Getting what I wished for

Things are winding down here for class 08-03 of the 602nd Training Squadron. There are a few classes still running through the 28th, with the 29th and 30th left for outprocessing. I’m not sure of our exact numbers, but there are about 120 of us getting ready to leave. All of us will be spread throughout Iraq and Afghanistan within the next two months. Our career fields are diverse: intelligence, transportation, communication, mental health, civil engineering. All of us are being pulled away from our traditional Air Force roles to be placed in Army roles, because of Army manning shortfalls. These are known as ILO (in lieu of) deployments. As in, I am being deployed in lieu of an Army psychologist. From a top down perspective this makes a lot of sense, since all of the services have people who do the same things, why not deploy them wherever we need them versus keeping sailors on boats and airmen at airfields?
This has been a fast change for our military, as we have to quickly re-engineer our forces to be able to support two separate hostile occupations in addition to our other big foreign commitment in Korea. I find it ironic that back in 2004 I spent so much time and thought considering clinical residencies in each of the services, carefully weighed the pros and cons of each, chose the Air Force, and yet here I am at Fort McCoy, getting ready to deploy with the Army.
I’m not bitter, honest. I have always said that the real work for psychologists is with the Army. They have a huge population of people who are under immense stressors. I used to say that the work I really wanted to do was with the Army, but I didn’t join specifically because I didn’t want to be deployed for 12 months or more, so it’s kind of funny that I am getting what I asked for… is my mouth writing checks that I can’t cash? I think I’ll be okay… this is the Army after all… the same organization where it is necessary to specifically teach soldiers NOT to apply tourniquets to an injured person’s neck.
But seriously, a friend made a valid point yesterday, insinuating that my sanity may be questionable for putting myself in a position to go off to support a war that I don’t believe in at the behest of a president whom I didn’t vote for. So this is my thumbnail explanation: it’s as simple as service to fellow Americans. I believe that it’s important to provide some sort of national service. This can be accomplished in many different ways of course, but for better or worse I have chosen to provide four years of service to those who fight the wars. War causes a lot of damage under the best of circumstances, and these convoluted, non-lethal wound generating, danger-is-everywhere conflicts have a steep price for those involved. I don’t see myself as a force multiplier, but I mitigate damage as it is being done and help clean up after the damage has been done (no one in the military comes to see me for preventative services anyway). When all is said and done, I know I will be proud to have walked down that road with these service members and their families, and hopefully I will have made a difference in many of their lives.