Just a warning here... this is a rather intense post discussing some situations that some of the more tender-hearted of you (especially moms) may not want to read. Please .. if you don't want to hear some of the negative things that happen, don't read this because I am talking about life and death situations here and the fact that our Marines are at times required to kill insurgents.

Just wanted to pass on that Eric called me earlier today and he sounds great. Sometimes I wonder about him ... he said that he was having fun. Said he gets to sit in the hooch in the daytime and play xbox with his buddies and then go out at night and shoot a big gun and help blow things up, how much better can life get (his words!!). I guess if you have to be a Marine though that is the attitude to have. I did ask him about that firefight they had with the insurgents last week and he did confirm that he was involved in that. He even said that was awesome (arghhhhhh), but if anyone had gotten hurt he wouldn't have looked at it that way, but God was watching out for them [the Marines].

We talked about some things that have happened at home. One of the guys he was suppose to sign up with into the Marine Corps (and ended up going a year earlier because Eric took an extra year to actually graduate) was honorably discharge from the Marine Corps recently. He actually got out six months earlier than he was suppose to because of the fact that he couldn't bear the thought of going back to Iraq. Apparently he had taken it very hard when he actually had to kill an insurgent during a firefight his first time there (in 2004) and it had affected him deeply. His mother (who is a biker friend of mine) told me that after all ... she had raised him not to kill anybody (she actually said that!) and that was why it had affected him so deeply.

Now I truly don't think she understood what that meant to me when she said it. That was one of those touchy situations that could have become ugly if I had taken offense to what was said. Of course what immediately came to my mind was .. so does she think that those of us that have sons who can deal with the morality of survival better raised them to think it was okay to kill someone?!? Because I sure didn't raise my sweet, generous boy to think it was okay to kill. I did raise him to respect life in all its myraid forms. I also raised him to expect respect from others and to honor his own life and everyone else. But he never held a gun until he was in the Marine Corps. He has always been kind and loving to all people and I don't think that being an infantry Marine is going to change that. But I didn't say anything about her statement back to her because I knew that wasn't really what she meant and she was just trying to rationalize her own son's desire to not return to Iraq (I can't blame him at all, he served a hard year there). Sometimes it is just bettter to not take offense at something someone says because they are not thinking about how it could affect your perceptions, they are only thinking about how it affects THEM. Too bad more people don't realize this about each other. It would save a lot of heartache in some of the internet support groups I belong to! The written word can convey even worse impressions at times that can cause huge battles internally in some of these groups. We will have to get into that some other time though because that is a topic onto itself hehe.

Eric's take on what happens there [in Iraq] is this .. he stated that you have to take it all and put it in a little box in your brain and realize that it is you or them. If you are fighting for your life, you can't take the time to analyze if the other guy deserves to die or not, he (or she) is trying to kill YOU. Eric doesn't seem to have a problem with it when it comes to protecting his fellow Marines which actually is a very good thing because THEY cannot hesitate if they do face a life or death situation. I hope the ones that have his back have the same attitude because it WILL KEEP THEM ALIVE THROUGH THIS. It makes me wonder though, if some time in the future the things they HAVE to do will pile up and try to break out of that little box in their brain where they are being kept. The ideal thing will be if they can let this stuff go when they get home. Just empty out that little box in the great junkyard in the sky. Its what they need to do.

In any case .. his platoon seems to be doing their job and doing it happily. I hope I didn't offend anyone talking about some of these things. Eric has always shared with me and I am sure that he will share much more than I actually want to hear when he gets home!

Semper fidelis and God Bless you all.