I burned human shit for the first time today. Just a good as time as any to contemplate what my purpose here is. Nothing too deep like existence or anything like that. I'm more wondering why I am sitting here in a makeshift bunk bed with a mattress full of dust, listening to Jefferson airplane, reading Hunter S. Thompson, wearing a U. S. Army uniform in the middle of Afghanistan.

My goal ultimately, as far as I remember, was to see war first hand. To satisfy all those boyhood dreams and young man desires. It was an easy way out, joining the army. I had spent the previous four years of my life pursuing a career in the IT industry desperately trying to succeed in the niche of computer security. In high school I dedicated all the free time I had on the Internet, in various IRC channels and web forums trying to teach myself how to 'hack' into computers attempting to satisfy some other childish fantasy.

In the end I taught myself more about computers and the culture surrounding the security hobbyists than most people could believe me to understand. I wasn't your typical computer geek. I kept it mostly a secret, not really caring about helping others with their problems like the majority of the computer geeks you know. I could care less if you struggled with the technology or was literate enough to hold a thought provoking conversation with. I had my empathizing friends online and they challenged me as well as empathized with whatever it was my teenage mind or body was going through.

I only had one computer class in high school that actually taught me anything. It was a computer networking course, where the curriculum was sponsored by a major networking device vendor. The librarian at my tiny school was the one who volunteered to teach it. Unfortunately it only lasted 2 years and I was forced to retake the course at a technical college during my senor year about an hour away from where I lived and I made the drive with a stereotypical computer geek aptly named Rex by his loving mother. For the hour drive to the college and back we carpooled together and he drove me absolutely insane.

Most people categorize computer geeks together with their terrible social skills and inability to perform decently at all in any kind of sport. Luckily my parents involved me in sports early in age as well as took me and my brother out to many social events outside of my personal social group. We ate many dinners and lunches with my father's clients, coworkers, and investors. We weren't paraded around like you may think, we just worked well together as a family.

I saw myself following in my father's footsteps as a successful corporate man as soon as I could think about what I would do to make a living in the world. I knew I would attend college and pursue a career in the IT industry long before the end of my senor year of high school. I had further motivated myself with the prospect of starting a family with a high school sweetheart I had fallen for during my junior year of high school.

She was much younger than I, which made somewhat of a difference back then. I don't really want to talk about her right now though, so just know that I was planning on starting my successful career in the corporate world as soon as possible, looking forward to supporting her as my companion in life.

I was a very motivated teenager and by the time I started college I had already taught myself more than the necessary skills needed to make a break into the IT scene. Because of this college bored me, but it took me a while to rule it out as a necessity. Therefore I spent all of two years in college without a single challenge. I ruled that school for the short time I was there. I lectured in multiple classes, started my own computer security club and held public events where my members performed some fairly geek-related services for the general public.

The dogs eat our trash at night... They dig through the giant pile of burnt plastic and metal to find the few scraps of meat that didn't burn throughout the day. I watch them through our thermal cameras which makes every living thing look like some creepy zombie creature at night. I'll think of them the next time I'm tasked to turn the burn pit, hoping I don't do too good of a job so that these poor strays can survive another cold Afghanistan night.

It didn't take too long after high school for the depression to set in. My high school sweetheart cheated on me with multiple other people male and female. I started smoking pot all the time, eating nothing but McDonalds and Wendy's burgers for breakfast lunch and dinner. I quit the only job I had working late nights as a wedding cater. I was poor, stoned, and hungry. School was the only thing that kept me sober, my last link to a hopeful future.

I read somewhere how the human brain can only interpret aspects of reality that it already has a pattern for. Symbols were the tools of a language between reality and the mind. I turned to psychology and religion, using my faster DSL internet connection to research everything from Christian mysticism to shamanism to Carl Jung psychology and quantum theory to try and self aid myself out of a now spiraling depression.

I experimented with every drug I could get my hands on, which ironically wasn't much. I ended up ordering a random assortment of herbs from online websites and had some permanent perspective-changing experiences with salvia and morning glory. I experimented with every religion that made any kind of sense to me, which didn't take much. Paganism, chaos magick, Zen Buddhism, Alchemy, Hermeticism, and anything related to those. I purchased book after book on anything credible regarding the occult and or the history of any modern religion including the monotheistic ones like Christianity and Islam.

This in the end helped me feel more in control of my reality as I felt like I was learning something worth knowing. However, little did I know how much bullshit I was filling my head with. The more I read the more I destroyed and rebuilt my belief system over and over again. I felt like a young, talented, modern mystic blazing a unique path; boldly going where no soul has gone before. The more I researched the more there was to read, the more there was to learn, the more I realized I was just a fool. Over and over again.

Spiritually I believe I was growing, but all I did was begin some sort of never-ending cycle that would lead me nowhere, but instead show me everything in a million different ways. I'm still not sure if spiritual progress is something anyone can measure.

Jefferson Airplane is singing about purple berries and wooden ships and I'm wondering if I'll ever feel rested before this tour is over.

I joined the Army after losing my job, my dream job, the fruitful beginning to a most amazing career in the IT Industry.

About two years towards a 4 year bachelors I decided college wasn't really doing me any good at all and I stopped believing in the credibility of a degree of any sort, so with faith in my industry of choice I switched to an associates in computer networking, which I had already acquired a majority of the credits for.

A friend of mine recommended me to a datacenter that was hiring a Network Operations Center Technician and I got the job easily. Soon after, I dropped out of college with a semester left before I graduated.

After two years at the datacenter, a promotion and a raise, I realized quickly that my ideological goals were viewed as ignorant and unrealistic by the industry in general and I began to taste something sour in my mouth every day I spent amidst the corporate social structure.

I simply didn't fit in with my rebellious hacker attitude and mystical drug consuming habits. Eventually I saw myself as better than the whole scene at large and I was cut loose by my boss towards the end of January, 2009.

During my two years at the datacenter I continued to pursue my own path of spiritual learning, however I became a huge critic of everything I read. After a few major experiences with Salvia and Morning Glory, the world of mysticism opened up to me and I believed I finally was able to see behind the veil, the foggy haze, or illusion that all mystics and occultists talk about. I discovered the limitations and implications of human language and began researching memetics as well as focusing on improving my meditation skills. I was able to successfully induce a somewhat out of body experience before I turned 21, though I still am not entirely sure how to fully capitalize on such a state of mind. I became very interested in art in general, especially art created out of some sort of psychosis or influenced by some kind of psychoactive aid. I began seeing symbols and patterns everywhere and truly believed myself to be on some sort of path towards learning some of the deepest truths regarding my existence at the very least.

I was never really interested in any one religion in particular, but anything that could help me better understand myself was absolutely abused as my tool of mental dissection. When I realized that true progress came when I faced my fears and overcame them I was quickly fired from the last thing that held me to the normal societal rat race.

Tonight I had guard in the North truck from 0320 till 0620. I fell into a trance for about 20 minutes towards the beginning. I saw my bestial self which turned out to be some sort of werewolf this time. Afterwards all I could see where flames surrounding me where I sat. At first they were red, then blue, green, and yellow before turning purple for a while. When I finally came out of it I had a small cough that bothered me for the rest of the shift.

Eventually we send a squad over to investigate. The ANA can be a handful.

I remember when I first considered joining the Army. A friend mentioned the idea while we were smoking pot in his living room. It had been a few weeks after I had been fired and my savings weren't exactly impressive. I still had a lease on an apartment, a cell phone bill, internet, car insurance, and a car loan I was attached to. I told my friend there was no way I was going back to working for the IT Industry and the last thing I wanted was to sit behind a desk for 8 hours a day.

I had begun to realize that ultimately my goal in life was to be spiritually successful. As egotistical as that might sound, it was merely for self gratification. Self, being nothing close to the image I had created in the eyes of the people around me. However, being human, I still have fantasies of what such an image could look like.

However, I decided that I was well on my way towards my spiritual success, however I had a lot of obstacles to overcome. For one I was entirely undisciplined. I smoked cigarettes constantly, and am still trying to quit. I could never keep a steady diet or any kind of exercise plan. I played tournament paintball every Sunday the year prior, but after losing a lot of money at tournaments and scoring big-time on the unemployment scale, I couldn't afford to play that game anymore. Ultimately I was unhealthy, undisciplined, and broke. My state of existence, however argued by some mystics as a necessary step, was not at all in my favor. Even my sexual life had taken an odd turn when I began pursuing a 46 year old woman who's profession was business psychology. She came over one night for wine and cheese with crackers and sausage. We ended up having sex all night long and I never spoke to her again.

My friend and I were discussing plans for the future and after I mentioned my fantasy of taking all the money I had left and running from my situation by hitch-hiking across America, he said he wanted to go back to college and get a degree so he could join the Army as an officer.

The very next day I was in the recruiters office.

I wore my dock martin shoes, covered slightly by my faded American Eagle jeans which where held up by my brown leather dress belt. I also wore a black American Eagle t-shirt over a white turtle neck. With my gold chain, holding my bloodstone amulet, dangling on the outside. Over all of that I wore my greenish tan Armani jean jacket. My hair at that point had grown so long it rested lightly on my shoulders. A makeshift du-rag held it in place. I basically took a light, urban cammo (digital pattern) baklava and wore it on my head, held in place by one of my black paintball headbands. On top of all of that I wore a grey flat billed had sideways which sported a pattern of various gun and ammo silhouettes. I was dressed to impress.

I had decided that if I was going to join the army I was going to get the full experience. I saw it not only as a way out, but also a way of helping me remove some of the obstacles holding back my spiritual progress. First of all I knew the Army would get me healthy and in shape. I also realized it would give me a lot of free time to myself where I could pursue things like my music and writing and meditation. I knew for a fact if I was going to make this work I would have to be as hardcore and war-motivated as possible to impress enough people that they might leave me alone. A lot of my previous skills and interests would have to be kept secret. I was a grunt, nothing more. I had no computer skills, no interest in any crazy religions or philosophies, and my political views were that of an apathetic conservative.

Ultimately I knew that if anyone prodded or was curious enough to do their research, they would find me out in the end. However, I was hoping that I could avoid most peering eyes in the Infantry and deploy soon enough to Afghanistan, that most people would take my reputation as good enough and move on.

Keeping my computer skills a secret turned out to be a lot harder than imagined.

I started out with an airborne ranger contract and ended up dropping that for your regular airborne infantry contract towards the end of basic because they offered me Italy. My priorities came into play there even though I was one of the few soldiers whom the drill sergeants imagined could make it into ranger battalion.

I wanted to get outside the U.S. I wanted to get out bad....

Everything reminds me of her. The women here are curious creatures. Today I watched 2 kids throw rocks at a woman who cowered behind the corner of a qalat. The two couldn't have been older than twelve years and the woman was obviously much older than that.

In order to get married as an afghan you have to have a lot of money. I wonder how much the most beautiful woman in Kherwar costs...

Basic training was far more relaxed than expected, but also far more intense. As a potential infantryman in the U.S. Army I went to what they call OSUT or One Station Unit Training. All it really meant was that my Advanced Individual Training, which is what everyone else goes to separately to get educated on their specific job, and my Basic Training would be conducted at the some location and time, one right after the other.

I went through the same Basic Training tasks that every U.S. Army soldier goes through. When it came to PT or Physical Training, I didn't really excel until the last few weeks where I eventually scored a 290 out of 300. I ran my two miles in twelve minutes and thirty seconds, did eighty two sit-ups and sixty six pushups in under two minutes each.

What really got to me was Georgia. Fort Benning in the middle of summer is a very unforgiving place and while I never failed to remember what knowledge was required of me, performing physically for long periods of time in the heat got to me. I never fell out of any physical task, but I wasn't far behind those who were passed out on the ground with IVs in their arms.

I was proud of what I did there in the end. I scored expert when qualifying with my M-4 using iron sights and could run and workout with the strongest privates in the company. Although, I didn't gain or lose a single pound during the whole four months I was there, I acquired a toned body which gave me a lot of confidence as well.

I had a lot of time to myself during OSUT and I discovered that when I wasn't masturbating for long periods at a time I would have dreams that were extremely vivid and easy to remember. The majority of my dreams have always been sexual, but the lack of masturbation didn't seem to increase the sexual content of my dreams at all. It was a lot easier to focus as well as ponder the reality I was experiencing and draw connections between symbols that seemed to appear to me more often. I began thinking about my old girlfriend in a new light during that time and while I kept telling myself it was due to the lack of females in my company, it didn't help in the end. I eventually broke down and wrote her a letter, only to be disappointed with what I received in return. I also wrote a girl I knew in Sweden who wrote back, but it wasn't anything special.

After graduation I got to spend a weekend with my brother and my father who flew down to Georgia to see me. They rented a brand new Chevy camero and we had fun driving around and just hanging out. After four months of straight training though, I forgot what I used to do for fun. I almost forgot what I enjoyed most with the freedom that comes with being a U.S. civilian.

Thankfully, for my sanity, it was a quick weekend before I started airborne school.

She refuses to leave me alone. My mind goes non fucking stop. Its snowing outside and I'm reminded of the Hagal rune. An attempt to clear my mind only makes it worse, more confused. Sadness sets in yet again, and I've only been in country for 2 months.