A New Year

It's been strange coming back to the US after two months in Army-World followed by six months in Afghanistan. Endless days of anxiety, PT, preoccupation, and future-orientation were replaced with lightning fast days of happiness, listening to my kids, over-stimulation and a world that is much much faster.

My family met me at the gate, and when I think of how it felt to have my son and daughter jump into my arms, it still makes me want to cry. A month later, I continue to feel like everyone in my family is just happy to have me back on the continent.

The welcome back to my unit at Nellis AFB has been less than inspiring, which is an interesting and unexpected contrast. In December my NCO and I raised our eyebrows when we didn't receive any communication over Christmas and New Years from our unit, but we figured that we would get a good welcome home pot-luck, or at least an invite to go out for beers and dinner at a local restaurant.

What actually happened was nothing... I had a few days to in-process and then a week of R&R, and then it was back to business as usual. My commander expressed his appreciation by tasking me with his backlogged to-do list. There was a baby shower party for a pregnant officer and talk about a farewell party for our admin technician, but the four of us who had been absent for 8 months were just integrated back into the work flow, carry on.

The first week back at work I sat through our squadron commander's call, which is a 60 minute compilation of guest speakers (public service message greatest hits), awards, and the commander speaking directly to her troops. I guess I was feeling a bit raw and unappreciated, because I was pissed by having to sit through award ceremonies for people who shuffled paper at the hospital while I was deployed. The commander didn't even mention that dozens of people in her squadron had just returned from Afghanistan.

Mostly she just talked about keeping our paperwork straight, keeping sharp for an upcoming inspection, because if our duty sections do poorly it will reflect poorly...

But it's a new year. People don't get it. I get that. I would rather think that they don't get it versus thinking that they don't give a shit. Maybe I hold my military peers to a higher standard-- I expect them to get it, I expect them to empathize, to express understanding, buy me a beer, something? The USAF doesn't get it yet. People still feel that deployment consists of sitting on your hands at a quiet, secure, and well-apportioned airbase. What's the big deal. Shut up and get back to work.

I have found that my non-military friends, my family, my children-- they are the ones that get it, or at least they seem to be sensitive to the gravity.

Seven movies later...

At 2am on January 10th the World Airways DC-10 left Manas. I was seated in an aisle seat with four empty seats to my left.

I sunk into the seat with my iPod and tried to sleep. Three movies and two meals later we landed in Leipzig Germany for fuel and a crew change.

We disembarked into a large departure lounge area. There were clean bathrooms, comfortable chairs, a store, telephones and internet kiosks.

I took twenty minutes to call home and send a few emails. I browsed the store and picked out some chocolate to bring home but the lines were long-- stacked with Afghanistan-bound Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division.

Another four movies and three meals and we had started our descent into BWI.

When we touched down a huge cheer went up from the rows of Soldiers and Airmen.

We were back on US soil.

A Bottle of Baltica 9

A three hour flight to Manas went by quickly, despite sitting in a small space where two pieces of nylon met on the bench seats. My legs were cramping and I was sitting knee to crotch across from some Senior Airman, but I didn't really care.

We circled down and dropped into Manas. They opened the cargo hold and cold air flowed in. It was much colder in Kyrgyzstan.

We loaded into buses and as we drove down the flight line I looked for a DC-10. It was January 9 and my flight back to the US was scheduled for that day. There was no DC-10 so I figured it had come and gone earlier in the day.

I can't really describe the feelings of being at Manas AB, but relief is a good general description.

Manas is an old Soviet Air Force base and as you drive onto the main part of the base you are treated to views of new US defensive structures and Soviet buildings from the 70's. Trees, old hangars, razor wire.

Manas now serves as a transition point for personnel moving in and out of Afghanistan. They have a system for processing people and it runs pretty smooth.

Within 30 minutes of getting off the bus I was getting swept up in a rush of unnatural energy. I hadn't slept or even laid prone for four days, but I was overcome with a sudden clarity when a logistics sergeant informed us that there were two flights to Baltimore leaving at 2am-- people who were scheduled to leave on the 9th were now due to leave on the 10th at 2am.

I had a long list of things to do, but my new found strength and mental acuity made these tasks seem simple. I made sure I was on the manifest for the 2am flight and was then walked next door to get my ticket for my flight from BWI to Las Vegas. It was really there, in my hand!

The next step was turning in two dufflebags of military issued gear-- this was accomplished in a huge warehouse-- piece by piece I gave back my body armor, my helmet, my sleeping bag, my chem gear, all of my load-bearing equipment.

I left that building with a lightness. I had literally lightened my load but symbolically I was really making headway towards leaving the war behind. The tools of war become integrated with your daily reality, and shrugging them off starts the process of disintegration.

The next stop was Pete's Place-- a large clamshell tent that housed pool tables, wireless internet, big screen TV's and a bar.

I stood in line with my commander, he bought me a beer, and we found a place to sit.

The beer was a 22oz bottle of Baltica 9, which is a Russian beer. It was one of two choices available. It tasted like other eastern European pale bocks I've had-- the most notable aspect being that after one bottle you don't care what it tastes like anymore.

But I was starting to feel normal again, sitting and sipping a beer, thinking about how I would be seeing my kids in just a matter of hours.

I looked around a saw two people who had come from my FOB on the same Chinook flight. They were USAF EOD Airmen, headed home. They were smiling, talking. They looked happy and light. I saw on their faces a reflection of what I starting to feel inside my heart.

Out of Afghanistan

I was told that "show time" was at 10pm, so I muddled through the day, watched some videos, shaved, showered, ate too much for lunch, waited around.

At 10pm we arrived at the terminal and found seats in the crowded bus station atmosphere. Perhaps 100 military personnel and civilians were packed into a small dingy room, waiting to hear announcements about flights out of BAF.

At 11:30pm they announced that those of us who were waiting for the Manas mission should go stand in line at US customs with all of our baggage. Luckily my baggage was preplaced near the customs facility so I was one of the first 30 who were inspected.

This process involves entirely unpacking every piece of gear and luggage and having an inspector poke through it all. They make sure people don't export a variety of things, military hardware and ammunition, I suspect, is the primary target, because I can't imagine what else you would want to bring home from Afghanistan.

After processing the line and moving my bags to a secure yard to await palletization, I moved into the departure lounge and found a seat.

Over the course of two hours they processed over 150 people and packed us all into the lounge, every seat being full, the floor covered with trash, cold weather clothing and carry-on bags. At the back of the room were bins full of the ubiquitous potato chips from UAE and cases upon cases of Blueberry Pop Tarts.

We waited patiently for seven hours before we heard anything, and it was bad news-- the aircraft's loading ramp wouldn't go down so the flight was canceled, but the good news was that there was a C-130 available to take 30 of us.

I was too exhausted to be too upset over this. I kept reassuring myself that soon I would be out, what's another day?

The sergeant read off the paired down manifest and my name was on it. A rush of energy overwhelmed me. Maybe I would get out soon?

Another 4 hours of waiting and we were notified to get ready to leave. Everyone rushed to don Kevlar helmets and body armor, sling carry on bags over shoulders.

We were bussed out onto the flight line and under a cold sky we filed into an idle C-130. The loadmaster packed us in to every available space.

Within 15 minutes the engines wound up and we taxied onto one of the runways. I still couldn't believe that I was leaving. Something had to go wrong, what was it going to be? Fog at Manas? Some valve in a hydraulic system?

In five minutes we were in the air, and after thirty minutes passed I was reassured that we would not be circling back to BAF.

I was out of Afghanistan.

More BAF

I think I've been at Bagram for four days now, living as a transient. The transitional "quarters" consist of big circus tents packed with cots that are separated by maybe six inches of dusty floor. You just walk in and look for an open cot to claim as your own. There are at least 200 cots in a large tent.

 

Sleeping in these tents is a hit or miss proposition because of the overhead lights, people talking, or people dragging gear in and out of the tent at all hours. As I lay on my aluminum and nylon cot, bootsteps reverberate from the floor.

 

I left most of my gear at the hospital and just brought my sleeping bag and a small pack with a book, long underwear, and toiletries to the transitional lodging. This simplifies things and alleviates my concerns about theft.

 

Days at BAF consist of miles of walking, sampling from different dining facilities, using the large gyms, watching movies at the MWR. I browsed the Afghan shops for potential gifts but everything seemed overpriced or of suspect quality and I found myself in no mood to haggle. Cheap Afghan rugs still cost hundreds of dollars and I don't trust the shopkeepers to steer me towards the highest quality at the lowest price. I didn't have the energy to deal with shipping stuff anyway...

 

After walking up and down Disney Drive about 10 times, jacking a few hundred salutes, I got word from the personnel people at the hospital that there was a flight to Manas and I was at the top of the manifest. The "show time" was at 2am. I woke up at 1am, got coffee at the 24 hour cafe, and dragged gear out into the cold.

 

That was almost 24 hours ago and I'm still at BAF. We've been doing one hour checks ever since then, moving from the air terminal to the clinic, to the chow hall. It's cold outside, but everyone will tolerate anything for a chance to pounce on any whisper of a flight to Manas.

Quick Recap

I'm stuck at Bagram now, limited to 30 minute chunks of time on the computers at the MWR, so I have to write fast.

To recap the last few weeks: we had a quiet Christmas after getting tasked to do a short-notice mission to two small COPs in the mountains. Nothing notable occurred.

A Christmas present to me was an email from my commander indicating that we should cease all missions due to our pending re-deployment. He didn't want us getting stuck at some remote COP, missing a return window back to BAF.

That email made me feel relieved and eager, but for some reason the end of the deployment seemed just as far away as ever. After all, I was still there, in the same place I had been all along.

On the 1st of January I received another email instructing me to return to Bagram as soon as possible-- to possibly go home earlier than we expected. He suggested that we get to BAF by the 5th. I thought, "no problem", then it started to snow.

Snow kept air routes frozen for two full days and then a broken snow plow delayed things for two more days. On the fifth day we waited a full six hours at the small air terminal and managed to get on a crowded Chinook as "stand by" passengers. The helicopters were pushing hard to make up for lost time after three days of inactivity.

A wild ride (a little evasive maneuvering, a few hundred rounds of 7.62mm) over three provinces and the slums of Kabul got us to the busy flight line of BAF. Now I'm one face among thousands at Bagram. Just trying to stay busy, stay warm.

I'm starting to process what I've been through, just a little. I bumped into someone I knew from the FOB-- he was a civilian contractor leaving for R&R in the US-- and we shared thoughts.

When it's all said and done, I'm happy that I served those Soldiers. I gave my service to them and I think I made a difference, did my job, and I'm leaving behind no regrets.

I'm not out of this yet, but my work there is done.

BAF

Update: I have moved to Bagram and will continue to blog after I get some outprocessing done. It has been an interesting few weeks.

Right now I am acclimating to the squalor of being a transient. On the one hand I'm dirty and unshaven, but on the other hand I am very happy to be at this big city-like airbase.

Thousands of people are transitioning in and out, so it is crowded and impersonal. But there is espresso! Those of us who lived forward have barely restrained disdain for the people who spent their deployment at Bagram and then loudly complain about how they have to wait a few more days to leave.

I'm just happy to be here.

January 5-- Arriving at BAF from the FOB

Frozen wastes of the HLZ at a FOB in Eastern Afghanistan

Bad weather kept the skies of Afghanistan locked down for rotary aircraft. The day I was notified to leave it started to snow, and it didn't stop for three days.

'Viagra lure' for Afghan warlords-- Now this is what makes our country great

"Whatever it takes to make friends and influence people," the Post quoted one agent as saying.

"Whether it's building a school or handing out Viagra."

A Visit from the Pope

Christmas is complete here in Afghanistan and it is back to business as usual. The holiday tone here was quiet, reserved. At a forward operating base, just having a down day is a gift. There isn't much reason to celebrate Christmas here. I was just happy to know that all of my family back home were safe and happy, and enjoying this time of the year.

There were actually a lot of flights coming in and out of the base yesterday. The various commanders make their battlefield circulations, showing their faces and shaking hands. I don't really get this particular hubris of commanders-- officers think that a visit somehow boosts morale. If they drop in for two hours and shake everyone's hand and say "good job, son", then they've done some sort of service for their troops. I love the entourage too-- there always has to be a cadre of pasty-faced Majors and Captains and Sergeant Majors, like the Pope and his Cardinals. Why can't a commander just travel with a small security detail-- two dudes with M-4's-- and that's it. It would make him seem much more down-to-earth, rather than giving the impression that he is an exalted-one. After all, back at home these guys are just mid-level bureaucrats who drive themselves to work just like everyone else. But I think that's it-- out here they get treated like and act like petty tyrants. That must be addictive.

The lower echelon commanders and Soldiers think these visits are a pain in the ass. There are extra details for policing up trash, shooting the dogs, making sure everyone is shaved and uniforms are clean. Having the higher levels of command around just sets everyone on edge, and ruins what would otherwise be a nice casual day. Spare us the sentiment; leaving your cushy office for a quick visit via your dedicated Blackhawk doesn't make you seem more sympathetic.

At the larger bases, units are ordered to serve as instant-audiences, so if the visiting dignitary comes in at 5am for a two hour visit, the audience has to be in place an hour early, just to sit around, then look good for the photo op, cheer and clap when prompted. If they didn't order people to go, then of course no one would come to listen to the Deputy Undersecretary of the Army spew sound bites about how well the war is progressing.

The Things They Sent

I wasn't aware of this before getting here, but there is a massive cottage industry devoted to sending care packages to deployed US service members. There are a variety of organizations that facilitate the connection between giving citizens and receiving deployers. We have been on the receiving end of this generosity and we have personally distributed hundreds of pounds of food, hygiene items, and entertainment to Soldiers across eastern Afghanistan.

This is a cool thing, because there is no easy way to buy any luxury items out here. There is a weekly bazaar and a few small shops run by the Afghans, but you can't get simple American things like a bag of M&Ms, or some deodorant or dental floss, or a pack of gum. You can get plenty of black market DVDs, fake Oakleys, and poorly made Chinese and Pakistani electronics.

Periodically I am touched by the messages that people send with the packages-- they seem motivated because their own children have served in the military, or they themselves served during an earlier conflict. Sometimes they seem to do it out of religious or patriotic obligation. Many people send American flags, prayer books, bibles--- they send baking soda, golf balls, refrigerator magnets, drywall screws, coupons, calendars from 2007, floppy disk drives, half-used pencils, used underwear, and someone sent a smashed sandwich in a Ziploc bag.

People describe their families, their cat, what they did last weekend in Cleveland, what kind of flowers they have in their garden. They tell us about their son who just got his driver's license or their daughter who just joined the Navy, and they send photos of themselves and their kids.

Sometimes children from someplace like Texas, maybe a Mrs. Bailey's class, send a box of Slim Jims and bubble gum. They write about their favorite football teams and video games. They write things like: "I hope you don't die" and "I am just an average kid" and ask "what do you think of the new president? or "do you have a kid or a wife?" "have you ever seen a real polar bear or a jaguar?'

One kid wrote to me that she hopes I don't do drugs: "It's good for you not to do drugs because drugs is bad, for it makes you have a small life." She must have heard something about the Army.

Another kid asked me to solve a math problem: "What is (6-7) x 8 + (5/15)=?" I can do that in my head kid, I think. Is it -7.67?

One child wrote the following: I"m just a kid. My Dad and Brother were in the war. But how are you doing in the war. I beat it is hard fore you and your familey. I want to be in the war when I grow up. I want to help my country. But my dad died in the war a while back I don't know about my brother I have never seen him before. My dad went to the war and I never seen him again."

The kids write simple letters that cut to the quick-- they know they are writing notes to to people who have favorite colors, have pets and kids and wives, people who like pizza and football and don't want to die and just want to come home.

In contrast, many of the adults emphasize their thankfulness for soldiers fighting for our freedom, fighting to protect our country, fighting to protect freedom of speech (?), fighting evil. I have never heard a soldier say that he is fighting for our freedom or fighting to protect the United States. They fight to help sort out the Afghans, fight to kill the bad guy who plants IEDs in the roads, or fight to protect each other. Everyone has a strong sense of accountability to his or her fellow service member, and that in itself can be inspiring because it seems to transcend all the higher meanings that people try to place upon the war.

A few months ago I re-read Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms" and I marked this passage:

"We won't talk about losing. There is enough talk about losing. What has been done this summer cannot have been done in vain."
I did not say anything. I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious, and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. There were many words that you could not stand to hear and finally only the names had dignity... Abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of the rivers, the numbers of the regiments and the dates."

I'm not sure if I will send packages to Soldiers and Airmen when I'm back, when I'm out of the military. Maybe I will. But if I do I won't write about lofty ideals that they are fighting for, or thank them for their sacrifice or bravery. I'll just tell them that I hope the contents of the package makes the war suck a little less, and wish them a safe return to their family and home and their Ford Mustang.

The quiet in between

Time definitely slows down at the end of a deployment. I have observed this personally and everyone I talk to says that this is a real phenomenon... people don't get excited until they are on the plane or helicopter, actually leaving. When you stay in one place long enough, it becomes your default reality. Everything else is either sentimental reminiscence, or an imagined future. Here it is easy to imagine a different future (i.e. being home) but is difficult to make it feel imminent. It is a really strange feeling and I think it must be related to how the days are so similar, the same people orbiting in the same square mile for days and weeks and months.

As my deployment winds down I am more aware of the slowness of each day, but behind the slowness is that subtle anxiety that I have written about before. The persistent sense that there is something lurking around the corner.

The spring loaded slowness is the worst part-- worse than fouled latrines, worse than the endlessly rotating menu at the chowhall, worse than sleeping on cots, the noise, being dirty, the omnipresent smell of diesel. When there is shit blowing up, the anxiety of expectancy is erased by the adrenalin of the moment. Everything shrinks down to what is going on right now, right at that moment.

I'm not combat arms, so I can't fully articulate or appreciate all of the nuances of anxiety, adrenalin, and combat, but I do know that waiting for the next mortar or rocket to hit is almost as bad as the nervous jump you get from the actual blast. The mind is relieved that the explosion was elsewhere but it also starts calculating the odds of the next one falling closer. Maybe you nervously look at the plywood walls and remember seeing what a 107mm rocket did to a Hesco barrier full of a thousand pounds of dirt and rocks.

In August I was visiting a COP that had been getting attacked with indirect fire fairly frequently. I had settled into my sleeping bag and turned off my headlamp when I realized that I didn't know where the nearest bunker was, so I put my boots on and found it, just meters away, and then I went to bed.

The quiet in between. That's the feeling that keeps people up at night, not the fear of being rocketed in the night, but the agitating background anxiety that is like sand in your sheets.

Improved weather...

Woke up this morning at 0500 and saw a sky full of stars and the partial moon for the first time in almost four full days. The weather system had broken. Last night we knew things were improving because we heard a pair of Blackhawks buzzing the base, coming in for a refuel.

Today the sky is clear and the mountains that enclose the valley are completely snow-covered. The air is cold and hard, and it reminds me of the dry winter mornings in Utah and Colorado. It would be a good day for skiing if I were someplace else.

People are making attempts to bring holiday cheer to everyone at the FOB. There is holiday themed decor in the chowhall and a variety of inflatable cartoon characters in Santa suits here and there. The chapel, which is near my hut, blasts looping Christmas music for about 12 hours a day. It's mixture of Christmas cover tunes by random artists. It really reminds me of outdoor malls in December-- the background music that rises and falls depending on which direction the wind blows, but it's always there. They had mercy and turned it off at about 8pm last night.

Crawling towards Christmas

I'm sure loyal readers are wondering "what's going on over there?". My wife mentioned to me that I hadn't written an entry in a while. Similar to October, I seemed to have stalled out in terms of motivation, mood, and enthusiasm. I thought that December would bring an increase in motivation because the "end" is practically at the doorstep of the new year, but somehow December has slowed down time . With each day that passes, it seems like one day is added to an imagined month of January. This imaginary calendar has days added by snow and endless delays due to weather or other movement problems.

What hasn't helped has been more outside the wire taskings by the Army chain of command here. I've caught the superstitions-- agonizing over the "one last mission" scenario, especially when it's a bullshit mission with very little value, other than keeping the area commander happy. From my perspective, anytime we leave the FOB we should have a clear mission where the needs and risks are assessed and balanced with efficiency. A high risk mission should be a response to high needs, and where the risks are high but the needs are low, maybe I should consider not going. Supposedly I have this autonomy and the mandate from my chain of command (which is located elsewhere) but time and again my independence has been trumped by the local commander. I usually capitulate in the interest of politics-- keeping the climate here user-friendly.

As I have found out, it's hard to fight against the hierarchy even when you are justified in fighting, but that's a story for a different time. The best way to describe the dynamic here is to draw a parallel to an imagined feudal enclave-- you have the local lord who runs and owns everything, his favored lieutenants and their militia who enforce the laws of the lord, and the peasants who labor and suffer abuse at the hands of their betters. It's like I am visiting from a neighboring land, and while I am not treated like a peasant, it is made clear that I will comply with any requests of the local lord. Okay, that's an over-dramatization, but I really do feel compelled to comply with their demands, regardless of whether or not these demands run counter to our own procedures.

That's the situation as we crawl along towards Christmas. I'm trying to convince myself that after the holiday we will be insulated from further missions, because of our short time. I'm hoping that one of these days I will start to feel the calm settling in, but realistically that probably won't happen until I get on a bird and leave for Bagram.

I forgot to mention that it has been snowing here and I haven't seen or heard a helicopter for three days.

I must be losing my mind

One of my latest “projects” is recording the best of the graffiti on the men's bathroom walls. I know it sounds strange, but I wondered what you could tell about a place and it's people by reading what folks write while they sit on the toilet. Maybe if I record enough of it there will be some pattern that will rise out of the chaos? That's anthropology right?

I guess this all started when I first got here. One of the resident Sergeant Majors decided that there was too much graffiti on the bathroom walls so he had all the bathroom stall doors removed. On the surface, the rationale was that people won't write graffiti if they are sitting on a toilet exposed to the world. But I'm sure he just did it to screw with everybody (he has a private bathroom in his quarters). The Army often seems to solve specific problems by making global changes.

Some of the removed doors with the worst of the graffiti were painted over with black spray paint and reinstalled a month or two later. One of my favorite "writings" is on one door where someone scratched into the black paint, exposing the white paint below. The message says: "How will we write on the walls now?"

Another good one is something I had never heard before but has probably been around for a long time: "I love the fucking Army and the Army loves fucking me."

I really enjoy the misspellings-- my favorite misspellings are contained in one sentence: "weman" and "soskwatches", the latter term referring to the former. They were shooting for the plural of “sasquatch”, trying to describe the women of the Army as resembling mythical ape-like creatures.

Most of the writing is on the theme of leaving Afghanistan or "Asscrackistan", opinions about the Army, or what people want to do, drink, smoke when they get back to the US. There is a minor sub theme of questioning the sexuality of the Air Force personnel, but it is half-hearted and not very creative. There is a recurrent theme of real or imagined sexual conquests, naming specific females and their anatomical characteristics, and then there is the obligatory “for a good time, come to this stall at midnight...”. Surprisingly, or not, there is a high percentage of homosexually themed graffiti-- statements about having sex with Afghans, other soldiers...

If there is a coherent pattern in all this, it hasn't fully resolved. I'll keep you posted.

Yes, it can get pretty boring here.

Waiting

Back from what I again hope will be my last mission, I had a nice afternoon doing PT, looking at the sunset between sets of push ups and pull ups and watching the progression of the reds and oranges on the snow covered peaks to the south. It was cold. After an hour my hands were numb and lifeless.

This last mission was a short notice response to a request by the commander of some guys who have been plagued by a streak of run-ins with IEDs. The Army regulations allow for fairly intrusive interventions by commanders (using assets like me) when they have identified significant stressors for certain groups of Soldiers. The name of game is prevention: keeping guys talking about stressors and helping each other cope. Usually I do this in small group debriefs-- nothing touchy-feely-- I take a pragmatic approach with common sense questions and feedback. Response is usually positive or neutral.

I search for meaning here, because so much of my time is spent doing nothing, waiting, occupying myself. I have been astonished by how much of war is characterized by waiting. Soldiers are really good at waiting and I have gotten really good at it too. My missions are characterized by short bursts of work and then long periods of unstructured time. While waiting for clients to drop by at my make-shift office in the camp aid station I watched three seasons of "The Office" over a 72 hour period. The PA who is exiled to that outpost waits too... waits for sick-call patients, hopes that there is no trauma--- again, frenetic activity punctuated by long stretches of waiting. So we waited together, and watched video projected onto a plywood wall.

Now that I'm back and down to a handful of weeks I still wait. As long as there is potential for me to roll out on some unpleasant mission I will have a lingering sense of unease. But at my home base I settle into my routine-- a rigid schedule of workouts, office hours at the clinic, reading and writing. The days are slow but steady.

Distillation

As I round the corner on my last month in Afghanistan I have been thinking about why it has been hard for me. There was a time back in September when I wasn't sure if I could make it, and this was mostly due to my fears that I wouldn't make it. Serving as the regional shrink and de facto confidant of so many people I have gotten a unique perspective into the hearts and minds of these Americans, and I know that my fears do not set me apart.

One thing that many of us share is the grinding repetitiveness of a 7 day work week overlayed with a perpetual sense of malevolent unpredictability. When something unpredictable happens, it is almost always bad. You don't get many "good" surprises here. There is an ever-present sense of the reality that it isn't a matter of "if", it is a matter of "when."

For some of us this is less imminent than it is for others. For those Soldiers who experience this daily or weekly, it changes them. For those who have experienced this four or five times since 2001, it permanently alters things.

If you can, imagine driving to work every day with the knowledge that there is a chance that at any moment a catastrophic explosion could rip through your vehicle, killing or maiming you in an instant. Imagine knowing that even though you realize that this happens to people (you have even pulled blackened bodies out of blasted vehicles and you know the smell of burned human flesh) you still have to make the commute down this road, because it is your job.

If you can really imagine this, then you start to realize that it has the potential to change the way you look at the world, other people, your life. Politics don't matter when you drive down that road.

I think Americans forget about the people who serve in these wars because they get caught up in the politics, the morality, the economics, the symbolism. Our military becomes a monolithic symbol for something-- whether it be a symbol of heroism or a symbol of imperialism. But when it comes down to it the people who make up our armed forces are sons and daughters, fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters-- normal people who laugh and smile, cry and hurt, people who commit both heroic and atrocious deeds. In short, normal people just like you.

Regardless of why we are all here, it gets complicated for the people who actually are here. No longer about right or wrong, justified or unjustified. It boils down to something different for the people who are actually on the ground, and as the politics and morality evaporate there is nothing left but a substrate of something else.

What that is is difficult to describe, but if you know what I'm talking about, then you know...

Bare Feet

What do you tell a man who shuffles in smelling of dust and diesel, hands shaking, red rimmed eyes, voice quavering as he explains how the children's empty shoes were thrown haphazardly upon the road.
What do you tell a man who beats his fist against the table, once for anger, once for pain, and once for shame because his body and mind went silent when he saw the children's bare feet and small fingers curled and still.
What do you tell a man when he drops his face to the floor, lost in the thought that what was meant for him had turned the children into memories with one hollow thunderclap of combustion and shrapnel.
It is the way of this world. Tomorrow the sun will rise. But I can't say that. Sometimes there is nothing I can say.

Return

I returned from that FOB and it was remarkably uneventful. I was on my fifth day, steeling myself for a seven to eight day stay, when I found out that there was a flight coming in that would be headed to Salerno, a large regional base that is situated right on the Pakistan border. Getting on would be a gamble, because I wouldn't go to my home, but I would be out of that place. I made some phone calls to some people I knew at Salerno (I've been here long enough and traveled enough to actually know people around this country) to try to arrange some lodging and arrange some social interaction. Salerno has a coffee shop and frequent flights to my home FOB, so I figured that I would give it a shot.

I packed my rucksack and geared up about an hour before the flight was due and I went down by the LZ to wait. After two and a half hours of sitting in the dust the Chinook roared in over a ridge. Overhead, an AH-64 Apache circled like a shark, ready to pounce on anyone that tried to lob mortars or RPGs at the lumbering Chinook. Three of us ran through the dust and rotor wash to scramble into the helicopter. I was out of that place and headed someplace new.

To my surprise, the Chinook lifted up out of the valley and swung west, away from where I knew Salerno to be. We flew only a few hundred feet above wooded ridges, the Apache attack helicopter trailing in our wake. Within five minutes I knew that we were headed to my FOB and I started to hope that we were going to stop. The Chinook dropped down into the LZ. It turns out that my bird was waiting to reunite with a second Chinook before heading home to Salerno.

I signaled for the crew chief to let me out and I grabbed my gear and jumped off. I was home and I was happy. I have been very lucky with travel this year...

I'm cautiously hoping that the next time I get on a bird I will be headed to my real home.