It happened again. For the fourth time during my collegiate career I was called up to serve my country. Over the holiday and parts of last week, Hurricane Gustav proved to be more of a threat than just some tropical storm and so me and my fellow soldiers received that call. Needless to say, I ended up not having to go since I was enrolled in college. However, I remember the last time I was called up for a natural disaster. It was Hurricane Katrina. That one only took me out of school for two weeks. It would have been longer but the state gave college students the option to go home so that we didn't miss too many days of class. Though my stay was only stay two weeks, it was quite an experience. Whenever you see people doing without and at the same time absolutely content with what they have, it makes you reevaluate what's really important to you. The little things that you used to turn you nose up at or wouldn't give much thought suddenly become important, especially when you're sitting right next to that person and you're doing without as well. You wonder how they can be so satisfied with a little of nothing. Things like bottled water and ice became more valuable than a pair of the hottest sneakers or the most sophisticated cell phone (hell, cell phones didn't work no way cause a lot of the towers were knocked down). We did our job which was to establish shower and water points along the coast. Water was (and still is) our business. That what we did (and still do) best. During Katrina, water was the one thing that was hard to get because of the supposed contamination. We constructed shower points from the ground up. We'd turn an empty parking lot into an oasis of showers points and overstuffed 50, 000 gallon water bags just waiting to be used. On the outside looking in, that doesn't sound like that much of a big deal, because water is one of those things that we take for granted. But just imagine being stuck down on the blazing gulf coast in a military uniform underneath an unforgiving sun. Imagine being asked to work sixteen to twenty hour days cleaning up debris, transporting water and ice up and down the coast, from Ocean Springs all the way to "I-don't-know-where-the-heck-I-am", Mississippi and not being able to take a shower at the end of the day when it's finally time for you to get your four hours of nap (cause there was no such thing as sleep). Imagine that and multiply that times seven, or eight, or nine to ten days. That's the life of a soldier. We just do, and we do it until it gets done. Our main concern (my biggest concern) is that while our candidates are going back and forth on what their plans are for our economy, the war on terror, and abortion that they're putting an honest effort in taking care of America's troops. Not saying that we're not being taken care of, because for the most part I feel as though we are. But I just don't want the sanctity of America's heroes to be lost in translation amidst the mud-slinging and the strategizing (like electing a female for VP just to win a few female votes) and the whole grandeur of becoming an icon or maybe even a celebrity (I still got love for you Barrack). We are employed to protect the liberties and freedoms and ideals that any candidate promises to deliver so by that same token, when we've done our tour or put in our twenty year retirement (I'll get there one day) we want to feel good about what we've done for our country and for what our country has done for us. We are soldiers and we serve our country well. If we can do it so can our next president. Serve us well Mr. President - whomever you may be.