Jundi

I sit here at my desk at 11:18pm, somewhere in Mississippi. I am still in uniform, as my duty day just ended. I have not showered in three days. My hands are covered in grit and grime from the past week's training and the oil and carbon from cleaning my weapon. I am by far the least exhausted of all the Soldiers in my unit. I am the Admin NCO, or pay clerk to use the old term.

Sixty percent of the Soldiers in my unit are on their second tour to Iraq. Nine of us are on our 3rd or 4th deployment since September 11th, 2001. Eighty-six wives and over 150 children wait for our safe return. We are carpenters, school teachers, corrections officers, cops, firemen, truck drivers, students, and factory workers. We are America.

In Iraq, they call us "Jundi"(joon-dee), which is arabic for Soldier. We may get painted as villains at times by CNN and the like, but the Iraqis knew that we were trying to help for the most part. We look forward to feeling like that again.

You see, when we were over there last time, we felt very powerful. Sure, we had a license to kill (when needed), but more importantly, we had the ability to make a change. We kept people safe in a very tangible way. We were defenders of the weak, and the poor, and the downtrodden. We fed children and secured schools. We got the damn water turned back on. We empowered the Iraqi people to vote, for the first time in generations.

We come home, and the ability to make a tangible positive change goes away. Everything gets bogged down by the machine. All things difficult are argued into the impossible, and America feels stale and sickly. Television is mindless distraction, work is monotonous and boring.

Some of us discovered that being a good husband and father is satisfying. Others just waited for the next opportunity to feel that power. You see, the ideology that made America great is still new to Iraqis. The war in Iraq is being won, slowly and surely. More and more the people of Iraq are seeing that they have the power. They need the Jundi less and less as time passes. Soon they will fight political battles in the halls of the capitol instead of on the streets of Baghdad.

Many of us are saddened as we watch this process. Where will we find the power to make a change now? Some will find a voice in politics. Some will become community organizers of some sort or another. A die-hard few of us will still be in boots for the next opportunity to make a change that can be seen and felt for the unfortunate and oppressed.

Do us a favor-Vote to make a change. Let us know that you understand and feel what it is that we represent. I promise you that once you make a difference it is nearly impossible to stop doing so.