It has been a tough few days. I returned home from Atlanta to find that there were several challenges awaiting me: first and foremost, my car was dead and the brakes were nonfunctional. Secondly, the AC in the house wasn't working, and of course the gas was off. Luckily, there was some very good news as well, namely that the house wasn't underwater and that it actually looked quite clean. My first shower was tap-water cold, but other than that, things were actually looking tolerable.
Day 1 was great until late in the day. I spoke with some friends in Afghanistan on skype, made some calls to my command to let them know about my car troubles, and did some cleaning up around the house. Around 4 pm, I received a call from my command telling me to report in the morning and threatening AWOL paperwork for my absence during the day. I nearly reached through the phone and strangled my company commander for this little "welcome" home. I had been in contact with the command by email or phone more than 5 times in the 18 hours I had been back in town, and they were threatening AWOL paperwork??!! They deploy me and my husband at the same time so we have to abandon our house for six months, and when my car isn't working (not to mention the fact that I had no gas or air conditioning in the house) they want to start AWOL paperwork??!! I was incensed to the point of tears. Strike 1. The day went downhill from there.
I called AAA to have my car towed, just to be informed that my membership had lapsed while I was gone and there would be a 7-day waiting period for my full membership to begin again. Strike 2. I had my dad look into rental cars, and we basically found none in El Paso for any reasonable price. Strike 3.
Day 2 was a better day, although it too had its challenges. (It didn't help that I couldn't sleep, even after doing some yoga.) The biggest challenge was reporting to the hospital in the morning. For the first time, I felt the need to be anonymous at my own hospital. I didn't really want to see anyone that I knew (of which there are few), and really didn't want to meet anyone new either. I just wanted to get a few signatures on my paperwork and get out of there. It was highly overwhelming to be back in a "normal" and "calm" hospital, one without the ominous overhead pages ("Level I Trauma in the Emergency Room, 5 minutes") and the constant pall of a combat surgical ward. I wanted to be anonymous for many reasons, but mostly because I feel that no one understands what I've been through. I haven't kept in touch with anyone who is still assigned to the hospital, and how does one encapsulate 6 months of combat service into a few sentences when an acquaintance asks? An additional complicating layer involves the status of the acquaintance: if the person is a civilian without combat experience, there is absolutely no way for him/her to comprehend the challenges of a deployment. The person may be appreciative, may get misty-eyed to see me, may say how good it is that I'm home in one piece - but fact of the matter is that no one without deployment experience could possibly understand its challenges.
The war zone evolves depending on the fortitude and proclivity of the political winds of change. Therefore, even the military members can't understand (or they don't care ... I'm not sure which sometimes). Generally, servicemembers with a combat patch will at least remember the emotional toll caused by absence from family and friends, as well as the difficulties of reintegrating into normal American society. I'll give them that. But unless you have worked in the Bagram hospital and/or at Fire Base Lilley in 2009, there's no way to understand what I have gone through. A soldiers' experience while deployed depends not only on his/her internal support mechanism with family & friends, but also the location, time, length of deployment, strength of leadership, level of security, and operational specialty (position). No two deployments are ever the same; the differences between, say, OIF and OEF are staggering. Even a deployment to Helmand province in Afghanistan bears little similarity to my experience in Bagram. The differences between the PICU in Bagram in 2005 (when the hospital was a tent) and 2009 are also impressive. Needless to say, no soldier at my hospital has experienced Bagram and at FB Lilley in Afghanistan in 2009, so the building is full of people and faces but still feels quite empty.
Later in the day, I drive my now-functioning car to the grocery store to fill the pantry with basic food in preparation for Matthew's arrival the following day. I walked into Wal-Mart and had to engage in deep breathing and self-talk: the place is big, and loud, and full of people. The biggest problem, though, wasn't the crowds or the fact that I was starving as I shopped; it was the preposterous number of options I encountered for every item on my shopping list. The cereal aisle was the worst - I have eaten Special K and Cheerios for six months, so having the option of Crispix or Shredded Wheat (in 5 varieties) or Captain Crunch or Rice Krispies (also in at least 5 varieties made by several different manufacturers) was mind-boggling. The same mind freeze occurred in the ice cream aisle, since I have had the choice of exactly 6 flavors during the deployment - sometimes less, depending on supply. How was I supposed to decide intelligently between Starbucks flavors and Ben and Jerry's and Dreyer's with all of their attendant gustatory variances??! Ultimately, I had to tell myself to make a relatively quick decision and get comfortable with the fact that I might change my mind later .... and remember that I now have the freedom to drive back to Wal-Mart and get other flavors if I feel the urge. (By the way, I ended up with Honey Bunches of Oats and Reese's Puffs for cereal, and vanilla, peanut butter cup, pumpkin, and a bunch of single-serving Ben & Jerry's cups to satisfy my ice cream fetish.)
In writing this post, I thought back to an email sent to me by my wonderful Grandmother during my last days in Bagram:
Right now, less than a week after my return to the US and before I have seen any friends or family in the states, I am still depending heavily on my friends in Afghanistan for reassurance that everything I'm feeling is normal and that I will feel less overwhelmed over time. My friends that have deployed before can provide insight into the process that no one else can, and thus I need them right now."You are packing up and getting ready to leave Afghanistan. I know how you feel. You wish that you could take everything there home with you and that you could have ALL of both worlds. You can do that, but with the memories you will always take and have with you. But it's hard to leave those places and those people who have meant so much to you for even a short amount of time.
You will never untie those knots,
even though you might never see some of those people again.
I, and I know the rest of our family, will be here waiting for you
with our arms open to clasp you to our hearts again."
I know in my brain that the reintegration process isn't quick. I know that there will be bumps in the road - maybe even gigantic potholes. I know that I will miss Bagram - I already do miss the simplicity of life in Afghanistan - and especially the friends I made there. I also have to be confident that my loved ones both in the US and in Afghanistan will be patient with this transition, and that there will be no pressure to "power through" as I had initially strived to do. My friends and family realize (or will realize) that I can't just cut off my friends in Afghanistan, since these soldiers 7,500 miles away have not only been my lifeline over the past 6 months, but also because we have shared some significant emotional experiences. My friends in Afghanistan, on the other hand, should understand that my family and friends here are .... well, here. And I have missed them terribly during my deployment, and need to get to know them again during this transition period.
I don't know how long I will need to feel "normal" again here in America. My transition has been and will be stepwise (which, by the way, is a really good thing); I started by staying in a hotel at Benning for 2 days, then came home for a few days to an empty house and no friends or family; this weekend, my mom and Matt will come into town and I'll have the opportunity to get used to being around them, and soon James will be home and we will reintegrate as a family. Over the course of several weeks, we three will be together visiting with our family in California, and finally return to El Paso to begin a more "normal" post-deployment life together. We have a whole lot to figure out between now and then!
(More on "normalcy" - also known as BORING! and PREDICTABLE! - in a future post. I promise!)
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Read more about redeployment and reintegration:
US Army Europe
Military OneSource
FROM Lisa Storrs Kla:
ReplyDeleteYour writing is very insightful! Hope it is therapeutic for you! I'm sure your son will find it interesting years down the road :)
FROM: Karen Penko Vogt
ReplyDeleteAutumn, I know exactly where you are coming from! No one understands what you have been through unless they have been there with you. I experienced similar frustrations coming home from deployment, especially when returning to work, and I had the same experience walking into a store after returning as you did at Wal-Mart. It took me a few months to feel "normal' again and now it's like I never left.
From Cindy Hicks:
ReplyDeleteYou and James really should take your blog and write a book. I have thoroughly enjoyed everything both of you have posted, and this was extraordinarily well-written and insightful. So glad to have you back! You're right---as much as we might want to understand, and do at some level, it's not the same as having been there and shared the experiences with you. Can't wait to see you in a month or so!
From Spencer Easton:
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this. For so many of us, the experiences are visceral. They course through you with no real way of explaining them. You can recite the events: saying the lords prayer with your team before leaving on a mission, watching that humvee up the road disappear in a column of smoke, drawing your weapon on a 14 year old boy, rendering a final salute but those things that tie those specific memories to you like sinews ... some call them emotions but I'm not quite sure that is what it is. It's like asking you to describe salty. All I know is that's going to be part of your frame of reference for a very long time.
Didn't mean to come off melodramatic, but fresh experiences seem to harrow up old ones instead of covering them up.