365 and a Wakeup

"In the days prior to leaving on R&R soldiers are required to watch
a series of videos that are meant to ease the transition to the "land
of cool water". To be honest I don’t remember to much of those videos,
they rest somewhere buried deep under the ocean of anticipation of
reuniting with my wife. But there was sagacious piece of advice in that
presentation that stayed with me… you can’t make up a year and a half
in two weeks." -Baghdad soldier blog, "365 and a wakeup"

I don’t think you should be able to discuss deploying troops to further
national foreign policy goals without understanding what they actually
go through every day.  One way to do that is to make friends and talk to your friends who have been deployed by the military.  If you don’t have any, you now have the option of reading their blogs.

"365 and a Wakeup" is one such blog.  Told from the first person perspective by a solider deployed in Iraq, it’s one of the many excellent blogs that describe the life of a deployed soldier in an area that we all seem compelled to comment on, but most of us haven’t taken the time to learn about.  I hope you’ll add it to your Bloglines.com account, or place it on your bookmarks for a daily surf.