!!Warning!! Graphic Photos

There are some pictures at the end of this. some of them are ugly. you may not want to look. O.K. So i dont know how many of you know this, but I just may be the luckiest man alive. there are numerous reasons I could give for this, like, I have a beautiful wife that I dont deserve. my dad is one of the coolest guys i know. i have the gospel in my life. i have 5 healthy, rockin cool kids. but none of those is the reason for this post. some of you may not know the story so i will tell it. last year i took a week off work to spend a weekend with renae for our anniversary and to do some work around the house. one of those jobs was to burn the burning pile. i started to fire with gasoline. i have done this many times. after starting the fire i went off to do some other things. i came back a goodly am out of time later to find out my fire had gone out. i checked it over carefully to make sure. it was out. no flame. no embers. no smoke. so i got the gas can and went to restart the fire. as i was liberally splashing gas onto the pile i found out my fire was not quite out. the fire ignited with enough force to bring the guy from across the street out of his house(i was in my fairly large back yard) to find out what had just shook his house. when it went up. i saw the fire ball go around and past me. i quickly did the STOP/DROP/and ROLL. i thought i was on fire. my friend that was with me told me "your OK, your OK!" i got up and looked at my left elbow. reached over and pulled a large hunk of skin off. to which he said "oh, your not OK." i found out that if you are a burn patient you go to the front of the line at the ER. i was in, checked, treated, and out in less than an hour. the hair on my head was singed. eyebrows shorter(i had glasses on). eye lashes curled. but my arm took the brunt of the blast. i was burned bad, and it hurt. the swelling hurt more than the burn though. the pressure made it throb when i stood up. but what hurt the worst was the wound care center. it takes a special person to work at the wound care center(evil). they started off with a pair of tweezers and a small set of scissors and then went to a scalpel. they did not cut with the scalpel, they used it as a scraping tool. i just knew i was scarred for life. well here are the pictures. turn your head if you have a weak stomach. i mean it. Im not joking.

DAY 1

i ended up with the bubbles growing and eventually connecting into one big one and then popping.

top view of day one

DAY 3

Day 4

Brown stuff is a protein layer that built up. it had to be scraped off.
i did most of the scraping my self. did not like the wound care center.
the people were great it just hurt. a lot!

DAY 4
reverse view
i did the scraping in the shower. there was often enough blood
that the entire floor of the shower was red even with the water running.

DAY 6

DAY 9
this is what the bandages looked like after my work day.
i did not use the arm during the day. the fluid in just natural oozing
of the wound and bleeding.

DAY 9
it took about 10-15 min to get the bandages off.
they were stuck. had to be ripped off.

Day 15
I figured this is the scar i would have for the rest of my life

1 YEAR
This is what my arm looks like now. you have to look to see a scar.
i think in a couple more years it will have faded completely.

Like i said lucky. Blessed. Watched over. all these are true.

is all in how you spin it.

big new story. "U.S. pull all remaining combat troops out of Iraq!"
the story i watched made a big deal that we are done with the war. The operation is over. then they spent about 5 seconds saying that there will still some support and training staff left behind. the story i watched left out that there would still be over 50,000 troops in Iraq for at least the next year if not more.
i, like a lot of other people, feel done(or at least that we should be) with Iraq. i feel good about some of the accomplishments that we made there. but we have been there for most of the last decade and its costing us an awful price. a price in more that just dollars. we did good, but at some point we have to leave. the people there need to take care of the country we handed them(and i would not mind them paying the bill for what we did there. we could use the money). but saying "see, we left, just like i said we would" and not really be out is not entirely honest. i know we will most likely have a presence in Iraq for many years. we still have troops in Germany and that has been over 60 years now. but to leave 50,000 seems like a lot to me. it seems like 50,000 GIs could cause quite a bit of trouble(for the bad guys). it seems we have not done much more than retitling these guys(and galls)and changing what we are saying they are there to do. one of the reasons i have said that we should get out is that we need to fight of not fight. dont talk about it. dont make it political. defeat the enemy, and go home. but if your going home(for what ever reason), go home. dont say "we are done" and not really be done.