  You should see the way the Al Jonai Mosque ( resting place to the prophet Jonnah) illuminates Mosul's skyline, fictional reader. From the northern banks of the Tigris it towers like urban omage to The Pharos of Alexandria, a beacon of hope in a sea of slums.
The city rose of from the ashes Nineveh, razed by Medes and Neo-Babylonians 612BCE. It's population numbers four million people who come from all walks of life, Sunni Kurds, Turks, Syrians, Jews, Chaldean, and Syrac Catholics. It was we, the smallest minority, Blackhawk Company that found ourselves stalking the quiet and ancient streets on a snatch n' grab the other night. Counterterrorism is humdrum work,dear reader. Infiltrate neighborhood A, Cordon house B, Breech door C, Capture target D, Exfiltrate neighborhood A, End State.
But it is a rewarding and fruitful venture that saves lives and gets the trash off the streets. But what really caught my eye was the architecture of my surroundings. Narrow cobble stone roads snake through an endless maze of homes that grew without thought of commercial development, much like the polis of the Greeks. Present were stone and mortar homes with shoddy wiring, and the droning of recorded fiddle and Arab verse filled the hot night air as we sought our quarry.
A forty man assault platoon really ruins these kinds of things. I begin to enjoy the aesthetics of civilization, dear reader. An arched walkway, early medieval religious art, the words of the ancients are all quite lovely to me. But we are at war, we have always been, and will always be. I feel so selfish to turn my back on what feels so right. If there was some equilibrium between scholar and soldier, I would we feel quite fortunate to find it. While choked by my comrades idiocy and insolence, I would much miss the service of the county and people who I feel need me most. To turn my weapon in and go my own path, feels irresponsible. Duty is paradoxically stressful, fictional reader.
But life is for the most part good. I have all that I could wish for save one. I think of her on the nights my thinking is elevated. When I see the world for what it truly is, both in vice and virtue. I wonder if she would be proud of me. Would she even care that I have made such advances this year? Would she even notice? It's not enough that the pretty girls don't notice me.
What's worse is the one I love the most doesn't even take me seriously. How very depressing. I won't be around for the next day or so, more work to tend to. Now that school is in recess I can continue books that I have neglected. I'm enjoying Plato and Burnstien, however I've found errors in fact contained therein the latter. I plan on writing and exposing his faults, maybe he'll send me some free things. Mother's Younger Brother was in love with Evelyn Nesbit.
From his regular seat in the front row of the second balcony, he would lean far over the railing, hoping his goddess would notice him. One night he almost fell. Evelyn caught sight of him and smiled. Life was suddenly wonderful and full of delicious possibilities. -Ragtime 
