So a side hobby of mine is personal financial management. Was attending the local chapter's meeting for the American Association of Individual Investors yesterday. Got another blatant reminder of how some of us simply live in a different world than others.
The invited presenter started off his presentation asking what was happening in 2007. I started thinking about what was happening in my life. I was deployed to Iraq during "the surge" that may be seen as contributing to a period of relative stability in Iraq. It was a challenging time there, as a number of helicopters had been shot out of the sky, and the surge was part of a broader effort to get things under control. I lost 3 contractors- 2 to IEDs that July and one, a local national, a bit later, to a mafia-style hit by other Iraqis who wanted to get in on his business.
Binksy and I prep for a brief walkabout June 2007
The reminder of the different world for civilians hit right then. He said "Nothing. Nothing was happening in 2007. There were no wars going on, no major events."
Granted, the markets were in the quiet before the storm as credit default swaps and garbage mortgage backed securities had yet to become common parlance in the public arena. So, what was going on from a military standpoint might not have been seen as relevant for an investment advisor.
But there were definitely wars going on in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And as I return from Army War College I have friends who are still deploying to the CENTCOM region and Afghanistan in particular.
We are still at war.
Some have forgotten September 11, 2001. For others, it was the beginning of personal involvement in armed conflict that continues to today. We have soldiers deploying who weren't even born then.
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