Life In A Warzone

I've been in country for a few months now. I've refrained from writing about it here because frankly the term "Operational Security (OPSEC)" has been jammed down our throat so much that I wasn't sure what I could or couldn't say. I love writing, but I would prefer not to do it from a prison cell. I'm sure you understand.

With that said, I can't tell you about specifics of our operations, so I'll quickly summarize what daily life for me consists of:

I wake up, I eat chow, I work out, and on occasion --- We kill people.

That last part tends to get peoples attention when you bring it up in casual conversation.

"So Jordan, how was your day?" they ask.

"Oh you know, it's wing night at the chow hall. Oh, and I watched a terrorist's legs go flying out of his kitchen window after we blew him up... How was your day?" I say back.

Let me know if I'm getting too dark. I won't stop, but I'd like to know nonetheless. The military has a dark sense of humor, and we tend to revel in these kinds of things. I guess for some it's a coping thing, but for me I guess It's just a way to pass the time. What could I ever need to cope with? I haven't lost friends, or seen someone I care about get hurt. Ideally I never will. I hope that fifty years from now, when my grandchildren ask me about 'the war,' I'll have to lie and tell them how much of a badass I was. I hope I'll have to fake it. I hope that no one ever has to get hurt so that I can have a tear-jerking war story to tell.

That got heavy quick, didn't it? I sound like 'lone survivor' writing a book about the time my friends died. Remember, I'm just some guy. After all, I do manage to find the time to write and talk with you all here, so it can't be all that bad.

I think that writing here really has helped me, though. I remember setting all of this up on a whim, and posting a couple chapters of No One's Hero, hoping that maybe a few people would read along and enjoy it with me as I wrote it. I never expected to have such encouraging people find me and love it as much as I do.

If I didn't have that, don't get me wrong I would have been fine, but now that I've gotten a taste of what it feels like to be a proper author, I can never go back. You guys make me happy.

I hope the feeling is mutual.