I remember being told that 80 to 90 percent of a deployment is downtime. This is good considering that the alternative usually means that somebody is dying. Now granted, I'm not an infantry Marine. It is not my job to run around kicking in doors, flushing out insurgents and whatnot. Still, I was expecting more from this place. I might be speaking too soon, but this deployment is looking way too easy. My buddy and I are already trying to get off this base and see what goes on outside the wire. Maybe I'll get some interesting stories out of it.

I've been in country for nearly two weeks now.  Al Asad wasn't much worse than being back in Camp Lejeune.  Unfortunately for me, my superiors saw fit to send me to a remote FOB on the Syrian border. When the guys I'm here to replace leave, I'll be the only Marine here capable of doing my job.  These guys just better not count on me going out on any patrols anytime soon.  Wish me luck out here guys.  It's looking like I'm gonna need it.

It's been less than 5 years since the tragedy of 9/11. Just 5 short years. I'm sure that none of us have forgotten the horriffic events that took place that day. I'm sure that many of us are still coping with the pain of losing their loved ones in the Twin Towers or in any of the hijacked planes. I didn't lose anyone in the attack, but I can still vividly remember the events of that day.

So, with such a tragedy still so fresh in our minds, do any of us really need a major motion picture to remind us of it? I don't think so. I could see this happening 20 years later when we stopped feeling the reprecussions of the attack. I could even settle for 10 years down the road. But now? If you ask me, this movie is all about the money. Somebody in Hollywood trying to make a quick buck out of one saddest days in our history. It's despicable.