Back up just a bit, cool off time.

I personally need to step back from military issues today, theaters of operations, armchair quarterbacking the wars, as we vets tend to often do and step back from the anger associated with the present state of events we are watching on the evening news because I had found myself so ticked off last night that a rest is needed today.

I have always been one those individuals with a deep hunger for news and the internet filled that void for me quite well. Computers had been part of my life since its birth in 1984; I grasped the meaning of what they could do and learned, studied and trained until I knew the new technology inside out. I had a successful practice within the security consulting industry for many years dealing with the commercial industry, I was also a licensed private investigator, but confined that to the security end only. The license would often come in handy when trying to make changes or obtain information not openly available and through this I began dealing within the security end of computing, both large commercial contracts and within the home for a select few that needed help. My expertise was well recognized and the true benchmark was the fact of my happy clients with little if any security problems to concern themselves with.

As a security consultant I had been involved with the internet for some time, of course this was the older one, black screen with white characters that was about as far as it went. Nevertheless, the beauty of this was email; we could send and receive with friends, associates and institutions for help anytime we needed. During that course of time the actual act of truly owning an email address was something many of my friends would change jobs for, just to obtain one.

When the Father of today’s World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee introduced his new baby to the world, it ushered in the new information age, which I immediately grasped to satisfy my news hunger. Putting together and setting up small newsgathering programs, I could turn to my monitor at anytime of the day and go through a wealth of information.

Of course, this also ushered in a new age of security, antivirus, spyware, Phishing, spam and ad nauseam to our commercial and home computers. This area took on a life of its own, quickly growing to the problem that exists today and it is a problem of huge proportions. If you are the proud owner of a cable modem or DSL and not using quality firewall, antivirus and security protection in your home computer and/or your WiFi laptop, the chances of all of your personal information, credit and otherwise being broadcast to someone on the web are very strong.

Although initially against the initial concept of blogging, I began to read others. Their thoughts, dreams and aspirations would often amaze me and even sometimes astound me. I would comment asking if they had achieved what they were aspiring for and they would always respond in the negative.

I began blogging with the idea to share a few of my experiences in life and to discuss my feelings on the war on terrorism and our brothers and sisters serving their country. After meeting many new internet friends, I began writing more and more on the war and other political events. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time and have an earnest desire to continue.

The present state of this war is very frustrating and often even emotionally enraging to individuals as Wild Bill and me. I read his blog daily and can see the same frustration and angers that I often face and realize that most of my generation and veterans are all facing the same issues. We can tell from our experience that a lot of the trash and nonsense being applied simply do not work and it angers us more.

One would assume that after unsuccessful applications in the past our military would learn on some basic counter insurgency and guerrilla tactics concepts, but, it is evident their learning curve must be pretty steep, they just keep on making them again.

Iraq is out of control, the only thing that will keep it in check is a strong military presence, superior firepower and the willingness to use these tools. We will all see together what transpires, but in my opinion, it is not going to be easy.