American Schools...The New IRAQ?

Late last week I was back from conducting my patrols here in Iraq. Another day, another patrol without incident. I gathered with my fellow platoon members in the chow hall to eat some of the great army food we have to enjoy. While we were sitting down eating I glanced over at the t.v. to see if anything of interest was being feed to the American mind...I was disappointed and a little angered to see "School Shooting" being headlined across the screen. As I continued to watch the events unfold on the t.v. I learned that the day before there was another shooting at a school and on the same day a big standoff in L.A.(not school related). I finished my meal and left the chow hall disgusted but not to surprised....The next day while sitting down for dinner I was amazed to see another story about a different shooting at a different school on a different day...."Are you kidding me!" I said as I pounded the table...."America is falling apart." After seeing this little blurb about yet another shooting I was pretty angry...Here I am in Iraq "bringing the Ideals of democracy from such a great country" over here, but watching an array of violence back in my home country, more violence that what I have seen in my deployment this year???? What?! Am I in the war zone? I would feel better being here then going to my 10th grade English class. I was frustrated and was on fire enough to go spit out a quick post on the internet. That was Friday and the weekend came and I had a few days off so I let it be....Well Monday comes around and there I am again watching the t.v. while I eat in the chow hall and WHAM!!! Another school shooting in Memphis. Thats the second one in eight days in the same city! What is going on! Thinking of the past week or so I quickly came to the conclusion that the end of the world was coming as violence was breaking out every where....It is now Thursday night here in Iraq and I just got back from doing two raids on suspected insurgent houses....Not a shot fired. I came back ready to go to bed and saw on msn.com that there was yet ANOTHER SCHOOL SHOOTING in Illinois! IS this for real? What a sad seemingly growing reality in our country...