Here and There

I am writing this prior to my redeployment but for reasons having to do with security, I will publish after I've safely arrived in the US of A. Land of milk and honey. Land of the big PX. And McDonald's.

I am mere hours from departing this lovely garden spot of a country, and am experiencing my final round of routine events that have occupied space in my brain and time in my day.

Last Chance Workout

Last Quesadilla and crunchy cucumbers

Last drive down some crappy road on the camp.

 

Last night in a CHU (trailer) crammed behind T-Walls and using trucked-in water in a shower trailer

It struck me that in a couple days it will be really hard to remember my life here. This happens every time I go on leave or redeploy - here (United States or Iraq) and there (Iraq or the United States) are two totally different places. They call me Captain Obvious sometimes.

My year was not all that significant - I didn't go anywhere or do anything other than work in the palace. My predominant affliction,  the frustration and drudgery of daily life, will be hard to recall. The monotony of seeing the same people in the same places saying the same things at the same time won't have a place in my medulla oblongata. I won't need to exercise the same degree of restraint nor feel the guilt when attempted restraint fails to disrupt the direct linkage from brain to mouth.

Here and there are so different that they can never cross paths nor become related to one another. The only possible overlap is the association with specific people, but it is very common for most of us to go our separate ways and move to another unit or duty station and never see each other again. So "there" will become even more of a place that someone resembling me spent a vague amount of time doing some hardly memorable job.

I recognize that soldiers doing more dangerous jobs where they are in harm's way all the time may have a different experience coming home. But we all have our own issues to work out.

I have to find some real value in the year I just had. Right now, on the eve of my liberation from exile, it totally escapes me.