Tasty Tuesday!!!!

In lieu of all the Blogger problems I decided since it's finally back up and running right that I would drop a beer review in time for Tasty Tuesday! 


Rogue
Chocolate Stout
American Stout
6%ABV  

Appearance - Deep Dark Brown with a Sticky Rocky head that is a nice Coffee color.  

Smell - Sweet Dark Chocolate and Roasted Malts.  It really smells like I'm sticking my entire head in to a 5 gallon bucket full of freshly ground 
dark chocolate!

Taste - Huge Dark Chocolate flavor on the front and mid-palette, Silky Smooth and absolutely fantastic!  I can taste the dryness of the Roasted 
Malts and Black Patent in the finish.

Mouthfeel - Smooth with a fairly Dry finish. The Roasted tastes remain in the back of my mouth almost like I've just finished a cup of coffee.

Overall - If you like chocolate (And who doesn't???!!!) then is the beer for you!  Chocolate really dominates, and at only 6% you can drink an entire
bomber of this fairly quickly and still keep your wits about you.  Wife have a sweet tooth?  Want to get her in to beer?  Give her this!!!

More thoughts on PTSD and Suicides

My normal disclaimer applies. This means if you are easily offended, don't appreciate the Semi-God like versatility of the word "fuck", can't stand the C-Bomb, or are offended by colorful uses of our language you probably need to stop now. If you feel you have a thick enough skin to survive my rants, please feel free to read on but don't say I didn't warn you.


Before going any further please read this article.
Court Blasts VA Mental Health Care System


All right people, stand by to receive a little bit of knowledge.


Throughout this I am going out on a limb and will convey a few my personal experiences for your understanding. PLEASE do not read too much into it, I'm fine. Most of you have a basic understanding of what PTSD is and some feel that many people shouldn't have it because they weren't exposed to as much. I used to feel the same way when I, for example, would see some Air Force kid who had only been exposed to a distant rocket blast in a clinic seeking help because he was having nightmares about it. I used to sit there and think to myself, "What a bitch, he hasn't seen shit..." etc, etc, etc. Then I had the distinct honor of speaking with my uncle who is a Vietnam vet. He basically told me to stop being such an asshole and keep in mind that what may not even remotely scare one person, could scare and traumatize someone else. I spent a lot of time thinking about that and have realized that he is absolutely right. So now that I have established the fact that different events instill trauma in different people let me give you a run down of how PTSD manifests itself in those who suffer from it.


There are three things that Doctor's generally look for in patients who may have PTSD. Re-experiencing, Avoidance, and Hyper-arousal. This is a simplification and a lot more goes into assessing each case but those are the three main categories that things fall into.


Re-experiencing is just that. What ever you may have experienced in combat plays over and over and over again in various way. Nightmares, flashbacks, reminders, etc. These times of re-experience can range from mildly annoying to out right shit your pants curl up in the fetal position and beg for mommy terrifying. Generally speaking they fucking SUCK more than a three dollar whore sucking a basketball through a straw. It's shitty and when it happens it is extremely difficult for a lot of people to get past the initial terror and calm back down. Imagine if every time you hear a loud crack around a construction site that your body goes into "fight or flight" mode. Then you have to try to calm yourself down and continue on with your normal day while people stare at you trying to figure out why your hands are shaking, you've started to sweat, your face is flushed, and your eyes won't stop darting around looking for the source of danger. A lot easier said then done. 


To shed some light on my personal problems with this I mainly have nightmares. Some worse than others, all pretty much some twisted manifestation of shit that happened over there. The nightmares vary intensity and sometimes just wake me up and other times I wake up mid flight from my bed to the floor. I've woken up in a panic trying to find my rifle. My heart racing so fast I thought I was going to have a heart attack. With the smell of dead burnt rotten flesh in my nostrils. Even with the sensation of getting blown up again. In Afghanistan we lost PFC Matthew Bertolino. He was killed in an accident which seems incredibly unfair because that shit could have happened anywhere. At any rate, he suffered from massive head trauma and lost a lot of blood in the back of the Hummer that they put him in to keep him safe while they waited for the Medevac helicopter to arrive. Unfortunately, it was an Army "Combat Lifesaver" that attended to him and when they returned the vehicle to the Motor Pool at the FOB, he didn't feel the need to clean anything up. I was extremely pissed off about this and there was no way in hell any of my Marines were going to clean up the equipment that was used to try to try and save Bert's life. So I did it. It was pitch black, I was using a red lens flash light, and set about my business. Once I had everything cleaned up and everything put into a poncho I wrapped it up nap sack style and walked into the fully lit mechanics bay. This was when I found out that what I thought was water used to wash off the wounds was in fact blood, and I was fucking covered in it. It wasn't pretty, and I went on an ass chewing rampage of biblical proportions on the Army side of the camp, but that's irrelevant. For months I would wake up with what felt like wet hands and when I looked at them all I could see was the blood of a young man who never had a chance to live. I still have that nightmare but not as frequently. I still see blood on my hands but not as much. It still haunts me over 5 years later. 


Avoidance is when people choose not be around or associate with anything that might remind them of their experiences. In the worst form people shut themselves out from life. They internalize everything. They become emotionally numb and no longer enjoy living. This my hoes and pimps, is by and far the worst thing someone can do if it goes too far. I think all of us avoid things to a certain extent. I no longer actively choose to be around fireworks. I've had people tell me to just get over it but that doesn't exactly work. In fact, it took every fiber of my soul not to dick punch the last person that told me that. I wanted to wring her fucking neck and turn her into a bloody pulp that I could wash down a storm drain so her pathetic existence would no longer offend the masses. But I digress.


To put a personal twist on this let me say that for the most part I had gotten sort of bad about this but was snapped out of it when my wife got sick. I more or less didn't have a choice because I had to care for my kids. I had gotten to the point where I avoided crowds whenever humanly possible. I didn't associate with very many people that hadn't experienced the same thing, and I had gotten emotionally numb to the point where I felt little or no love for anything or anyone in my life. I just didn't fucking give a rats ass. I shut people out. However, I still prodded on through life because I more or less had to earn a paycheck etc. I locked myself in a world that mainly consisted of work and school which required little emotional involvement. I didn't talk to people about shit because I felt that it was useless to do so. They wouldn't understand and frankly I didn't want anyone to know what I had seen or done, in many ways I still don't but I'm getting better at it. That's about as far as I'll go because frankly I'm not ready to divulge my demons to anyone yet cause I'm still trying to fuck those bastards up. This should at least give you an appreciation for what others may be going through. 


Finally we come to Hyper Arousal. Not the good bonerific kind either. This is when the body has a physiological reaction. Heart racing, sweating, fight or flight, shaking, paranoia, etc. Sometimes it happens because of a reminder, sometimes it just happens. For no apparent reason you just go on super alert status like you were patrolling a bad area or were driving down a road that is normally laden with IEDs. It's rough cause sometimes you feel it coming and sometimes it's like "BAM I just got hit with a lemon wrapped gold fucking brick." To say the least it can be really disconcerting and normally leads to the reaction of "I need to get the fuck away from here NOW." It can also make it exceptionally difficult to relax or get to sleep or stay asleep or enjoy much of anything. 


For me, it happens with reminders mostly I guess. Well that and my losing battle with the sleep monster. When I first got to the glorious area known as the Metro DC I had issues. Primarily because traffic sucks and people are inconsiderate littering fuckers. Now to explain this to you a little more let me tell you about training for recognizing IEDs in country. Basically they teach you to look for things like piles of rocks and trash. What they don't tell you is that in Afghanistan the National pass time is stacking fucking rocks and in Iraq they love to leave piles of trash FUCKING EVERYWHERE! So your first few months in either place your asshole puckers up every time you see a stack of rocks or a pile of trash. After a while you become kind of numb to it, until the day that something explodes and then shit gets real again. So back to what happened to me on occasion when I first got to the DMV (DC-Maryland-Virginia). I was driving down Interstate 66 which in essence is a 50 mile long parking lot, and I saw a pile of trash and boxes on the side of the road. No big deal right? WRONG. Somewhere in my brain housing group my mind instilled a fear and panic that it was going to explode and what made it worse was that I was in bumper to bumper not fucking moving traffic and had absofuckinglutely no where to go. I fucking panicked like a choir boy getting personal lessons from his priest. It was debilitating and I had no idea what to do. That in and of itself made matters worse. The thought that this shouldn't be happening here became my personal mantra and when I finally got passed the trash I managed to calm down a little bit but I was keyed up for the rest of the day and night. This doesn't happen to me that much anymore but every once and a while it will. I've learned to deal with it but it still sucks. Some guys never seem to get over it and it causes more and more re-experiencing issues which eventually leads to avoidance. It's a never ending cycle.


Eventually when things get bad enough you're by yourself and maybe, just maybe, the thought of ending it all doesn't seem like that bad of an idea. I mean you have guilt cause you made it. You have nightmares about those that didn't and the times where you got through by the skin of your ass. Your body is reacting in ways that send you over the edge and the only thing you can do is avoid it all but then it haunts you in your sleep. So what then? You try to get help from the VA and after weeks, maybe months, little help is received. You can't relate to anyone. No one truly understands how you feel. You don't have your friends around you who know what it's like to talk to. Alcohol and drugs numb it for a little while so you do that during your wait for help from the VA. Only to find out your claim is on hold or denied. Then what? What do you do? You're alone. Then one day...


People don't even know or understand what happened. You're parents stand over your coffin wondering what they could have done to help. No one understands. The pentagon refuses to add the statistics needed to wake up the politicians and the VA wants everyone to think they have it under control. It's fucking bullshit, it's wrong, it needs to be addressed. How many more have to take their own life before someone decides enough is enough. We hit what a thousand deaths in Iraq and people were freaking out and throwing a shit fit about getting the fuck out of there. Yet we have 1,000 suicide attempts every fucking month by those who are under VA care. What about the ones who haven't been able to get care yet? 


This shit pisses me off and it should piss you off too. If it doesn't, do me a favor and suck start a shotgun because that's what you fucking deserve.


By the way, before I go I want to say this. This rant isn't about me. Please don't turn it into something about me. The purpose of me telling a little bit of my story is to help all of you understand what many vets go through. So with that, I say again, I'm fine.


Read, share, pass on.


Via con queso,


The Senator

Breath of Life

            My lungs deflated almost instantly as the cool sweet air was sucked from them, as if I accidentally stepped into a vacuum. It felt as if my insides had been hurled against the front of my body like a child would throw silly putty against a wall; just to see if it would stick. The beating in my chest felt irregular like walking in a pair of shoes that have different sized soles. Then I was engulfed in heat, I felt the blood rush to the surface of my skin as the temperature around me increased so rapidly. My eyes closed as I saw the bright orange and white flash head towards me at astounding speed.

            Her golden curls framed an innocent face with sparkling eyes and a mischievous grin, as she looked over her shoulder to see if anyone was looking. I smiled as she pulled her little hand out of the candy drawer grasping a small bag of M&M’s. Her grin widened and she looked up to me through eyelashes that most women would kill for. I wondered, would I ever see that look of feigned innocence again.

            The fire that had surrounded me faded to warmth as sweat slid from underneath my Kevlar helmet. Smoke had replaced the flames and the acrid smell was only tolerable because the taste in my mouth was even worse. It was impossible to take a breath, I tried to suck the air in yet nothing happened. My heart raced; it felt as if there hadn’t been air in my lungs for an eternity. Then the air didn’t seem as important as my body was thrown into the hard three quarter inch armor of the tan Hummer I once stood next to. The impact was horrendous. The muscle surrounding my shoulder was strained as the bone attempted to rip through it as it collided with the impenetrable steel. It was as if I had upset a God sitting on Mt Olympia and my punishment was occupying the same space as a sheet of Pittsburgh’s finest. My head slammed the inside of my Kevlar as it hit the armor of the hummer; I heard the distinct crack of something breaking. Only I wasn’t sure if it was my skull or the Kevlar itself. My vision became unfocused either from the strike to the head or the lack of oxygen in my blood.

            I blinked the haze from my eyes as I looked down to her. Tears were streaming down her face, her cheeks glistened and her bottom lip quivered as she said, “Daddy, please don’t leave, I want you to stay home.” By some miracle I heard a steady voice say, “Baby, Daddy will be home safe and sound before you know it, I promise.” She wrapped her arms around my waist and as I leaned down to kiss her head I could smell the sweet strawberries in her dark brown hair. I hoped that I wouldn’t break that promise.

My lungs felt as if they would burst if I didn’t take a breath soon, I opened my mouth to suck the air in. Before I could inhale that soft touch of sanity, the sound came. The rumble was low and nauseating but it was the loud clap that shook every fiber of my being. It was that sound that forced me to close my mouth, grit my teeth and squeeze my eyes shut. As if by closing it all off the excruciating pain in my ears would somehow magically come to an end. A ringing reverberated through my head, back and forth from ear to ear. Then the ringing became a high pitched buzz as I felt a strong breeze filled with dust and sand scrape across my face. Once again I tried to breathe, I needed air desperately, but before I could completely open myself up to her sweet embrace my body once again slammed into something hard and unforgiving. White specks of light lingered in my peripheral vision as my organs bounced around inside me like a racquet ball. My mind felt numb and my body felt limp. The light around me faded out ever so slowly.

Her soft lips caressed mine and I could taste the salt from the tears she had shed. She whispered, “I love you.” My rifle felt cold in my hand as I turned to leave. I forgot to tell her that I love her. I had to make it home to tell her how much I love her.

Without warning the air flooded back into my lungs, the heat searing my mouth and throat. Yet I laughed, the pain sending shivers through every muscle in my body, but I laughed. Euphoria swam through my veins as that first breath filled my lungs. I could still breathe. I could still see innocence, keep a promise and express my love. I could still breathe.

Copyright by the Author 2007-2011. Reprinting is expressly prohibited without written permission of the author, Cory Will.

Thirsty Thursday is here!!!!

Okay so it's Thirsty Thursday which means it's time for our regularly scheduled Beer Review. Since blowing a hole in his roof with an negligent kegcharge he has sampled quite a few frothy brews while repairing said roof. Keeping that in mind I think he may have done it on purpose as an excuse to sample more beer without the wife catching on. At any rate before my speculations turn into a rant of their own, I present to you this weeks beer review!


Rogue
Juniper Pale Ale
American Pale Ale/Herb & Spice Beer
5.3%ABV

I tend to gravitate toward beers with unique ingredients, and something brewed with Juniper certainly fits the bill.  

Appearance - A soft pale yellow with a delicate bright white head with lacing that lasts quite a long time.

Smell - Sweet and remniscent of Honey & Lemon, with a nice piney background smell.  

Taste - Soft Sweet Honey & Floral notes to start, moving to a Piney Hop finish, I suspect lots of this is from the juniper as well.  

Mouthfeel - Slightly Syrupy & Pillowy with a sticky finish.  Very smooth & easy to drink.  

Overall - A very interesting and unique beer and certainly one of the better beers I've had with a unique adjunct.  It's very easy to drink, but suprisingly filling as well, very easy to overdo it!  I should buy this beer way more often than I do.  

The Wicked Witch is Dead; Long Live the Wicked Witch?

This post is written my a friend of mine who is a former Marine, combat vet, who also breaks the "ooh rah dumb dumb grunt" stereotype. I highly recommend reading this and passing it on. I have inserted a link to the author's website on his name. I have also included his e-mail and actual website address at the bottom of the page. This is an amazing parody and I am honored that I was given permission to pass it along. The writing speaks for itself so all I can really say is he is among the few of us standing around saying, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."


The Wicked Witch is Dead; Long Live the Wicked Witch?
BY: D James Davis

Before I even begin, let’s get one thing perfectly clear.  I feel genuinely relieved that the Wicked Witch is dead.  I feel happiness and joy at the fact that she’ll never again terrorize Munchkin Land.  We should all feel that way. 

What troubles me is the reaction to her death.  Where are we as a nation, and a people?  What does it say about us when we react to the loss of a life, even that of an enemy, with joy and laughter?  

Within minutes of the Mayor of Munchkinland’s announcement, the streets were flooded with people singing, dancing, and celebrating.  Choruses of “Ding!  Dong!  The Witch is Dead!” echoed all up and down the Yellow Brick Road.

Watching it all happen, I felt a palpable sense of unease.  Munchkin Land is the greatest Land in all of Oz.  I was raised to believe that.  And even as a cynical adult, part of my tiny Munchkin heart still believes it.  To see my people behave like this upset me.  We’re Munckins.  We believe in fairness, lollipops and lullabies for all.  Since when do we behave like a lynch mob?

A life was lost that day.  Yes, it was the life of a hateful, evil woman who spread death and terror among the innocent.  But it was a life nonetheless.  And loss of life is never a cause for happiness.

Many people defend their actions that day by saying that the Wicked Witch’s death will actually save lives.  And while this is undoubtedly true, it ignores the bigger picture.  Someone will take her place, experts say.  The most likely candidate is her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West.  And the result will actually be more conflict, not less.  

“We fully expect the Witch of the West to retaliate,” said a spokesperson for the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.  “The Emerald City is at Terror Alert Blue.  And that’s a Terror Alert of a Different Color.”  

There is a long, hard road ahead of us.  We still need to watch the skies for flying monkeys.  We still live in the shadow of a Wicked Witch.  And only time will tell if this one is as bad as her sister was.

Yet we will have to walk that road as a changed nation.  We lost something profound the morning that the Wicked Witch of the East died.  An occasion that should have been met with somber reflection was instead met with songs and laughter.

I don’t know what changed us.  I only hope that we still have the strength to endure as a nation under the reign of the new Wicked Witch.

You can e-mail the author at d_james_davis@yahoo.com

You can visit the authors website here http://www.djamesdavis.com/DJamesDavis/Home.html

Tasty Tuesday!!!! This weeks first Beer Review!!!!

So last Thursday our Brewmaster had a problem of epic proportions! Apparently in his quest to create the perfect brew of frothy goodness he put a little too much of some magical secret ingredient which made the keg explode into a froth works display of heaven. Unfortunately, this great display of beer showers involved the keg flying straight through his roof. So while the rest of us were enjoying our thirsty Thursday last week our Brewmaster was repairing his home that was damaged by his sole dedication to brewing the perfect brew.  So he decided to bestow on us a review for Tasty Tuesday!!!


Goose Island
Sofie
Belgian Style Ale (2010)
6.4%ABV

I thought it appropriate to review a Goose Island beer before their recent buyout from AB/Inbev changes things too much.  This is a Belgian Style Saison
That is blended with another Barrel Aged Saison brewed with Orange Peel.  

Appearance - A bright golden yellow that is completely clear with a three finger bright white head that lasts and laces throughout the glass.

Smell - Orange/Lemon Zest with a hint of freshly cut grass & just a slight Peppery bite.  

Taste - Light and Sweet with tons of Citrusy notes moving to Pear and Apple in the finish.  A veritable tornado of summer fruit!

Mouthfeel - Slight lingering sweetness and light body with just the perfect amount of carbonation to compliment this beer.

Overall - A wonderfully complex beer, perfect for a hot summer day, here's hoping that AB/Inbev doesn't change it!  Cheers!

High-fiving the Fat Kid…

As with any of my blog posts my normal disclaimer applies. I feel the need to reiterate the fact that you are reading this at your own risk and it does have the potential to upset those who are easily offended or don’t appreciate the more colorful aspects of our language. With that being said the beauty of the innerwebz is that you don’t have to read what is on your computer screen you can hit the back button or simply close the window that this is in. I also need to add that any e-mails that the author receives complaining about any perceived offensive material within this blog are subject to being posted in a future blog for all of us to point and laugh at. I also pledge to include your e-mail address and name because you have wasted my time and have tempted the asshole side of my personality. You have been warned.

Now, on to today’s subject matter. As many of you know I’m a fairly healthy and athletic person. Although my passionate love of trying various beers and smoking isn’t the best thing in the world but other than those two factors I’m doing pretty well for myself. I enjoy working out because of the euphoric benefit called endorphins. Endorphins make me happy. I truly enjoy running because it involves me, music, and the feeling of my feet propelling me along my chosen path without the monotony of the gym and people trying to show off. For anyone who has not worked out with me I have a tendency to get fairly psychotic when I conduct physical training (PT). Not in a sense that I want to go and kill people or anything, although sometimes I wouldn’t mind, but in a sense that I sing obnoxiously along with my music, run up various stairs that are along my path, jump over benches and small walls for no other reason than it seems like fun at the time, and I toss up the occasional high five to other runners. I honestly have no idea why I get like this, I just do. Unfortunately, every once and a while my solitary gallatramping gets interrupted by human manifestations of the retard fairy. Today was one of those unfortunate days.

As I cruised down the National Mall I was forced to stop at a light because I didn’t feel like becoming a speed bump. I pause my iPod when I stop because I have a high speed low drag app that tells me my progress and letting it run while stopped just fucks up all my shit. This time I stopped right next to a group of snot nosed preppy suit clad fuck-tards (which are tards of the worst kind) who were pointing across the way along the next stretch of the mall at a guy that was slowly jogging along. This guy had to be pushing 300 lbs and really wasn’t much taller than me. For your understanding of this I stand a towering 5’5” and weigh in at a husky 140 lbs. So this guy couldn’t have been more than 5’7” in height and had to be roughly 4 ft wide. The amount of jokes that came flooding through my demented mind was extraordinary. Alas they slipped away as I realized that my tubby fellow runner clearly saw the group of fuck-tards pointing and laughing. He kept a stern look of determination as he slowly plodded forward but you could see that this was not the type of encouragement that this individual needed. Almost immediately I clicked off safe and my anger rose to epic proportions. I looked at the group of fuck-tards in their suits, most of which had some semblance of an oncoming gut, all of which held a better than thou attitude and I clearly told them to shut the fuck up. At this point two other runners had joined us at the light and both nodded in agreement. When the apparent self-proclaimed leader of the fuck-tards went to speak I told him to “Shut his cock holster” because at least the guy was attempting some physical improvement. I then went on to explain that our larger friend could in fact lose the weight but being a giant douche bag is lifelong affliction. He stood their speechless as the light changed and I took off like a bat out of hell. As I approached my larger than life runner I simply raised my hand and high fived him and yelled keep it up! The two other runners followed suit and did the same. As I peered over my shoulder I saw a smile on his red face as he plodded through the now silent crowd of fucktarded douche bags.

Yes I know some of you are sitting there thinking that I have lost my fucking mind and I am losing asshole cred. Well let me explain something. I like the fact that he was at least trying to better himself. There are too many people out there that are grossly overweight and don’t do shit except absorb every ounce of fat within arm’s reach. So at least this guy made a conscious choice to get out of bed that morning and start exercising. Unlike the woman in my office who makes the chair creak under the stress of her donut raping ass while she downs a half dozen donuts every morning, eats the Chinese buffet at lunch, and then sucks down an $11 dollar 750 calorie drink from Starfucks every afternoon bitching because she can’t seem to lose weight. She my friends is what I define as a donut raping turd. 

Before I go I wanted to give everyone the secret to weight loss. Although certain medical conditions may inhibit this so make sure to check with your doc so your heart doesn’t explode or some shit. The divine secret to dropping pounds is this; figure out your daily average caloric burn and then eat few calories than whatever your burn is. If you throw exercise into that you’ll lose even more weight, but honestly it’s as simple as that. Google a calorie counter figure out your average burn and if it’s 2000 calories a day, just eat a few hundred calories less. Even without exercise you’ll start to lose a little weight. Throw exercise in the mix and your metabolism begins to work better and you burn even more. This isn’t rocket science I promise. Listen I’m not making fun of anyone who is overweight but if you are one of those that want to drop some pounds just do something. Our society has one of highest, if not the highest, obesity rates in the world but you don’t have to be a part of that. It’s up to you. I will say this, if you don’t worry about your weight, don’t fuck with the people that are trying to improve themselves, at least their doing something about it.

As for me, I’m gonna keep on running for my sanity and high five every fat kid I see just to give them a little encouragement and if you’re out there I think you should too. As much as I can’t stand a lot of people I truly think that our world would be a much better place if people weren’t complete douchebags and assholes all the time. We all have the right to do it on occasion when presented with the many forms of the retard fairly but for the most part there’s no need to be that guy or girl all the time. There is no proof that any of us are any better than anyone else. The sooner everyone jumps on board with that program the better off we’ll all be.

Yeah I know, SO not what you were expecting.

Via con Queso

Your friendly neighborhood baby killer,

The Senator

Where to from here...

As per usual my normal disclaimer applies.

Today I am still a little beside myself. After 10 years of trying we finally killed Osama bin Laden. Although after all this time there is a sense of relief and vindication. Many of us feel like we are on top of the world but this victory is exceptionally bitter sweet. The thousands of people who have died because of what that man started is still unfathomable. The events of 9/11 knew no religious boundary or nationality. I still clearly remember standing on the deck of the Harpers Ferry as we were given the news of what was happening in NYC and DC. There was a young Marine standing next to me who had turned ash white because both of his parents worked in the World Trade Center and his baby sister went to daycare on the same floor that his mother worked. He lost his entire immediate family in an instant. Now I sit and wonder how he feels right now. For me, I went on an emotional roller coaster because I know so many people that have been killed because of this man. So many people that died in an effort to find and kill him. So many people that gave their life to save a brother-in-arms. Just so fucking many.

Now there is also the question of what is going to happen next. Al Qaeda is set up to operate independent of any higher level leadership. The killing of Osama bin Laden is more of a moral victory than anything else. They may have problems at first but they will persevere and continue to make an effort to kill those that they view are less than human because of their beliefs. It's frustrating but unfortunately that's the way it is.

Some of you are probably sitting there like "what the fuck man" but there is a reason I bring this up. The war is not over. We still have a mission to complete and we still have people going into harms way. I'm sure that those still in Al Qaeda want nothing more than to strike us on our soil again as a giant "Fuck You, We're Still Here." So we have to continue to fight and not completely lose sight of what we are actually fighting for. Osama, much like Saddam, is not the end state. I'm not sure if we will ever truly achieve a world without terrorism. As long as there is a weaker group they will fight by any means they see possible which in many instances is terrorism or insurgency or any number of things.

So in the end I leave you with this. Enjoy this victory, it's a big one, but always remember that it isn't over yet. We still have to stand guard against a group of people that hate us because of the way we live our lives and because of our beliefs. We still need to support our troops, we still need to be vigilant, and we still need to stand up for what we believe in.

Via con queso,

The Senator