Im out. Yall have a good year

Today I got a text message from a very good friend I grew up with. It said exactly what the title suggests, "Im out. Yall have a good year" It seems impersonal, but it was probably the easiest way to say goodbye.

Joey is heading to Iraq today. By now he is probably somewhere in Europe right now thinking, "fuckin' Frenchies!" and making jokes about dicks and vaginas and drinking Budweiser in Waleska, Georgia with his step-sister and her crazy, redneck husband. Then again, I might have it all completely wrong. Joey might be excited about going to war. He might be ready to "shoot some towelheads." I don't know. It's hard to tell. (Its most likely the latter.)

In case you are wondering, I called him as soon as I got the text. I couldn't let a friend go away for a year and not talk to him before he left. It was a simple conversation. One that, as I've mentioned before didn't reveal either truth about how he felt. But he said he would call if when he got a chance. (So, if you see me jump up from the table while we are playing cards or watching tv online, don't think that I'm being rude.)

I'm not going to be that person that says, "I've been touched by the war." I haven't. I just have a friend who is on his way there now, and who will be there for a year. I've always been against this war from the beginning. I remember watching Afghanastan being bombed in a hotel room in Virginia Beach in between soccer games. My friend Chase, his dad, and my dad were all there. It made me think of the comforts that we have in this country that we take for granted. We don't hear bombs going off or guns firing in rapid rounds or hear tanks going by all the time. Taking an eye for and eye never seemed to be the right thing in my mind. I'm not that type of person.

All in all, I really want my friend to come back home so that I can take him to Las Vegas and get him drunk so he forgets about it all. What I don't want is to have to remember him from the bland phone conversation we had the day he left. What we should all do is have a good year and be excited when people like Joey come back to greet us with a sincere smile.