Ken,

The proper title should be "Debbie Downer," but you know as much.

The beauty of SWJ is the collaboration of experience. After 4 tours, I can finally discard my notions of the Peace Dividend and Internet revolution bred into my childhood. Like Lemons and Gildroy, I deployed and redeployed, developed relationships, and fought the good fight in the hopes of making a difference, winning our nations wars, and creating a better world for my children.

Although I completed my mission, the ME did not change and evolve according to my timeline. As many of my brothers (and sisters) experience, this seeming apathy unerved me to no end. You and others have helped me realize that this is part of the process- the long, slow evolution of modernity that continues to ebb and flow.

Hindsight 20/20, pragmatism sets in.

The question now, given the circumstances, is:

What do we do about it?

I lost too many men and sacrificed too much to simply quit. Although, in the end, it is up to the Iraqis, how do we assist?

I'd submit that we face a wicked problem- one so complex, dynamic, and hostile that it cannot be defined nor tamed. We can only hope to cope with it. I focus my academic studies towards this issue.

As you addressed, EVERYONE (not shouting) has fought over this area throughout the history of mankind. Despite the lack of beachfront property, it remains the center of the world via religion, economics, or what have you.

Fareed Zakaria contends in The Post-American World that the ME has drug the US into the 13th century while the rest of the world evolves into the the 21st century ( as a wise old NCO use to say to me- "why should you never wrestle a pig in the mud? B/C the pig likes to get dirty!).

I'd submit that Fareed is wrong, and this fight will be the struggle of my generation.

v/r

Mike