11 Hours and Counting

It was 7 days ago that I left my site in Helmand, Afghanistan, 3 days ago I left our main hub to the north and 1 day since I left Kandahar. In the past week I’ve changed from day shift, to night shift, back to days and now I’m not sure when I should be sleeping or awake. My circadian rhythm is messed up like an MC Escher piece.

I’m in the executive lounge at London Heathrow waiting for my next flight with 20% battery left on my laptop and no means of charging it since my charger is in my checked luggage. At one point all I was carrying was my laptop, but I got tired so I bought some stuff so I could put the computer in the bag. And that’s how my little nephew became the new owner of a stuffed camel from Dubai.

I can’t say that it’s hard leaving this time around. You don’t really realize how nice it is not to be surrounded by rifles and camouflage until you’re not surrounded by rifles and camouflage. Now when I look around all I see are people living their happy little lives, taking for granted how fortunate they really are not to have real problems to deal with.

Yet, I still can’t help but smile when I catch a whiff civilization. The porta-potty stink is replaced with air fresheners, the body odor is replaced with deodorant. I just hope I’m not carrying any of that Afghan funk with me, however that would explain why everyone is looking at me all funny, although it could also be my bloodshot eyes or my messed up hair that hasn’t been cut in close to 3 months.

But I keep a sense of pride given the fact that I just walked out of the newspaper headlines. Not that they were about me, but they are about the places I’ve been. In the waning days of my deployment I started meeting some of the Marine Corps grunts that we’d been supporting, the guys on the ground actually taking the fight to the enemy. These were the guys whose friends were in the obituaries back home. They’re the ones who saw those newspaper photos first hand.

I got to talk to them about us watching them from the sky and they told me about what they saw on the ground… Battery warning, I’ll have to continue this later…

And I’m back… I’m at Chicago O’Hare, about 10 hours since I left off, waiting for my flight back to Saint Louis. I got impatient waiting for my laptop to charge so I pulled it at 33%. We’ll see if I can finish up this time…

They were as excited to meet me as I was to meet them. It’s like finding a pen pal and finally meeting them after months of writing. I could finally put a face to the little figures I watched from 3,000 ft up. I heard stories put to the videos I saw and they got to hear about what we were seeing from way up high. It was a great experience and kind of serendipitous given that I saw them while I was on my way out.
So here I sit, at my gate, the only thing holding me from my own comfy dust-free bed is an airplane ride and a baggage carrousel stop. My 90 lbs backpack is probably snaking its way through a series of conveyor belts as I type and my plane is probably rolling down some taxiway. The only care in my world is whether or not I’m going to go back for more…