Throwaway_Corpsman

Also, Hi NSA!

Here's and interesting tidbit about GTMO... The Guantanamo River empties into the Bay. Cubans would often try to hop in tires and float down the river to get to the base and request asylum. Castro set up a meat packing plant on the river several miles up. They intentionally chummed the river with scraps, thus infesting the river and the lower portion of the bay with bull sharks. There were so many there that swimming and scuba were off limits in certain parts of the bay. Fishing, however, was freaking awesome.

Intelligence.

Currently I'm taking 125mg of sertraline (zoloft) a day, and 1 mg of klonopin as needed and once at night. The panic attacks, depression, and anxiety have definitely decreased since I've been able to stay on a regular medication regimen, which took me some time, since I was initially adverse to taking anything.

The service dog was free, and he has changed my life more than I can express in words. He came from an organization called Guardians of Rescue. They are freaking fantastic. Not only do they rescue local dogs and train them to be service dogs for combat veterans, they actually raise money to go overseas to retrieve and reunite soldiers and marines that have bonded with a stray animal overseas, and bring them back to the states.

I simply can't express how amazing this group is. My dog Dexter (cause he was a serial flip-flop killer as a puppy) is trained to deal with my panic attacks (he jumps on my chest and bites my nose), reminds me to take my medications, and senses when I am becoming too aggressive and warns me to back off. He's a tiny little Westie, and as much as I love him (he's so fucking spoiled) I wish I would have gotten something more intimidating looking. People constantly disregard his vest and play with him cause he's so damn cute. Some old lady literally picked him up the other day and demanded I go into the local starbucks and buy him a bottle of water....

I think our government has ulterior motives that it doesn't make public. My opinion on the war... I don't know exactly. I'm torn between what I want to believe, and what I think is reality. Either way, I hope I served the men beside me well. To me that's all that matters at this point.

I think Islam is a beautiful religion (this is even coming from an atheist). However, most of the inmates in Cuba couldn't read. They'd never read the Quran for themselves, and were molded by religious extremists to believe that their religion demanded war. One of the things we did offer inmates were reading lessons, so they could read it for themselves. Not all of them participated.