This is what I've been up to...
I watch a half moon rise behind the glittering lights of hostile cities below. I'm pulling guard again on a Stryker mortar vehicle on top of a mountain. Police vehicles with thier blue flashing lights dart around partolling the area. Smoke rises from my real Cuban cigar and fades away with the breeze. On top of this mountain I know a attack will probably never come but will try to be prepared with our small force. I take a deep breath of the thick smoke, as I scan the green surroundings through my night vision. Every now and then the radio crackles to life but isn't anything, always leaving me in silence. I watch as the countless stars dwindle as the moon takes over the sky, yet can still see shooting stars scar the sky every so often. I blow the smoke out as it too dwindles into nothing. I set down the night vision goggles and look to the sky. I notice that the milky way is still barely there. In the same country but many miles away I remember an interpreter approaching me during detainee guard. He told me that it is the "Holy Way To God Through The Sky". The prophets followed this path to a holy place. I remember wondering if I follow it perhaps I could be forgiven for the wrongs I've done through my life. This path is still fading as the moon climbs higher. I breathe more smoke in and exhale as I grab a loaded AK47 we found at a weapons cache at the begining of the tour, about the time the interpreter told me about the path. I set it a little closer to me, knowing that if I'm attacked I'll use this first. I lost my fear to pull the trigger when I was in a firefight, it was either me or them. I knock off the ashes that formed on my cigar and made the burning orange brighter filling my lungs with the smoke. I look to the sky again and blow smoke at it. As a child I felt so alone looking into the vastness, I felt so small, but its different now. I'm so far from home, home, a word that anymore means safty from this place. I know like it was on leave it will never be the same and only vets like me will understand this. The glittering lights of home will bring me back here despite any path of redemption or peace I might take. Tonight the path is over taken by the moon and I flick the cigar in to what is left of the cowering shadows. The radio comes to life with a human voice. I call in my hourly radio check and am left in silence.
I hope you all are doing well.
I watch a half moon rise behind the glittering lights of hostile cities below. I'm pulling guard again on a Stryker mortar vehicle on top of a mountain. Police vehicles with thier blue flashing lights dart around partolling the area. Smoke rises from my real Cuban cigar and fades away with the breeze. On top of this mountain I know a attack will probably never come but will try to be prepared with our small force. I take a deep breath of the thick smoke, as I scan the green surroundings through my night vision. Every now and then the radio crackles to life but isn't anything, always leaving me in silence. I watch as the countless stars dwindle as the moon takes over the sky, yet can still see shooting stars scar the sky every so often. I blow the smoke out as it too dwindles into nothing. I set down the night vision goggles and look to the sky. I notice that the milky way is still barely there. In the same country but many miles away I remember an interpreter approaching me during detainee guard. He told me that it is the "Holy Way To God Through The Sky". The prophets followed this path to a holy place. I remember wondering if I follow it perhaps I could be forgiven for the wrongs I've done through my life. This path is still fading as the moon climbs higher. I breathe more smoke in and exhale as I grab a loaded AK47 we found at a weapons cache at the begining of the tour, about the time the interpreter told me about the path. I set it a little closer to me, knowing that if I'm attacked I'll use this first. I lost my fear to pull the trigger when I was in a firefight, it was either me or them. I knock off the ashes that formed on my cigar and made the burning orange brighter filling my lungs with the smoke. I look to the sky again and blow smoke at it. As a child I felt so alone looking into the vastness, I felt so small, but its different now. I'm so far from home, home, a word that anymore means safty from this place. I know like it was on leave it will never be the same and only vets like me will understand this. The glittering lights of home will bring me back here despite any path of redemption or peace I might take. Tonight the path is over taken by the moon and I flick the cigar in to what is left of the cowering shadows. The radio comes to life with a human voice. I call in my hourly radio check and am left in silence.
I hope you all are doing well.
The IKSS you guys have was built by my last company and designed at the place I worked before that.