It’s nice to finally have a little time to write a blog on here. It’s May 22nd and I am extremely excited because our drummer, Joe, has been away at college in Florida for the past several months and returned home finally. The album is on its way. We hit the studio at the end of June and hopefully by Fall/Winter we will have something for our fans.

On to a more serious topic, the death toll of United States soldiers for the Month of April 2008 closed out at 49 deaths in Iraq. Bringing the total to over 4,000 killed and almost 40,000 injured. My prayers go out to them and their families and friends who are undoubtedly struggling. It is so sad to think that because the leadership has been so poor these past eight years, that many people don’t even realize the enormous sacrifices that American soldiers and their families are making. People always look at Vietnam and think, well we lost between 40,000 and 60,000 men in that war, at least it’s not that bad. However, IT IS that bad. The difference is that we have better medical teams and better forms of treatment now, as opossed to Vietnam. If it were the 60’s or 70’s, the death toll would be approaching that threshold as I write. Instead, all of those soldiers lives have been saved. We now have more soldiers who are amputees, mentally retarded, paralyzed, or suffer from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) then after any other war in history. This is one of the hidden costs that you don’t see factored in to the war budget. These some 30,000-40,000 soldiers will need medical assistance in one form or another for the rest of their lives. This trillion dollar expense will be passed on to all Americans, as well it should be, but didn’t have to be. I ask all who read this to stop and think about our troops over seas and pray for them.

Reflecting on this, I beg the question…How? How did we get to this point? How have things gotten so bad so fast? In my new song, The War Machine, I tried to travel back in my mind to 2001/2003/2005 to revisit my thoiughts at the time. The lyrics take you through the mind of a young man who, after 9/11, is filled with anger and hate. He wants revenge through violence, but inside doesn’t really know who to be angry with. He feels as though he wants “the freedom to shoot any man who threatens [him].” He decides the military is the best way to handle his anger, but soon realizes that the military is very different then he thought it would be. Inside he’s still not sure who he’s supposed to be fighting and why. By the end, the young man has made it through “The War Machine”, but doesn’t know what he accomplished because the anger is still inside of him. Maybe the next time we are threatened as a country we can take the time to explore all of our opotions and make more decisive decisions.

-Gooch