19AUG10:
I’m on my way home from my deployment to Iraq. Right now, sitting on this commercial airliner being served coffee and snacks it almost feels as if I just left last week. Kind of a blur, kind of surreal. It was nine months ago that I was doing this exact same thing on my way across the Atlantic for the first time ever. The last few days have been tiresome. Moving out of my CHU and staying at the clinic one night. Flying to Kuwait and staying in tents the next three nights and spending all of last night, or today or whatever combination of Wednesday and Thursday this is, on the plane. I suspect it hasn’t hit me yet that I’ll be home in a few hours. I get episodes of excitement but then realize that I’m still many hours away and try to contain myself.
We landed in Germany this morning and it was 57 degrees outside and had just finished raining. It was 130 degrees in Kuwait yesterday and I hadn’t seen evidence of rain since probably early March in Iraq. The cool, wet air immediately brought me back to summers in Alaska. Even the angle of the sun’s rays starting to hit the airport were lower and also seemed much like Alaska, or Seattle or Oregon; the places I would day dream about in my clinic while some 19 year old kid would describe to me his incredible chronic lower back pain. In Kirkuk at 0700 the sun is high and bright and the temp is already reaching double Africa hot making its way toward the dreaded triple Africa of the oncoming afternoon.
The smell of the rain this morning brought me back to the last rain I think we had in Kirkuk and one of my best memories of the deployment. It was a cool evening and The Zac Brown Band was in camp to perform. Many of us, including myself, were casual fans of the band but had no idea what great musicians they really were. Zac himself was talented, funny, humble and obviously enjoying himself. He was the man that night and as the rain started to fall they played even harder and helped us forget that our tour was really just getting started. The monotony of FOB life combined with non combat missions for combat troops would soon begin to take a mental toll on these troopers. But on that night as we sang and laughed and admired real people being passionate about their craft, truly we were happy just being right there in that moment. I will be a Zac Brown Band fan for life.
It’s been a while since ive written about my life deployed. I had started my entries but each time I seemed to ramble on about some annoyance that seemed all so important until I started to write it down. In July a Marine was killed in Afghanistan while disarming an IED. He was 28 years old. He had a beautiful smile, a beautiful wife, a beautiful daughter with another on the way. He was obviously an excellent Marine as he had made E7 at such an early age. He was an EOD technician and I can’t even fathom the courage it took to do once what he must have done every day. He is one of hundreds of US service members killed so far this year but he is the only one from my hometown. His name was Chris Eastman and when I heard this news my chest seemed to cave in. He was a few years younger than me, but I played football, basketball and wrestled with him. I knew his older brothers well. If you met Chris you liked him. He was just that way, easy going and carefree. That’s how I remember him. A beautiful Amercian boy from a small town, working hard to provide for his family and serve his county; one second he was here and the next he was gone.
We were scheduled to leave Kuwait last night (this morning) at 0230. In the Army, planning is done in reverse. Whoever did our planning yesterday needs some training. As I’ve mentioned it was 130 degrees in Kuwait yesterday. This is not an uncommon event. Its not as though we were all like “Holy Shit, I cant believe its so hot here today! Where did this come from?” No, we know it’s going to be 130 degrees because this is the real deal fucking desert and this is Kuwait. In August, in Kuwait, its one-hundred-and-fucking-thirty degrees every day. So of course, our plan is to wait until 1400 (when its getting good and hot) and then have 300 plus Soldiers neatly line up all of their bags (most weighing in at 100+ lbs) in front of our tents in a glorious bag formation. Then two Semi’s pull up and we load all of these neatly placed bags into the trailers. We then all climb aboard busses and get ready to go to the customs yard. Im thinking this may be a 30-40 minute ride. But no, we literally travel about a ½ mile down the street and then unload all the fucking bags again back into the same fucking configuration we just had them in a ½ mile ago. The working dogs need to sniff over the bags and then they need to randomly select a sample of us for full bag searches. I mean I guess this is necessary but I think its obvious that certain steps can be eliminated. Anyway, flash forward 7 hours and Im sitting in another tent 50 feet from the customs yard, a ½ mile from our sleeping tents and all that’s been accomplished is filling out my customs card, sweating my balls off and getting my bags checked just in time to sit and wait another 4 hours for a bus to drive me 2 more hours to our flight. Okay so I needed one more bitch session before wrapping up this blog.
Life on the FOB was redundant, boring, etc. Anything new to your day that differentiates from the last is welcomed and astonishing. The last two months of this deployment were interesting. Two months ago I was somewhat depressed, bored, tired of the routine. Always questioning what the fuck we are doing here, questioning authority, questioning stupidity, questioning American policy (I know, deep right?). Then came a blow to my skull in the form of some outside perspective (thank you Mother) allowing me to regain focus on what a great life I have and really what a sweet job I hold. That, in conjunction with the end nearing had me elated. The last few weeks seemed long with the anticipation of returning home but just having something to really look forward to was a novelty in itself.
Hours later while on the final leg of my trip home….
Its getting close to being over. Looking out the window to my right I see the beautiful heartland of America; fields, farms, small towns and lakes.
4 days ago I left the shit hole that is Kirkuk, Iraq and did so with a smile on my face. I hope to never return to that place or any like it. I hate it there, they hate us there, we should no longer stay there.
Thirty hours ago I was standing in a line of fifty or so Soldier’s, in Kuwait, working as a team unloading countless bags out of a trailer so that the working dogs from customs could get a whiff. It was scorching hot and I remember thinking that just an hour earlier I had showered, put on a clean uniform and had delusions that I would be fairly fresh and at the very least clean when I would finally see my beautiful wife after nine months apart. Now, with a steady river of sweat pouring from my head down my back and into my boots it’s clear that fresh and clean is not happening.
Thirteen hours ago I was landing in Lipsing, Germany for a change in flight crew and cleaning of our cabin. Things were starting to seem real now. No longer was I in the Middle East, no longer surrounded by a totally different culture and no longer seeming to have to be sorry about being American. I want to call my wife but realize while it’s late morning in Germany and the dead of night in El Paso. Soldier’s scurry around this remote airport buying toys for their kids, candy for their taste buds and internet time to connect with home. I just take time to wander outside and enjoy, for the first time in months, a temperature below 90 degrees. It had just rained, the sun was still rising and it was only 60 degrees. I was cold and I loved it. I worry that she won’t be able to break away from work, or that she won’t be called and told when we will land. I hope more than anything to just see her when I get off the plane.
Five hours ago I was walking off the plane in Bangor, ME. Back on American soil and God was it refreshing when flying in and seeing the lakes and trees, and the beautiful homes in Maine. Then, while walking down the terminal hallway, there they were lined up along the side of the walk way, dozens of people welcoming us home. The first 5 or 6 were veterans from wars past; WWII, Korea and Vietnam. It was a beautiful site and I was taken aback by the rush of emotions I felt. First joy, then humility and lastly almost shame or guilt when I considered what these men had likely endured during their wars compared to mine. They would argue otherwise but I don’t feel like my experience compares. This guilt has been with me a bit lately. While the real fighting in Iraq was being waged I was in the Army but safe back at school stateside. Then I get sent to Iraq when the real face of war has moved to Afghanistan. And to top it off I get sent home early from my scheduled one year deployment. This is not a complaint and I know I am lucky and really had no say in any of these events but they are real feelings that I wrestle with. I realize am lucky and extremely thankful, but seeing these great men greeting us at the gates in Bangor I can’t help but get a rush of those feelings again. Amber would kill me for thinking this way. Later, as I sit in the terminal and the whole situation sinks in, my heart again seems to pound with excitement as it really hits me that I am hours from home. Not months, weeks or days, but hours. Soon I’ll get to come home from work. I’ll get to wear civilian clothes. I’ll get to cook dinner. I’ll get walk my dog. I’ll get to be home with my wife.
Well into my trip from Bangor to El Paso now, I can see the landscapes changing. Starting to look a little dry and hot out there. Starting to look a little more like West Texas. I try not to look at my watch again as the minutes seem to pass by at an agonizingly slow rate. Maybe a half hour, maybe 45 minutes away…shit just land the plane already. A few minutes ago I grabbed a clean t-shirt from my bag, deodorant, my tooth brush and floss and went to the lavatory. One last once over to hopefully look and smell presentable for her. I take care of all that and I guess I am what I am. She loved me before, she’ll still love me now, right? I notice that others are starting to think the way I am as the plane begins to smell of Axe body spray, cheap cologne and uniforms that have been on for 36 hours….not good.
So this is it, minutes away from landing. Minutes away from seeing my beautiful wife, minutes away from life as normal. Has it really been nine months because right now it feels like nine minutes? I picture in my head how this welcome home will go down but I have no idea. I just hope we can walk off this plane into the arms of our loved ones and call this deployment what it is….over. I can no longer write, this laptop is not an approved electronic device during landing. This blog is over. Wish me luck.
