I had a dream the other night that I was being MEDEVAC'd again. Only instead of going from Germany to Walter Reed, I was going in the opposite direction. Across the ocean, closer to the desert that had been home for so many months.
This doesn't feel real. The hospital, the daily meetings with doctors, the pills -- none of it. I think a part of me is still expecting to wake up in my tiny space etched out of the beehive of a barracks we were living in. When I look outside, it isn't a barren landscape of sand, scrub, Army-issue tents and drab buildings that greets me. Outside is green green grass, tall thick trees, and gray squirrels darting back and forth.
If this is what I had been missing so much, why do I feel so detached?
They asked for volunteers, so I volunteered. I deployed and spent a year in the sandbox. I came home. The Army decided I was too broken to serve any longer and gave me temporary medical retirement. I'm a civilian again and married right back in. My husband is gearing to deploy. In the meantime, I have a strange love-hate relationship with the Army. Sometimes it sucks, sometimes it doesn't.
About Me
- Techno
- I'm a contradiction all by myself. Soldier and student. Stargazer and computer geek. Boots and music. Paper pusher and globetrotter. It all works out in the end.
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A bit of history...
There was a call for volunteers to deploy in Spring of 2006. I volunteered, was selected, passed the screening process, and was sent to reclassification training to go from being a bandsman to a human resource specialist. After graduation, I was home for roughly a month. I met the rest of my new unit right before we were sent to mobilization training. Once validated, we were sent overseas in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I left university, quit my job, dumped my foreign boyfriend, and said a few very painful goodbyes. But I don't regret it one bit.
In early August, I was MEDEVAC'd out of the desert. My unit was just a few weeks away from going home. Now my only job is to get better. The irony is that they returned to their homes before I did.The Army has offered me disability and temporary retirement pay. I'm taking it. Bye bye combat boots.
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