Security, Going Home, and Family.

What is security? It means different things to different people, also there's different kinds of security. It can mean physical security, the belief that your physical body is safe from harm, its what allows us all to sleep at night. There's financial security, to some that means being rich, to others it means having enough for retirement, for some still, it means just having enough to be happy. There's emotional security, being secure enough in oneself, and those around you that you don't snap, alot of these all overlap. Each one of us walking this planet wants it, but what do you do personally to see to it that you have security? Surround yourself with healthy people, exercise, smoke stuff, buy a gun, get a dog, go to work, save money? We all do a little everyday to ensure our own sanity, my world will shortly involve automatic weapons, body armor, and the belief that those around me have my best interest in their minds. What a sobering thought.


I am from Phoenix, I left at the end of 1996. I have never moved back. All of my family save my sister is there. In almost a decade, I have seen it go from roughly 2 million people in the metro area, to more than 4 million. It is now the 5th largest city in the nation(Eat that Philadelphia) home prices went up more than 55% last year, highest in the nation. All that is fine and dandy, but for me, every time I go home, its a little bittersweet, the culture there, like anywhere, changes, and I become more and more a product of Los Angeles the longer that I live here. This is disheartening, because, the older that I get, the more of my parents I see in myself. Don't get me wrong, all of my parents are great people, upstanding members of society, but I feel that the longer that I am away, the farther apart that I grow from them. This sucks. I see my nieces and nephews grow up, the oldest just graduated high school at 16, smart girl, and my youngest nephew is now 7, he'll be almost 9 when I get home, will I know him when I see him again? Children grow and change so fast. I also find that my oldest brother has changed as he got older, he has found religion, not the creepy fundamentalist kind, but he attends church on a regular basis, and it has affected him and his behavior, and me not being there every day, I am only usually home for 3 or 4 days at a time, all I see are the drastic changes. I don't even really know why I refer to it as home, it hasn't been home for quite some time.

I went to dinner with an old female friend of mine, we drove by our old houses, and the old schools, and took a trip down memory lane. It was painful, and joyous at the same time. No-one in my family has ever met her, save my Dad, and she is kind of a world away from them. Her and I have a closeness that comes from 14 years of friendship. She knows every little secret that I have, and I her. We may not talk for a few months at a time, but when we finally do, its like we haven't even missed a day. I miss you Jess.

I said goodbye to my family. My Mom and Step-Dad will be there for the final family farewell sendoff that is coming shortly. As I was leaving their house on Saturday, my mother cried, I wasn't about to cry in front of my mother, I can't let her know how scared I am, and how much it hurts me to leave her. As soon I left her house, I was a mess. I got to my brothers, and cried like a little girl. Saying bye to the kids was more painful than anything else about the trip. Holding my youngest niece and nephew, and trying to explain to them I was going off to war, how do you tell a 7 and 8 year old? It still tears me up. Thats not to say that the older ones are taking it any better, the oldest boy was OK while I was there, but I heard after I left, that he was pretty bad. I called him and the 2nd oldest niece and reassured them that I would be OK, so now that I have promised that, I have to follow through. My father, stoic as always took it better than I would have thought, but he is by far the toughest man I have ever met, I am sure that it rough watching your child go off into harms way, but he is also proud, and I want to do this so that he can look back and be proud of me.

Another Soldier Stands Guard.....

at the gates of Heaven. My day was shit. I found out this morning, that a very good friend of mine, someone who I have trained with over the last 4 years, passed away last night. The details are unimportant. What is important is that he is gone. He leaves behind a wife, and a 1 year old daughter.

He was scheduled to deploy with me, and I was counting on him to be one of the rocks that I would've leaned on to make it through with my sanity intact. Now he is gone. I watched him grow from an inexperienced Soldier, into someone that I was willing to place my life in his hands. He was young, 23. It is difficult, because this came out of nowhere, so sudden. We will bury him, and go on, because thats what the living do, espcially the Army. That doesn't mean that the pain will be felt any less. I will grieve in private, on my own time, after the shock wears off.

I believe that Soldiers, when we die, get to guard the Heavens from the denizens of evil, just like we do down here. I hope that he rests in peace.
Goodbye, I love you. May you find peace and love on the other side, and guide us into the lions den, and back out.

The Black Hole

That's what my impending deployment feels like. It is this huge chunk of time that sucks all future wants and plans into it, and refuses to let them escape. the SO and I are making plans for the future, and I am all for that, but like I said its difficult. No one comes back from a war zone the same. It doesn't matter who you are, what your job was there, you will be a different person when you come back. Who am I going to be when I return? Images of the disgruntled Vietnam Vet that's afraid of crowds, cringes at backfires, and walks the perimeter of his house every night to make sure that its secure(I have to admit, I already do that, call me paranoid) come to mind. I have known many OIF(Operation Iraqi Freedom) and OEF(Operation Enduring Freedom(Afghanistan) Vets that have come back, and most of them aren't noticeably different. There are however subtle changes. Some have a bit more self confidence, some are basically the same, I can say that everyone I have known that has deployed has come back alive(I don't intend on breaking the streak). Some are a little more withdrawn, and some are even happier in life having survived a very harrowing year in a very dangerous place.

The future isn't set, you can get hit by a bus, killed in a car wreck, or maimed changing a light bulb in your house. Everyone of us that wakes up in the morning, takes risks that may end your life. Also, if you look at the sheer statistics of people that have rotated through both war zones, my chances of getting hurt or killed are very small. When its your time, there's nothing you can do about it. All I can do is show the people that I love, how I feel every day, so if something bad happens to me, there will be no question how I feel about them. (Can I get anymore cliche, please?)

The Countdown

It has been over a month since I have last posted, and I promise that the posts will get more frequent, and more entertaining as the process speeds up. In less than 60 days, I will be back on Active Duty. The squad that I will be a part of is pretty much set in stone. There could be a couple more added or taken away, but its pretty much set. We have at last count, 4 Infantryman, 2 Combat Engineers (infantryish with the joy of blowing stuff up), 3 other various MOS's(military occupational specialty), and the Squad leader is also a combat arms veteran. We have argueably, the best squad in the entire company.

We were visited by the TAG of CA, and he talked with us for maybe 5-8 minutes, and it wasn't really all that memorable. Don't get me wrong, its a "big" deal when a 2 star general visits your AO, but to us lowly peons, it really means little. The reason that he was there is way more important that he himself is. There is a training site on the Central Coast, that prepare's deploying Reservists(that means all categories of Reservists), get ready for combat. Like all DoD programs, they all compete for a cut of the pie. Well, they simulated a lane of training, as an example to all of the bigwigs of what they do. I was flattered as the only non-infantry qualified person to be asked to be part of the demonstration(they needed someone to carry the machine gun), but I declined because I thought that it would be more important for me to be with my platoon in the field, little did I know, that the demonstration wasn't just for funding for CA, but for the whole Nat'l Guard nationwide. Had I known that, I would have done it in a heartbeat. I will say with a bit of pride that 2 of my squadmates were on the team. I will be in safe hands.

I go into my final days home with mixed emotions, and way too little time to spend with everyone that I'd like to. It is a very morbid idea, that someone who's 28 years old(I had a recent birthday), to have to have a will, occupational hazard I guess.