Back. Had a great weekend at the cottage. Got some reading done, and trounced my entire family in Scrabble.

Anyway, I've been reading alot about what's happening in Iraq, and it brought me back to an email I wrote to my university class some time after the war started. It's a bit sentimental (surprisingly, even I have a sentimental side), but it was something I needed to do then, and something I want to get off my chest now that things are the way they are.

I wrote this on March 23 of this year

You may not believe this, but I couldn't go to sleep the night the missles
started firing in Iraq....I know, I know, a bit hard to swallow from a guy who
uses my admittedly graphic vocabulary (although, I'd like to point out that it
was fairly normal in my high school, so what's scarier I don't know)

You see, back during my first work term, the son of the people I was boarding
with had come home to start training to be a Toronto police officer. He had
been a peacekeeper in Bosnia, and a master marksman, but he was one of the most
amazingly gentle and kind people I've ever met. He had an 11-month old
daughter who tended to prance into my room and steal my Frosh yellow hard hat
and run around wearing it....quite a darling she was....

..and it hurts to know that there is someone in Iraq right now who may die
never seeing his child...and that sucks

During my last workterm, I got into a few rounds of pool with a US Marine
demolitions expert...a 20 year old that had been in Afganistan, and he was a
Canadian Expatriate. What he told me during those rounds of pools (which he
beat the tar out of me at) was both shocking and disturbing....not the sort of
things even I would talk about openly...but nonetheless, he was an alright
guy...

and he may be in deadly danger as we speak....

I write this down to you, to sort it out in my own mind. You see, while I hope
that this war can be brought to minimal casualties...it is things such as the
link below that make my blood boil.


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/21/1047749944836.html

And don't get me wrong, I know and appreciate that a soldier is willing to take
the risk as we speak...but that he is being asked to do so for circumstances
that are nebulous at best and criminal at worst, it does nothing to make my
rest easier, but it is my hope that writing this will help.

Sorry for taking your time,

Michael C. Paciocco


More new stuff tomorrow. Promise.

Michael