Random Thoughts: "The Great Adventure."

You grow up, as a young boy in Texas, thinking there are GREAT adventures to be had; that there are great expanses to be travelled, no, to be explored. That someday you can distinguish yourself in glorious battle and be the hero of the day. People will say your name and compare you with the heroes of old, with Davy Crockett, Wyatt Earp, or Louis and Clark.

And then you grow up, you slowly lose these ideas in the hussle and bussle of the world, you realize war is dangerous and not a game, that in life you have to chase money or you'll be a nobody, and the worst of all, that there are few, if any, places to explore or great adventures that you dreamed of as a boy.

But the urge lays there deep inside, still waiting to find it, still hoping that out there, somewhere, someday you'll find that moment. That time of greatness.

I've been in Afghanistan since may of 2010 and my time here is quickly drawing to a close. I left for war thinking it'd be like wars of the past, with great battles and great heroes. Dangerous, terrifying, and yet still the greatest time of my life. It hasn't been any of that. It's been boring. frankly. And though I'm not complaining cause I'm coming home safe where others have not, I still feel a sadness, that once again I've come to realize I may never have those dreams that were so important to me as a boy.

I miss Texas. Yes, I miss my family and my fiance, my friends, and all the freedoms of our great nation, but I miss Texas. I miss the trees and smell of cedar in the summer, frogs at night, the sound of shallow Texas streams bubbling past grassy banks. I miss the heat of the summer and the harsh random cold of the winter, big open spaces and the blue skies. I was thinking about all these things today, the great adventures I've never had, the end of my "War", and of Texas, and I happened upon this quote and it calmed me down;

"All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream." -T.K. Whipple 'Study Out The Land'

So, now I've decided that perhaps its not over yet, and perhaps I'll find my Great Adventure out there somewhere, someday. And until then, I'll just come home to my Texas, and, pending fiance's approval, perhaps I'll disappear occasionally into that wild country I miss and hold so dear.  I'd hate to have had great men of the past pay for something I let slip through my hands when I had the chance to cherish it.