Nathan Slate

If we can separate people from issues and see every American as family, we can disagree honorably, share empathy, and build a future that serves us all.

In Lawton Fort Sill, where neighbors treat Soldiers like family, this government shutdown exposes the emptiness of polite slogans and demands that America guarantee pay and steadfast care for its warriors—always—so we can keep the faith.

Back home I kept checking my watch as if Iraq still owned my hours, wrestling to set down anger and pride so I could ask the only question that matters: what moral ground must we stand on before we spend blood again.

Homecoming is the quiet recognition that we were never apart, that in the trials and the light alike we move within the same divine pulse binding my family, my service, and the turning of the galaxies.

Thousands of miles from home like sand in the wind, I moved through Iraq’s villages learning the hearts of its people as Majnun once wandered, yet the constant guiding me through rain and dust was my Leila, the radiant beacon calling me home.

I missed my family terribly, yet as we set the conditions for others to carry on, I felt bound to Iraq by hard-won trust and wondered if leaving would betray the mission and the family of man we had become.

After the winter rains, the Shia south unfurled like a green flag—desert lakes flashing in the morning sun, children in new clothes racing our convoys, vendors offering kabobs, and every smile saying the same thing: Saddam is gone.

The war of terror is not fought with bombs or bullets, but in the human heart, where fear seeks to claim ground that only we can choose to surrender.

Years of envy and humiliation had hardened into a poverty of consciousness, where cruelty was mistaken for devotion and crime disguised itself as holy war.

In the desert’s crucible, where ego burned away, I discovered that truth itself could be the strongest shield a man might carry.

Grief moved at fast forward as young Soldiers bore loss with dignity, proving war’s pain can unite hearts in love and resilience.

We idled through Al Dujahl’s midnight arteries, numb and hollow, while men in the shadows watched us like witnesses at the thin border between heaven and hell.