Chapters

As I sit here, thinking, a culmination of the year's events come to mind. Everything from personal life drama to whizzing rockets to feelings of excitement, despair, and fear. While here, I've experienced the full range of the human emotion spectrum. I've felt them all. Right now I am excited and weary at the same time; we are getting ready to go home, but it's a definite obstacle course before we get to see our loved ones again.

Tomorrow we leave the sanctuary that is our small rooms divided by plywood walls, and head for a giant, smelly tent where we will live for the next 18 days with the rest of our company until we can leave this hole for a good, long while. Several chapters of my life have been lived out here among the dirt and rocks. I lost a love. I gained a huge respect for the people of the Armed Forces. I've seen the results of war. I've felt the need of the people. There's history in the making with our new President. And so I close these chapters, and permit them to marinate in my head until they are all filed away in long-term memory, where they will be dug up again sometime down the road. Hopefully not too soon though.

We've began packing all of our equipment and personal belongings. Several shipping containers have already left the FOB via long, flatbed trucks. Hopefully these trucks are not ambushed, allowing all of our things to make it back to the United States. Once again it is time to live out of heavy duffle bags and rucksacks filled to the gills with clothes and other military issued items. We were born to carry these things on our back! Moving here and there, and everywhere.

Our replacements will be here very soon; I remember being in their very position. Being the new guys at something is never very fun, and I can't say enough how good it feels to be the veteran. We've done our time, and now it is time to pass the buck. May you be able carry on the mission with absolute success. One of the pilots threw out a number the other day of how many insurgents we've killed during our year. It was triple of that of the previous unit. So I can't help but wonder how many bullets, rockets, or missiles that came directly from my hands ended the life of an enemy combatant. That is something that I will always wonder about. If I knew would it bother me? I don't think so. They kill us at every opportunity.

So these chapters close and a new one begins with a well deserved homecoming. It will all be different. There will be no sweetheart waiting for me, with her perfume and long hair and curls in little tufts. No kisses. But like everyone else says, there's someone for everyone. And even though I thought I knew who it was before and turned out to be horribly wrong, I think I know who this special someone is now. I guess only time will tell.

How will we feel when we get back? Will we feel weird being back amongst civilized people? Will driving a car feel like a luxury? I think I might look around for my rifle for a few moments before realizing that I don't need it anymore, as it sits on a rack in the armory. There are many things that got me through this experience, including family and friends with their loving words and support. I can't wait to see them again. I can't wait to be out in the world again, living my life as peaceful as possible.

I guess I'll end here for now. I would love to divulge my travel plans, so that readers may try to follow my journey home, but OPSEC forbids it. I would love to tell you everything we have to do to make it back to the States. I won't have regular access to the Internet after tomorrow, so either I can write of my journeys when chance allows me to, or I can wait to tell the story when I return home and am reintigrated back into the "real" world as some people call it. If that's real, then this is just plain RAW. And I suppose we couldn't have it any other way.

Cheers,

-J