I miss camping.
My work schedule doesn't allow for it these days. I miss the smell of the woods, the sounds of the animals, birds in the trees and in flight, squirrels chittering and chasing each other, playing, the sound of a crackling campfire, the dog wandering around our campsite to keep it guarded...
It's a time of clearing out the soul and the mind for me. A time to leave behind schedules, rushing around to do things, customers, staff, equipment shortages, fuel reciepts, so forth and so on. Instead, the focus is on making sure that there is enough wood for the fire, setting up the tent, securing the gear so that it's water and critter proof, making sure the food stays either dry or cold, cooking over an open fire, cleaning up afterwards, fishing, hiking, reading by the light of a coal oil lamp in front of the campfire before turning in at night in a nice warm sleeping bag, listening to the wind blowing along the hillside through the trees and the crickets singing to each other.
I'm the misfit of my family, by the way. The rest of my family wants nothing to do with what I just described, and can't understand how that I get any enjoyment or relaxation from treking off into the woods alone, just the dog and me, for a weekend with nature.
They also couldn't understand my desire, and need, to join the army after graduating high school.
Today, they can't understand my line of thinking in regards to the world situation, especially in regards to the middle east. I look at it from the point of view of the veteran, and from the point of view of the historian and political scientist (my major and minor in college). I understand and can analyze the things that are going on there intellectually, drawing from my knowledge of the history of the region and my ability to research the region to know what significance the events of the day MEAN on both regional and global levels. I don't rely on the left wing media for my news. They've shown themselves too many times to be biased and willing to fabricate or slant things for their own ends and means. I DEFINITELY will NOT watch CNN after their continuation of offering the sniper video for download and video on demand.
That being said, this very day my mother and I had a little "debate" over the troops in Iraq, in which she made what I consider to be one of the most insane comments that I've ever heard in my life. I'm still trying to figure out this line of thought. Our debate centered around whether the troops should stay in Iraq or be brought home. My mother is all for bringing them home, the sooner the better. I, of course, am all for them staying in Iraq, Afghanistan, et al, until we have accomplished the mission of shutting down the terrorist organizations that we have gone after. I told her, we either fight them there, on their side of the water, or we come home and settle in to try to fight them here. Her reply? She said she was ready to go get a gun herself and learn how to use it to fight them here if it got our troops back from a war that Bush put us in knowing we couldn't win.
I'm still trying to make sense of that line of thinking. It speaks volumes, in my mind, of the mindset of liberals all over the country about this. Willing to fight them here at home themselves, which we really deep down know that they aren't even about to attempt to do if it came down to it. They don't have the training nor the inclination for combat. I know my family doesn't. I'd dare say the majority of the American people, excluding our veteran population and law enforcement, have any inclination of how to conduct combat operations on an individual, unit, or any other sized setting.
Our people don't go to training camps to learn how to fight. Members of terrorist organizations do.
In my mind, it just goes to further my thinking that if your only source of information about the outside world, the nation, politics, the war, is the nightly news, you're going to be brainwashed and lose the ability to think things through logically and to reason out and research the cause and effects of the events of the day.
And now we have this situation developing today, as I write this, at the Port of Miami with foreign nationals from the middle east...
I miss camping...............
Trackposted to Rightwing Guy, Perri Nelson's Website, Is It Just Me?, Mark My Words, Faultline USA, Don Surber, Pirate's Cove, Dumb Ox News, Mensa Barbie Welcomes You, and Conservative Cat, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Tracked back by:
Iranian Air Strike? from Rightwing Guy...
Why would Israel be that crazy? from Perri Nelson's Website...
Terrorists read Democrats like an open book from The HILL Chronicles...
Macho, Macho, Dems!? from Dumb Ox Daily News...
So you want to buy your leased car? from Planck's Constant...
Megalomaniacal Genocidal Tyrant..or um..Hero? from Woman Honor Thyself...
WMD murder plans caught on tape from Perri Nelson's Website...
Global Incident Map from Diary of the Mad Pigeon...
Kersplatt! from Mark My Words...
Stem Cell Source Found in Amniotic Fluid from Mensa Barbie Welcomes You...
Sanitation CapS..tres kewl from Woman Honor Thyself...
Al-Qaeda Dead from Right Truth...
Attitudes are changing from Right Truth...
Key front in war on terror, Somalia from Right Truth...
Damn it! We want to kill embryos! from Mark My Words...
Today's the day (and Open Trackbacks) from Right Truth...
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