My life is so different from that of my friends.

Currently I'm traveling around the northeast (PA,NJ and NY) to see family and friends. The day I arrived my buddies took me out to New York City for the evening, to chill out at a lounge called the Taj. It was kinda of weird for me to be there around all these people who were hootten and hollerin. I just had to step back and watch the crowd around me as everyone danced and threw their drinks in the air. I asked myself, "Is this is what life is all about?" Girls getting dressed up to look erotic to attract the Guys getting liqueured up to pull some game. I have been so far removed from this scene for at least 7 years. Honestly, all I know and have enveloped myself in is trying to survive these last several years. I can't blame the club goers for having a good time, because it's all they know. It's how they have fun. But I also can't help to think that while these guys are having fun somewhere in a distant land one of my buddies is holding onto a thread of his/her life, wishing, hoping and wondering that one day they too can go to a club at least one more time.

Over the years, The way I live my life has been transformed into something else; I have a saying I came up with; which says, "I am the product of circumstances and the result of consequences." This is a quote I came up with one day when I couldn't shed a tear or feel a sense of sadness over the death of a fellow soldier. I just felt anger and every time one of my buddies would get blown up shot and killed, a piece of me would be taken away and replaced with more anger. When that happens you as a person start to look at life differently. Because most of us think that life has so much meaning, but where I come from life is cheap. I often tell my soldiers that I don't care if they hate me or think I am an asshole, I'm not their for them to love me and think that I am the coolest person. I am their to make sure that each and everyone of them will get to come home and spend Christmas or thanksgiving with their families and friends. Because somewhere in this world there is a wife, husband, mother, father, girlfriend, boyfriend or child who is inspired by this person and they mean everything to them.

So I can't help but, to take a step back and look at all the people who can't wait for happy hour, the crew of girls standing in line that extends around the block for hours to get into a club because some star is in there, the guy who is puking his brains out because he drank to much and the masses of people who live their lives on one soap box at a time. Even though I don't do these things for fun, I wouldn't want to see New York City any other way. The people in our biggest cities don't have to worry about being blown up in the night club on a regular basis, they can literally go and let their hair down, relax, get drunk and silly and have fun. I just have to smile and politely, walk away and have a sense of deep satisfaction that the quiet professionals like myself are doing a great job keeping America true to it's form. My cousin asked me, " So how was it hanging out in New York?" I looked at her and with a sarcastic grin said, "Spence, I have a wife, two chickens and garden." She burst out laughing.