College Classmates from the Military

I am in the second week of my fall college semester. The class I am taking is a full one. People taking the class are mostly dudes. This is a computer programming class. Everyone introduced themselves at the beginning of the class. I was surprised at the number of ex-military guys who were in the class. They were taking advantage of the GI bill to pay for classes.

During the break, I spoke to one of the older guys from the military. He retired after 20 years of service. He told me he had served on a number of tours. The worst situation was in Fallujah. In case you do not know, Fallujah is located in central Iraq, relatively close to Bagdad. A lot of Saddam Hussein supporters lived there. If you study popular accounts of skirmishes in Fallujah, you don't see too high a death toll count. My classmate said that the reason why he hated Fallujah was the number of dead bodies he needed to retrieve there.

If that was not gruesome enough, I was introduced to another classmate. Apparently he had seen much more dangerous duty. He told me not too long ago, he was stationed overseas. I think this was his Iraq tour. He was there with another buddy, who had some type of projectile hit him squarely in the chest. The guy's head flew off, rolling past my class mate. My class mate said he dropped all the equipment he was carrying, and ran towards a secure gunner on our side. Very disturbing.

This second classmate told me that he had to deal with enemy trying to figure out where our troops were to get us bombed by mortars. My classmate needed to take these enemy out. By that I mean he needed to shoot and kill them. I am not sure if this guy is a sharp shooter. But apparently his shots seemed to hit their mark often. Unfortunately this guy and my other classmate are damaged by their duty overseas. They have some trouble just doing normal things like shopping out in the mall. Yikes.

At least these guys made it home in one piece. One of the guys looks like he belonds in the military. He looks like Rambo. Maybe I will help these dudes out if they need assistance with development. Got to give the guys that served a little break. I think I shall continue to hang out with these guys before and after class.