My confession today would be my inmense concern in World Affairs and Crises of Authority going on. There is a huge Islamic Revival going on in the Middle East, and with that, many US interest hang on the line.
Back when I was 22 I graduated College, I got my AS in Business Administration but I realized I wanted something better and bigger. I joined University and then enrolled in International Relations BA, Well during my second year I joined the ROTC program of the US Army, which trains you to be a US officer uppon graduation. Well after graduating I got commisioned and inmediately after got deployed in Afghanistan. The things I saw were horrible and my mentality changed from Diplomacy and concerned with world affairs to a more militaristic one.
Everyday that a suicide attack happened I thought, that could have been me. The ISAF forces were advancing in many areas of Afghanistan and my commanding officers keep giving me letters to rally the morale of my troops. Being a Lt 2nd, I was in charge of commanding at times 40 men and others 60. Many of my soldiers were transfered to other companies, other suffered mental breakdowns and few others got hurt and were sent back home. I was inmerging myself more and more in to this military life and my sense of responsibility grew stronger, I had to take good care of my soldiers, make smart desicions and overall live like an army officer. We had to think what we were doing was in the best interest for our country and the country we were trying to liberate from what our comander Generals called "Terrorist government" of the Taliban.
Couple months during the surge, Afghan people were happy that we were there, the Afghan president indeed said that our prescense in the country was nescesary. Later on changing his opinion and saying we need to remove some boots from the ground.
While on deployment we used to read and hear about how some website was leaking documents and important secret information of our missions in Afghanistan , the downs of them in particularly, and other cables from Embassies and politics of the US from around the world. You only can imagine what you can feel going thru your veins when you are in a war zone and you hear someone or some organization is telling the world horrible things of what you are doing, which in my case and the case of most soldiers in the region we were deployed, was not true. we felt all we have fought for was in vain, in particularly because the General Petraeus letters to the ISAF were importantly noting that we wanted to achieve trust among the Afghan people to be able to be succesful, and this leaks were causing the opposite, and to be honest, I wanted to get the hell out of there.
while on my military training I realized that the commodity of life I had before signing that contract was a life of kings. I would eat Chipotle, go to school , watch TV, hang out with friends, play video games, hook up with the gf , and buy anime online. I felt horrible under pressure because that is what the army do, they break you down to re build you as a stronger person. In officer school which they give you classes and subjects to study either on campus or on military bases where training is held, you develop a complete militaristic leadership skills and your top priority is then your country , your soldiers and your family, everything else comes afterward. I would have been as mad as many of you if I would have not joined the Army as an officer, –perhaps many enlisted personnel dont really care, they are just trained physically and destroyed mentrally to obey orders, be patriotic and follow strictly the military hierarchy chain of command, but officer is something completely different,-- about the Assange and wikileaks situation.
My confession, even thought might be quite long, needed the story of how it became to be ,to be put in writing before I could be understood.
So I confess that I wish I could get along better with the people on here, and that people stop insulting just because our opinions are so different. I know many foreing countries hate the US for a great and diverse variety of reasons, but please do not take my comments and hate on me. simply try first to understand and dialogue. Insulting and diminishing someone elses opinion just because it doesn't appeal to you, is not the best way to go.
I also confess that due to the Crises of authority going on specially in the Middle East and my experience in Afghanistan. I am concerned deeply of being deployed again, specially to a country in turmoil. Being deployed is horrible, paticularly for people with education who could be doing something completely different like a desk job, Yes It was my choice, and I wanted to be the change and difference in the world, I thought by leading men in the Armed forces I was going to achieve a more "Rational and responsible" way of thinking among my men, however the US seems to just be getting in to more conflicts by the day. I would rather 100X go to Japan and help in the humanitarian effort. It is hard to go to another country and have military conflict and explain your men why we are there, if I dont understand the very reasons of the conflict other than Congress said so.