Observations

As many of you know I work at the base library. With my new job at reference I am interacting with hundreds of Marines daily.... literally. Then I go home to my Marine (he's my favorite for sure, I am definitely biased there) and life is good. Being it is a library there is a wide variety of Marines, all ranks and jobs and the like doing everything from printing leave requests to MarineNet classes to research papers. Sometimes I complain about being tied to the desk at the "computer" person (usually the first half or more of my shift) but I do love interacting with the Marines and I do enjoy helping them the rare times they need assistance with research or databases.

Since the sleeves went back to being rolled this year I've also noticed a certain accessory a lot of the Marines seem to be wearing these days...

Picture from this link via the AP

The KIA bracelets.

Maybe with the winter cammies and the sleeves down it never caught my eye as much... but with the rolled sleeves and the summer weather I cannot tell you all how many I see a day.

And to be honest that breaks my heart.

These Marines, easily from 18-50, have seen and done so much these past ten years. So many have lost collegues, friends, and brothers/sisters to the point that I can barely track how many I see each day... and those are only for the ones who wear a bracelet... I know plenty do not.

So although we hear in the media "the war is over" we all know the truth. If you have some extra thoughts to spare send it for these Marines. It is a rainy, cloudy morning here in North Carolina and the three hours I have been on the desk so far I have counted 43 bracelets and it is making me a little sad.

That's all.