Waiting for my class to start, I whip out my camera and start snapping pictures of Driver. A handful of excellent shots later from my more than willing model, he confides that he never lets anyone take pictures of him.
He's writing, too. Offline, private, for his eyes only. I'm not even going to bother to ask to read, although I occasionally wonder what he writes about.
Driver is not a fobbit. Driver does not ride the same bus to work day after day. Driver goes out of the wire and on the road. On his last mission he earned a Combat Action Badge -- there are dents and holes in vehicle to prove it. There is some crazy stuff that goes on out there, and sometimes I don't think I have the stomach to hear about all of it.
He amazes me with his ability to laugh and smile just minutes after hearing explosions in the distance. On the rare occasions that they do happen, they are minor compared to what he's used to.
This war isn't some distant thing that's happening on the other side of an ocean, in countries whose geography is unknown to me. The soldiers that are here are not anonymous numbers, figures or statistics. They are comrades. They are friends. And some of them are family.
I can only imagine what they've seen and what they've been through. In the end, it truly is a different experience for each of us.
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