Rivera Family

                                                                              I was fighting your kind for killing my kind.

                                                       I was fighting to find weapons that could wipe out large populations of people.

                                                        I was fighting to free you from the bad men, that harmed you and your family.

                                                                                      I was fighting for your liberty.

                                                                                         I was fighting for peace.

                                                         I was fighting to keep my family safe from you and your family.

            But in reality I was fighting to destroy everything you know and love.

I destroyed the land you live on.

I crushed your spirit.

In fighting I kept  you silent.

In my fighting I oppressed your family.

In my fighting I kept you out of sight and out of the way so everything of value could be taken.

                            In my fighting I found that I was fighting to stay alive.

                 In these last thoughts of reality I find that I was becoming something that wasn't me, and that I didn't stand for as a person. In my heart everything I was fighting for wasn't great enough to give up any life.

                            All of my battles were very true to me.

          I know from my heart through my change, That I can't fight with violent means for peace.

    That peace only comes through non-violent means and humility.

My fight for peace is with my pen to share my thoughts with out fear of being locked up in a deep dark place so no one can hear. Being silent doesn't help any body and lets the people hurting many get away with hurting more.

                Canada I am here will you take the time and the heart to understand what I am now fighting for, with words and not a gun.

X PFC  Kimberly Rivera

July 11th 2008

I guess the hardest thing for people to understand is the reason you join the military is not the reason you leave it.

Not knowing the truth.

Your basic role as a soldier being invalidated, finding out your job has no meaning. No reason. Higher command just let bad people past you demanding they do not get the same treatment as others who come in the base ever day. This Is the same as jeopardizing every men and women on the front line. That was the most angering moment for me. From this point on I had no pride in my work, No reason for being in Iraq. It was obvious to me that security was not the top priority for the troops and as one person not allowed to do my job efficiently and to the highest ability was the finals straw. Finding that out is the hardest. It was my last reason for staying. For giving my life. You believe you are doing the right thing.

Then you feel so much and you wonder why you value American  life over all life of humans. Then you start to ask yourself what you would do. And I could not face that question with out being mad and wanting to fight back myself. Just because all the world hates Americans doesn't mean we are all the same or all think the same. Just as every person is different and has different views all around the world, Doesn't give any one any right to hurt or mistreat someone. Who gives us the right to tell someone else how to think. How to live and what to wear. How many kids someone can or can't have.  So on and so on.

You can only change yourself and pray for a better future. Talking to political leaders from time to time doesn't hurt either.

living our live with peace with good will to all people even the people that are understood, that is stepping out side your bubble to know how the world is, Knowing all the good in the world. Its easy to find the bad in things and criticize things you don't understand than it is to learn and live with the respect of all man kind.

Theses are lessons that some will never learn.

Theses are lessons I took the hard way to find.

And Leaving the service is not  the same reason I joined.  Its much more deeper  now than needing a hand out from the government. Which is why I choose not to collect and walk way as I did. I didn't take any thing with me. Benefits have been left in the dirt where they belong.  Because that is what it is nothing , meaning less.

Plus you can ask all you want to get out till your blue in the face, Go all that way up the chain of command  And never get what your needing,  despite what people think about being  ability to get out the proper way.

5th April 2008

Kimberly Rivera

PFC. Rivera Kimberly

G.co 2-17FA Fort Carson Colorado

After a little time in Baghdad, Iraq I discovered I was there for no reason at all.

All I was taught and told about why we where there was pointless.

And I understood my government who sent me didn't care about me, my health, or my family.

They didn't value life.

And my loyalty belonged to my kids and my husband.

They tried all they could to break my tie to my heart.

BUT IT DIDN'T WORK.

So as long as MEN fight WARS, I will be there to

PROTEST THEM!

VIOLENCE PRODUCES MORE VIOLENCE!!

So for now I have no home or Identity to any one piece of land.

HOME TRUELY IS WHERE MY HEART IS!!!

BY Kimberly Rivera 25th Jan 2008

                                               Christian lost his tooth today..........

                                     there is already another one in it's place.

                      You should have seen his face it was like he was given candy.

             His eyes where big and round full of the most wonderful happiness I have ever seen. 

The excitement of both him and me lit our faces with such a glow that made it feel as though

                                          it was coming right out of our souls. 

                     So the jumps of joy for the very first tooth that was lost today.

          by Kimberly Rivera  18jan2008

             For some reason I like pink now and don't know why. !  I love my mom and dad and grandpa and sisters and aunts and uncles and coz.  My heart just akes for all my involvement in Iraq and for all my family.  Right now I am in a place I know that I can get the medical treatment I need, for what I call," the Iraq effect."  Imagine for a moment that you are on a subway. If you have never been on one, well, it will be kind of  hard for you . Not long ago....  I was sitting on one of the seats in the sub car and I just closed my eyes. Making sure that I am clear when I say this," I was not a sleep, for the moment that it took for me to just close my eyes the image of a man no particular detail, the eery feeling of someone behind you and a shot to the head.  It  was very vivid, and graphic.  I opened my eyes and started getting a little shaken. I calmed my self down and just paid no mind to the incident and closed my eyes. This time it was worse , The feeling of unease came over me and the sense you feel when some one is watching you with a glare, was the same feeling when the hairs on the back of you neck stand up.  The same figure came in from another sub car to mine and was just shot every body, not many where on the car .  Just as before I felt someone or  something behind me and I turned around  literally to find no carnage just crazy stares. It was so intense it just flowed out tears. It took me a day just to muster up strength to get on the subway the next morning. Needless to say I don't close my eyes on the subway.  And I use the last train and I set  where I can see everybody on the car. But that is just survival mode. 

               This is what some of my days  are like.  I just never know how or what is going to trigger something, I feel sometimes as if I have lost my mind and it wonders more than it ever use to. It thinks up horrible things, haunts me when I sleep. Terrorizes me when I am awake. All due to trauma.

The little two year old in Iraq, I see her as clear as day. Just as I see my babies I see her fear. I see her pain. And when she grows I am afraid she will hate.  And I was involved with her growth to an angry child. Just by being there.

These things are unexplainable to me from a government who doesn't care about it's people. Who cant explain why we have to be mixed up in the affairs of other nations when we cant even care for our own people.

Just to fill you in a little, the only way out of  Iraq  for many US soldiers is DEATH.  Even by there own hands.  That's the desperation some soldiers feel. They are given no alterative.

X PFC Rivera, Kimberly

Written January 14th 2008

         boiling blood,  sick, sick to hear the US congress wanting to continue to keep a worthless war alive. A war with no goal, and no end in site. Still 70 billion will keep it alive. for what? 70 billion!!! The things that money can do other than cause devastation across land after land.  Effects of war come home you know. The soldiers price. Some others didn't want to die for and can you blame them. How can you win the heart of the people when every night raids where apart of night missions. Then of course you would have retaliation fire from the damage that was caused and which in turn gave you a reason to go out and do more raids and so on and so on that was life in Iraq. The soldiers won't see that money. They just might get another piece of armour that they have to wear adding to the stress on the body, mind and spirit of the soldier. The soldiers in Iraq have to wear about 50 lbs of body armour and if killed by mortar and not every piece was on it, the soldiers family would not get the severance pay from their lost soldier. Not to include that the armour would not get you far or save your life if hit by a mortar. You wear it because you have too. Maybe they will get a few more tanks?  I am sure by then they will have all MOS's outsourced to the contractors. There's no more cooks. There's no more developers or radio repair specialist the jobs are all  outsourced. Meaning the contractors do the work of the jobs the soldiers  once did.    THANK YOU CORPORATE AMERICA !! For Killing Thousands of troops and civilians to line your pockets with all the wealth of America whether it be from the consumers back home or the lives of countless men and women in Iraq fighting everyday to come home safely to there families. You should have trouble sleeping at night. But I am sure if your swimming in a little more money that's the only thing you care about. Shame. How can we be free from the clutches of corporate greed? They are using the population of the US to fund devastation that will rock America in ways that is unconceivable to any one who hasn't seen the destruction of Iraq. America is falling just like it's values and the dream that once made America the most sought after country to live. The American dream wasn't just a delusion. Finding more freedom out side of the US seems nuts.

Feeling  safer outside the US than inside it doesn't make since unless you have felt the freedom that lies just outside of your grasp, passed the boarder your afraid to cross. Away from the only tie to your identity your home land.

                                     The United States of America.

written by Kimberly Rivera

2 Jan. 2008      

   I guess it is best to start in the beginning. 

          I was born in Garland Texas roughly 30 min. from Dallas.
Grew up in Mesquite Texas all my life.

         a nice little suburb of Dallas on the map its the little triangle surrounded by all major highways to any where you want to go. Mesquite is closer to Dallas its about 10min.

      Growing up it wasn't normal to be taught that guns are not toys and you do not play with them because they are always loaded. It wasn't uncommon for daddy to have a loaded shot gun behind his closet door. So of coerce the only thing we where able to play was with be be guns which we used to chase tree rats out of our big oak tree in the back yard. Daddy always did that, it was our time with him and our dogs. After which my parents invested in a trampoline which was the highlight of the back yard, it was great. I feel like it was normal.

       Its funny how Recruiters work, every year in high school they are allowed to set up a table in the lunch room and discuss your future as a Soldier or what have you and every school had a ROTC program. I was never in ROTC or have I ever thought of becoming a soldier. on several occasions I had the recruiters approach me and ask me what my plans where and I told them I' am just 16 i don't need to disclosing info about my self to strangers, and because i was under age of 17 they didn't talk to me further that year.

       How ever in my junior and senior year they where calling my house with school rosters that they get from the schools. And each recruiter is assigned to a certain school. The reserve recruiter called me and was asking questions and ask to have a sit down at my house with me and my parents being that if they where going to get me they would have to have promission from my parents, to get my parents to sign the permission form they told them that it was just the purpose of  talking with me but what it was was permission slip allowing the army to recruit me at any time. With that form it allowed my decision to join be final with out any further action on my parents side. Any way we had this sit down and i decided that i wanted to take the aptitude test to see what jobs i would qualify for now i wasn't yet convinced of my decision i just wanted to see what they had to offer. Now i got my test score and i needed to talk to a councilor about the jobs i can be assigned. And it was a time frame of 3-4 days and before i knew it i choose a job and that was my hire date.

        I was 17. and joined the army reserves just by picking a job. Which i was given only 3 choices. Heavy wheel mechanic., radio repair, or a dental assistant. I loved working with my hands and i didn't like the sound of working on peoples dirty mouths, and i didn't want to be repairing radios so i choose mechanic. I had a boyfriend at the time,which is my husband now we both worked at wall-mart and He talked to me with that twinkle in his eyes and its been our history ever since. 

        i made up this decision all on my own and broke the news to him one night that i joined the army reserve. The real reason i got in was to have a collage future for my self. They where offering money that i didn't and my parents didn't have.Being that i was from a low end mid paying family with just my mom working for 3 girls and a broken man. My dad was hurt on the job that changed our lives forever or my moms. She was heavly burden by his injures and I am sure felt all alone in supporting the family financially. And I tired the best I could to not be a burden to her.

        Her words told me I wasn't a burden but her actions told me a different story.

I love my parents very much but there has been times I wished I was never born. So that my mom could feel successful in her life and I tired to end my life on one occasion but as you know I am still here and I believe it is for a reason.

         Anyway I was sent to Fort Jackson South Carolina The summer of my graduation in 2001 July 14th.

During Basic I stared feeling sick in the mornings and went to sick call about 3 times. I would get checked out by the doctor and he told me that I was fine. After wondering what was going on with me it was about 2week after I left that I didn't have my period and I didn't think any thing of it because the doctors say that some times when your put under the high stressed life of basic training that girls often do not have there flow. So I agreed. And I stared to begin to have trigger foods in morning chow that stared making me throw up but I thought it was just bad eggs or cheese. So I stopped going to morning chow. I would just stand in line get the food dump it out and go to our training area. By the time I really thought I might be pregnant I was a month in to Basic.

      I again went to sick with a purpose of obtaining a pregnancy test because any thing you bought from the post exchange that wasn't hygiene products was considered contraband even aspirin, and multi vitamins. So i go to the clinic and  they give me a pap test and have me wait all day and not even pee in a cup or take my blood. They hand me some pills and tell me this will take care of all your problems. Now  I started to really freak out when I got back to the bay area and I start saying the government is trying to kill my baby they gave me these pill and I was very emotional some of my peers where concerned and told the drill sergeant and they pulled me in the office and talked to me and didn't believe me when I said I was pregnant.

But I had know other reason for the way I felt every morning and by the after noon I didn't feel that way. And the smell of the heaters in the MRE's made me sick too. The pap test made me bleed for a few days and I was afraid if I had a little one I may have lost them then. Basic of coerce was kill, Kill in some aspects because that was what they where training us to do.

But for me it was not real it was like a long, long and little harder summer camp. I thought it was fun getting to play in mud and hit guys, and do team work obstacles, Play with guns. It was fun for me. I know that there is allot of brainwashing because the way they train you is not to think. The way you stay alive is by repartition you do it so much its just second nature and they needed it to be that way for you, because," one day you will be alone, all alone in a combat zone.""Bullets flying all round, better keep your head to the ground." I just didn't know how true that caddice would be for me. I can remember this stuff like it was yesterday.

            I was on the US Weapons Field when 9- 11 happened. I remember them gathering us up and taking us to one of the class rooms and watching it on the TV. I didn't believe what we where seeing. I didn't. I didn't believe it.

           The US is wonderful. The US is Great, its the greatest country of the world. I grew up being feed that. and I Believed it. I guess in a way the nation and patriotism that I had. To be apart of the culture of America that believed it could do no wrong. We are the good guys and I believed that. After September. came October my Graduation Day. The Proudest day for me and my parents.

           Not very many people can do what I just did, and that was play commando for 18 weeks. The day the army sent me to my advance personal training (AIT) my mom slipped me a pregnancy test. and any thing at the post exchange was not considered contraband any more. I just knew with out taking the test. And I had the guts one night when I had to go really bad to take it. And I did and it was positive. I told the Drill Sergeant. and I let them know that the night I left home was the last time I had ever did the do. and I got a blood test which showed what I said to be true. So the doctor asked me what I wanted to do, and I just looked at him confused like and said ,"keep the baby."(for me there was no other option and I did not want to hear about others.) Now every thing has changed I need the heath care coverage of the active duty but I am a part time soldier with out the full coverage for me or my new family. I was still in training so it was easier to get out during training because once you get to your permanent duty station it is what it says permanent. So my commander released me as I requested 3 months in to (AIT) and I returned home just before Christmas in 2001.
         And it was like I never left I returned to my job at Wall-Mart and paid for the birth of my son and me and my husband got a apartment and bought a little car to get our self's around, and 2 years later I had a beautiful little girl and it wasn't enough for me. Because I still felt like a 24 year old loser. because our jobs where not paying the bills for a apartment and food  and car ins and heath ins and credit card bills and so on. So we where moving around allot. from one apartment to another with lower rent and in and out and in and out of our parents houses. And the moves alone cost and then coming up with  down payments. So we asked my parents if we could stay with them till we could save for a down payment for a house to have permanent residence, and my parents agreed but deep down I don't think they wanted us there.

           I always felt the strife between my parents and my husband, I guess they couldn't get over the fact that Mario was Hispanic, or that he had a hard time keeping a job because I was believing my parents and calling him names and treating him badly instead of standing behind him and speaking up for him and being the support that he needed me to be. 

           I have the man of my house that I always viewed him as. But I was tearing him down and making him depressed to the point that he didn't want to do anything because he was scared that I was going to jump down his throat. And I was going to ither way. 

          I didn't know this part mostly because he keep it to him self. Any way I still know some how, one way or another we where going to get out of our parents place just because the tension is so stressful that none of us could function as positive adults.

         I needed Health care for my husband and 2 baby's and my self, I needed school, and I needed job stability by this time I was making 10.50 a hour at Wall-Mart mart and that's allot of money that's going toward my job and let goes where coming soon. That was because they could pay new people a smaller rate of pay and not have so pay out benefits or a higher pay. So it was like walking on shells you where scare of anything  and I mean, anything went wrong that would be your job.

so job security, sign on bonuses, food allowance, clothing allowance, rent paid for, health care and dental care, Oh and. every thing i needed they had. Its the best form of socialists in the the good old US of A A that i have ever seen. its geared to the young and the needy.

          I needed what they supplied for life and i took it i talked to a concerler on January of 2006, I had to lose 35 lbs and i did. and i was shipped to Fort Jackson in February 2006 and they determined that i already received basic and shipped me to Fort Linerwood in March 2006. I passed my truck driving cource on End of April because the training was the shortest on the list of jobs at a month long. And BY June i was with my regular unit.
This is the entire name of my unit. G.company, 2-17 field artillery, 2nd Brigade combat team, 2nd Infantry division. FT. Carson, Colorado.
            Shortly after our arrival our company was gearing up for a possible deployment, they didn't say we where going. My company was doing field problems sleeping in tents and making do with out daily showers and so on, but we still had our mess tents. So 2 weeks of every month since i arrived in Colorado was going to be in the dusty deserts of the Colorado Rockies. And in  August of 2006 our unit was sent to NTC. the National Training Center in death valley California. for an entire month. September 2006 we all heard on CNN that 30,000 troops where leaving to Iraq in OCT 2006 and i knew it was us.

      The next day our command announced that we just received our orders deploying us to Baghdad on OCT4th 2006. Mean while my platoon sergeant was convincing every body to prepare for mistrust of your spouse no matter how well you know them they will take your money. and they will lavish them self at your expanse. I didn't believe this from my husband and i know that he would be using all the money we have to take care of the kids.
They would put stuff in your head about how your spouse will be unfaithful and take all your money and ways you could change your accounts and set up auto drafts for your bills and rent and so on.  I didn't like that, because to do that would just put a strain on our marriage and would send the message to my husband that i don't trust him and that would continue to erode our family unit and i was buying into it and it was destroying us from the out side, to the in side.
They would also tell the same things to my husband and suggest things to him as well and i never knew because he never told me till we got to Canada.

I was destrought because i thought of this as my second chance to become something and be the best soldier i could be and my gole was to be a Warrent Officer of some kind of field. Like a Topagrapher or even the anilist. But my dream was crushed when i was hurassed for haveing a family.

            Because my loyalty was to them. The only valuble and priceless things i have in my life is my family and the army was useing them to get me to do what they wanted which was a mindless mecine to just obey with treats of loss of pay and any crappy extra duty they want you to do and for how ever long they wanted you to do it for.

               So i just keept my lip zipped i didnt want to effect my famaily in a negitive way. But i couldnt take it any more.
Oct.2006 i was sent to iraq. and i felt like i was loseing my mind. i was so close to death so many time. It scares me now. My life as i knew it was falling apart and i was unable to pull it together. I was surronded by males who where filled with filty commets, and talking about all kinds of sexual things. I dont want to go into detail because i still have problems with it. As a profesinal soldier, theres no such thing that I ever saw. The level of prefsonalism is next to none. i was there for 3 months and was scared that some of the gyes might try to get me to trust them just so later that could have there chance to abuse me. So i would often go every where alone because at least i knew what was around me wasnt a loose gye.
          Around december 21st 2006 I was going to my room from garud and something in my heart told  me to go call my husband. And when i did i a large 24 rounds of  mortars hit the FOB in the matter of min., after i got on the phone. Mortars always come more than one so the first one hit and i stopped talking and was still i was waiting to hear more it felt like mins. passed but it was only seconds. the 2nd one came. i told my baby i have to go get some where safe, and hung up the phone. I ran to the closest bulding and squaited in the coner and just watched it rain mortar after mortar counting bangs and the booms.

           I had to go and report. the mortars where about 10-15 feet from where i was, i saw them blow. After checking my room for damage and found a hole from srapnell in our plywood window. I found the srapnell that night on my bed in the same possion where my head would have been if i didnt change my plan and go to the phone.
I was questioning everything for exampe: why i was here? What am i giveing my life for? How am i helping my commarads and iraq's people? What harm do i see here that would effect the safety of family back home? Is what iam doing self defence or agrassion?
            I found out the next morning my a iraqie friend that attack got hit. She was struggleing from torcal wounds and she recived them when she was working that night.  I hugged her sisters and gave them my condolences even though i was shocked to see them still on the FOB.
And we cryed alittle and that was the last i saw of the sisters that worked me on the FOB.
          My heart broke one Saturday, Because it was claim day for the iraqie people who had wepons taken in a raide or there husbands and young boys Suspected as inserants, and treated as such. or damage to there house or cars or loss of life do to the neglance of the Army.

           A father and a little girl about 2years maybe younger shaking very hard you could see it and tears of trama ran down her face. NO weeping no whinning just tears thats, how i know it was trama. Two years old. I couldtn even imagain how she was feeling, or what she has seen at that young of an age., 

          but i was seeing my little girl not her shaking and crying. I wanted to hold her so bad. but i was afraid of scareing her more and i didnt want to do that. I just helplessly stood there not knowing how i could help and misssing my kids so very bad. I see this little girl just clear as clear as the day i saw her, and iam afraid that she will grow up to hate. The Breed of viloince for her life that forever changed.
I find out my leave is comeing soon i dont ask qusetions i just keep it all to my self i dont want them to know that i might not come back but some how my plt. sgt. all ready knew.

             and made sure to tell me about how my life would be ruened. They didnt fail that they could kill me for that as well.

They where trying to scare me and it worked i no longer thought that would be a answer to my problem.

MY leave. January 8th 2007

The best 2 weeks of my life and counting. 

            one night in the second week of my leave me and my husband both agreed that he didnt want me there and i had alrady expressed my dissapproval to the war. And i was sitting by him watching him do his studys and he typed in somthing that found the war resisters Campaine in canada.

Servierl emails later which i had him type because i was a weck. Alot of stuff was wrong with me and i couldnt expaine it. I didnt know how.

           But as my husband knew some what i have went throgh i didnt spare him any detials while i was away. Because i wanted him to know what he was dealing with when i came home. To know iam not the hero they say iam. Just suriveing there is nothing brave about. That you had to.

I started to feel after the email to my chan of command i felt the same feelings i did when i was pregnent. and i thought here we go again. It would still be to early to tell if only i could stay til the beging of feb. So we went on the road the long way around to colorado to dealy the time.

            Because if i miss i would know that for a fact. So we packed up our car as full as we could get it and went east to the mississippi river and  north through Louisiana all the way to Kanass and drove through Kanass and stopped in kanass city where we stayed about 10days, and every time we got closer to colorado the more dread feeling we would have so we drove east back through kanass and through seraveral states like Ohio. and NY and as long as we where going east to buffalo we had peace.

we crossed the border on Feb 18th 2007 i missed my cycle in febuary and in march and late april i started haveing sever pain and heavy clotting and was depressed because i know that i misscaried it lasted about 2 weeks.

             If we had doughts of our dission we didnt wonce we passed the border.

We know all we left behind our families, or things in colorado. inportant documents and pictures and my photo portfolio and writiens.  Our life our home. Our country. Our Pride. the most important thing for us to live a happy ,safe, family with both parents in the picture. That was the most important thing to us of all.
Now we are in toronto with the uncirtany of if we can stay in canada or not and just had my first imagration meeting over 30 days ago and the next move is an appeal thats when i get the dissisoin in the mail. Dont know when that will be. But that is still better than be in the states.
Peace is what we want to live by and we have that chance right here.

I just want to shout out to all of my supporters that have made my life in Canada possible I know that I have not posted a new blog in a while. I am a little  Stressed out.  The reality is I might have to go back to the US. And if that is the case So be it. However I will fight tooth and nail to stay. Don't worry I am still here. I have been trying to save a food bank that me and my family get food from every week. And been looking at a lot of documents about human rights and I feel, I may be needing to do something along that line as well. Being that my thinking matches up to that of the Human rights, I am tasked out right now being that I have my own fight right now about being allowed to stay in Canada. I am still working on about 3 other writings that are in the work for my blog page just after is a bad time and all the other times I am working with the campaign. Thank you for bearing with me on this and Thank you sooooo much for everything.

Peace and equality to all is what I want  to pass on to my kids and to all.

Kimberly Rivera

         My heart is in a woe.

My soul is crying. Screaming at a high pitch that keeps my spirit stirred up. It's causing my heart to ache.

Pain and sadness are trying to breakthrough my subconsciousness, to cause chaos.

It is unpredictable and uncontrollable.The pain of my subconsciousness wants to be known.  Why does it exist?

I fight it so I don't have to feel it. Going crazy and flipping out about small things, not the path I want to feel. The path of wrath.

How much more can I take?

The woe on my soul.

written by Kimberly Rivera

9th Nov. 2007

      My babies are so precious, I can't image my life without them. I don't want to thank how they would feel if they did not have a mother.

I'll tell you how that thought makes me feel but tears over flowed my eyes and rolled down my face, just to think I would have never seen my babies again or celebrate another birthday or read them books of feed them or hug and kiss them and tell them that I love them. I am saddened that my mom condemns my decision to leave the way I did. She still thinks that Iraq was involved in the  attack on the trade centers and probably believes every thing that has been said on why we are still over there that changes everyday. She believes if we are not fighting there we will be fighting in our homes and leaving in the fear of terrorist. A very proud mother with girls in the service. And to have a daughter to run from duty, honor, and responsibility is outrageous to her even if it meant death for me. Because had I made my fight I would have been on one of the eight choppers that went down on my way back to war. You know, you never know what you miss until it's taken from you. I feel unless she has lost a daughter in Baghdad, Iraq she won't be happy. If that happens I know she won't ever be happy,because along with loss comes despair. You see my mom lost her mom at a very young age my grandma may have been in her early 50's maybe even her late 40's. I believe she lives with the grief and pain of her mother's passing.

   Grandma was my favorite, grandma and I believe I was her favorite grandchild. But I think that just because I was her 1st grandchild. And I miss her very much at times. Well a lot of the time. I feel like she is always with me. I do not believe god took her from us. My mom might feel that way. I don't know. My grandma had a brain tumor and I didn't even know she wore wigs till close to the end, because no matter what she was going through she always was able to give me a smile. Even she was on Chemo and very sick she was always wonderful.

  I rember the time momma got the call. Me and my 2 little sisters where in the tub. I was around 10-12 years old at the time still in grade school. Momma tells us.

  I can't tell what happens next. If I was physically, or just mentally there. But this is what I remember.

We get to the hospital where grandma was staying. I see all my aunts and uncles holding hands around her praying. I go under there hands and grab her hand and just begin to cry,the blubbering type. It's like she was waiting to see me. Grandma opens her eyes and she sees me and wipes my tears away. She said,"my child don't cry I am not leaving you. It is just time for me to go home." I tell her," grandma I love you. I don't want you to go." She said,"I love you but it is time now." The moment she said that she flat lined and the light in her eyes went out to tell you that her soul was not there the nurses came and got the kids out of the room. They couldn't save her,but I already knew. I still feel at times that I was ripped off a grandma. I know that  my mom blames god for taking her out of our lives. It's not god's fault. We where to learn something from this event and heartache in our lives.

Now I didn't want to believe my grandma was gone I wanted to stay safe in denial. So I denied the grief of her passing. I didn't go to her funereal and her body was cremated. Sometimes I am glad I didn't go because I did not want to invalidate the last good bye. Sometimes I wish I would have gone so I could start the grieving process instead of deny it. I indulged myself in Oreo's and Mario 3 and Milk that day to get my mind off of not having a grandma. The only thing that made me feel better is knowing she knew when it was her time to go and was not scared. She passed from one life right to another, her spiritual life. It is hard to sit and watch the light go out of someone's eyes that life is no longer visual in the one you love. Losing a mom would be harder I think. But losing your kids would be the hardest thing to ever have to get over. You never get over these things they haunt your life some times.

At all cost I would keep my babies safe.Even if it meant my life. I believe that parent should not have to bury there kids and I feel like I was protecting my mom from ever having to fell that kind of pain. It would be a lot harder than losing a mom because it is your Kids,because you are to die before your kids. and I don't know any parent that doesn't feel that way.

So It surprises me that she would think 1-2 years in Iraq was better than prison. Granted she has not been to ether one of those places or ever been to a military prison ether. Baghdad Iraq is a horrible prison to the people who can't leave.Such as soldiers and Iraq refugees.People fleeing there homes to get away from violence just to be turned back at the border. In Iraq the food quality was starting to dwindle, the repairs where not made to the hole in our ply wood window.(as if that would stop any thing). You had limited times on the phones and Internet. Confined to your room most of the time.Oh and danger from your comrades and danger from the people trying to kill you, from some type of explosive device.

As a mom myself seeing my baby happy, healthy, and safe is my mane objective and I would stand up for them no matter what type of reticule I would have to endure. Because I would know that my daughter would be safe. And not a victim of this selfish war.

Loss of a mother and a child would me incredibly hard and some how my mommy doesn't see that. I know If I lost my Mommy I would be heartbroken. Because I do love my Mommy.               

written by Kimberly Rivera 12 May 2007

         Sometimes I stay awake just so I don't have to face the nightmares that haunt me in my sleep. Afraid that I'll wake up in Iraq! Or dream up something scarier than the one's before. I cant image what lays and waits for me to drift off to sleep, It's like a Freddy Curger type of deal. It gets you when your asleep. Then I start to think of depriving myself of sleep. I've done it before,when I was away. When I was there I was running on 2-4 hours of sleep waken up every hour for at least 2 1/2 months or the entire time I was there. I can do it again! Despite the fact that is not healthy behavior. But what is that price for a little sanity. And to stay way from thoughts of waken up in Iraq. By the time that move sounds really, really good, responsibility hits me like a rock on my head at 6am. The kids of coerce screaming, yelling, fighting, climbing and jumping all over me. Reminding me it is time to get up.I just roll over knocking them off of me to the bed and they just laugh like it is a game and decide to play king of the mountain on me some more.

I get up disgruntled and saying,"Man the alarm hasn't even gone off yet."

So we know not sleeping is out of the question. It's not good to go. So until I can figure out away to stop my nightmares, More likely I will be waken up in a state of panic until I notice where I am really at!

Kimberly Rivera

06 May 2007

  I woke up in Iraq! The Army dragged me back! The First Sergeant was working on my papers to get me back home.

After I told him I was useless because I wasn't going to touch a weapon and I was no longer going to be a good soldier and just do as I am told! The Captain stepped in and jumped down the First Sergeant's throat. He said,"She's not going home"! Right then I saw mortars raining down over head. I ran and fell on my face behind a wheel of a Hum-V. Then got up and ran into a building where a group of Iraqi men where hiding. After the attack I just stayed there. Thinking it would be safer there.

  The same men left and came back with M-16's and AK's, and shot up a small group of civilians that was mostly women and children, that where refugees that stayed on the base. I asked one of the men just before they went out on the shooting,"how do you know who the bad guys are." He said,"They are Kurds!" They went door to door and killed everybody in the house. I hear the screams, and I see the blood flowing from the kids lifeless body's. I saw the mothers over there injured baby's just before they where shot in the head.I saw some women running out of the houses to get away just to be slammed to the ground by there hair.Terrible things happened to the girls,they were rape and beaten  before there life was taken from them. And I thought this is war and this is what we are doing there. The same thing these men where. I was shocked. I didn't say another word.  Now I was trapped in the hell of Iraq with no place to go.

Somebody had to follow me every where I went! Phones and the Internet where taken from me so I could not talk to my husband or any of my family members. I was confined to my room. I didn't know what to do. I told my chain of command," I have no desirer to do anything they tell me to, and we are dieing over here for nothing." "Nobody here can say they can or I can get myself home alive."

This dream was very real. I could see, hear, and smell Iraq like I was back. I can't say I woke up screaming but I am just glad I woke up! I sat there in my bed 2-5 seconds just to look around at where I was. It was so scary! I know that my captain would at no cost give me the worse punishment he could for the stunt I pulled and to make an example of me! My life would be in a greater hell than it was already.

written By Kimberly Rivera 05 May 2007

   Attack,Attack, Attack. It's all I see, It's all I feel. The shakes and the crashing of the elevator doors are so hard it shakes me to my core.I just know if I would have stayed in Iraq for my year or two, I would have returned in a body bag.

  And I tears just flow. I don't think I'll ever forget the mortars or how much I was defenseless to them.

In Iraq, it didn't effect me this way and I sometimes can't understand why it does now.Other than I never stopped to think about it I just lived with it.I was in the danger why think about it. I still had months and months to pass by.

I act as a cool headed person through incidents and after, after everything has happened after the shock wore off then I would have a chance to freak out. And let the feelings out. Incidents where 24/7 I had no time to go through my process of dealing with events.

It's definitely effects me now and I never know how my day is going to be if I will be depressed or if I will wake up with my reoccurring nightmares, of if the paranoia of people out to kill me is going to be present that day or night.If the trauma is going to take over my day or how I handle different stresses that come with life, I never know. Night time is always the worse.My brain works more to keep me awake just to be on guard.

Some of my episodes are systematic they just reoccur do to some street noise like slamming of any kind that makes loud booms and bangs.The elevators closing hard, many helicopters flying around or low flying planes. It breaks me down mentally, spiritually it feels as if the experience is trying to keep me down and out.

I am glad I tossed out the piece of shrapnel I found on my bed, from the day that is burned in my mind like I am still there. This was the time it became real to me and I was starting to lose friends that where right by me every day at the front gate.Military and Civilian.I just thought I remembered enough with out having to have something to haunt me every day," like see me, I could have got you." It was creepy.There is nothing I can do to forget the mortars I have seen blow up right out side the door of the locations I have been, just to find out had I been in my room when that attack happened I wouldn't be alive and talking today. That is a scary thought to think about. Thankful and grateful to be around to enjoy my family and my second chance to be apart of my children's lives once more.

written 04 May 2007by Kimberly Rivera

So I spoke to a class at the university of Toronto yesterday and it went good. It was way longer talk than I am use to but i have nothing to compare it to so yeah. Very Interesting  really I felt as if i might have been rambling but it was good i got to go in to more detail and found myself often at a loss of  experience just because i was covering my ground really quick just because i wasn't use to having so much time to talk.So after this long speech i  should be comfortable speaking after this. How ever I still have a big thing with TV cameras, I just don't like them and i feel way more jitters with that big thing right in my face. And still life cameras I have no problem with. But that might be partly because I like to take pictures and that just does not phase me.

Today however was a blast, I got to hang out with my son all day, This morning was a busy one and I had a sick little girl at home and did not want to take her out so the two hours that my son would be in school, So he had to miss. But I took him with me to a interview workshop so he did not stop learning, and neither did I. So in a way I am excited to go to my first interview and even more excited that I am able to look for work. Yeah. For me I guess as long as I get advancement opportunity  and get to talk to customers on a one on one level and help them to find and be happy in the products that they buy then my life on the job is complete.  For one of my past times being writing I feel like I should be doing that, but it is way harder to be a freelance writer for a living then to do some retail large or small, And do what I love as a side and if something comes from my writing then great but if not it would not hurt me. My photography and writing is my Art. And Its very deep on occasions but it is mine and it is personal. Plus I guess if I write for a living I am afraid that I will lose the passion I have for my true creative writings and my poems. So I guess that's the real reason,I am afraid.