tl;dr An Orthodox Christian serving in the National Guard introduces himself and explains what this blog will be about - religion and service to one's country.
Hello, and welcome to my blog! I am Commini (pronounced Co-mmeeny) and this is my first post. I would like to take some time to talk about myself and what this blog will probably contain.
Firstly, I am a Christian, and an Orthodox Christian at that. I believe that the Orthodox Church is the True Church established by the Apostles almost 2,000 years ago. I believe the Nicene Creed minus the filioque. This does not mean that I am intolerant of peoples of other faiths, but I will freely joke with them if they will joke with me.
I grew up Baptist, but when I was first deployed in Iraq I started to question a few things and ultimately came to Orthodoxy after a long and intense period of study and prayer. I also used to be an ordained minister, but since I converted my ordination is no longer valid. My faith is very important to me, I understand if you have a different view, if you will respect my faith then I will respect yours.
Second, I am a soldier. I don't care what your views are on Active Duty versus National Guard and Reserve; I went through the same training as the people on Active Duty and my uniform says US Army, not National Guard. I serve in the same areas as the Active Duty when I am deployed and I do the same job as the Active Duty. The only difference is I get to go home and take off my uniform and grow a full beard at the end of the day. So if you are going to hate on me for being a Weekend Warrior or a Nasty Girl take that somewhere else - you don't know me or my reasoning for not wanting to go Active.
I come from a long line of service men on both sides of my family. My paternal grandfather served in the Army during WWII, my father and his brother both served in the AF, and I am currently serving in the National Guard. My maternal grandfather served in the Army but saw no war, and my uncle was in the Army and deployed to Vietnam - my mother's family has a line of service going back to the War between the States.
Third, I am not Republican, nor am I Democrat. I view myself more along the lines of Libertarian in some views (not all!). The best way I describe myself is a liberal conservative. There are certain issues I am extremely conservative on, whilst there are others I am liberal on - these will be revealed later. I subscribe to the Patriot Post, an online newspaper that leans to the right - they offer a different side to the news than what you normally get, but again it is saturated with right-wing conservativeness.
In this blog I will explore what it means to me to be an Orthodox Soldier serving his country. Some posts will be religious in context, others dealing with serving, and others may be political or whatever else I please. I will try to post a tl;dr (too long; didn't read) at the beginning of each post giving a short description of what is to be expected in each post giving you the ability to skip that post if you don't feel like reading that particular theme.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me dcommini@gmail.com
2 comments:
Nice first post- though I'd stay away from the dramapedia/4chan shorthand (tl;dr). Also, as your brother I am legally obligated to give you guff so... ANOTHER Orthodox convert blog? Is this really what the Internet needs?
It is not really an Orthodox convert blog, but more of my sojourn as an Orthodox Christian who is serving in the Military. Granted, my about me page and my intro post have somewhat to do with my conversion, but ultimately this thread will be about me being a Christian in the military.
As for the short hand, it is there for any of those posts that is there for those readers (because I have so many) who do not want to read what is contained therein.
But I do appreciate your input, although I must say that if you were really that upset over my blog then you would not have decided to follow...
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