As you can tell from my user name I'm Irish decent. Because of this my entire family has been raised the old school way of stewardship. The words of Kennedy were a common thing to quote in my family.

If you have everything you need then you are required to give to others who can't.

I, being one of the first in my family to go to college and at the time, just recently pulling my head out of my ass. (Booze, Girls, drugs, fist fights, ect.) Felt I was required to serve my community or country in some sort of way. Ironically I was going to join the "peace core". I had even started the paperwork. The plan was to stop school and take time off. One of my teachers was going to use my trade skills as an electrician to help get me into the program (Being an electrician was also a family tradition and is how I was paying for school). El Salvador was most likely where I was going to go.

My fiancé at the time wasn't very thrilled with the idea but I was heading down that road.

Then some planes flew into buildings, and even though, there was no call to arms from Bush, (who I did not vote for and told us to shop) I had to get involved. It was my thinking that this happened because nothing was done to these people when the USS COLE was attacked. No-response equaled encouragement.

If you remember at the time, we didn't know if another attack was comming. The whole country was afraid and, in a war that affected citzens and not soldiers. I felt it was my duty to defend people from more attacks.

A year later I joined the Army. Which makes me not able to join the "Peace Core". 

I slowly realized that things were not going the way they should. The "patriot act" was signed, we started talking about going to war in Iraq. I always thought that the best way to fight these people was to put back the same exact buildings a year later, add a lock to the pilots door on commercial flights (which we did). These people wanted us to change how we are and we did then they would win.

So we did just that, we took away fundamental American Right's like privacy, search and seizure, and Habeas corpus. You know? The stuff I'm supposed to be fighting for.

Then Colin Powell held up some vials of bullshit on TV, and I was off to Iraq. I was training for it in 2004, the last news I watched before being put on lock down was Abu Ghraib. I thought, what the fuck were these morons doing?

My fiancé left my moronic ass.

At end of 2004 I arrivedin Iraq, and didn't leave until the end of 2005. While I was there luckily we didn't have much news, just "FOX NEWS" in the big chow tent. So maybe I only saw 5 minutes of news a day. I just focused on the mission and tried not to think about the why or how of this crap.

Then one day while eating I heard a rumbling of angry soliders. They started standing up and shouting, all eyes were on the big screen TV. I looked and saw black people swimming through a fucked up, water filled city. Armed American soldiers were walking down some streets, and blackhawk helicopters were flying around.

I asked a guy a couple of rows down who was shouting, "What country is that?" My heart sank when he said, "that's Louisiana" We had read about the hurricane in the stars and stripes, but It didn't seem like that big of deal, and that was a couple of days earlier. Days later people where still trapped in the Super Dome.

I also ignored that, I just blocked it out, didn't even think about it. Besides, I had farmers and shoeless people in mud huts throwing rockets, mortars, and IED's to think about.

By the end of the deployment I was starting to go a little nuts Luckily I finally got to go home. By the way, I didn't know this until years later but the death toll for our troops and Iraqi civilians was the highest the year I was there.

I get home, and everyone is thanking me and giving me atta'boys. One lady told me I secured a place in heaven. I didn't have the heart to tell her I don't believe in retarded shit. My fiancé was now some other guy's fiancé.

I watched the deployment's increse to 18 months. A time table started being talk about, and I had to listen to Chicken Hawk after Chicken Hawk, talk about how that would hurt my morale. I had to hear that I was unpatriotic because anyone who didn't believe in the Iraq war was unpatriotic, that of course came from people who never served in the Miltary.

Later as things seem to get worse over there, I had the other side of the coin, do all but call me baby killer to my face. I had a girl in California say that I was guilty of war crimes just because I served in Iraq.

After being promoted I left and went into the Reserves. I Still had inactive time left.

I took a year off working and traveled around the country. That was fun.

Now I'm living a more normal life, I'm back in school, and I got a good paying job and a girlfriend that puts up with me.

For the longest time I thought I came back mentally fine, but lately, some weird things have happened. While I was sleeping, there was a thunder storm, I woke up and ran outside because I was completely conviced that rockets were attacking my neighborhood. I felt like complete dog shit, when I saw the look on my girl's face. Little shit like that.

A couple of my closest buddies in Iraq have tried to kill themselves. Another was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.

Ironically I am studying psychology, so It's my plan to work at the VA after I get my PH'D. I'm taking a break from school currently because I'm tired of paying for school. So I'm waiting for the funding of Obama's new GI bill before I go back.

So in a way, I'm a better person than I was before I joined. I'm worldly, I know about myself because I was tested, I have seen how the poorest fuckers in the world live. I now know why I must participate in politics(Something I never realy gave a fuck about) I appreciate that little things in life more.

But as you can see, I paid one hell of a price. Make sure you know the price you are paying before you join.

I get the impression you might be joining for finacial reasons, If that's the case stop. Don't do it because you need a job, or money for school, or because you don't like the way things are going right now. If your going to become a soldier do it because you believe in serving our country. Do it because you care about the wars. Do it because you want to serve others.

To many bad soldiers are soldiers, because they are seeking some kind of personal gain. That's not the reason to go.

Here is the only test I can think of. Ask yourself if you would do it for free. Most wouldn't.

Whatever you do, I wish you the best of luck.