What does it all mean?

I can remember watching the web series Red vs. Blue for the first time sometime in early 2005. The first episodes opens with two red team soldiers Simmons asking Grif "you ever wonder why we're here?" Grif goes on to misinterpret this as a question as to the meaning of life meanwhile all Simmons is wondering why command would place a squad in a box canyon with no strategic importance, other than the fact that the Blue team has a base in the same canyon, meanwhile Blue team only has a base in said canyon because Red team has a base in the canyon.

You are now privy to nearly every conversation every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Marine has ever had.

The military is a lot of things, it has taken me places I would have otherwise never been, met people who have changed my life both for better and worse, and has helped shown me who I am as a person, and for that I am eternally grateful. On that same hand it has taught me some harsh life lessons: Nothing is ever guaranteed; Nothing is ever handed out, but it is earned; There is nothing in life owed to you; Bad things can and will happen to good people.

Every Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine deserves a handshake and a thank you, this is nothing new to anyone.

Anyone who is ever deployed to the Middle East will tell you that "you gain a new perspective on your own home after you spend a year here". This is true, when I came home on leave I was overwhelmed, Where I live (South Florida) is a concrete jungle, and coming from a barren desert to that takes a little adjusting, here at lovely Al Asad Airbase you can look up on any given night and see every star in the sky, breath fresh air, and find complete silence. Back home, I know exactly one place where at least 2/3rds of those things are true, that place is Lake Worth Beach. When I was home, I never once thought about the beach. I did however think about my bottle of Johnny Walker Blue, many bottles of New Castle, and a few pints of Young's Double Chocolate Stout. (not nearly as gay as it sounds). I spent a lot of money on a girl who wants nothing to do with me anymore. Sometimes I tell myself "If I could get a glass of scotch on a semi-regular basis here, I'd never leave".

I sometimes wonder about the daily life of the indigenous people here. There are honest and friendly people who live in this god-forsaken country. The population of the United States is 307,006,550 (as of 2009), the world's population is 6,697,254,041 (as of 2008). This means one in every 21 people will be born in the US. The daily grind of an American consists of waking up, drinking a cup of coffee, working for four hours, eat lunch, work another four hours come home, eat dinner, sleep, repeat. This sounds like a vacation (mostly because it is) compared to what most Iraqis would have to go through to earn an honest wage.

I always go back to a quote by a guy I admire who's name is Anthony Bourdain, many of you many know him as the host of "No Reservations" and as an Executive Chef at Brasserie Les Halles, when in reference to the world.

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that's enlightenment enough - to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go."

The guy was at Macchu Piccu when he said that. Holy Shit, having a moment for personal inflection while being in such a scenic area such as that is mind bending. I can think of only one reason why anyone would trigger self inflection, and that would be when self growth is triggered. One is voluntarily, the other is involuntary. The thing that bothers me is that there are people so content with living vapid, meaningless existences, who either don't bother to engage in the voluntarily or have the capacity to trigger the involuntarily.