today i found one of the best things i've found on the internet in a long time. a prize gem for a girl like me. it's the blog of a Soldier deployed to iraq who likes to call himself the last of the liberal soldier. it was incredibly slow today at work, and i somehow stumbled across his page in the midst of fumbling around through various news stories and photos. http://halfjack.typepad.com/halfjackcom/ i would HIGHLY highly recommend checking it out if you have any small interest whatsoever in politics, the war, our peers, soldiers, the army, the media, shit, just life in general. i absolutely love regular people who have a great talent for writing about the life that is so regular for them and so alien to most of us. Bart is most definitely at the top of that category of people, though he has neglected his blog quite a bit more on his afghanistan deployment than his time spent in iraq. if he was actually able to blog in afghanistan, the reasons why he can't now would show through. anyway, this guy is also a very talented amateur photographer with a real knack for manipulating his photos to show what he was really trying to capture when he took them. the link to his flickr photo page is on the blog. i also suggest checking that out. i have a strange feeling that spencer batchelder is going to become one of the many iraq war bloggers who publishes a book a little later.

and following in the footsteps of the cold, slow, sad feeling i get from reading about soldiers in combat, i received Bart's battallion's newsletter today. i ball my eyes out every single time i read it. every time, never fails. i am so incredibly proud of all of their accomplishments...these men are absolutely extraordinary in every way. put whatever bitter feelings aside about the politics and whatever else surrounding these wars...these men are risking their lives every second of the day for a year to truly help a country get onto its feet and to ultimately try their hardest to protect our own country and the rest of the west from any further distruction. yes they may have signed on the dotted line, but they believe in their cause and they're fighting for all the right reasons. it blows my mind every time i think about it. which is probably why it brings tears to my eyes. they're tears of pride and joy for the love of my life, tears of sadness for those we have lost, tears of anger at the fact these young men with families and babies and friends and mothers and fathers have to go through hell, tears of excitement and happiness at the thought they are almost ready to come home...among many other mixed emotions. i can say with confidence that i have learned and grown a lot this year because of Bart and his deployment and all the various things that go along with it. i will forever be a better, smarter, and stronger person because of it. and i never want to go through it again.