If this is your first time, welcome to my humble blog. I wanted to take a moment and give you a quick brief on who I am and why I do this milblog thing.

I am an active duty Army Soldier stationed at Fort Hood, TX. I started this blog in 2004 after returning from my Iraq deployment. I noticed almost immediately that I didn’t see things the way I used to. I found it difficult to talk about my experiences and decided that if I wrote them down I felt better. It was my way of talking to someone without talking to anyone at all – self-medication, really. In 2005, I began publishing my Iraq War Journal. That is when things really got rolling with the blog and it became more noticed.

Last year, I came public about my PTSD and decided to document my fight to get right. It’s been a series of ups and downs as I battle with demons that are over six years old and still affect me and my family. Those writings can be found on PTSD Perspectives. I thought it would be important to lead from the front and prove to my brothers and sisters that there is life after PTSD and it is something that can be controlled. Seeking help in the Army is not a career ender and is necessary for both the health and welfare of each of us, but also this country.

Like just about everyone else, I started getting those crazy emails about winning kabillions of dollars in a fake internet lottery. Bored, I decided to strike back and created my alter ego, David Sneakers. Through David, I would string these guys along with silly and outlandish stories just to tire them out. I started the Nigerian Scammers category and figuring out where these things originated and to draw attention to it. It was my way of releasing stress through humorous conversations with fake people.

Those scams quickly morphed into scams of supposed Soldiers who had found millions of dollars in the Iraq desert and needed help getting the money out of the country. All the victim had to do was help with a small processing fee, courier fee, embassy fee, transportation fee, and whatever fee they made up that usually added up to thousands of dollars.

As those scams faded, I began writing about these scammers who had shifted tactics from internet lotteries and millions of dollars in found cash to winning the “hearts and minds” of unsuspecting women by posing as deployed Soldiers. These scammers would build relationships and then scam women out of money to pay for non-existent communications services. The more I outed these scams, the more I was contacted by women around the world who had been scammed. And, here we are! If you want to read all the stories just click on the Nigerian Scammers link under my categories listing either on the sidebar or near the bottom of the page.

I would also invite you to check out some of my other categories. America’s Finest and Doing Great Things are heroic and inspirational stories about the great and noble things our troops are doing. I am on numerous publisher mailing lists and frequently write book reports about books dealing with military topics. You can read those by clicking on Book Reports.

Because of this site, I was privileged to be invited to also write for the prominent military blog, You Served. You Served is another great resource for veterans that features bloggers that are active duty, veterans, and family members. Along with my best friends, Troy and Marcus, we have a weekly You Served Radio Show that has become widely listened to and even picked up on terrestrial radio stations that serve millions of Americans. Both are a great resource for important military information.

Finally, if you’d like to be added to my mailing list for important updates and writings, please send me a blank email with “Subscribe” in the subject line to cj@soldiersperspective.us.

Again, thanks for visiting and spreading the word about these scams!