Being home for 2 weeks brings bevvy of emotions

Thursday, September 09, 2004

I’ve just experienced one of the most interesting personal events that soldiers participating in the War on Terror can have. I’ve returned back to Iraq after spending 15 days on what’s called “Environmental Leave.”

Environmental Leave is an Army term for what all of you in the “real world” would know as vacation. Whatever it’s called, it’s a time to get away from the daily grind of hot, dusty, windy, long hours, with nothing much to do but work, conditions that a soldier experiences in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Vacation is supposed to be a chance to rest, recuperate, recharge and generally do something different than your job. In this situation, all of those things are accomplished, except there's an unanticipated amount of emotional baggage that each soldier must deal with as they return back to their Army job.

One of the provisions of leave is that we can go practically anywhere we want. The Army asks us where we want to go when we arrive in Kuwait to start processing for leave and then hands us a ticket for our destination. Most of us go home.

Home is where some soldiers can visit that child that was born while they were gone or right before they left to be deployed. Home is where they can visit with friends that haven’t seen them for up to 10 or so months and catch up on what has been going on.

Home is where Mom and Dad, who've had their eyes and ears glued to radios and televisions since their soldier left, are waiting to see that their son or daughter is safe and sound. Home is where that boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé or spouse is waiting. Home is where some soldiers can’t wait to see their kids, see how much they’ve grown and just sit down on the floor or go in the yard and play with them.

For me leave meant spending time with the woman that I'd marry while I was home and spending time with her 3 wonderful boys. I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with my dog, introduce him to one of my stepsons and to see the look in the wagging canine’s eyes that he remembered me and wanted me there.

Leave was also a time to reconnect with friends and colleagues that I miss spending time with, working with and generally advancing life with.

Finally, leave meant gladly working on a few honey-do projects that had been lingering.

Just like vacation, leave is a short experience. When vacation is over, most of us usually return to work and sometimes are even glad that a trip is over so that we can return to our normal routine hoping that not too much has piled up on our desk.

Returning from leave is nothing like returning from a vacation.

Just as we did the first time we left for war, returning from leave means saying a tearful and too short goodbye to the spouse that only wants us to be home. It's knowing that our parents will start their vigil again of making sure the news out of the area that we're soldiering isn't terrible.

Returning from leave brings the realization that the kids we so enjoyed playing with while we were home will be so many inches taller and so many months more mature when we return. We know that we’ll miss another ski season, the family trip to Disneyworld, birthdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I'd expect some to read all of the above and think that it couldn’t possibly be worth the pain of leaving again to spend 2 weeks on leave just to go back half-way around the world to continue your military service.

It couldn’t be worth putting our family and friends through the emotional roller coaster of having us around for a few days just to have us gone for another long period of time. It couldn’t be worth putting ourselves through having the closeness of loved ones and all that makes us long for home for such a short time, only to have to tear ourselves away, knowing that we’ll miss so much more.