When there is no cause, it is simpler.

Thak did three tours in Iraq.  What a lot of people wouldn't guess, given that, is that we never, for one single day, believed that war should have happened.  It was wrong the day he convoyed over the border from Kuwait as part of the invasion.  It was wrong when they sent him to the Syrian border to do something that ultimately made the news.  It was wrong when they sent him as part of a massive surge of troops, to reclaim Baghdad.  That war was wrong from beginning to end, illegal even, and we always knew it.  Every day we lived with the reality of fighting that war, it was conflicting and difficult, because on one hand, he was there, or training to go there, and we had to live with that reality every day of our lives for about five years.  It is hard to live a life where one big part of it is being a part of something you know is wrong.

After all that, we wanted nothing to do with deployments ever again, but that's not what the economy had for us.  Pretty much the only thing Thak can do that brings in enough money for us to live on, is work for a defense contracting firm in a job that deploys. Luckily, it's in a field he enjoys very much, and he actually likes his job, minus the fact that he has to deploy.  He's going to Afghanistan next year with an Army unit that he works with as a contractor.

Oddly, this sits way better with both of us than any of his previous deployments did.  It all comes down to one thing, really.  There is no cause this time.  The only reason he's doing this is for money.  Sure, giving up 9 months of our life for money sounds like a ridiculous thing to do, but there's really nothing else that's going to give us the boost this will give us, and we need it, so it's the right answer this time.  The only cause for us this time, is us.  It's selfish, and completely egocentric, and a hell of a lot easier to live with than George Dubya's war ever was.

Funny how that works.