Sometimes I wonder, what is the point?  When I lived overseas it amazed me how in some countries their military personnel could not vote.  This was set up deliberately in order to avoid making the military a political branch.  At the time I admit it did not make sense to me at all.  If the vote is personal and confidential...who would know which way you would vote anyway?  But in backwards countries, where the absentia voting system isn't quite refined (as if our system was really that advanced and refined!!!), it would not be possible for soldiers to vote outside of the jurisdiction they worked and operated out of anyway, making the military vote a very strong one in those communities.  Fast forward fifteen years and I find myself disheartened with  the candidates, yet again this year.  And what is the point?  When it is all said and done I have to salute him or her (wow...) and say "Aye Aye Sir/Ma'm".  Flash back to 2004, to a quaint little sleepy Iraqi town in Al Anbar.  All that was shown in the Camp Fallujah DFAC was Fox News.  And the news was relentless...  At the time it made no sense to change Commander in Chiefs in the middle of a conflict.  Still, now almost four years later and we're still there, things are improving but when things were so crappy to begin with, any improvements are warmly welcomed.  And the enemy is just as relentless; for every good deed, those SOB's manage to do three bad ones so it was/is a real challenge to keep up the good work.  Now again is yet another opportunity for change, my role as a military man makes me question the practicality for me to vote and the will of the American people will be heard regardless of what a soldier feels.  And I would be good with that if it weren't for the fact that some of this year's candidates are pandering to that group of Americans that traditionally do not bring much to the table anyways.  Let's just hope that they are pestilent minority.  Americans must realize that the bad guys must be fought and challenged way before they start getting the "good" ideas to hurt us, that hurt our hearts, that hurt our pockets.  The fact that we must fight these bastards will never change, no matter who is in office until the second coming of Christ.