“The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.” ~ Jack London

What is justice? I know it’s a big word that gets tossed around much. I have read and reread that quote from MLK the last few days. I wrote it on the plywood door to the wardroom. It says that justice is the ultimate expression of love. Justice corrects everything that stands against love. I want that kind of justice.

I lost my love for the world, I let the hate of my situation cloud my perception. I have not found love again, I do NOT love these people, but I don’t hate them. It may return, I hope it does not. I hope that I can continue to learn from this experience. I hope that the shit of this place will wash off. I long to return to my blissful life of ignorance. Its so much easier to not think of the great cost of this continued endeavor.

I try so very hard to not squander precious resources. Everything here costs so very much. Every drop of water that I drink during the day comes from a plastic bottle. Not a lot of choice in the matter, there is no safe source of water to pull from here. Every drop for cooking, drinking everything. I average about 8 bottles a day, 4L of water, not counting what goes into the food at the chow hall.

The Navy shower. Every time I shower, it’s a ritual. You turn the water on, jump under the stream and get wet. You turn the water off, soap up and then rise off. Whole process takes about 2 min with only 30 seconds of water used.

Everything I do costs money. Its expensive to keep humans alive out here. Much more expensive to keep us fat dumb and happy. Perhaps part of me feels that I don’t suffer enough. Its such a shitty place, but I have it so much better than so many of my brothers. Every day the planes bring in fresh meat and take away the dead. I don’t watch any more. I don’t want to know.

This place is such a waste of human life. I hate it. I hate the injustice of it. I cant seem to balance those two things. My extreme dislike of this place and the death it brings VS the good of freeing a people from an oppressive group of bastards. But my perspective is skewed, I hate them more than I do the injustice of this place. I wish they would go away. I wish that my guys did not have to die for this stinking shit hole. I have no love for this place. I have no love for these people. I don’t hurt for them, I don’t feel for them. I just want my people to stop coming in with no legs and no hands.

I hate, but I don’t think it’s a wrong kind of hate. Perhaps that is justice? I don’t hate people, I hate the situation, I hate the end result of young men returning to their wives without a dick. I hate that I sit here and just watch it all happen. I am so absolutely helpless to make the insanity stop.

Make it stop.