Six Percent

Six percent is the amount of my life I will have spent in Iraq by the end of this deployment. Granted, it is not a large number, but when you think of life as a one-time-only event, suddenly every last moment is precious. Six percent is a lot to have wasted in a perilous and hostile environment. It is a lot of time to have spent betrayed by The Lie. Before I get out of the army, fully twenty percent of my enlistment will have been spent "stop lossed" past the expiration of my contract. More than a year will transpire after I was supposed to have been released from service.

Today marks an especially bitter day for me as I learned from the news (of all places) that my unit's deployment will be extended until the end of January, making it much longer than the twelve month "maximum". The Department of Defense says that less than ten thousand soldiers will be affected, and therefore the scope of the extension is very limited. Also, the length of our extension will be shorter than in the past.

That may be true, but it does not make the news any less damaging to me, personally. I have been abused by the army and the country for too long, and now the mistreatment has been extended. This is MY LIFE that they are destroying. Six percent. I'll never get it back, and there is nothing that they can do to make up for my lost life... but in lieu of an apology and the promise of a speedy return home, I am EXTENDED? I promised Holly that I would be home for my birthday (it would have been the first time we would be together for it), but I was a fool for believing I couldn't possibly be screwed any more than I had been.

The country lied to me, and my life is in deficit by six percent because of it. My rage and hatred are reaching a point where I sometimes feel like expressing both violently. I would not want to be on the battlefield with someone like me; but everywhere I look, I see people going through the same emotions. We are the army of The Betrayed; soldiers lied to and abused. Soldiers who will spend the rest of our lives wondering what we did to deserve our country's betrayal. That so few people in America seem to care about us adds insult to injury. Wake up, America; right this horrible wrong before more of your youth are lied to on their way to The Slaughterhouse.