i’ve been back for just over three months now. this is the point at which, according to the armed forces network’s public service announcements, i am supposed to feel “like nothing is the same” or withdrawn. for me, that is not the case. not this time or at this point, at least. maybe when i first got back from the post-deployment vacations.
what does amaze me, however, is how long “it” stays with the returned veteran…just beneath the surface, waiting to be awakened in a sort of PTSD-meets-deja vu during a subsequent deployment or other source of distress. i got home from my first trip to iraq in august 2003, deployed to andrews air force base in early 2006, and then went back to balad, iraq in september 2007. by the time i’d gone back, i was finished with the quicktemperedness, risk taking, and affection for the bottle that categorized nearly 1 year following the first deployment.
i’d been told by the flight nurse who accompanied me in 2003 (and visited balad a couple years later for several hours while picking up patients on a mission from germany) that it would be “surreal” to be back and see what had changed and what had not. so, i expected it to be merely surreal, if such a state can actually exist. it was not surreal. it was awful. it was the worst of what had frightened me most while there before, but without any companionship that made it bearable before. the first night i spent alone in my new home, despite being exhausted from the flight, i barely slept. in fact, every time a trailer door would slam around A-47, my eyelids would spring open, my heartrate would triple, and my body would instantly be covered in sweat. while i’d been a little more jumpy for the previous 4 years (much to the occasional embarrassment of my secretary and amusement of my colleagues), i certainly didn’t associate deep, loud noises with exploding mortar shells in my atlanta life. but that changed as soon as my boots hit balad dirt again. and it took weeks to go away. after the first few nights, i became embarrassed by reaction (despite having no audience) and then after it didn’t go away after several nights, angry at myself. even as the temperatures dropped, i’d run the a/c unit (on a vent setting) to make enough noise to cover up neighbors’ slamming doors around me, and i finally was able to sleep through the night…until the F16s launched, at least.
i had dinner saturday night with one of the flight nurses who deployed with me when i was in nashville for drill weekend a few days ago. we talked about the deployment some and its aftermath–the first conversation i’ve had with anyone who went with me since getting back (if i thought it was lonely being OIC while there, i have certainly seen it to be significantly worse now that we’re all back). he talked about being bored with his life and career here, despite its being in the same field-nursing. nursing in TN can’t compete on an adrenaline scale with nursing in iraq, of course. he also spoke of his spending several weeks unable to sleep more than a few hours at night since getting back. both sentiments i shared when getting back in ‘03 but not this time. i suspect i didn’t share the first feeling this go-round b/c i found a lot of my job in balad this time to be less exciting than my normal civilian career, ironically. i think taking several weeks of R&R helped with transitioning, such that i didn’t have the sleeplessness.
i hope i can continue to have conversations with some of the members of my guard unit who went with me to iraq a few months ago when i see them for two days each month. a few of them won’t speak to me; i suspect reasons why relate to some of the issues we had with getting people home by the dates they anticipated leaving. my successor, lt colonel sanders, is getting the same wrath from several deployed flight members who are going to be held up a couple of weeks past the date on which they expected to leave, too. i told him to not expect that they will “forgive and forget” when they all get back to nashville. he seems more apathetic about it than i have been. i hope he continues to feel that way when he gets back in a few weeks. i never would have thought being able to not give a damn about others’ feelings would be a good quality for a leader to have, but i have since learned otherwise.
