Entry Date (sign date): 20090115 Deployment Date: 20091029 It's the eleventh hour for me now. I want to say i'm nervous but i don't know how true that is. 9 weeks of basic just doesn't sound very scary. I feel like i'm off to summer camp. Daily wake up time: 0400 hours. "The greatest enemy will hide in the last place you will ever look." The greatest enemy is Ego. Ego tells you want you want, what you need, how you feel, what scares you, what you can't do, what you can't think, what you can't feel, what you can't accept. Your ego tells you that your strong when you're weak and it tells you that you're weak when your strong, it tells you your right when your wrong, and if your wrong, it tells you that it doesn't matter. Lights Out: 2000 hours. Ego makes you the hero, because when we think of ourselves, and our stories, we are always the hero, the protagonist. In the end, we see ouselves with the glory, the family, the women, (the men??), the money, the happiness. "The bigger the enviorenment, the easier the control." How big is the enviorenment we live in? How far does it reach and how far do we need to go to escape it's confines, to escape the way we are programmed to think and the way we see the world. And will our perceptions change the farth we go in space, in time, in life. How will our perceptions change in death? "This relationship is seriously the wave of tranquility." -April How far is the distance between heaven and hell? Where is the house of God? Is heaven in the sky and hell in the ground? Is the house of God in a man made building, made of Wood and sand and stone? I don't think so. The spirit reaches into everyone and everything. It is infinitely small and infinitely large. Heaven, hell, god, they are all within. Jesus Christ said that the house of God is within in each of us. That no one and nothing can take that away. Strength comes from within, and when you are tested, that strength will make itself known. Faith. The belief that you will have the strength to watch over yourself. "All conflict is internal." It's time to test myself. For my friends, for my family. I need to find that stength inside of myself. -For spirit's sake, I wish to live on, and to live no longer.- Death is a fascinating thing. Ego tells you to fear it, that it is the end, that death is loss. But when in death we fear, we cannot truely experience life. When your fear controls you, you live in pergatory, between life and death, but without movement. You cannot walk in a straight line when your eyes are closed. When your sheltered from the horrors of existence, when you let your fear control you, the journey stops. The great Irony of life is that it is always moving towards death. I will not go softly into that good night, but i will not fear the abyss. | 
