[Masterful1]

Ok... Last time I post in this thread, and not in response to specific things said here.  I am not going to waste time arguing with those who have not been there, seen it, lived it, EXPERIENCED it...  Most of the responses sound like a college students opion paper carrying over into this medium.  If you didn't have what it takes to serve, in my honest opinion, you don't get to tell me what MY service meant to me.  I was a grunt, pure and simple.  I wasn't involved in the politics of the greater arena.  I was an enlisted infantry soldier, period.  I followed orders.  I helped when I could.  I killed when I HAD to.  I showed compassion whenever the opportunity presented itself.  And I met some of the truly nicest people that I have EVER met in my life over there.  TRUE Islam is about compassion and understanding, not judgement, Jihad, or hate.  Extremists take their agendas and fool a mostly undeducated population into doing their dirty work and sacrificing themselves.  I have SEEN it.  What have you done, other than watch some videos, look at some pictures, and read a few articles?  I did what you were either unable or unwilling to do.  I CHOOSE to view what I did positively because I tried to make a difference to those people.  I helped deliver medical supplies to hospitals, visit children in schools and help with English or LEARN Arabic from them, tend wounded civilians caught in the blast of the bombs of THEIR OWN people, console the families of the ones lost, sharing their tears and wishing that I could undo it.  You have NO FUCKING IDEA what is like because you pass judgement from afar without having done it and ASSUME that what I did there was some unholy, evil series of acts, all conspired to a grand evil design.  If you wish to view the whole scheme of the politics there, and blame every single soldier that is a part of it, then you CHOOSE to view these things in a negative way.  I tried to help when I could.  But, when I had to, I caused death to those trying to harm me or my fellow soldiers, and even when they tried to harm any innocent in their path.  I'm here, they aren't.  It was my life or theirs.  I'm still here talking.  And if you think that doesn't affect me and my family in its own way, your ignorance still shows.  Fuck each and every one of you that thinks I am evil because I was a part of the conflict.  I know better, and it saddens me that people still have no idea what they say and how it affects veterans like myself.    ~ Sgt. Cook  B Co 2/3 Inf, 3rd SBCT, 2nd ID