One Of Those Things

A friend’s recent ordeal reminded me of one of those odd things about being in the military, that’s really tough to wrap one’s head around, even if it happened to you. And that’s wanting to go. Wanting to be deployed.

It happened to me twice. Or, rather, over two significant spans of time.

Once was after Novermber 1, 2003 when we got the word that our unit would be seeing active duty, perhaps for as much of a year. The initial “word” was that we would be one of four battalions on Okinawa, doing what Marines on Okinawa do: run around in the jungle, try not to piss of the locals too bad, and maybe go on a quickie float around the Phillipines or something. I hated the idea.

Why?

Because, especially in Reserve units, commanders and NCOs get this thing in their head of training all the time. It’s part of the Reserve mentality, since you wind up with so little time for training over the course of a year; while I was in they started mandating X hours of rest for Marines on Saturday night/Sunday morning because one too many Marines (and I think it was just one) fell asleep behind the wheel driving home on a Sunday afternoon and died in a wreck. Happened in my unit shortly before I joined, I think.

Anyway, any time when the whole battalion is together turns into a giant dick measuring contest. Not sure if that’s true for units always on active duty, but it was certainly true of the two reserve battalions I was a member of. And, as a junior Marine, it’s SO not something to look forward to. I’m sure NCOs will bitch about how hard it is on them, too, but brother–shit rolls down hill, and we caught it all.

So, in that instance, if you had given me the option, I would have said Iraq–and I did say that, several times, before we learned we would be going to the sandbox. Getting that word was almost a relief. And let me tell you, what I experienced of life with all the battalion together in California before we deployed only reinforced what I had seen coming on a deployment to Oki.

Life in a combat zone is a lot different–for one, for the most part, if you’re pulling your duty and not doing dumb shit, for the most part you get left alone. There are and were exceptions, and the month leading up to our departure from Iraq sometimes seemed like a nonstop funhouse of Dumb NCO Games, but for the most part I had been right. I finished writing a novel, beat three or four video games, and talked to my wife regularly. That kind of freedom–in the middle of one of the most disciplined branches of military in the world, in the situation we’d trained all our (figurative) lives for–that was a strange kind of liberating.

More than I would have had on Oki.

The second time was after I got back, probably for most of that year. In addition to having that freedom, there was a simplicity to the life which is … glorious. Pull your duty, watch out for the NCOs, and don’t put up a lot of static if you do get stuck with some shit detail. I wasn’t always good with the last there, but I got past it.

That was some kind of acclamation thing that I’m not sure I’ll ever truly shake. I put on the uniform initially because I liked to wear it, and it was weird to put it on for so long, relatively, then be out of it again–and out of it for good shortly thereafter. Such a weird feeling.

I still have dreams to this day… not of the moments of terror, or the bad things I saw (which were, thankfully, few), but of being back in. Going back in, or still being in, or still being there and not yet home. They’re not bad dreams–often, they’re good, pleasant, comfortable.

I can’t say I want to go as much as I did in the first months after getting back, or in those two months before leaving, but it is still there, a little. And I wonder when I’ll shake it for good.

Crossposted with klech.net