What a happy day! Or, when it rains, it pours.

It would be hard to describe to those who've never been stuck on a ship for two months how good it feels to get mail from home. Just mail is good. A package is great. Two packages on the same day is extraordinary. Many thanks to my dad for his packages and letters. Innumerable thanks to my dear Kady for the bigger than a breadbox box that arrived today. Lots of tooth-rotting fun in there!

That said, we are getting closer to that small, invasion-from-the-north prone country that we all know and love to defend. We're stopping at a small island port along the way to give everyone a taste of beer since we may not have another opportunity. I, for one, could care less. It doesn't look like a very interesting or fun place to be. I may not get very far from the base. This is definitely one of those places where I feel very self-conscious.
I'm not so nervous about going "in country" and getting shot at….or bombed at. I'll be sitting in the safety of the ship for at least another month. Lucky me.

The main part of our job here, in fact, the whole purpose of this unit's existence, is to float around and be ready "just in case". We're the 911 first responders for the Pacific and Indian oceans, and probably more. That explains why we were so quick on the scene for the tsunami relief. We were just two blocks away at the time.

There was a brief time in my life when I managed to see the love in the world. I mean the spiritual love that bonds everything together. I swear I saw it once, the driving force behind every living thing and all inanimate matter in the universe. It was unspeakably beautiful.

I don't see that anymore. I'm starting to wonder if it was ever truly there or if I was just making it up. All I see now is hate. Hate and ignorance. The ugly senseless hate of racism and religious righteousness is everywhere. On both sides of this war…and every side of every war. How do we stop it?