No matter where you go you see people living in very different conditions than what you’re used to back home. Some live lavish lifestyles while others are barely getting by so you come to understand just how lucky you are and you never look at America through the same ignorant eyes you saw her through before. You realize you’re an Ambassador in Green and the job takes on new meaning as you interact with urban people in cities while you’re on liberty and country folk in the outlying areas as you wargame or do it for real. Depending on where you are and how you act towards the local people, kids usually ask for candy, young girls point and giggle, mothers look on with concern for their families and poppa sans don’t want you messing with their daughters. While farmers always want you off their land so you don’t destroy their crops, shop keepers can’t wait to get you into their stores so they can separate you from your money.

The food is always different and quite tasty as long as you don’t ask what you’re eating and everyone laughs when you do find out and you make an American face when the realization hits you. That’s when you realize that culture is the only thing that truly separates us as human beings because it’s merely the different way we all do what we have to do as people. We all laugh, we all cry, we all live, we all die. Now you see the naked truth that everyone just wants to raise their children with food on the table and a roof over their heads and then grow old gracefully with their grand children. It’s a universal theme which is all very human and very much like home.

In everywhere but the Middle East you develop cleaver pick up lines like “I love you no BS take me home” for bar girls who laugh to “where is your live theater, would you like to join me?” with sophisticated urbanites who say yes about a third of the time. This is when you learn the true value of speaking your key phrases in whatever country’s language you’re in and you act like a civilized human being with respect who is about something. This is when the whole world opens up and you’re living large because you’re meeting and accepting people on their terms exactly as they are and they in turn are treating you the same exactly as you are. Suddenly you find yourself totally fascinated with all this new cultural wealth around you and your eyes open wide as you begin soaking up everything like a sponge. You’re no longer just buying souvenirs for the folks back home and taking pictures for your personal memories. You’ve emerged into a world traveler who correctly haggles prices in exotic markets, takes photo essays of places you’re visiting and meets new peoples with respect and dignity.

All these are the very life defining moments you enlisted for and so much more because you mature far beyond becoming a mere man as you embrace life with a zest you’ve never known. You're now a human being.