Getting Re-Acquainted

For days on end I have intended on sitting down at my laptop to write an update, the very computer where I had drafted so many essays and blogs while I was in theater, but time has slipped away so easily.  There were so many times when I was deployed where even after 12-14 hours days I would find time to send a message home or write an update as to my progress in theater.  I may have been exhausted, but at that time it was essential for me to feel as though I was connecting with the outside world.  I realize yet again how easy it is to let life pass you by and how quickly you can get caught up in the day to day.  With that said, I do have some reflections on the process of returning home that I thought would be interesting to share.

Our week spent in Texas felt initially like it would last a lifetime.  It was the last time I wrote anything on my blog, and as of my last post I hadn’t seen my family yet.  That event occurred around mid-March when our unit returned to Sacramento and we were greeted by hundreds of family members and friends who stood with banners and flags cheering and clapping.  Our return made the front page of the Sacramento Bee, and for a few days the unit was hailed as the returning hometown hero’s.  I spent a few days in Sacramento, visiting friends and attending more briefings on everything from finances to family issues we would be forced to deal with shortly.  The second day in Sacramento was nearly an emotional overload as my fraternities (Sigma Phi Epsilon) chapter at the local university, California State University Sacramento, threw a welcome back party for me.  I saw friends and fraternity brothers who I hadn’t seen in years and suddenly, face to face with men and women who had been some of my best friends, I felt like I had stepped into a parallel universe.  Needless to say, that night was an introduction to a feeling I would become well acquainted with over the next few weeks. 

For the next two weeks after I returned home, everything I did felt like a dream.  I would visit my favorite Mexican food restaurant here in Southern California and swear I was in a dream.  Sitting in the car with my family felt like something I would soon wake up from as well.  When the moments did feel like I was actually experiencing them, there was this nearly oppressive sensation hat it would all be over soon, that this period of R&R would be over and I would once again be boarding a plane in my DCU’s to head back to the sandbox.  Though it was annoying to consider that these wonderful feelings I was having were simply dreams I would wake up from, the angst caused by feelings that it would all be over very shortly was difficult at first.  I wanted to adjust and just get over them, I wanted it all to go away and have the feeling back that I was simply living life the way I wanted to.  As difficult as it was, a funny thing happened when that all wore off, and I was at a point where I realized I was not going back anytime soon and I had returned home for good from my deployment.

I was driving to Marina Del Rey one afternoon to visit one of my best friends and meet up for lunch when I got this overriding sensation.  It may have been the traffic on the 405 at lunch hour in a quiet car that led me to these thoughts, but they were surprising nonetheless.  Listening to the radio and hearing coverage on Operation Iraqi Freedom, I suddenly had the urge to be back.  Rationally speaking, I did not want to return to living in the conditions I had been in only a few weeks before, I didn’t want to endure the negative aspects of what my deployment brought.  I did however yearn to be back, I just couldn’t figure out why.  For now, I can list off catch phrases like service to country, camaraderie, routine and all those things you imagine when you think on soldiers serving, but those weren’t necessarily it.  I do enjoy those aspects, but they are not at the heart of what was going through my mind.  I don’t know what it is or why I felt drawn back, but I did.  That was not the only time I have experienced it, and I know it probably won’t be the last, but it served as an interesting segue into the prevalent feelings that seemed to overwhelm me next.

As it stands today, one year and one month since I arrived in theater, and about a month since I returned home, I find it hard to believe I was actually every there.  Of course I have all the pictures and memories that remind me of what 2004 and 2005 entailed for me, but I look in the mirror at a young man who hasn’t felt like shaving for a few days and who’s hair hasn’t been cut in its usual military fashion in about five weeks, who doesn’t have to worry about anything he can’t control and who has the world before him, and I can’t completely reconcile the man I see in the mirror with the man I see in the pictures.  In some ways, the process of reintegration into the life you left behind is more difficult than getting used to being in theater.  I can say without hesitation though that I am enjoying every minute of this life in ways I had never imagined, and look forward to keeping you updated as the days and weeks go by. 
Also, be sure to check back Friday.  I  have been asked to speak with a classroom of 2nd Graders in the Los Angeles area and plan on sharing the details with you.