Wherever You Go, There You Are

   Well, it’s official. Everyone in my family back in New Orleans has been accounted for. All of my aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces and cousins have been contacted. They all left the city in time, and are currently strewn across the south and the Midwest. Many people were not so lucky, but it seems the loss of life was nowhere close to what was predicted.

   It is still very surreal for me to imagine the state of affairs in New Orleans and surrounding areas. There were so many crazy nights in high school, so many half-remembered childhood images, so many firsts, so very many things I experienced there. Places I once walked as a kid, when the farthest thing from my mind was joining the Army someday and going to Southwest Asia, are now under water that is dirty and filled with death and which has traveled in unknown currents across the sphere of the earth.

      By the time I’ve done my duty in Iraq, New Orleans will probably have recovered quite well. And although it’s not my home anymore, I will most certainly go back to visit. I’ll be able to drive to all those places I once knew, and be able to see where Katrina did her bidding. I’ll see those places where I learned so much and realize that they could disappear forever next time. The new construction and unfamiliar sights will remind me that change is the only constant in this life.

   I think it’s important to take your memories with you when you leave a place, so you can dust them off when you’re good and ready and see what they have to teach you. And when I leave Iraq, though I’ll probably mark the day for the rest of my life as one of the best, I’ll remember the things I’ve learned, and the people I served with, and the people who died. I’ll carry the weight, both positive and negative, of this experience with me wherever I go.

   They say that which does not kill us makes us stronger, and I believe it. The people of New Orleans may not realize it right now, because they’ve been knocked to their knees by tremendous personal loss, but somehow, someway, Hurricane Katrina has only strengthened them. And the people of Iraq are still in a state of transition, but I believe that years from now they will look back upon this time as the beginning of a Golden Age in their society, a time of freedom and retribution.

  There was a man from Biloxi, Mississippi on the news. His insurance company told him that although he had hurricane insurance, he did not necessarily have flood insurance, and that only those items in his home above six feet are insured.

   Unbelievable. It was a one-story house. So his smoke alarms are about the only things that were covered? 

   Ok, even I, the eternal optimist, will admit - It’s hard to see the glass half-full on that one.

"Enjoy life. There's plenty of time to be dead."

                                                   -Anonymous

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