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Today, the team continued training the Iraqi commando company: clearing a building. Before the training Lieutenant Sayf, the commander of the company, looked flustered. Our conversation is worth sharing.

I asked the lieutenant, "How are you doing?"

"Tired," he responded. "I put my boots on at 5am and will probably not take them off until 11pm."

"Believe me, I know exactly what you are going through," I smiled.

He shook his head no, "Yes, I know that you lead a similar life, but there is one major difference, I have to worry about what happens here at the base, but I also have to worry about my family."

I paused and smiled, not because I was happy, but because I just smile a lot, like when I am running. Slowly I respond, "You know, Sayf, I have a wife and children too, they are just far far away from here."

Watching him talk in Arabic and waiting for my interpreter to translate, I remembered that he is a newly wed. His wife is in college and they are waiting to have children until after she graduates. I also could not help remember how surprised he was a few days earlier when I told him that I had two children.

He responded by clarifying that his commander is upset with him for the living conditions of his Soldiers, and his wife is upset at him because he works at an Iraqi base that is a ways from his house in the event that there is a problem. He lives in the next town over.

I nodded and went on with the training.

I know what he meant. He meant to explain that he has personal problems on top of his professional problems. It is not his fault that he does not understand my life. He simply does not know. There is an awful lot that I do not know too.