I've been in the Army for four years now. Two of them deployed, part of the 3rd Brigade, 3rd ID. I've served in all of the three most violent parts of Iraq. I spent the first 6 months of OIF III in al-Khalis, just north of Ba'qubah in the Diyala Province. I spent the second 6 months in that modern day Khe Sahn, the little slice of Hell known as Ar Ramadi. I got mortared more times than I could count. I broke my leg. I lost friends there.

I came back on crutches. I got married. And barely two months after that, barely more than a year home, I'm on another flight back to this place.

And after we got here, they told us this time it would be 15 months. Subject to extensions, as well. My contract of enlistment expires in July. This July. I'm being stop-lossed for over a year because the Army is so desparate for soldiers. By the end I'm going to have more time in combat than anyone in my entire family back to WWII. I'm not going to see my wife for but 15 days in over a year.

I don't even wake up during mortar attacks anymore. I'm tired of the heat, of carrying an M16 everywhere, of listening to the local Iraqi government rep explain why he needs more money to advance a project that's a year behind. I'm tired because I just came off of one shift at the battalion TOC, and have just a few hours downtime until the next one. So I send out this diary, this first post on DailyKos and ask everyone back home, and the people who just voted to keep me here for months more; bring me home.

Hell, just listen to my story from the whole last tour: All Quiet On The Southwest Asian Front

One warblog, all yours.

Just get me out of here.