sirloins

Keep your mind preoccupied. Read, get a portable DVD player (if you haven't already) and some haji movies. Anything to be able to escape. I studied German and watched a ton of bootleg movies. If you find that you're being tasked a lot, it's probably because you leadership has confidence in you. Unfortunately I myself chose the same soldiers for more missions than others. It's no secret that all soldiers are not created equal and some are just not up to the challenge.

Who does your food? KBR or a subcontractor? Our food was better when it was A-rats. After we got KBR (about two months before leaving), the quality of our DFAC dropped.

It may sound depressing, but being in the Army as long as I have been, I've trained myself to not think about the past. I had a little photo album of pictures of my nephew and that was about it. I didn't have a girl back home so I didn't have to worry if she was fucking somebody else, and the future, well, go nuts. It's all your fantasy anyway. Basically you have to bring your sense of time down to that of an animal's. You have to live in the present and only the present.

My time in Iraq wasn't so bad because, even though we got shot at and blown up all the time, in my mind I had forgotten what life was like before. In my mind, it had always been like now.

Develop some good friendships. There's no place for loners in combat and the friends you make there will always be like family. The soldiers I spent a year with in Iraq are closer to me than those I spent four years in high school with.

And once you realize how great and special they are, they'll be gone, and there will be nothing you can or will want to do about it.

Keep your fear to yourself. It's ok to be afraid, all of God's creatures feel fear at some point in their lives, but when you 're overly vocal about your fear, you're gonna lose the confidence of your buddies. I had one soldier who was just a straight up coward and nothing I said was helping him. Finally I just had to tell him, "The next time you feel like opening your mouth and telling everyone what a chickenshit you are, don't."

He stayed on guard duty almost the entire year despite being one of our best drivers because everyone lost confidence in him. He got interviewed by a magazine in Louisianna and told them how hard he had it. There were a few instances of people generating sympathy for themselves, but I guess that will always happen.

Probably none of this helped, but it's only a year. It will have seemed to go by quick (once you get to the end). Good luck!