Stories like this one make me ill with a dizzy fear. I can't imagine the pain of this man's family. I don't want to imagine what I would feel in a similar situation and yet that is all I can think of. Upon reading this story I was honestly sick to my stomach and I thought I was going to pass out.

Fear is honestly the first emotion that I felt. Fear that this kind of revenge can and will continue to happen. Fear that it will happen to someone I know. Fear that the fear won't go away. I know it won't go away, but hopefully the paralyzing aspect of it will. I will readily admit that I am afraid of the people that will do such a thing. I am afraid of the people who will support such an act. I am afraid of the fact that such things can happen anywhere and at anytime.

Anger was the second thing that I felt. Some of it rational and some of it not. There was anger at the people who committed the act. Anger at the people who supported the act. Anger at the people who applauded the act. Anger, not surprise. I am afraid I am to the point where nothing that is done in the under the guise of jihad will surprise me.

There is also anger that I have trouble admitting, though. Some of the strongest anger I felt (and still feel) is directed at the U.S. soldiers who gave purpose to the act. I am so angry at the whole occupying force right now. I am angry at the soldiers who abused their power. I am angry at the direct chain of command that wasn't watching closely enough or was blatantly turning a blind eye. In this case I am both angry and very very surprised. After all, this same force is the one that my family serves so proudly. These are men and women we would meet on the street every day and yet they have committed acts more heinous than I would ever dream possible within the realms of the occupying force.

I am angry at the fact that our troops were given power and apparently weren't taught how to wield it and I am angry that the troops (some; not all) were too caught up in themselves to remember how to act like human beings first.

I am angry that they handed such a weapon to the enemy and that they harmed innocent people in their control. I am angry that they have created more danger for my husband when he joins the forces currently in theater and I am furious that they have blackened the name of and smeared the honor in which we have such pride.

Anger is a strong emotion and to a certain degree edges out the fear, but there are moments like today when I am struck with such a paralyzing nauseating wave of fear that I almost pass out from it. I can act on neither the fear nor the anger and I have never felt more helpless in my life.

It is almost certain that in less than a year I will be sending G off to join the forces currently occupying either Afghanistan or Iraq. He will be in charge of soldiers and he will have to account for their actions as well as his own. He will be morally and legally liable for situations that are, to a certain extent, beyond his control just by the nature of his job. All the while he will be facing an unpredictable and terrifying foe who has no value for his own life and who has just been handed yet another reason to hate my husband just because of the passport he holds.

For me, fear and anger are almost one and the same.