9/11 and some pics

It is a soldier, not the journalist, who guarantees freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the politician, who guarantees our democracy.

It is the soldier, not the diplomat that becomes a tangible expression of a nation's willingness to extend its values and its ideals worldwide.

And it is the soldier whose flag-draped coffin vividly demonstrates the ultimate cost of representing our beliefs in difficult and dangerous places.

History teaches that a society that does not value its warriors will be destroyed by a society that does.

Here's a picture of the boys' tent from my platoon in the field. I'm not saying our tent smelled like roses, but I almost passed out from the stench in theirs after taking this pic...

A picture from our combatives training. Combatives was part of FTX II, so we had to get up and wrestle in these pits from about 0500 - 0630 every morning. At least we always got to see the sun rise.....

This was one of the last days out in the field. I was talking with my platoon-mates when suddenly I realized how diverse all my friends were. So we decided to take a picture to submit to the Army brochure campaign to show how cultured we've all become with all our ethnic friends....We've yet to hear back from them....

(left to right: MarcoPaulo Benito- Italian, Ruby Arcieri- Korean, Marqus Berry- African American, Moi, Jose Capellan - Puerto Rican, Harris Abbasi- Pakistani)