so this is the first full day since i heard of my brother being deployed. i am calling it day 2 because it's the 2nd night i will sleep on this.
as i still make sense of what is happening i have realized that some of our (mine, family, & friends) uneasiness stems from our lack of control over war. granted war isn't necessarily controlled. i think that for our soldiers, their confidence in their skills, understanding of what and where they will be, confidence in their fellow soldiers, etc. gives them the strength to face fears that we the general public cannot imagine. we as americans have a hard time understanding the dynamics of the world around us. we hear of a car bomb in Israel and we fear for our college student on a trip to the holyland because we have very little concept of the dynamics (what and where) of this area of the world. i think of my friend "goose" who is a halliburton employee in kuwait and iraq. every-time i hear of contractors/civilians being taken hostage or attacked i wonder if it is him. i email him with a concern, uncertain if i'll receive a response. generally i get a response, oh i heard about that, but it's no where near me. i don't go anywhere without an armed convoy. i think back to our days as a firemen. people wondered how we could go into a burning building or smoke filled estate. i felt it was easy as we were trained to do act on and handle these things. it certainly didn't diminish levels of anxiety, but we handled it. so, the people who are in this war, i believe, have more confidence in what they are doing than we do, because we have a hard time understanding how prepared mentally, physically, spiritually they are.
this does not help me cope completely. i got pretty emotional today, i forget why... guess it doesn't matter. this is war and ultimate sacrifices are made daily. i rest assured that our armies are trained and equipped well enough that sacrifices made during WWI or WWII are a thing of history.
yesterday i said that i believed in what they were doing in Iraq & the war on terror. the tough part as i see it is these wars are the first pro-active thing our country has done in quite awhile. (tangent note: i have a strong philosophy that our country is reactive. we have large crime rates, so we build bigger prisons instead of ensuring proper prenatal care/parenting support etc... laws are labeled with peoples names because we never had foresight to make a positive law until something really bad happened that people took notice.. we're reactive) so i feel the war is a proactive move that will better the world landscape down the road, years down the road. it's hard for people to understand this though, because they understand a life of being reactive.