So I've come out of Afghanistan and back in to the real world again. . . . Or maybe I'm out of Afghanistan and taking a break from the real world for a little while. In either case I'm back in the United States again and, so far, loving every minute. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't very, very strange trying to reintegrate myself into "polite society", such as it is, and at time also very difficult. I'm still nervous around crowds, loud noises make me jump, I look at almost everyone I see distrustfully, I'm more prone to violence than the person who left here 16 months ago, and there are some nights where I just can't sleep worth a damn. I've been, at least, a little uncomfortable almost everywhere I've been in the last week and a half, with almost everyone I've hung out with. Almost everyone.
So what's the fix? Does time make it go away? Surround myself with people who make me feel happy and safe? There aren't too many of those people around. The good news is that I'm normal. So said the Chaplain before we left Afghanistan. Apparently everyone experiences post traumatic stress. So as long as I don't fly off the handle and kill someone in cold blood with my bare hands, we don't have to worry. One week and change and things already feel like they're going do fast. Some good, some bad but all very, very fast. Nothing is ever easy.
All that being said, I really am thrilled to be back. New car, new computer, met a girl, leg is almost healed, saw my best friend, played volleyball, got pretty intoxicated the other night, had a great weekend and planning on doing it all again this weekend. Having fun that is.
29 May 2007
15 May 2007
The Extension, The Final Four, Falling Down
I had to back date this entry so everything would be in the right order. Mike was kind enough to yell at me for not updating my Blog in like a year so, even though, everyone pretty much knows the story here it comes again. I'm not even confident anyone is still reading this page due to the fact that I'm so bad at keeping it refreshed. Circa the first week in January of 2007, my platoon, along with the rest of our Battalion, prepared to return to the United States after a year long deployment in Afghanistan. So let's get some perspective first. I don't know that I was ready to come back yet. Don't get me wrong, I didn't exactly enjoy being in Afghanistan by any means, but I also didn't really feel I had anything to look forward to in coming back to the states. Every time someone asked me the question, "what are you looking forward to most about coming back?" "what's the first thing you're going to do when you get back?" and I never had a halfway decent answer. I wasn't as excited as I should have been.
Well the time finally came for us to depart Mehtar Lam, we tried to load ourselves and all of our stuff onto one CH-47 and one Blackhawk Helicopter. Well the CH-47 broke down. Fortunately we were on the ground at the time. THen the Blackhawk broke down. SO we got off and waited. They sent two more Blackhawks, myself and ten other people got on, leaving the rest of our platoon behind. We flew to Bagram and stayed the night. THe next day we flew back to Mehtar Lam and picked up the rest of our platoon and flew to Sharana. We stayed the night there and then flew from Sharana to Bagram, waiting to get on a plane to start flying home. The same day that we were supposed to leave for Kuwait we received the news about our extension. We flew from Bagram to Sharana and from Sharana back to Mehtar Lam. Sounds exciting right?
Well I guess the four months following that went by pretty quick. Mostly the same old stuff. We weren't getting shot at as much, which is good. We did some air assault missions with another battalion. I fell down the side of a mountain and hurt my leg pretty badly and spent the rest of the deployment at Bagram. Which brings us up to present day, and going back to the states again. But this time I'm ready. Though I'm still not sure what it is that I'm looking forward to. Maybe getting a chance to experience a little bit of the freedom that I'm over here trying to protect. I know that if I never see Afghanistan again, I'm totally fine with that. But that's not very likely.
Well the time finally came for us to depart Mehtar Lam, we tried to load ourselves and all of our stuff onto one CH-47 and one Blackhawk Helicopter. Well the CH-47 broke down. Fortunately we were on the ground at the time. THen the Blackhawk broke down. SO we got off and waited. They sent two more Blackhawks, myself and ten other people got on, leaving the rest of our platoon behind. We flew to Bagram and stayed the night. THe next day we flew back to Mehtar Lam and picked up the rest of our platoon and flew to Sharana. We stayed the night there and then flew from Sharana to Bagram, waiting to get on a plane to start flying home. The same day that we were supposed to leave for Kuwait we received the news about our extension. We flew from Bagram to Sharana and from Sharana back to Mehtar Lam. Sounds exciting right?
Well I guess the four months following that went by pretty quick. Mostly the same old stuff. We weren't getting shot at as much, which is good. We did some air assault missions with another battalion. I fell down the side of a mountain and hurt my leg pretty badly and spent the rest of the deployment at Bagram. Which brings us up to present day, and going back to the states again. But this time I'm ready. Though I'm still not sure what it is that I'm looking forward to. Maybe getting a chance to experience a little bit of the freedom that I'm over here trying to protect. I know that if I never see Afghanistan again, I'm totally fine with that. But that's not very likely.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)