The Army waited until we were nice and rested from 48 hours of traveling around the world and across the country, then dropped us into a five hour class on VA benefits, starting early in the morning. Many a doodle were likely crafted, resembling various instructors.
I could barely talk to the wifey last night, I was so exhausted. She and the boy could certainly relate.
So we have come full circle. I spent the first two months of the deployment here, in the oft-withering heat. We wore the light green uniforms while returning soldiers wore the dark green. Now, we wear the dark green and watch as others don the uniform of the uninitiated. The climate is also changed, as we have traded the Texas summer for a pleasant, sun-mingled winter.
Everything seems a bit surreal. Lacking the normal time at an in-between location on the way back, the scenery and lifestyle has dramatically changed in a mere couple of days.
It can be confusing and a bit overwhelming. At times, I feel jovial and light-hearted; At other times, crabby and impatient. I can track the similar wavering of thoughts and emotions in my soldiers.
Two more soldiers were killed in Afghanistan this past week, and a popular restaurant was bombed, killing 21 people, including two Americans and a number of Western diplomats and aid workers. The restaurant was in the heart of Kabul, the city we so recently departed.
It is easy to revert to thinking of it as a remote ordeal, until I remember that our teams are still going out most days, visiting sites and advising Afghan counterparts throughout the city.
As for me and my family, whatever the future holds, the reunion will surely be sweet. I got a taste of it (two nights ago?) in Baltimore--crawling along the floor with my boy and sharing a cup of wine with my wife.
When we set him down to sleep, we tried to disappear from his view by lying back on the bed. Didn't work. I looked over and saw him standing up, hanging on the edge, watching us as he bawled.
The wifey, matured by this past year's experience, was undaunted. Alongside feelings of guilt for leaving my boy on the other side of the room after just returning from the other side of the world, I had the more mundane thought of "I didn't know he could stand in his crib like that."
I left when he was a largely unresponsive baby. Now, he is a little boy with humor and energy.
He will likely start walking soon, and I think running will soon follow. Back just in time.
