Home At Last

Chevy Chase, MD

I have now been home nearly two days.  It seems like a blur, but it is glorious.

The remainder of the trip home was as circuitous and tedious as I imagined it would be.  We took two large buses with the complement of our crew to somewhere near Kuwait City, then boarded smaller "Scooby Vans," as they call them there, loaded to the brim with our seabags and trunks.  We dispersed to the various  terminals, having been warned to be diligent with our luggage and to not allow the "smurfs" - aggressive baggage handlers dressed in outlandish blue outfits - touch our stuff.  Unfortunately, in dispersing so quickly into the insanely busy Kuwait airport, we were denied one last goodbye with our colleagues who were not on our specific planes.  We waited in interminable lines just to check our bags in, but finally, at midnight, were able to board our first leg to Frankfurt.

Once in Frankfurt we managed to find our way to our connecting terminal - not an easy task as only the terminal and building were being flashed on the screen 6 hours prior to our flight taking off.  A small group of folks heading to DC and Norfolk managed to come together for a real beer at 8am Frankfurt time.  NA beer was now a thing of the past.

Nine hours later, over twenty four hours since I left Kuwait, I arrived at Dulles International's customs terminal.  The customs agent, a pleasant lady of a certain age, thanked me for my service and then asked me how long I was staying in country.  I was briefly stunned - did you really have to ask?  Indefinitely was all I could muster.

Even Mr. Clean welcomes me home

I spilled out into the terminal with the rest of the non-military folks.  I saw my daughters and my wife, holding US flags and carrying a big sign welcoming me home.  Home at last!

In seven and a half months I have tended to many victims of war and their traumatic injuries, lived through a continuum of insanely hot days, and bonded with a tight knit group of friends and colleagues.  These things remain at the fore of my mind.  My reintegration into "normalcy" seems to be going well thus far - I have not figuratively kicked the cat, nor do I intend to.  But I will not be able to shake the memories, good and bad, of what has transpired over these many months.

In Frankfurt - one last gathering with friends and colleagues

Thank you for following along, occasionally commenting, and always offering words of support.  I look forward to reuniting with you readers, colleagues, and friends.

Dona Nobis Pacem,

TMQ

Warrior Transition Program

Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

We are decompressing.  That is the buzzword, decompressing, what we are told we should be doing.  Camp Arifjan is the pivot point out of theater.  We turn in our weapons, our seabags full of army accoutrements, and we receive a handful of lectures telling us how we might better re-integrate into the lives we left nearly eight months ago.

A lot has happened in those eight months.  I was just showing some photos to a colleague of mine who is stationed here in Kuwait.  It's hard to believe all that happened in Kandahar and Fort Lewis.

Checking the flight schedule: flights are assigned seemingly at random

The photos are difficult to look at for a variety of reasons:  I did document some grisly things, learning tools for those who will come to Kandahar after me.  I documented some enroute care missions, some mass casualties, and other photos of the frenetic day's events at the ROLE-3.  I took photos of many friends and colleagues, many who have already departed the Warrior Transition Program for points around the globe.  It still excites me to look at the photos, but I also get a pit in my stomach.  I think this is the crux of the challenge of returning home:  I am excited at the prospect of seeing my family and friends, but I will miss so much of what I left behind - the colleagues, friendships, excitement of the day to day rhythms of the ROLE-3.  Of course there are things I wish to never experience again as well.  The sight of mangled bodies and parentless children, the smell of an IED blast victim, the unsavory sight of flesh ripped off bone.  This bouillabaisse of emotion is apparently what plays tricks on the minds of folks returning home.

Playing Taboo in the 'Decompression Tent' -
yes it is really called that.

A friend told me recently that after he went through WTP after returning from Iraq on his last deployment, he was told that as long as the house was still standing or not in foreclosure, that he wasn't divorced, and that all his kids were healthy then it was a good deployment.  Who should care about anything else?  That is truly dumbing it down but the point is well taken.

My friend Chris donned his Afghan outfit for one of the briefs -
 we had been told that uniform regulations were relaxed
to accommodate our decompression after all.

After we turned in our weapons, holsters, chemical and biologic warfare gear, and so on, we were addressed by the command's chaplains.  We were told over and over that only a small handful of us could be identified as needing psychologic care now, but that in three to six months roughly 20% would need it in some capacity.  We were given pointers on how to reintegrate back into our families and jobs.   It was fairly basic information.   Don't kick the cat.  Don't 'take charge' of your family like your infantry platoon.  Expect weirdness in how you interact with your family - that is natural.  I have some insight into all this, having had a father who went on numerous deployments as a career Naval Surface Warfare Officer.  I remember him coming home to a hippy son - me - and telling me to get my butt to the the barber toute suite.  I remember thinking, who is this guy again?   My teenage self thought, I've been the man of the house for the past 6 months.  Fortunately I don't have any teens waiting for me at home, not yet anyway.

Our chaplain told us that a Vietnam vet once told him that his transition home was far too quick: that one day he was in the jungle and two days later he was sitting in his living room at home wondering what had just happened.  The chaplain reminded us that in WWII troops coming back from the Pacific would take roughly 50 days to get home, 50 days to absorb losses of their friends and to contemplate on what had just happened.  I do believe that WTP is designed for us to spend about five days doing nothing, so that we aren't like the Vietnam vet wondering what just hit us.

There are a few diversions here - a tent with video games, internet access, and a a movie theater.  On the other side of base there is a pool.  All water here on base is virtually scalding, to include the pool.  That's a slight exaggeration (although "cold" shower water at any time of day is far hotter than any water coming from a water heater).  We had a pool party the other night (still no beer here!) in which we refreshed in the 91 degree water.  It was a form of decompression, I recognized that.  It was fun albeit not so refreshing.

See you on the next deployment (?)

The last two days have been interrupted by our pack leaving, breaking up in ten to fifteen person increments.  Most of us are leaving by commercial airways, which disappoints me.  In my mind's eye I witnessed us being reunited as a group with our families at some DC airport.  I believe I will be arriving with a group of five or so, at midday tomorrow.  I am thrilled thinking about it, but the emotional cocktail still sticks in my throat.