Almost a month down

And I'm already understanding exhausted. I'm trying not to complain, but my body is just not getting used to this schedule, and the fact that I know I'll be working every day for the next 5 months is daunting. 7am - 7pm, then 7pm-7am the following day, then back to 7am-7pm and so forth. The emotional toll my work is having on me hit me the other day when I was journaling. My 15 year old patient was playing in the park when he stepped on and IED that blew both this legs off. He will never walk again because the guy two beds down was brainwashed so much that he thought planting that IED was the will of "Allah". Brainwashed, also, was the other 15 year old boy that was blown up by the IED he was placing and is now permanently paralyzed. And the soldiers... the IED that blew his legs up just got him a one way ticket home when the only thing in the world he wanted to do was finish this deployment with his unit. I spent a long while talking to one of the guys working at the detention center. You know what works best to "extract intel"? Treating them with respect. Yep, not torturing or confusing or creating fear, just being respectful. I'm telling you, those detainees look at me in shock as I wash their feet, they are so confused as to why we are taking care of them at all. Once they see that I'm not an enemy, I'm just a human being caring for another human being, they can't be shielded from the truth. I'm not an expert in politics but I've seen that this war isn't really America against Afghanistan or Coalition Forces against Terrorists, its good vs. evil. Good and evil are in us all, its a matter of which your loyalty is to and exposing the truth to those that can't see it for themselves.