The transition to normal life can be harder than one would imagine. For me, coming home the first time was, at first, the best time of my life. I didn’t realize the physiological differences in me yet, but my wife did. I didn’t realize that six hours of straight sleep would be a blessing. I … Read more
From the time that the wheels of the C-130 lifted off of the runway at Al Asad Air Base, and I took off on my very first combat flight in Iraq, it only took me maybe a little bit more than 72 hours in that environment to become a completely different person. I was a … Read more
I remember seeing my wife for the first time after Iraq. Our homecoming was a sedate affair. We came home in waves as company’s not as a battalion. If we had all come home together maybe there would have been a bigger celebration, a bigger welcome. Instead a couple of people were there at Camp … Read more
This last deployment, my dad had two homecomings; one for his R&R and one for his final homecoming. Both were difficult for very different reasons. For the first homecoming, I had to tell him something that I knew would hurt him. I had to completely miss the second homecoming. This was a new experience for … Read more
The longer I stayed in Iraq the more it changed me. Every day it was in my veins, consuming, burning, and leaving something else. I was deep into my deployment. The nobility of the mission had long since withered on the vine. My Bible gathered dust as I surrendered to indifferent fatalism. I thought of … Read more