Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the
things I cannot change; courage to change
the things I can;and wisdom to know the difference.

My platoon sgt told me that quote today in the motor when He and I were having a conversation about HOW DICKED UP OUR CURRENT UNIT HAS BECOME. In less than 2 weeks time, our platoon morale (probably company too) has gone from High flying in the sky, to shit down below bad. The "new" commander and 1SG has passed down new ROE and Engagement Guidelines that pretty much turn us from an Aggressive Unit WHO HAS NOT LOST A SINGLE LIFE to a pussified "pretty - won't risk having bad publicity so we'll just put out guidelines to cover OUR OWN ASSES but risk soldier's lives" If I start writing about the utter ridiculousness of the new "rules" I won't stop and I might risk getting in trouble, let's just say that a bunch of us yesterday were about to just say "Fuck it, send me back to my unit, this shit is bullshit." no joke. How the FUCK can we protect convoys from "Possible Threats" (Cuz it's everyone and everything around us...trust me) if we have our hands tied behind our backs, HORSESHIT. In reality from what people are saying, it's supposedly not the Commander and 1SG's doings, it's come from the Battalion that we fall under, but the way the 2 put it out to us, the way they told us, it felt like they were the ones that suggested the changes, They Bad mouth the Old commander and 1SG that CREATED this unit, calling them ate up, saying that the soldiers that were with them (old GT guys) were cowboys, undisciplined. Ya, well if they were SOooOO ate up, then how come NO ONE HAS DIED??!?!? Could it be because it's WAR???? and you need to be Aggressive??? HOLY SHIT!!! There's an idea. That's what happens when "leaders" who have no Combat time, sit behind a desk and hatch up these Regulations. Anyways. Here's something that I'm going to say here and now, I hope to god I will end up bring wrong, BUT, because of the changes put out; soldiers will die. I pray to god I'm wrong, but our chances just went up tenfolds because of the changes.

Anyways.....

I've got a mission tomorrow going up North. SP is pretty early so I gotta get some sleep.

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. "
---George McGovern