head. The entire continent of Africa and most of Asia are a clusterfuck and Most Latin American nations if not all are practically in shambles.
Over the past 10 years I have made several friends either in the arm forces, ex arm forces or have joined the arm forces. Of these folks, my last two girlfriends (one navy the other army) and my closest friend (ex marine) have opened my eyes to what it was/is really like to go through training and just what they face on a daily basis. I worked for 7 months as a Case Manager for a community services agency that aided mentally ill individuals. I worked with the Seriously Mentally Ill (SMI) population which is comprised of Schizophrenics, bipolars, major depressives, psychotics, borderline personally, etc. One of my old clients is ex special forces and participated in the war in central america. He told me in one of our sessions his job was to train the death squads in nicaragua and proceeded to tell me the day he lost his humanity was the day he shot a 9 year old boy to make sure that 9 year old didn't shoot him.
The last time I saw my recent ex (army) she was not the same girl I remember prior to her deployment to the middle east. She left a confident, dominant, cheerful woman and came back skidish, brooding, mainly depressed and with violent mood swings that I had seen only once before, but nothing so severe. My friend who is an ex-marine and one of my closests friend's boyfriend (also ex-marine), have MAJOR anger issues and have a real hard time dealing with their emotions. My friend has gone through some very rough spots in recent years and is frustrated by his feelings of sadness, compasion, etc. The best way to describe it is... It's like watching an android learning to feel. My old client too has anger as his initial reaction to everything. I still remember the voicemails he would leave me ranting and raving about him being "back in the war" and it was them against him... except this time it wasn't Central American guerillas, but rather his landlord, the pharmacist at Wal-Mart, the Nurse Practitioner... you get the picture.
My point in all of this is the following. I went to the local fairgrounds for a 4th of July event and as the fireworks display signaled the end of the evening for the first time I felt like this was my holiday too. For years I really didn't care about the 4th of July thinking it The United States' holiday, not mine, I'm just passing through. But after meeting the people I have, and befriending a few, I have come to known the sacrifice some choose to make so I can criticize this nation to shreds. So I can have my Xbox and big screen TV and go to sleep without fear and wake up with the luxury of looking forward to the new day (you can insert Jack Nicholson's speech from A Few Good Men in here actually). These men and women literally give up their lives and more often than not their sanity for their country, and for the first time I felt thankful for that.
