On being "Home"

Being home has been a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I was under the false assumption, that having been to war before, that coming home would be easier. But I have actually found that this time around was actually harder. The last few weeks in Iraq I couldn't wait to get home, but once I got here I felt extremely out of place. Basically it felt like I had been in a time warp where nothing at home had changed. Yet I had been to this foreign land and done all these crazy things over the last year (I have been home for 10 months and I still feel out of place). I found that the things that I thought I missed the most while I was overseas were not that exciting to me anymore. For instance, just hanging out in a bar and drinking, I found to be incredibly boring when I got back. I had all these aspirations to do all these things with all my friends that I had missed over the year. But after a few months of hanging out, all I wanted to do was have some quiet me time. Part of the reason for this is that over there you can never be alone. No matter where you go you are stuck on the FOB where there is always someone around.

One thing that made it harder for me being home was going on vacation to Korea so soon after coming home from Iraq. I should have waited at least four months before I went there. Traveling from one side of the globe to the other and back again really did nothing for my sleep schedule. The few weeks I was home from Iraq before I went to Korea I was unable to sleep. On a side note, when I got to Korea I had no problem sleeping. A lot of it had to do with the time zones, your body gets used to a certain sleep cycle when you maintain it for several months. So when I got home, I found it incredibly hard to adjust to the new time zone. I actually had to go the doctor and get sleeping pills because for several months I was unable to sleep for more than four hours at a time. Changing time zones had a lot to do with it but I also think that there was a lot of stress involved. My unit did not see very much combat while we were in Iraq, but nonetheless it was still a very stressful deployment. Being on constant alert for 10 months really wears you down.

Another mistake I made was not going back to work, I'm sure that when I go back to work I will want to kick myself in the ass for saying this. But I really do think that it was not a good idea. Going from being constantly busy, to a dead stop, did not work well for me. Going to school has alleviated a lot of the boredom. I constantly have to remind myself that the reason I went back into the military was so that I could go back to school. I am now in my second semester at Washtenaw community college and I am still enjoying it for the most part. But I find myself still not sure of what I want to go to school for. I am taking a introduction to journalism class this semester which has convinced me that that is not something I want to do. I am still considering becoming a high school English teacher, but I have not committed 100%. One thing for sure, I am done with construction, I have absolutely no interest in it anymore. Although after my next deployment I may have to do some of that type of work when I return just to keep myself busy.

Besides the basic stress of returning home after a year-long deployment in Iraq I have been plagued with several bad incidents concerning friends and family. It just seemed that it was one thing after another and I just couldn't catch a break. With these events and the grayness of winter I found myself in a deep depression. I would actually find at times that I missed being in Iraq as silly as that sounds. And I find myself actually looking forward to my upcoming deployment to Afghanistan. I know that sounds crazy but when I am here at home I feel like a lump on a log. I know that it will be dangerous over there but I find myself incredibly bored here. When you are overseas on deployment you actually feel as if you are a part of something bigger than yourself. I find myself on a fence when it comes to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I no longer feel that we have any business over there and that no matter what we do, nothing over there in either of those countries is going to change. Yet, if we are going to be at war, I find myself wanting to be over there at least doing something as opposed to being home and doing nothing. I think that serving in the military has made me somewhat of a adrenaline junkie. In the movie "The Hurt Locker" in the ending credits they make the statement "war is a drug" which I find to be a fairly true statement. The best way I can describe it is a quote from a soldier in the movie "Restrepo": reporter, how are you going to reintegrate back into civilian life, soldier "I honestly have no idea".