It was a tough day in Iraq. One afternoon in June of 2006, after walking up and over a berm at Balad AFB in Iraq, I sat by the banks of the Euphrates river and wept.
Psalm 137:1 By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.
Sort of Biblical and pretty pathetic, but my daughter back in Colorado graduated from High School, that day, and I was deployed to Iraq building data centers, fiber backbones, and receiving rockets and mortars every three to five days. I noodled on a legal pad, thinking about writing books, war, and God’s word. A few hours later, I walked back up over the berm.
A young Army MP had just pulled up in a HMMWV and admonished, “Sir, there are snipers on the other side of the Euphrates looking to shoot people who wander over the berm.”
I thanked him and decided not to do that, again.
Thinking on the muddy Euphrates when I was in Iraq, I had to chuckle. Sitting by the rivers of Babylon my sad afternoon in Iraq, that muddy river in a dusty wind-swept place reminded me more of West Texas than some attempt to imitate Atlantis. Then my mind began contemplating Adjacent Possibilities, Human augmentation, Good vs. Evil, and the future. As a result…
