Troops.

(I know that not everybody that joins the military goes into combat. But still.)

Today I went to the airport with a few friends from our JROTC unit to welcome troops home from Iraq. I helped put together packages of snacks, cards, and other things together for the soldiers.

It was a really rewarding experience. When they came out of the terminal, we cheered, waved American flags, and displayed posters reading "WELCOME BACK HOME" and "WE LOVE OUR TROOPS." Two adorable little children in wee bitty baby ACU's popped up and ran towards their dad when he came out. All the women aww'd.

After the welcome was over, I couldn't stop thinking about the friends I have that plan to go to the military. The majority of people I know are from JROTC, and the majority of people in JROTC want to serve. Even though I'm not going to become a soldier myself, I'm surrounded that people that will be.

Thinking of these people running around in ACU's and in combat zones sort of froze me a little inside. War has always been a pretty distant topic to me. I know it's going on, and I update myself often with the situations in the Middle East, but for me so far it's been simply "news", or a popular memoir subject, or an analogy for something else. It's never been particularly close or real.

And in a few years, Gabriel, JL, James, and 12 other people I'm friends with will be in the military, training for combat.

I don't even know how to explain what I feel about this. I'm proud of them for wanting to serve. I'm sad that they'll be in such a dangerous and stressful and very likely lethal occupation. I'm happy they're continuing family traditions, and will get a boost in paying for college. I'm worried that they'll go through something that'll make them emotionally disturbed. It's a complicated assortment of feelings that overall, makes me kind of forlorn.

But I guess seeing and being able to welcome the troops back home today made me more aware of things. It really made me appreciate the soldiers and my corps-heading JROTC friends a whole lot more than I already do.

What I really hope is that if any of my friends go overseas, I'll be able to welcome them home too.

What happened?

I had this friend in elementary school, who I'll call Natalie (for anonymity). She was a really pretty, sweet girl that all the teachers absolutely adored. Stereotypical description? Yes, but she truly was like that. Very nice, and always cheerful.

In 3rd grade our school split into two feeders, so I didn't see her until this year in 11th grade. At first I didn't recognize her, because she had changed so much. But gradually, as she began talking about her boyfriend, we realized that we had been friends eight years ago.

She'd changed so much. About three days each week during lunch hour, she goes out of school to get stoned in her car. She's been to juvenile once, and her personality has completely changed. It's not like she grew up in some ghetto area of town - her parents, I remember, were upper middle class and I remembered them to be rather nice as well.

I'm not saying that Natalie, in any way, is a horrible person. She's still nice, though now she's extremely inclined to violence when she loses her temper. She's addicted to three kinds of drugs. This is not the kind of person I, or any of our elementary teachers, would have imagined for her. If anything, I should have been the child that grew up a stoner. I had so many behavioral problems, never listened, and was so socially inept that my first-grade teacher suggested my mom to put me in this sort of special education course at school for problematic children. My mother never did.

I turned out to be okay. I'm not a perfect student, but I actually pay attention in class, I have a lot of friends, and I'm generally regarded as some goody-two-shoes, which Natalie was before.

I'm just wondering - what happened?

Not that it's one specific event, but how did our supposed roles switch like this? In some ways, Natalie has already made it difficult for herself to succeed in later life, what with the marks on her records and her barely-passing grades. It sometimes makes me sad when I think of her (and then I feel bad for feeling sad >.>) and just how things have changed over eight years. Is it that somehow, society has failed on her? Could there have been a moment where there should have been help, but it never came?

It makes me frustrated because of this. I know I'm probably superextending the issue, but because of Natalie, I've tried to be there when my friends look upset, instead of edging away and letting them work through their own problems. I don't want the cumulative effect of not being there to eventually negatively affect the ones I love.

I don't understand myself

I like to think myself as completely different from a Mary Sue character in a cheesy 60's novel that keeps getting rejected by a dark and mysterious guy, only to keep returning to grovel at his Gucci-loafered feet while he disdainfully looks on.

Recently, however, my behavior has been quite to the contrary (but don't get me wrong - I think loafers are fugly).

There's this friend of mine that I've known since sixth grade. Right now, I'm S, and he's K. I'd say that we've been best friends until ninth grade - and at that point, K considered me to still be his best friend, but my fondness for him began to wane because of his self-centeredness and lack of tact. We had a few fights over the silliest things that he was creating an unnecessary amount of drama over, and each time I kind of promised myself that an idiot like him wasn't worth any of my emotional expense.

And yet each time, I forgave him. I hated it afterwards for allowing him to whore out my feelings like he did, but it seems like I've become some ridiculous damsel in distress that everybody can bend this way and that (no dirty jokes, please =]). I know I have a spine, and I always stand up fiercely for what I believe in, but my spine seems to wilt a little every time I see or talk to him. He doesn't deserve all my second chances and forgiveness, but I always give in to him and I realize how destructive it's being to me.

I mean, this is the kind of behavior that battered housewives that never leave their abusive husbands have.

So while I like to think that I have a strong will and I'm stubborn, my actions from whenever I'm around this guy completely contradicts it. I can promise myself all I want that I'll change the way I regard him, but it never happens. I need to find the strength to oppose him and realize that his presence is detrimental to me.

At this point though, I'm too used to this whole cycle to really feel as if it's urgent to change. Since I barely see him at all anymore, I suppose I'll just keep bending this way and that for him until we both go our separate ways in college.