Terrorism here

I am finally in Iraq. For OPSEC reasons I will not disclose where I am, but suffice it to say, it is different than home. I have not yet had a lot of interaction with the people around me, but I have talked to a few, and it amazes me that indeed people remain people regardless of their surroundings.

If you talk to someone about their concerns, even to those that are here complaining to the United States about their problems, they don't complain about things like politics. Instead they are complaining about things like they don't have enough gas, or maybe their brother is missing and they think we might know where he is. All this talk about terrorism being inspired by our policies abroad are crap.

The people that we run into who are bad, are bad for totally other reasons. There is no real explanation for why people decide to do it, although I have touched upon personal pain as one possible cause. Terrorists, at least in this area, are just a bunch of criminals who are looking out for number one and think that they can get a little power over their poor brethren by using a gun.

Oh, and by the way, if there are any people out there who can't see the difference between me and them because I carry a gun too, here is a little perspective. I try every day to make the lives of those around me better. I never shoot unless there is someone trying to kill me or someone else. I want to improve even the lives of those people I don't know. This difference between me and them, is that I am trying to do the right thing.