The Bright Side

The military advertising presentation I worked so hard on only earned me 140/150 points (~93%). I lost ten points because I failed to address post-9/11 fears and hesitations regarding enlistment.

Army General David McKiernan claims that, due to a stalemate between insurgents and US/allied forces, a 55,000 troop surge in Afghanistan will most likely remain around that level for the next five years (and those 55,000 are only two-thirds his requested number of troops).
When I first read the article (at FNC), I was completely shocked. I completely support our troops, but when I learned in December that a friend was being deployed to Afghanistan for a year, everything seemed to shift and the war suddenly became personal. Five years seems like such a long time to fight a war.
On the bright side, within five years I'll have finished school and hopefully will be able to secure a journalist job that will send me to Afghanistan so I can document the war (a la Joe Galloway, Martha Gellhorn and Michael Yon). If that can be considered a bright side.