Pictures That Make You Smile

It is amazing how quickly attitudes can change here.  I find myself feeling great at one point, thinking of how close we are to getting home, of all we have accomplished this last year, and how honored I have been to have been given the opportunity to make my small contribution in OIF.  It seems the desert can do things to you though, and perhaps later the same day I find myself feeling down, like this life is the only one I have ever known.  Sometimes it feels like I have snapshots and memories in my mind of other times, but they don’t feel real.  They are only as solid as the thoughts of the last movie you watched.  It’s as if there never really was a life before all this, just a wonderful film I once watched that was ingrained upon my subconscious.  Sure, I am lucky enough to be able to call home frequently, and the internet gives me the ability to keep up on the news from home.  It’s just that when home is a fading memory, the news seems less poignant, and the talks begin to seem even further than the long distant call that it is.

When I feel like this, I tend to go through the pictures I have with me.  Whether they be ones I brought from home, or the digital stills I have taken along the way.  One of them made me laugh as I was going through it today.  Thinking about even the course of this deployment feels like a lifetime in itself.  We have been away from our homes and families for nearly fifteen months.  As a reservist, you don’t simply receive the call one day and head to the desert a few days later.  Rather, you receive activation orders, spend some time with the unit, head to a mobilization station and train for weeks on end.  From there you finally board a plane to begin your new life at whatever camp your unit has been assigned.  Looking back on some of our days in Texas, I found this picture of my friends Trevino and Jacobo.  While in Texas, after weeks of training behind us, we went to a football game on what was deemed a “mandatory fun day.”  All said, it was a lot of fun and many of the guys made posters out of empty MRE boxes hoping to get their messages to their family on television.  Trevino is a pretty humorous guy, and made this one as a joke.  He is what’s referred to as a cross-level, integrated into the 319th Signal Battalion from some other signal reserve unit.  For some reason, seeing this picture reminded me of the good times out here, the camaraderie that many of us have established.  It also reminded me of just how much we have behind us and how close we really are.  Sometimes it is true, a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand uplifting words that remind you that you’re almost there. (This picture was taken by SPC Albaugh, photographer extraordinaire.)

Comments

[Monique]

I know exactly how you feel. I am only half way though studying abroad here in Spain and my life at home feels like a distant memory. I cant wait to go home and hug my family and friends but i know that nothing will be able to replace the hole in my heart that spain will leave. But like they say everyone and everything who is a major part of your life takes pieces of your heart.. and we are made up of those pieces. So hold those memories dear and keep those photos in a safe place so that when you get older you will have some help with you 'war stories'. 'baseball... back in kuwait one time there was a baseball..' hehehehe
smiles,
Mo