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I'm not much of a writer. I mean, I can do well occasionally but it's writing is definitely not my strong suit. In fact, English or any sort of language is the only academic subject that I don' t have complete confidence in. So it's weird to find myself in a position where people outside of my immediate family actually want to read what I have to write but nevertheless here I am.
I started doing all this as a response to another's post on an online bulletin board for a massive multi-player online game. For you non nerds that's a game like Everquest where the point of the game is to interact in a fantasy world in real time with thousands of different people. He was writing about the culture shock experienced through his time as a grammar school teacher in Asia and the re-newed shock he was anticipating returning to the life he had lived for the majority of his life. There was something about his post that resonated deeply with me and I just had to write a response which ended up being my first ever blog entry. Stay with me I'm starting, albeit slowly, to get to the point.
Since that time, I've written several other entries that have ranged from shitty to very shitty covering a lot of different ground from my time in Iraq to random things that had crossed my mind at the time. However, since that initial time I've never experienced something that has made me feel the absolute necessity to write about it. That is, until quite recently when I went home for two weeks to “rest and recuperate”. It's probably hard to imagine but the most significant thing that has happened to me since I deployed to Iraq has been returning home to the world I know, or knew. I'm writing this to sort through my own thoughts and feelings about the last two weeks. Anything else is secondary.
I don't really expect this to be easy as my mind is flooded with a lot of different things and I have no clue as to how they'll play themselves out over the next few paragraphs. If anyone besides myself is reading this paragraph then that means I was absolutely right, but you're more than welcome to try and sift through my thoughts.
I guess I'll start at the beginning. I flew from Mosul to Kuwait to Germany to Atlanta to Chicago and believe me when I say it was as painful as it sounds but for the most part it was uneventful. That of course changed when I got off the plane, walked to the train and started the relatively short ride home. Well, it did for me at least.
I have never felt so out of place in my entire life than when I was riding on the same train that I had taken countless times before. The sights, the smells, the sounds, the air, the faces, seemed so completely foreign, and yet I knew in the back of my mind that this was me, this was where I had come from. I can only imagine I looked like one of those wide eyed shell shocked veterans that are so characteristic of any soldier returning home story and I don't even like being cliché.
I just couldn't get used to the people going about their lives as if there were nothing going on. Hell, it took me several days to stop looking down the street for road side bombs or good places for snipers to hang out and I never stopped thinking about what was going on with the platoon. This was just the beginning.
Since I joined the military I haven't really gone home a whole lot. I was getting into a lot of trouble there and I just didn't really want to find myself in a bad situation for the simple fact of me being around. I certainly miss my friends and family but I felt that the best way to get around from the bullshit was to avoid the source. I have a lot more to say about this in particular but I'll come back to it later. I'm just using this as an introduction to the next thing, which stems from the fact that I really haven't been around.
As I rode the train, walked home, went to the mall to buy clothes and did pretty much everything else I was literally bombarded by memories. There were good and bad memories, but the significance of it was the fact that they were therefor ever single place I went and every single street I traveled down. I couldn't go a block without having to stop for a second. I felt like I was trapped in that hazy aura that accompanies any flashback sequence, except most of it didn't matter at all. I'd go to the store and remember the time me and my boy got kicked out for acting a fool, or just some random occurence as I drove by my old high school.
I guess the most foreboding aspect of all this was the underlying feeling that this was the past, that there was no future associated with any of it. Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself by saying this but it was kinda like my life was flashing before my eyes. The overall effect this had was the feeling that I was somehow looking back on a life that was never to be repeated regardless of how I felt about it.
The other aspect of it is that it reinforces the feeling that you have when you're deployed that your entire life is on hold. I have a lot to look forward to next year but that doesn't matter as everyone has something back home that is waiting on them, whether it be a wife, job, kids, car, or anything in between. So, all you do is think about these things because there really is nothing else to keep your mind occupied. It's not that bad when everyone around you is in the same boat but it's entirely different when you see everyone living their life, going about their business and doing the things they enjoy. You feel kind of out of place, like you don't belong and the way every gawks at you in a military uniform doesn't help things at all.
I didn't really do a whole lot when I was home, which is kind of surprising considering I had 7 months to think about all the things I wanted to do. It was just hard to generate excitement for things when the fact that you had to go back to the grind in a short time. The first few days it was so bad I just ended up going to sleep early.
My time wasn't completely unproductive; I hung out with friends, saw family and even got down to Washington D.C. to visit American University. It seems like everything I expected and I'm really excited about going there next spring. I'm gonna refrain from talking about it too much for the sake of not tempting fate. I talked to some of the staff and I shouldn't have any issues with my deferment because of the deployment but this is pretty important to me so I'm not gonna play around. I will say though that if everything works out I think I'll really enjoy my time there and it'll be a great experience.
The family is doing well for the most part. I didn't get to see my granny as she was put into a home while I was gone and I really regret not being able to find out where it was at. The sister is looking more grown to ever, which is a little weird but I'm sure I'll get used to it. My mom is maintaining to say the least. She still hasn't finished her dissertation but she has been taking steps to do so. So, hopefully one day soon. Also, she asked me to go to church with her which was a little surprising as the last thing I heard was that she had stopped attending regularly which was disappointing to put it mildly.
I'm not a religious person and I pretty much stopped going to church a long time ago but I really enjoyed the brief time I was there. Just walking into the building was eye-opening as I had spent so much time there as a child but now I saw things as an adult. It was all the same, but then it was different, smaller. The most profound thing was how I was received by the people. A lot of them were people who I had known since day 1, but I hadn't had any desire to associate with for a long time. I guess everybody goes through that phase, but now I could see the genuine love and affection these people had for me, and surprisingly the love I had for them.
You'd probably have to know me a lot more to understand the significance of this but “cold” and “detached” are some of the adjectives used to describe me on most occasions. It was an epiphany of the past as I used to think no one gave a fuck and acted accordingly and yet here were these people who truly cared for all the right reasons and I never really knew till two weeks ago, and yet they had always been there. I just refused to see it. I'm sure there are a lot of people who go through similar phases in their lives where they take things for granted, but mine had some pretty serious consequences and if things had went different I'd probably still be paying for it. That tells me that I need to be a little more receptive to the world around me, but unfortunately that lesson is gonna take a long time to sink in.
My grandmother is still recovering from back surgery that she had earlier this year. She's a bit more slow moving than I'm used to, but it's no where near the level that it was with my grandfather. I'm still recovering from seeing him cooped up in a hospital bed. She's beginning to move around and slowly moving back into her grind of things. When I was home I actually got to sit down and talk to her about a few things. It was an enlightening conversation as it went beyond the cursory “Hi, how have you been? Me? I'm fine, but yea it was nice talking to you again”.
I was able to see where some of my attitudes and outlooks on life came from as we talked about the struggle shes going through to get back on her feet. It was weird to hear her talk about having to leave Nebraska to get out in there in the world because it literally mirrored things I had said to my friends about Chicago. Our backgrounds couldn't be more different but yet in many ways we were so similar.
I kinda regret not being able to do the same thing with either one of my grandfathers or my granny. I guess I've been reaching out a lot more to family recently. Last year I visited my cousin Adrian in California and it really threw me how much we had in common even though we had only seen each other a handful of times. I guess having something in common with people regardless of how well you know them is why family is so special. Then again, that can be bad too.
When I was visiting the other side of my family I got to sit down with my cousin Marcus and talk about adult things which was another first, but probably more significant was the fact that I saw my father for the first time in five years. He found out that I was coming to visit and made it a point to be there. I don' t know what he was trying to accomplish but I do know that he still has the ability to make me angry beyond measure on sight. I about killed the motherfucker when he walked towards me. I thought I was beyond really caring about him or anything he did but obviously not. In fact, it's so bad that I can't even really bring myself to continue in this line so I'm gonna deftly change the subject:

My friends are doing relatively well. Lawrence is still trying to beat his case but I'm past the initial anger I had when he did what he did. Everyone else is just getting by; I can't knock it but then again I can't see it either. Since I joined the Army I've been avoiding Chicago so I don't have to get involved in the sort of things that goes on there. I know enough about myself to realize that I won' t be able to distance myself from anything that goes on. I still say that the hardest thing I ever had to do for the Army was get on that bus from Chicago to basic training. I haven't really looked back since.
This last trip home was longer than all the ones in the last three years combined. It hasn't really changed a bit. I'd be lying if I didn't say I missed it and really enjoyed being able to go out with my boys like nothing changed, but it has. I don't see anything, outside of a catastrophic event, necessitating a major change in policy. The hardest part about the whole thing was seeing Cortez's lil brothers on the same shit we were on 4-5 years ago. I can't act like I wasn't there myself but it's still fucked up to see people doing the same fucked up things. I just hope things work out and they don't end up as some more dead niggers in Chicago. I'll try and help but I'm not the one who can do anything significant. They have to want to see something different in their lives.
That's pretty much my leave. I wish I could find interesting things to talk about in Iraq but it gets kind of routine over here. I know most people don't give two shits about my personal life, but this was more for me than anything else. Thanks for reading.