The military... when I first joined I thought it would be the answer to the rest of my life. I would do great things, and I would get to be like my grandfather, everyone in my family would look to me as a hero of some sort. I definitely thought my first paycheck would have been nice too..
Not the case. It's ironic how when I joined the military, I thought it would give me some sort of freedom at the time, to do whatever I wanted. Now, I want to get out of the military because I miss the REAL freedom I actually had before I joined. I did learn a lot though.. I met some incredible people, but thats about it. When I was deployed, I always had to supervise Iraqi Local Nationals, and they didn't know what the hell was going on; I didn't know what the hell was going on, but we both needed the money, so we did whatever the hell it was that we were supposed to do. I treated them with respect, they treated me with respect, and we both left everlasting good impressions with each other.. thats what it's gonna take to end these wars. Both sides are so busy being trained to take a life, that we forget to make a friend or to save a life. Thats what I did. I smoked many Cubano cigars with those (Iraqi) guys, and those kind of cigars aren't illegal over there.
About KBR.. corporate interests are ALIVE and WELL over there, I promise you. I was on a mission with the boys one time, and we had to stand and guard OIL RIGS for weeks! Why did we have to do that? Because you have American contractors (like KBR), that are over there doing "whatever" it is they do, and YOU have to... *YOU GUESSED IT!* GUARD THEM!
The last thing you want to do is strike up a conversation with these guys, because if you do, you'll find out that... they make up to or MORE than $180,000 a year doing this, while you are defending them for less than $30,000 a year; the only thing that benefits troops on a deployment is the fact that your pay is TAX-FREE.. which means nothing compared to $180,000.
An example of Corporate Interests..