Left Turn, Jim

I found an alternate route. A few weeks ago I applied for a security job in Baghdad with a company that a friend turned me on to. It's not what I do. By that I mean it's not what I want to do. It's a static security job on the BIAP, which means I'll be manning an armed post somewhere at one of the hundreds of checkpoints or guard shacks, etc. It pays less...is in Iraq...is a job a monkey could do...and I have no interest in it other than to get a ball rolling. A more stupid plan than this couldn't possibly be hatched!

Afghanistan has stalled yet again. The endless red tape and disorganized way that company operates has me at my wits end. I'm beginning to believe the negative comments I left as "feedback" for the training staff when I was in Virginia are coming back to bite me. I want to have faith in the process and people running it to be professional and apt, but here I sit 8 months into the process and am not any closer than I was 4 months ago.

So I decided to act. Waiting for someone else to decide where my life goes next has become something I am no longer willing to do. I need to believe that I am in control of what happens to me, and the appearance that I am doing something about it is just as important to my mental health as anything else I do now. No, I'm not going loony. But I believe now that feeling powerless is just as bad.

So I'm taking now what I hope will be the first step in a series of alternate routes. That's all life is, after all...just a series of left turns.

-JF