Paradise

Just another day here in paradise.  I think that that the days here just seem to mesh into one long day.  I was writing to a friend today, and I commented that sometimes I just feel like this is a big dream that I’m going to wake up from.  Then comes the 2am mortar alert, and I’m back in reality. No worries about that, that’s for sure.  It’s crazy because I can sleep through F15’s flying right overhead, but the second that alert goes off, bam! I’m wide awake.  Nothing like a big blasting siren telling you that there’s incoming to wake you up at 2am!  And people say that this is easy. Not quite. 

 

I went into the CSH (hospital) for the first time today.  I’m setting up a blood drive for the Battalion, and you have to pass 2 ICU’s and 2 wards on the way there.  Talk about another sobering experience.  Although, sometimes you can find the most beautiful things in a place with so much sadness.  As I was walking out of the hospital today I saw two small Iraqi children.  They were adorable.  There was a little girl with two pigtails in wearing jeans and a t-shirt.  She had beautiful green eyes, and when I looked at her she smiled and waved.  For a moment I was in shock, but I smiled really big and waved right back to her, and her brother.   Her mom picked her up and carried her out, and he mom smiled too.  It was like a moment of peace and humanism in world with body armor and M16s.  It was like I was taken out of the reality I’ve been living in, and transposed to the real world again.  It took me a few minutes to realize those were the first children I have seen since I left the U.S.  It really made me realize how calming and beautiful children can be.  It really made me thank God for them, and for that moment of peace.  God bless, everyone.