I chose “Iraq through the eyes of a soldier” by David Kerpash to evaluate for this assignment. I looked at many blogs some on the war some on raising step-children. I have found that many blogs are by invite only or you have to sign up for them. I think if you are going to put yourself out there then you need to do it all the way. My blog is going to be public and accessible.

David writes about a lot of the same problems I deal with every day. PTSD, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder hangs over me like an angry black cloud. He has a lot of the same symptoms as I do. We have many things in common about our lives outside of the military acquired disorders. We are both trying to cope with reintegration to civilian life, raising families, and generally living our lives.

You are always supposed to trust a brother in arms, so I take him at face value. What he writes seems real enough as far as the symptoms and coping go. It is not hard to fake PTSD and a lot of the symptoms can be from other disorders but, from what I have read his case seems genuine as far as I can tell. The only difference between us is that I got shot in the war but, we both witnessed and committed similar atrocities.

The writings in his blog are not for the casual reader. There are a lot of upsetting images in his writing. If you have never been on the front lines of urban combat you would not understand where he is coming from and probably think him a monster. The same holds true for me in what I intend to write about. I think we are both looking for support in what we have done and witnessed. I do not intend for my work to be read by casual readers most of the United States seems happy in their ignorance about what goes on in the real war and have no intention of digging into the minds of the actual shooters from this war.

Every one who has been there wants to forget about it so we act normal and smile at other people a lot and try to act like we have normal lives when all we want to really do is hide from the world because of who we truly are and what we have done. As cheery as we may seem, some of us who walk among you are killers or worse and have to live with that every day.

What I take away from his blog is I am not alone. There are others out there suffering with us at the edge of humanities fire. There is hope for coping with this affliction, to actually sleep at night, and to be an active member of society so long as we do not divulge the visions in or head.

I am looking forward to writing in a blog. At first I dreaded it and was about to drop the class but, after seeing his I think it will help me. On the advice of Professor Gries I do some writing for myself to help me cope with day to day things and a blog will let me get it out there.