4 Oct

Today was just what I needed. For the last couple of weeks I have been tired in the morning but after some coffee and getting involved in work I would be fairly alert for the rest of the day but these last couple of days I have been tired all day having a hard time focusing. We pretty much hit a stopping point on 170 yesterday so I decided to take today off. I slept for about 9 hours last night, got up, talked to Wendi, watched some baseball (I taped the first games of the playoffs), and went back to sleep for 3 hours. I managed to sleep through breakfast and lunch but it felt great. This evening I watched more baseball (Cubs lost), some of Planet Earth (a BBC series sent to me by Betsy), went to the coffee shop and read God’s Secretaries (about the writing of the King James Bible) and never though about work much at all (I think I am like Dad in the sense retirement is going to suit me just fine). Tomorrow I am flying on a mission to get away from maintenance for another day. Today is our 3 month mark which means our 1 year starts now – a little depressing so I try not to think about it much. If I was in a Marine unit I would be halfway through my deployment by now. I think the saying “all politics are local” applies to war as well. It would be hard to be against something that gets us out of here even if it may not be what’s best for the country. It comes down to our inherent human selfishness which is why neither communism nor pure democracy will ever work (and on another note it shows how amazing the sacrifice of Jesus was and is). People fought to come on this deployment not as a chance to serve their country (although they might have joined the military for that reason) but because they didn’t want to be left out or let their friends down. If it was my choice we would have been out of Iraq yesterday – another example of why civilian control of the military is a good idea :).

Cloudy H 102 L 76