Happy Thanksgiving!

November 25, 2009 - Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images Europe

A year ago to this day I was making my way off of the large cramped cargo plane and onto the hot tarmac of  Sather airbase in Baghdad. To be honest Thanksgiving didn't seem to be filled with much to be thankful for. I was 7000 miles away from my family and friends, I was now having to wear body armor and carry a weapon, I was anxious and unsure of what I would be doing, and to top it all off I had no idea if there would pie with dinner.

Everything there was unfamiliar and my nerves were on edge. From the airbase with the rest of my squad I loaded onto the armored buses that would take us to our new home. On that trip I wanted to take everything in, all the sights the sounds the smells, well not all of the smells, so naturally I fell asleep within minutes.
Unloading all of my gear and meager amount of personal possessions into the small metal container that would be my home for the remainder of my stay at the base, I just sat there on the bed taking it all in and asking myself, "Why the hell did I volunteer for this?"

That evening the dinning hall had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, and yes they did have pie, and yes I did have seconds. The next morning began my tour in Iraq and each day I came home I was thankful to the soldiers I served with, the family that supported me, the new friends I met, and the fact that I made it through another day.

Today soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are celebrating Thanksgiving, tomorrow the rest of us here in the States will. I hope that you will join me in being thankful to those who serve, to their families that sacrifice and to those who work in organizations like the UN and IOM who dedicate so much of their lives to bring stability in unstable regions.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving day, eat too much, and share wonderful laughter with those you love.

Ciao,
Clark

Fare Thee Well Baghdad

I began this journey over a year ago and very soon it will be coming to a close. It won't be too long before I'm back in the states living a very different life, one with more freedoms and more responsibilities. I find that changes of this kind deserve a moment of reflection.
So how did I come to this point? Well it has never been my intention to make this forum an outlet about my military service, but this particular entry may require a smidgen of that detail. As I've mentioned in my post About Me, I had a moment in my life when I wanted to push myself and I decided that service in the army National Guard was the way to do it. In my contract there is a clause that if I am in college I won't be deployed overseas but when this deployment to Iraq came along I waived my right to stay behind and volunteered to go. There were a few reasons I made that decision: I didn't join to watch others go in my place, I have had experiences in life that I hoped by going others might avoid, and I wanted some adventure.
The original mission that I volunteered for was being a gunner on a convoy security operation. I would be out there every day on the dangerous roads having great adventures that would give me so much to write about later in life. Well as so many things change in the army my mission was changed as well and I was stationed as security at one of the entrances to the United Nations in the international zone (the green zone).
As you might have guessed my adventure level dropped considerably, certainly there were a few times my heart raced but it lasted for only a moment, like if lightning was striking close by.
I was a little disheartened over the switch, but if you don't know by now I make my own life so it didn't bother me long and as in the immortal words of Jagger and Richards "You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes well you just might find you get what you need."
Working the gate for the United Nations opened up an entire new world for me; allowing me to meet great new friends and share in their stories of life. It also meant that when my shift was over I had enough time to create this website and write my first novel Loves Deception.
So I have to be honest with you and I can't speak for the rest of Iraq, but Baghdad is a city that I would enjoy returning to one day (when it is more peaceful). There is so much history in this city and a lot of wonderful places to see and it's exotic in a way that I have not experienced before in my American travels. I know that I have not fully explored here and leaving now seems premature.
So it is with a heavy heart that I say farewell to the good friends I have made at the IOM and the UN and also to the city that has given me shelter for this past year. I sincerely hope that our paths will cross again.
Ciao,

Clark