  Hello. My name is Gabriel. This is the most awkward post, since I have to introduce myself and all that. I am in the North Carolina National Guard, currently deployed in Iraq. I'm in the eastern area of the country, where it's nice and quiet.
This area is mostly Kurdish, and the Kurs love the US, so we often get people come up to the base and bring us gifts, or food. I guess the first thing I want to make clear is that I oppose this unlawful occupation of Iraq, and I'm trying very hard to make the best of the situation.
I am married, it will be 9 months here in a few days, and we are very happy. Sheila, my wife, has been incredibly supportive (as I knew she would be), and she's done a great job keeping me sane in such an insane place as this. We have been in Iraq for four months now, and things continue to get worse steadily. Don't get me wrong; we're in a very safe place, as I've said earlier, but the people in charge here are just making things difficult for the rest of us.
But more about that later. Since my hobbies include music, soccer, literature and computers, that's probably what this blog will be about (beside Iraq, that is). That said, urlLink here is an article I found which is pretty interesting Open source software really does seem like a good option for a country on the rise such as Iraq. However, I can't help but think that with all that oil, cash should not be one of the country's main concerns... Well, good bye for now. 
