Iraq Getting Closer to Home

Three days ago, I received an email from my friend Nate. Some of you Rm113 readers know him. He graduated from Fairfield High School a few years back. He led Young Life at Northwest High School for a couple years. He's a freaking physical specimen. He's smart. He's humble. He's a natural leader of people. He's also an Army Ranger. I won't even pretend to have a clue exactly what it is he does, but it involves leading/training a platoon of snipers. Don't mess with Nate!

(I've tried to imagine what the Army recruiter said to Nate... probably something along the lines of "Hi there, Nate, we in the U.S. Army would like you to join us... in fact, if you're willing to join us, we'll let you do pretty much whatever job you want to do, under one condition... whatever job you choose, you're going to be the boss of that job, Nate, cause you're pretty much the man." I'm pretty sure that's how it went.)

He and his squad are heading for Iraq in February. In the past couple years, I've met a few folks who have been in Iraq, but Nate's impending deployment makes this war feel alot closer to home. Nate's impending deployment also makes me feel safer here at home. If the military is filled with men who are merely a fraction as impressive as he is, then we are truly a blessed nation.

Being the tech-savvy kind of guy that I am (heavy sarcasm intended), I have set up a blogger site for him. He will periodically be sending updates from Iraq, and I will be posting them at gishow.blogspot.com. Very little, if anything at all, will be posted there before February, but the site and RSS feed are up. I'll let you know in a few months when the first update is posted.

We should be thankful that there are men like Nate serving in our armed forces. Nate could be "safely" living the American dream, making a nice income, living the "good" life. He has chosen, instead, to throw himself into harm's way. As the Thanksgiving season ends and the commercialism of Christmas kicks into full gear, remember guys like Nate who, in his own words, "stand in places decent folks dare not go, allowing us to sleep securely in our turkey-and-stuffing induced stupors".