I am sitting here an emotional basket case. I seriously am a mess. I can't seem to make myself stop crying. What the hell is wrong with me?

A thousand memories of that damned hell hole are blowing through my brain. It hurts. It hurts like hell. It's powerful to hate an entire country. Not it's people. I don't feel any sort of animosity to the people themselves, but the nation. I hate the nation. I hate it's name. I hate the connotations that are awakened in me when I hear the word. To me, Iraq, is a dirty word. It's worse than f*** or b***** or c***. It's the dirtiest of all dirty words. It's a word that arouses murder, destruction, insanity, and complete and utter heartache in my soul.

How do I get over that country? How do I let go of that place? I don't have any idea where to even begin. How do I think of that place without bursting in to tears? So far, it hasn't been possible. That place hurts me. That place haunts me. And I hate it for doing that. I hate that it still plagues me like a nightmare. I hate that it makes me weak.

War is so ugly. It's ugly in ways that I can't even begin to communicate. It's devastating, on all parties involved: the "winners" and the "losers". War, truthfully, only brings loss. There isn't really any way to "win" at war.

What is the cost? How many beautiful people have died? For what? How many marriages destroyed? For what? What was gained? A psychopath was removed, that's true. But it doesn't seem very likely that a non psychopath will take his place, so what gives? Was this worth it?

I am a part of a club. A club of people who have been tortured by this experience. I am a part of a group that no one else can understand, except those who've lived it. It's a club that's filled with battle scarred individuals. We all have combat patches. We all have wounds. We all don't have enough words. We all are hurting.

I am so sick and tired of idiots trying to compare this specific set of combat circumstances to others before. This is NOT Vietnam. This is NOT World War II. To try to compare different combative actions only proves the individual to be a fool. Those are all so uniquely different. How dare anyone try to trivialize or conceptualize this experience, or theirs? WWII and Vietnam were hell on earth. Iraq and Afghanistan are too. But they're their own different doses of heartache. Are we so stupid that we have to try to compete and compare war? Are we so stupid that we have to try to "one up" each other in regards to whom has suffered more?

My God I have no words. I have only tears. I have only tears for those I've loved who've been lost. I have only tears for the widows who are suffering. I have only heartache for the peace that's been destroyed. I have only tears for the PTSD, devastation, suffering, anxiety, destruction... This has been ten years of hell. I imagine it will take at least that long to wrap my brain around it all.

Screw you Iraq. I hate everything that you symbolize in my mind.