When a soldier comes home...

When a soldier comes home, he finds it hard....

...to listen to his son whine about being bored.

....to keep a straight face when people complain about potholes. to be tolerant of people who complain about the hassle of getting ready for work.

...to be understanding when a co-worker complains about a bad night's sleep.

...to control his panic when his wife tells him he needs to drive slower.

..to be compassionate when a businessman expresses a fear of flying.

....to keep from laughing when anxious parents say they're afraid to send their kids off to summer camp.

....to keep from ridiculing someone who complains about hot weather.

.....to be civil to people who complain about their jobs.

....to remain calm when his daughter complains about having to walk the dog.

.....to just walk away when someone says they only get two weeks of vacation a year.

....to be forgiving when someone says how hard it is to have a new baby in the house.

The only thing harder than being a Soldier.. Is loving one.

Combat Actoin Badge

My trip to COP (Combat Outpost) Wilderness... It's way up high in the mountains. Too mountainous to have guard towers like the rest of the COPs have. They have little observation posts on the tops of the surrounding mountains. While I was there, we received a mortar attack, and a mortar landed right outside the entrance to the COP. I was safe because the room I was in is a bunker. But it was close enough to get me my combat actoin badge! That's exciting. It was also the first time our own artillery shot AT the enemy instead of illumination rounds or shooting just to scare them. It was pretty fun. Other than that it was a pretty boring trip.

No one on our side got hurt. However, at the same time they were
shooting at the COP, they were shooting at a district center, which is
basically like a town hall. They killed one innocent bystander out
there and injured one other. We don't know if we killed any of the
bad guys, because the Ranger unit did the recon to find out, and they
don't report to us. They do their own thing.

-Ben