I need to write up something about ergonomic growth for work today. Blargh. I had my sights set on some Wraithkin and Wraithguard, damn it, not some thing about team motivation and growth.

I went and got Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War yesterday (along with Alison Weir’s The Wars of the Roses) and I must say, The Forever War is a depressing piece of work. Oh, don’t get me wrong. It’s brilliantly written and very well plotted. But… as someone who has watched the 9/11 Wars (I refuse to call it a War on Terror) throughout the majority of their adulthood, the book is chillingly close to the truth. It’s… disturbing, and I would tell me returnee friends from A-stan and Iraq (that means you, Nick… you shouldn’t read this book until much later) to not read it within 18 months of their return, possibly longer.

My buddy Kent (also a vet) made the same parallels yesterday when I mentioned I got the book. Hell, there’s even a mention in the foreword about how an entire generation missed the massive, never-ending wars of Vietnam and 9/11. Even now, some of us look at the war going on and wonder “will there be an actual end“? There will be an end to the “occupation” (God, do I hate calling it that), no doubt. But will there ever be an end to them targeting and attacking us?

Can there be an end to a war where we are the enemy that must be destroyed?

Bah, too philosophical for this early in the morning. Time for breakfast.