leonidas50's Blog

What do ya'll think about this guy?

   It’s quite funny how subtly we change over time, and we do not realize that a change is even occurring. Then one day out of nowhere, we look at ourselves in a mirror and we realize with a sudden and overwhelming moment of clarity, that we have changed dramatically since we last remembered ourselves. Once timid, yet sure of what we believed in. Now brazen, and our beliefs hang on by a mere thread. No longer clutching those beliefs for the comfort they once provided, but questioning them and dissecting them at every turn. No longer the blind follower… having lived life and experienced its trials and tribulations. Seeing your friends disappear, the life ebb out of their eyes. Seeing men you once looked too, strived to emulate, seeing those men who so desired and deserved to continue living fall to the efforts of evil and lesser men… Having experienced those losses and the ensuing vengeance, we are no longer the innocent idealist we so wish we could be again. We are bloodied and battle worn by the world that we wish was in a much better condition. We are human; we are not infallible, nor bulletproof, no longer young and pure of heart, but skeptical and aged far more than natural. We will never get the moment we were so hoping for, that moment of good versus pure evil, that battle between light and dark, for the world has lost all its color and there is grey in everything we behold. It’s funny how we change…
    I used to believe. I used to believe in god. I used to believe in my government. I used to not ask questions about those things, for I believed them to be constants. Like, the laws of physics, however, they were only the laws of a child’s mind. At 21 harvests of age, I sit here tonight on my bed in a forward operating base near the city of Fallujah, Iraq. A city that holds a heavy history in its indigenous culture, and now in mine, soaked in the blood of warriors fighting for their beliefs. It is a history I do wish I could have been a part of. A history that now holds the names of 14 of my good friends. Tonight I contemplate their sacrifices and the sacrifices of millions of others from my country. I find myself asking questions that before I never would have considered, only accepted as being in some way already answered satisfactorily. Now I do not take things for granted so easily. Millions have died for the flag that flutters with a strange but perceptible strength and grace above a land that our ancestors all but stole from those less…acceptable to society than themselves. I did not look at the stewards of our young nation with disgust and anger before. Now I find it hard not to.  However I still love the idea of my nation. It is with a sinking heart and a slow and painful acceptance that I realize that the idea of America and its reality are two very dissimilar and far-off concepts.
    I see a nation that is overwhelmingly spoiled, self absorbed and selfish to an extent that is decimating to the ideals she once stood for. I see a government that works to distract and ensnare its people with fear and hopelessness. I used to lash out at those who spoke of such things. I viewed them as crackpots, and ignorant individuals who just needed something to distract themselves from their own lives. Now I have become that person, that crackpot. The man who needs that distraction because his life is flailing for something to make it worthwhile, however, I am not that man. I have a beautiful wife that must have been drugged when she agreed to marry one of my decidedly unworldly composition, and a fledgling marriage that despite its growing pains has overcome insurmountable odds and is thriving as we refuse to let anything rend us from each other. I am that man who has sought to put everything on the line for his country in order for its continuation and success. Now I look at the things going on, I see my brethren maimed and in pain, and they are not cared for by the people who said their commitment to those who secured our nations interests would be met with the same fervor that those warriors pursued their nation’s enemies with. I can’t help but feel betrayed by the very people who profess to represent me. When did our government transition from “For the People” to the ever more blatant “For the Dollar”?
  I pondered that question and I was continuously confounded and stymied in my pursuit of an answer. After an inordinate amount of deliberation and reflection, I realized that like the concept of Communism, however good our government looks on paper and in theory… much like the concept of America, it is inherently flawed not by some aspect of the theory itself. The human aspect of the equation is where the defect lies. No matter what expectations we hold onto for our elected officials, they seem to continuously, as of late, let us down in some way or another. False promises that they handed out and rode the wave of appreciation to victory in elections, which seem to be decided by the dollar more than the values of the individual themselves…
   Our forefathers said that when our government should fail us, then it was time to make a new one. One can surmise that they were insinuating the people should rise and seek change through a revolution, especially when one considers the time they lived in. I don’t think it’s in the spirit of the American people to put themselves out there in such a manner anymore. Not in this day and age anyhow. The American spirit we see today…is a ghost of its former self, mundane, lame, and extremely repressed. It seems to my young, yet weathered eye that the American Spirit is just that, a spirit of a drive, a determination, a zeal for life that once existed in the hearts of men. As time has passed, that drive, determination, and zeal has passed, no longer the abstracts that drove men to unrivaled acts of courage and the defense of long forgotten ideals…but merely a spirit.