There are but few important events in the affairs of men brought about by their own choice.  The very notion that I have worked a lifetime to achieve the highest level of education and experience in my field would offer some degree of confidence that one could alter this dark tradition of Fate.  However, the  more one struggles against this ominous constrictor, the tighter the constriction.  Little could one imaging that a 30 year struggle brought on by a determination to repair the fateful damage of  Fate inflicted as a result of serving four years as an Arctic Paratrooper would result in my return to the battlefield.  One would think that the pursuit of a more gentile and intellectual approach to life would lend to a more peaceful and inward focused approach to existence consisting of a heart replete with joy and gratitude, which would serve as a measure of compensation for the fatigue and anxiety of earlier trials.  But such is life and its meandering tributaries.

I am mistaken if we are not verging fast to one of the most important periods in America's history.  The Arts of the enemies of Liberty, and the low dirty tricks which they are daily practicing is an evincing proof that they are lost to all sense of virtue and honor, and they will stick to nothing, however incompatible with truth and manliness, to carry their points.

Now, at the time when our domestic strife is most effected by injury, I am now required to take leave once again from the tranquilities of an industrially domestic life, and take up the cause of War.

So, it is with fresh mental and physical provision that I embark upon the gentle gales of conflict, and with contradicted abilities, carry forward to the scenes of battle.  After three and one-half decades of staying away, the constrictor Fate has transmitted me to where I began my journey long ago.  The life of a war-fighter is seemingly inescapable, and it appears that the most rigorous exertions to the contrary has only sharpened the direction that levies me for War.....Yet, while the thought makes me tremble with an unaccountable deprivation of torments, and the presumption that Fate is a scoundrel hackneyed in villainy, I somehow find solace and a strange sense of exertion.  The misfortunes and perplexities attributed to my past and the dismission of military service....and the collection of another.....provides me with a certain sense of restitution and perhaps even a fatal blow to that old hack named Fate.  Perhaps the constrictor has now released me from its bonds, and my energy and wisdom can now be applied in unlimited fashion to what one might call destiny.....a much preferable character for the keeping of company, especially in the lonely mountains of Afghanistan.....