Me: Money, Travel, ISIS, and More

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Hello Steemit! I've been browsing the website for a few days and decided to go ahead and get involved.

This is a photo that one of my soldiers took on the dropzone yesterday. It's an honor to be here in Italy representing the United States. I've been here for about three years with my Platoon of about twenty Paratroopers. Sadly, yesterday was my last jump, possibly ever. I will be back in America soon.

I like to consider myself a world traveler. Since I've been living in Italy, I have been to quite a few places. But one of the more exotic places is Kenya. Being there was a great experience. I went as part of an organization that builds partnerships with Kenyan villagers. It was almost hard to describe, but suffice it to say that there is a whole world out there for us to be a part of. We learned how to build out of simple materials and how to attach solar panels to a mud roof; we taught them rock-paper-scissors. Believe me, we learned more from them than they did from us.

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Here is a photo of us building a house with the people of Madivini, near Chavakali, Kenya.

We also had an opportunity to meet teachers at a fledgling school in the village. It was a new world for us. Especially when we went to Kajiado, the home of the Maasai: people who choose to live like they did centuries ago, sticking to the old ways of cattle-ranching rather than taking to the city with all of its noise.

[] Joining in a traditional dance!

While I'm introducing myself, I'll also briefly mention that I am very into stock trading; some may even say that I have a minor obsession. Not without reason, though. Investing takes discipline and perseverance. In my eighth year of investing, I have learned quite a bit. I hope to introduce some new investors to the market while I get into cryptocurrencies.

[] The last year has been great!

Doing what I do in the Army, I am timid to show too much of my face. I am in the intelligence field, and as such I have a responsibility not to make myself a target for the information I want to share. I have access to a lot of classified data, but I WILL NOT be leaking any of it (it's not as exciting as you may think anyway). However it is becoming clear to me, especially in this election year in the US, that most people do not know enough about US foreign policy, and the threats lurking out there, to properly address our grievances to the government. This is especially true during an election year, in which people on TV, trying to sound smart, spew nonsense that does nothing but make things more difficult. They love to talk about our new worst enemy, the Islamic State, often called ISIS.

[] Enemy with a great propaganda campaign.

Talking heads on TV have a hard time understanding what we are fighting. The truth is, ISIS is a phoenix risen from the ashes of al-Qaeda in Iraq, or AQI. It began in 1999 as Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (Organization of Monotheism and Jihad), and operated in Iraq. After the US invaded in 2003, Jama'at pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, and became AQI. AQI was largely defeated, but the group's surviving members lived on to form the Islamic State in Iraq. It joined the Syrian Civil War, becoming the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or Westernized as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, from which we derive ISIS. Now, groups all over the world from Boko Haram in Nigeria, to the Taliban in Afghanistan, to al-Shabaab in Somalia are joining the Caliphate. They are no longer confined to Iraq and Syria. They are The Islamic State.

[] One of the most widely-circulated propaganda images

Many people in America (and Europe) greatly fear ISIS, and they are not necessarily wrong for it. What I am noticing, however, is that fear in the US is often met with the "kill everything" response. Tearing Iraq apart was the catalyst that created ISIS. It breaks my heart to see one of our presidential nominees feed off of people's fears and promote a typical force-on-force war. ISIS is not that type of enemy; we cannot defeat them that way. I hope that what I can do here is inform intelligent people like yourselves about what ISIS really is, how it works, and my view on how we can defeat them, all based on open-source information free of anything confidential. Look for updates each week! Together, we can be a part of the intelligent, informed population with keen awareness on what threatens us, and how we should appropriately respond to it.

I guess that's it for now! Look out for a short discussion on ISIS later today if I get a chance. Feel free to reach out to me if you want to talk stocks as well. Thanks for reading. No way to get started but to jump right in!

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