11 Months in Iraq. A year and change to go?

I've been deployed 11 months now. That's 11 months of walking a mile to work. 11 months of the tiny shoebox of a room. 11 months of putting up with hearing the news tell everyone how awful things are here. I'm sick of it... and I'm ready for another year (with a vacation home first!!!). The biggest disappointment is feeling betrayed by the American people, but you can read about that anywhere. You'll be experiencing your own betrayal over the next 4 to 8 years... no, for now, I want to set the record straight.
I don't write here much anymore because I've been busy. 12 hour days makes you not want to sit down in front of the computer to relive some of the BS, but some things need said.
11 months ago, I wondered what I was getting myself into. We were getting mortared countless times a night- I've had them land a block away. Talk about an earth-shaking event.... Well, after the surge, that pretty much tapered off. I still walk to work and hear some machine gun fire off in the distance, and there are still the occasional booms, but things have been getting MUCH better, and it's nowhere near as bad as it was! I get told the same thing first-hand from all over Iraq from people who have been here multiple times, or spent a few years here! Yes, bad things still happen in a war-zone, but if we leave prematurely, things will fall apart and get much worse.
We are here to help build a secure and stable country. It's not something that can happen overnight, or even in a few years, and it's not something cheaply bought either- especially with a patient and determined religious insurgency. Who was elected changes nothing- a timetable is STILL A BAD IDEA! It is handing the enemy the plan, and giving them more power by allowing them to claim victory. Every time someone in America proposes our retreat, they cheer- because to them, for so few to overpower the resolve of, and drive off the greatest nation- that fuels their religious ferver and drives up their recruiting!

Most people don't care though, they would rather spit on the sacrifices of those who would lay down their lives for their freedom. No??? They did that at the polls. Why? They were told to. They were sheep for the media. Never doing their own research, or looking deeper than what looked and felt good. "Hope" and "Change" are such pretty words... Well, I HOPE the sheep CHANGE into sheepdogs before too long, or the freedoms they took for granted will vanish as they have done every moment in history when something similar occured when the wolf was cheerfully given free reign.
The price of proclaiming defeat in Iraq is great, but the price of defeat we pay at home in America will be greater if all is lost.
Benjamin Franklin said we had a republic if we could keep it... Can we? I pray so. Time will tell.
I hope I will be granted the opportunity to continue to contribute to the mission here, because I know I am part of something meaningful, and though my absentee vote did not count, being here counts for something- I've seen the faces of smiling children- boys and girls who will hopefully get to grow up knowing the same freedoms you and I did. The people here lived under tyrants for so long... I hope that with their newfound freedom they will not take it for granted like so many American people have come to do... but they must be given a chance. We will leave when they are ready to stand on their own, but that means more sharing, training, time, and patience.

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The elect recently stated he would overturn President Bush's decision on embryonic stem cell research. People cheered. Are they in that much of a hurry to kill babies for research? There are OTHER SOURCES OF STEM CELLS! Does the media tell you this? No. Do your own digging... The elect wants to put in an express lane at the abortion clinics, so perfectly healthy late-term babies can be killed- some even at the stage where they would survive outside the mother's womb with a little help! All babies need help to survive! How sick and LOST can you be to choose someone like that to lead you? Yet I'VE been called a baby-killer (for wearing a uniform) before...

I have a feeling I will have plenty to rant about in the coming months and years...