Homecoming
Nervous, like the first day of school, my hands are fidgety, playing with the buttons on the side of my pants I take a deep breath of the Irish air and make my way back to the commercial plane chartered for home. I had been trained for years how to shoot, kill, and analyze the situation. But in returning home, Army requirements only call for a one hour lecture by a Chaplain, which just last week had seemed asinine, I now wish I’d paid more attention. Now I don’t think anyone could have prepared me for this. The next time I walk on ground, I’ll be on U.S. soil, walking toward freedom.
“Why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane?” Dad had asked me in October, five years ago. It took me three years of falling above 1,200 feet to come up with a response: “$3,000 plus $180 every month, and ‘perfectly good?’ Dad, these are Air Force planes.” Dad, a former airman, doesn’t ask anymore. But really it was about the distinction. A maroon beret, though not as respected as the green or the former-black, now tan beret, was something special, a point of pride. I had joined “the largest fraternity in the world.” as my Sergeant Airborne had put it.
Being new to the Army and graduating Airborne School meant an assignment of three locations, Italy, Korea, Ft. Bragg. Being Military Intelligence (MI) with paratrooper designator eliminated Italy as there is only an infantry unit with two MI slots for All-Source Intelligence Analysts (96B). My straw was for Ft. Bragg. While on temporary duty (TDY) in Georgia, I had never felt prouder of having been too lazy to fail Jump School than when five of my fellow paratroopers and I walked in to the Post Exchange (PX) on Ft. Stewart, six red dots in a sea of black.
When I left the U.S. for Afghanistan, we had already been at war for almost a year. Everyone was either still in mourning or seeking vengeance for those lost. I was hoping to prove myself, 19, not old enough to drink and I was about to step off the C-130 into a combat zone on a cold morning. I imagined bullets whizzing by, explosions, and people shouting, running for cover. I was met by the blackness of night and after the engines died down, silence as dawn approached. The sun was over the distant mountains but the sky was lit up with a bright orange and we all could see mountain ranges surrounding us. “Wow, this really is the sphincter of the world.” I knelt down and ran a hand through the sand, cold, fine, almost like dust. I noticed as we walked the dust-like sand would puff around our boots like moon dust around Neil Armstrong’s feet. That was when I realized I can’t go home, I can’t walk home, I can’t get a ride from someone, I’m stuck here.
Afghanistan was busy work. My section, Signal Intelligence (SIGINT), did not have a collection platform of our own. When the unit received word that two patrols had been ambushed at the same time, the Watch-Officer began shouting for any and all current intel for the area from all sections. Flustered, I responded with, “We’ll have to wait until after the night shift comes in before we receive any reports” which is not the manner someone my rank should be saying to someone of his rank if I want to show that I’m in control, especially when he just lost a game of backgammon. Lieutenant Colonel Kluber started shouting, “What’s going on SIGINT! They have to be communicating; don’t you have any hits in that area? Chief, get over there and unfuck them!” “Unfuck them.” It’s what all of us wanted to shout at our government. We had no direction, making everything into a big clusterfuck.
“Harrison, would please come over here?” asked Sergeant Traylor, the new sergeant in charge of the section. “What’s up?” I asked, towering over her as she wanted me right next to her, presumably so no one else could hear. “Will please tell Do to fix the broken reports RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!” Rubbing my ear and trying to ignore the ringing, I walk over to Do who’s clicking through our incoming reports like spam in an inbox.
“Do, could you go through the broken reports and try to fix ‘em?” I calmly asked.
“Yeah, sure, no problem.”
“Do, why is my ear hurting right now?”
“You respect me. Sergeant Traylor doesn’t ask, she orders, she demands. She doesn’t respect me. I’m not going to respect her. If she tells me to do something, I’m going to ignore her, if she asks me like you just did, I’ll do it.”
My return to the States had been sweetened by a universal lack of supervision over anything. A typo in the staffing order had brought an extra person to the field when there was already a full roster. Since I had been identified as a problem for unknowingly instigating rebellion against low ranking authority, I was given the option to go home early. I would have literally jumped at the chance had I not obliterated my leg muscles working-out the week prior and could barely walk without falling down.
I did agree to return home and, by stroke of luck, got a seat on a flight with a Captain going on emergency leave. The flight took us to Rheine Mein Air Force Base, Germany, a place the Captain was familiar with and, upon hearing I had turned 21 in the desert and had never spent any real time in Germany, ordered me to spend a week at Rheine Mein. As you can imagine, I was heart-broken when the Air Force said all flights are suspended due to Valentine’s Day Weekend. Six days of catching up on three months’ worth of drinking included me stumbling around the icy streets of a German winter in shorts, a T-shirt, and combat boots. At one point I found myself window shopping the red light district with a Public Relations officer and a Delta Force MI chief. The rest is classified. When I got back to Ft. Bragg, I took a taxi back to post and surprised the gate guards when I told them there was an M16A2 in the trunk. But the rest of the company was surprised when I showed up to physical training (PT) the next day with my rifle. I quickly found out I had been listed as absent without leave (AWOL) all week.
I was given a choice, I could stay at Ft. Bragg and follow medical procedures that could lead to a medical discharge, or I could deploy to Iraq with rest of my unit. Since I was the only person trained on the mobile satellite communications package that would be deployed, I decided not to completely screw over my friends in the section with whom I had become brothers.
Iraq was nowhere near as bad as Afghanistan. There had been a stable, almost western-ized government that we destroyed (mostly just means there was running water widely available), and my role in the war was clearly defined. Fix everything that goes wrong from our side of the satellite in space to the keyboard, mouse, and monitor on every desk that my Chief approves. Chief Milligan was a 6′ 4″ black woman who protected us like her own kids. Once, I saw a captain demand more respect from Chief. Without taking her eyes off of him, she politely asked, “everyone else, please vacate the premises.” Staff Sergeant Zoky added, “And take your weapons with you. I’ll get the Chief’s and captain’s so he doesn’t get shot.”
Arriving at Ft. Bragg, we are all handed a small piece of paper and a short pencil without an eraser. The paper is a standard Customs Form for declaring any foreign relations or dealings we may have or had and to guard against illegal weapons, vegetation, and/or laundered money. No one is allowed to leave until everyone has handed back their form and pencil. When the go ahead is given, we file out of the plane, one by one into a bright, sunny, late-morning day. We are called into a formation and marched into a nearby hangar in columns of three. Inside, the columns are broken and stacked nine deep in front of an outstretched set of bleachers over flowing with family members and friends of the unit we accompanied stateside. A brief speech is given by the Acting Commanding General of Ft. Bragg welcoming us home, followed by a dismissal to be with our loved ones. I have no family around. Shortly after joining the Army, my mom divorced my dad who, in grief, had moved to San Antonio and my brother had since moved to Dallas. I have no loved ones around. My girlfriend is in Houston, unable or unwilling to miss school. I have no friends around. The rest of the section was still in Iraq. I am the advance party home to prepare 500 brand-new computers for full use in four weeks and I was unable to give advance notice of my arrival for security reasons. There are no flowers, no joyful tears of relief, no Mom and Dad together telling me how proud they are of me. There is no one. This is the loneliest I have ever felt. I cry.