Thanks for all the coffee-emails people! I was really hit hard by the caffein monster on Wednesday. Yesterday, I had zero coffee. Today, I'm slowly-slowly working my way through one cup of regular brewed office coffee. And... I only allowed myself coffee after finishing 64 ounces of water.

That's not why I'm posting however. I'm posting because I've got an insane amount of free-time (sorta) on my hands, and an urge to share this blog that I've been inching my way through for the last month or so. Just Another Soldier is its name. And it is really blowing my mind. Not only is the author an infantryman in Iraq, he's witty, very intelligent, and his posts never cease to horrify me and fill me with a sense of hope. I'm only up to April of 2004, which is where I found this tidbit wherin he says, "I have a hard time being okay with dead civilians." This is a bad example of the blog and why y'all should go read it... but, I figured I'd post something instead of continually trying to find that funny/horrific/human bit that sums this thing up... So, here ya go:

As I try to fathom what it must feel like to be a poverty-stricken eight-year-old Muslim girl and experience the epic pain of having your family suddenly and violently killed in front of you, I have to pause and ask myself, Now what am I doing here again? I know this kind of thing happens in combat and I kind of expected to see it, but jesus, the record is pretty bad so far. Since I've been in Iraq, in situations that my platoon has responded to there have been three dead bad guys, two wounded civilians (one critically), and seven dead civilians to include four women, one three-year-old girl and one mentally-unstable homosexual man on a moped. Hell, if you count the suicide of the latter's lover-- an excellent two-for-one dead civilian deal-- and the de-familied guy who got his balls blown off who even if he lived will wish to Allah that he was dead, that makes the tally 3 to 9, a 1:3 ratio of dead evildoers to innocent and ridiculously poor Iraqis who couldn't care less who leads their country just so long as they are able to feed themselves. Now that I think about it, there have actually been more civilian casualties in our area, but these are the only ones that I remember very well right now. Thank god none of this carnage has been carried out by anyone in my platoon or even my battalion for that matter. My battalion has sustained only one casualty of its own so far, and there has been at least one engagement by another company that netted a few dozen dead bad guys, so the numbers are at least decent in that regard, but still, I'm having a hard time being okay with all the dead civilians. It's like we should have bumper stickers that read, "I {heart} dead civilians". [link]

Every time I read this guys stuff, I want to show it to everyone. And I've really only read through the training/deployment period. Now that he's actually in Iraq, the pictures and stories and thoughts are getting more and more interesting.

Just for everyone's information, writing this post took me almost forty-five minutes because of phone interruptions. Have I mentioned that my phone number is currently listed in Playbill, Backstage and who knows where else for actors to call for an audition? So, I've got hundreds of crazy actors calling me wanting their appointment, and all I really want to do is scream at them and say, "you fools! We aren't actually casting our show from these auditions! We're just doing it because Equity requires it! Stop calling me!" But they all sound so hopeful, it's almost sad. If the 40 gazillion phone messages that I can't keep up with weren't so annoying, I'd let myself feel human sympathy towards these folks who're just trying to climb the career ladder anyway they can.