LONDON

Emergency leave

never ends well

when a mother

is lost

to breast cancer

I, an Army Lieutenant

fying back to

the Sunni Triangle-

a face in the window at

thirty thousand feet-

for the final

six months

of the tour

A layover in London.

The moist weather,

and a soft couch 

in the dim hotel lobby

Queen's Gate Garden

Hyde Park

I, a lone American.

Emotions ornate

as the gates

I peer through

at Buckingham Palace

in the rain,

seeing nothing.

As most of you know, I am a single parent. I am also proud to calll myself a writer. I've been home from Iraq for almost two years now, working forty hours a week or more and being the best Dad I can.

In these last couple of years, I've re-invented my life, my family, and myself. I've even changed my work to some degree. I still hold the rank of Captain and my last position was company commander. I am not full-time Army anymore, but I'm still working in the communications sector.

I could go on like this, punching a clock like my parents did. But I refuse. I'm done with giving away close to $1,000 a month for daycare. I'm done with paying other people to bring my children to school and pick them up. I've decided to re-invent something else - my entire career and lifestyle!

I've been working and thinking hard for a long time about how to combine my passion (writing) with my living (work/money). I've been doing freelance writing since 2003, and now I'm taking it to another level.

Any of you who read this blog know that I'm working hard on a number of book projects. But I've decided not to just write "when I can find the time" anymore. I've decided to write full-time, or at least I'm committed to moving in that direction although I realize it may not happen overnight.

On that note, I'd like to shamelessly plug my new company website, DESERT SUN Writing and Editing. I'd be honored if you would take the time to visit the site and tell anyone else that you think may be interested.

As for the name of my company - I've been living in Utah on and off since 1996. I've watched the sun move across the deserts here and in Iraq, and both locations have had a profound impact on me.

As always, thanks to you all for the continued support. DESERT SUN Writing and Editing is officially open for business!

I had a rare break from the madness of single parenthood last weekend. I went snowboarding all day Saturday with my brother while his awesome wife watched all of our kids. Another cousin came with us too. They live a couple of hours south of Salt Lake City, so we drove down Friday afternoon through snow and rain. The kids had a big slumber party and the adults stayed up late talking and enjoying the company.

We hit the road early in the morning for another two hour drive to Brian Head, Utah. Driving through virtually any area of Utah is a lesson in geology, an inspirational and mysterious geography. This drive was no exception. And the Brian Head resort is gorgeous.

On some of the highest lifts, we were close to 11,000 feet above sea level, looking down at the world through clouds that hovered far below us. Riding slowly on the lift chairs up the side of the mountain was a scenic drift over a white world where fresh white powdery snow covered the ground, and each trip up the lift exposed more tracks. It was easy to tell which tracks were made by people on snowboards and which by skiers.

As I'm still a beginner, I fell pretty hard a couple of times, but my progress from the first run to the last was encouraging and more fun than almost anything. I've been snowboarding before,  but never quite like this. The guys I went with were advanced, and helped me out tremendously. Now I believe I've been bitten by the bug.

I can't wait to get back on the mountain and surf the earth some more. 

"The future lies before you, like paths of pure white snow. Be careful how you tread it, for every step will show."   -author unknown

I’m not sure how I’ll view this place from my side of the Atlantic, but I do think we did an important job here. Some soldier must put on his body armor and secure this area, someone must leave his community and stand in a guard tower for 12 hours a day, having RPGs and mortars shot at him, and someone must drive around the streets of this city trying to convince the locals that we actually want to help them, not hurt them. America has chosen to fight here. America’s leadership has sent us. There is only one thing to do: complete your small piece of the mission.    

For a writer who is still working to get his first book published (fingers crossed. looking pretty good for later this year), I am nonetheless feeling the "publishing love."

I was contacted last year about having an actor "play" the part of me, by actually reciting some of my work on stage in a dramatic performance. I was excited about it back then, but to be honest I've been so preoccupied that I let it drop off  of my radar.

Thanks to this post by fellow vet Brian Catherman, I learned that the performance, entitled "Aftermath of War: In Their Own Words" took place a couple of days ago in Berkeley, California.  

I've also had the honor of being included in three anthologies to date, with another due out later this year as well (more info to follow).

If you haven't already, please follow the links below and pick up a copy:

2006 Writer's Blog Anthology

Blog of War

Doonesbury.com's The Sandbox

Thank you, as always, for your continued support.

When I first received my orders for Operation Iraqi Freedom, I sat down and read them silently. They declared, among other things, that I was "ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 544 days."

My deployment lasted exactly that many days, and they changed the course of my life. I'm still glad I went.

Today's my anniversary. I've been home for just as long as I was gone.

Life continues to amaze me with this inspiring milestone, and so much more.

May you find what you need to live the life you love this holiday season.

2007 has been a great year, and I feel blissfully content as I approach 2008, which I plan to make even more exciting. In retrospect, I realized the other day that on December 20th, I will have been home from Iraq for 18 months. I will have been home for the same amount of time that I was gone, and that is a wonderful feeling indeed.

As of a couple of days ago, I am officially on an inactive status with the Army. For all intents and purposes, this means I am done with military service unless I decide otherwise. And that is an even better feeling.  

I'd like to thank all of you who still visit my blog, even though I am doing much more writing in my post-war life and much less blogging. Also, thanks for reading my work over at the New York Times last month. For those of you who didn't get a chance, here are links to those:

Single Dad Soliloquy

Mortality Strikes

Vast Human Enterprise

A Significant Emotional Event

   Last weekend I took the kids to an art gallery in downtown Salt Lake City. A friend of mine was one of the featured photographers in the exhibit. We spent a couple of hours strolling through all the galleries in the building, as I drank coffee and let the kids lead the way. It was a relaxing end to a crazy week at work.

   His name is Brian Schiele and his innovative and compelling photography can be found here. He took a portrait of the kids and I two months after I came home from Iraq. A few weeks later he asked me to write a few words in my own handwriting on the bottom of the print. Looking at the photo, the words came easy and fast. When it was taken, I had only been divorced for a couple of weeks and the overwhelming transition to single parent was upon me. Here's a link to the portrait and text. And here's a picture of us standing in front of the picture, a year after it was taken. 

Brian is affiliated with a photography group called The Salt Lake Seven, and they have a great new book out that showcases all of the work from the exhibit last weekend.

For this post, I graciously copied and pasted the words of the book's editor, David Stanford. I cannot say it better than he has:

"We are pleased to mark the first anniversary of this site by announcing the imminent publication of Doonesbury.com's THE SANDBOX: Dispatches From Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan  (Andrews McMeel, $16.95, 6x9, 336pp, trade paperback original). Featuring over 90 posts by almost 40 writers (ten of whom are shown on the cover and flaps), the book is a fundraiser for Fisher House, a "home away from home" for the families of patients receiving medical care at major military and VA medical centers. You can order a copy here.

By way of introduction, I'll quote the flap copy:

Launched as a military blog (or "milblog") by Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau in October 2006, The Sandbox offers serice members deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq a way to tell their stories to readers here at home. In hundreds of fascinating and compelling posts, soldiers write passionately, eloquently, and movingly of their day-to-day lives, of their mission, and of the drama that unfolds daily around them.

Some posts are eminently practical for the troops themselves -- like Troy Steward's "List of Gear for Sandbox Deployment," and Stefan Ralph's "Two Very Different Conflicts," an annotated list of books he read before his deployment. Others are reflective, like Lee Kelley's piece on Christmas in a war zone, and Gordon "Teflon Don" Alanko's contemplation of ancient dust. Roy Batty's evocative posts from various assignments in Iraq have sometimes come in with the immediacy of a news flash, and are eagerly anticipated on the site; the same for Doug Traversa's series of thoughtful conversations with his translator Hamid. (Traversa got all three of his roommates to contribute to The Sandbox, making them the first fully posted hut in the AO). The gripping accounts of Adam Tiffen form another throughline, as do the posts of Anthony McCloskey (a.k.a. "Tadpole"), a sailor serving with the Army in Afghanistan.

This rich outpouring of stories, from the hilarious to the thrilling to the heartbreaking, helps us understand what so many of our countrymen are going through and the sacrifices they are making on our behalf.

      The piano is for you; its keys cut from your bones and teeth. The bass and drums are in rhythm with your pulse. And the guitar sings only your melodies, the memories your eyes have recorded and cherished over the years. The tones the musicians chose just happen to reach into the same astral well that your thoughts did on a day that, while you cannot place it chronologically, nonetheless has harbored a quiet place in your soul, waiting to be struck and ring out like an ancient crystal bell. 

      Music's magnetism stops clocks. Your sensibility of time elapsing is replaced with a flowing of soft sound, like sand through fingers, water against wood. If you watch very closely the second hand on the clock as you listen to your music, you will notice that if it is not exactly on time with the tempo of your tuneage, it is at least so a good portion of the time - it is trying. Time wants to join in the backbeat of the chorus, as much as your foot wants to tap.

    Likewise, as certain people can't hold a tune, or do not have natural rhythm, so the second hand lacks the dexterity to veer from its monotronomic pacing. Clocks love low batteries; it gives them the chance to dance.

   Some people, like myself, are just list people. I reflexively keep my mind organized with lists. I have multiple lists, which sometimes overlap, but for the most part are autonomous. Some are digital and some are written by hand.
  A list is a sort of challenge, a comedy of an attempt, a race against fate, and a cause and effect fiesta to watch how much your list drifts from the actual happenings that make up your day. It would be interesting if we all went back at the end of the day (for our daily lists, as opposed to monthly, short-term, long-term, and master) and revised them to show what ended up happening at a given time, as compared to what was planned.
  I imagine a future full of more lists. True, everything will be so automated that the list is replaced with personal reminders we earn by simply speaking our appointments and plans into the air, but there will still be a list of some sort in the circuitry of the computer -  a line of code, perhaps, but a direct heir of that scrap of paper torn from a notebook sitting near someone's hand when they decided to write fruit, soap powder, toothpaste, ground beef, and beer on it.
  A thousand years from now, our lists will be archived in museums as ancient relics, historical research tools. Picture it: A worn piece of ruled yellow paper with a genuine 21^st century coffee ring stain near the top right corner.

1. Pick up dog food
2. Clean weapon
3. Balance checkbook (these are the generic examples)
4. Finish battle update briefing slides
5. Burn paperwork from last week
(imagine the fun they'll have, trying to understand what we were doing)
6. Deconflict network settings: IAVA patches for new server
7. Read Chapters 4-6 from Brit Lit 4501, rough draft of essay
8. Call Mercedes dealership
9. Cancel pedicure
10.Call collection agency back
 

   In these futuristic museums, our lists will appear the same way hieroglyphics do to us now - symbols etched on paper or reproduced from Microfiche. Lists are not only important organizational tools, flag posts at which we can shoot the azimuth of our days, but they are timeless relics, documents of period study for future enthusiasts of the past.
Possible stats could even be interesting:

1985: Number of list entries containing the words Michael Jackson - 965,338

2002: Number of list entries pertaining to computer hardware/software/games/files  -  80,532,477

2007: Number of list entries containing the work Iraq/Al Qaeda/ Terrorism - 700,023,854
 

   A simple list is a bit of free verse, a look into the age and mindset and priorities of an individual in a given time; but it is also a cross-section of that society, that age, that era, that social class.
  Yes, the list is a powerful document that is taken for granted, when it should be cherished - an instantaneous historical reference point.
  Like now, I can turn off this computer and line through "Blog" on a list that has four entries scratched out, two circled with stars next to them, and one highlighted, then scratched out.
  I say go on, you people, try to keep it together. Keep scribbling away in your leather planners, in your parchment journals, on your dirty napkins - challenge the inertia of possibility -

go ahead and write your Lists. 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES ON JUNE 27TH, 2007 

I will always remember that day in 2004 when I sat on the business side of a Lieutenant Colonel's desk as he "invited" me to go to Iraq with his battalion. Now, as a company commander in the Utah National Guard, one of my duties has been to send others to fight the war in Iraq.

Nor will I forget the day I sat on the other side of the desk and told my soldiers they were being deployed. It was a recent drill weekend, and a sister battalion from Utah had received their deployment alert. My commander issued me a written order to provide soldiers to complement that battalion. Suggestions were made to hold a formation, and simply make the announcement, calling out the names of those who would be deploying.

I chose instead to notify each soldier individually. It took most of the day. Some were young and eager: "Roger that, sir. No problem." They simply acknowledged that their chance to serve was at hand, and they did so with a smile and a certain eager look in their eyes. These kids joined the Army after this war started. They were ready and willing participants. Others were family men, working on their master's degrees or running their own businesses, and dealing with a multitude of personal issues. Some were close to retirement. I wanted to notify them all of this massive adventure they would be undertaking, this guaranteed change of perspective, one on one, giving each a chance to ask questions, get angry, cry, or express whatever they wished in private.

As each soldier left my office I stood up and shook their hands, wished them luck, and told them not to hesitate to call me day or night if they needed anything. I also dismissed them for the rest of the day. It was a small gesture, but a clear statement that I understood the nature of the sacrifices they were about to make. "Take this time to get home and let your family know, O.K.? And I appreciate all your work here in headquarters," I'd say. I think they could tell by my look that I understood exactly how they felt.

They left last week. The send-off was at the exact airbase here in Salt Lake City where I landed one year ago. There was a battalion of about 450 soldiers leaving that morning for a one-year deployment, and some of them were from my unit. Over 1000 family members turned out. As you might expect, there were speeches, banners, and lots of hugs and tears. I spent the morning shaking hands, giving words of encouragement, and saying to my buddies who have already been to Iraq once before, "You know what to do. So just do it and bring them all back, O.K.?"

As I stood there on the tarmac watching these soldiers pick up their bags and wave before climbing the stairs into the plane, I looked at the huge crowd of spouses, parents, brothers, and sisters crying. I could see sadness mixed with pride. And I saw little children sitting on shoulders, crying intensely as their Daddy grew smaller in the distance, or teenagers bending their heads into a loved one's chest. Their tears were not easy for me to endure, and I was glad to be wearing sunglasses. As the planes taxied away, the Commanding General stood on the flight line and saluted them.

I am still in the Army today, but like many others I have made a personal decision to enter "inactive status." I'll be out in the next couple of months. My superior officers are aware of my decision. The choice took me most of a year to make, but after careful deliberation it is an easy one. I'm proud to join the ranks of American combat veterans. And yet I know that I would never leave my kids again. This fact is at the heart of my decision and I must say that I am very excited. All I need now is a job.

These stories of mine have been deliberately personal. I wanted to portray an honest glimpse into what one American experienced in his travels back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean six times in one year as a soldier in the Iraq war, gracefully lifting from these high Utah deserts, and then flying in low and fast across Ramadi in a blacked out attack helicopter. But these stories hardly illuminate the complexity my life has yielded. They are personal, yes, but only in the way a Polaroid picture of my family at a park one particular afternoon - when the last of the light broke through the trees in shafts, creating dusty colliding ecosystems with the pollen in the air - conveys a moment in time, a wonderful unmatchable moment.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES ON JUNE 20TH, 2007

I have never cried much. In fact, I could probably count on one hand how many times I had really cried, as an adult, up until the time I came home from Iraq. During my tour, I couldn't even shed a tear at my mom's memorial service. I felt cold and numb because of everything going on around me. Not callous, just gifted at compartmentalizing emotions. I've cried more in the last year than I have in a lifetime. But here's the catch. They have all been tears of joy, in moments where I am simply overwhelmed and feel so very lucky to be home with my kids.

June 21 is my one year anniversary in a couple of ways, and this year I'm considering it my real Father's Day. One year ago today I walked out of a plane and onto the tarmac of my future. The crowd was going absolutely nuts here in Salt Lake City as we exited the aircraft. The sun was in my face and my heart was a percussion instrument. I scanned the crowd for my kids. And then suddenly they were at my feet - my 6-year-old daughter, Chloe, and my 3-year-old son, Little Lee - grabbing my legs and yelling, "Daddy, Daddy!" So many of us have experienced this, and I personally count it as one of the best moments of my 35 years on this planet. I remember my daughter trying to understand her feelings as I held her in my arms, "Dad? I'm happy but I think I'm going to cry now."

It took me a couple of months to get through the actual divorce, and I ended up with full custody. So I have been a single parent for one year today as well. It's a symbolic day, then, a milestone, and I've been thinking about it all morning.

While in Iraq many of us milbloggers do a "Day in the Life" piece. I did one myself and thought it would be illuminating to do another one now:

5:30 a.m.: Alarm goes off. Hit snooze for a while. Maybe wake up and write for half an hour.

5:45 - 6:00: Get up, shave, turn on coffee machine. Gently wake up the kids. Shower.

6:00- 6:45: Get dressed. Make sure kids are getting dressed instead of falling back to sleep on the couch. Brush their teeth and hair. Make some breakfast. Feed and water both cats and both dogs. Let dogs out of garage into yard. Turn off sprinklers.

6:45: Drive to daycare. Walk kids in. Kisses and hugs.

7:00: Commute to Camp Williams, where I work as a company commander in the Utah National Guard.

5:00 p.m.: Leave work, drive back to daycare. Pick kids up.

5:30: Arrive at home. Change clothes, get kids a snack. Start dinner.

6:30: Feed the kids. Maybe let them watch a little TV or go outside and play with the neighbor's kids for a while.

7:30: Give kids a bath or shower. Pick up the toys, clothes, and miscellaneous items strewn all over the house. Start getting their clothes ready for the next day. (I can't wait until the morning for this. My daughter is very picky about her clothes and I will inevitably be late for work.)

7:45: Put a load of laundry in. Try to put away some clean laundry.

8:00: Tell the kids it's time for bed, at which point they subconsciously think, "Yeah, right," and ask to watch TV and eat some more snacks.

8:30: Tell the kids it's really time for bed. Turn off the TV. They ask me to read them some books or play with them. I go upstairs and read to them for a while. Kids ask to sleep in my bed. Quite often I say yes.

9:00: If they're still awake, I turn out the lights, tuck them in, and say good night. They plead for more time. I try to stand firm and say no. Quite often I give in.

9:15: Feed animals again. Put dogs in for the night. Brush teeth. Get uniform ready for next day. Turn on sprinkler. Make sack lunch (maybe). Switch clothes from washer to dryer.

9:30 -10:30: Try to get some writing done. Check e-mail. Turn off lights. Try to still my mind and actually sleep.

Of course this simplified example illustrates a rare day in which no surprises occur, neither kid bangs their head on the wall and needs to go to the emergency room for stitches, no friends call or stop by, there are no Girl Scouts or parent teacher conferences on the schedule, no doctor or dentist appointments, and none of us are sick. I am not shopping for food, clothes, cleaning the house, the yard, or buying toys for a birthday.

One year into this lifestyle, I feel pretty proud. Life just keeps getting sweeter. But honestly I still don't think I've processed everything I experienced in Iraq, the death of my marriage, or my own mother's passing. Who has the time?

The kids still ask me if I'm going back to "the war," and they still don't fully understand the divorce, but they are happy and safe. I don't have to call them from 8,000 miles away. I get emotional sometimes just looking at them, being with them. I actually laugh at myself sometimes during these moments because I'm not used to it. And I'm not too proud to admit it either. For example, last night I was reading "The Cat in the Hat" to the kids and out of the blue my daughter said, "Daddy? I'm so glad you aren't at the war anymore. You are the best Dad."

"Me too, honey. Thank you."

My son chimed in, "Daddy? Are you going back to the Army?" He meant the war.

"No buddy. I'm not."

I sat up so I could see both of them, and to begin my exit so I could get them to bed. It was 9:15. I vividly remember being gone for those 18 months, and that feeling of having my hands tied, painfully frustrated that I was so far away when they needed me.

"Let me just tell you guys something, O.K.? If anything bad ever happens, or you get scared, or hurt, or lost, you just find a phone and call me. You both know my number, right? No matter what happens to you, and no matter where you are, I'm coming, O.K.?"

They both said okay, and their eyes were searching mine because they could hear my voice breaking. I was not sad. I was overjoyed to be able to speak these words. I hugged them so they couldn't see my face.

"Just don't be scared. No matter where you are, your Daddy is coming."

My daughter patted my back and said, in a soft little whisper, "It's O.K. It's O.K. Dad's can cry too."

 This article was originally published by the New York Times on  June 14th, 2007

"Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Look at the sun through a glass bottle full of apple juice. Close your eyes and spin around 20 times. Stand up too fast. Get married. Read powerful literature. Have a child. Travel. Any of these things can and will change your perspective. That change may be visual, psychological, or both and it may feel subtle or profound in depth. A soldier deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom is virtually guaranteed some kind of a change in perspective then. Go to war. Just, go to war. What a sweeping generalization. As if one could sum up the individual's complex experience of a year (or more) in Iraq, here in the 21st century, simply by saying one "went to war." Indulge me as I try to explain a couple of my own changes in perspective here in this limited space.

The really tragic stories about good people who get killed or injured in combat are the hardest ones to hear, and they represent the minority. Not everyone who goes to Iraq takes human life, nor are all wounded. The vast majority of us find ourselves on a forward operating base (F.O.B.) somewhere in a supporting role. We know those who are killed or wounded. We live with them, work with them, love them, and were perhaps with them when it happened.

For example, I was a signal officer. I probably left the wire an average of once a month. Most of my time was spent on base, either in my office, at a command post, the chow hall, the gym, the weapon's range, on the base's perimeter, in one of thousands of meetings and briefings, or moving around outdoors between all of these. One morning I was working just outside the base, interviewing Iraqi police recruits. The next day I was not needed at the site. A suicide bomber blew himself up, killing 40 Iraqis, two Americans, and injuring many more, including one of my soldiers. I heard the explosion from my office. I knew most of the soldiers working there that morning. I saw the look in their eyes right after the attack. I remember getting the news 20 minutes later that we had lost Lt. Col. Michael McLaughlin. I had just spoken to him the night before.

I saw what the enemy did. I was constantly briefed on all of the creative ways he carried out murder and intimidation campaigns. I was shot at indirectly by hundreds of mortars and rockets. I went out on checkpoint missions, searching suspect vehicles on the highway. An RPG was fired at my vehicle. It went right in between the vehicle in front of us, and our vehicle, to explode against a concrete bullet-ruined barrier. At the time I didn't feel cold hearted. People were trying to kill us and I wanted to fight back. I wanted to get home to my kids. I put my fist in the air and cheered when my battalion's howitzers fired back with such powerful precision at those who would do us harm. I could hear our projectiles whistle past, sluicing the air above me while the Doppler effect played tricks on my ears. I experienced all of these things and countless more, yet like most of us I came home from such an environment without a scratch on my body.

When I drive I like to rest my eyes upon the vehicles flanking me for a second or two. Sensing their presence in my periphery is not enough. Other than that, my driving has not changed. But then again, I was not a driver in Iraq. I was a passenger. Usually loud noises don't bother me, but sometimes they do if the pitch and volume are just right. And then there are the jets. Every time a jet hits the air brakes overhead it sounds exactly like an incoming rocket attack on my F.O.B. and I always start to duck before catching myself. Like many, I scan a room when I enter it. I check out the faces in a restaurant. I'm quietly searching for something out of place. A loaded look. I, too, like many other veterans, refer not to sit with my back to the entrance of a restaurant. It is rare that I do.

I enjoy being more observant, more alert. If it wasn't somewhat like second nature due to my Army training before I went to Iraq, it certainly is now. I may look like a picture of relaxation to you, and I truly am, sitting at a park beside the playground reading a novel while my kids frolic on the monkey bars, but I am aware of your hand digging in your pocket or some other small detail. I notice people lurking around parking lots. Every time someone approaches me to ask for spare change while I load groceries into my trunk at Super Wal-Mart, I see them coming from a mile away. And I turn to face them long before they reach me.

My time in Iraq did not make me fearful. I don't have PTSD. I am not paranoid in the least, only more observant of my surroundings. I sleep like a bear when I have the time. I am generally more humble, grateful, patient, and alert. I feel that I am a better parent, soldier, and human being. My dreams have solidified and I have more ambition to chase them with.

It's not surprising, of course, that those who fight in a war undergo changes in perspective about life, death, violence, hardship, camaraderie, perseverance, and more - but it is clearly true. Something so complex and ancient as WAR, broiling in the very blood of the human race, is bound to have such an effect. My time in Iraq has changed me in countless ways. And perspective is such a fleeting and mutable thing. For example, I've tried to give you some kind of glimpse here, but sight and thoughts can shift so quickly, like right now as you sit reading these words on your computer screen. Just squint. See it?

I just had my one-year anniversary of being home from Iraq on June 21st. and I have now enjoyed my second 4th of July home with the kids. The first one came mere weeks after I got back. A full year of rich experience, though utterly incomparable to my 18 month deployment, keeps my mind quite focused on the present and the future. But this is a new kind of focus, and I do still think about my time in Iraq a lot. In my daily life, I'm trying to unweave the web of events that came together or were pulled apart in my life. The global scope of those events and the complexities of emotion related to them boggle me still.

I just finished writing for the New York Times this June. I had fun again, but it was different than the "Frontlines" blog I participated in while still deployed. As you can tell from their new blog's title, "Home Fires," the general theme, while really anything was fair game, was the transiton we've made since returning to the States.

Writing these pieces has made me feel very lucky once again, just thinking about the gravity of my situation in Ramadi. I wrote four personal op-ed essays for the NYT, which can only illustrate my own situation, but may vicariously shed light on the stories of many other soldiers as well. I occasionally read some of the blogs being written from Iraq right now, and specifically from my old base, FOB Ramadi, and I can empathize with every word. On so many levels I know exactly how they feel, how they spend their hours. And yet writing for the NYT this last month made me accept mutability on an even deeper level. And though I thought I was so wise, sitting under those Middle Eastern constellations and pondering the world, sending my prose out over web 2.0, this Matrix of invisible transmission waves, I was really only being prepared for what awaited me. And I would have been less prepared had I not gone to Iraq. War actually helped me to handle the reality of life back home. I am not only stronger in every sense of the word, but the timing of my wartime experience, as it is juxtaposed with the overarching evolution of my life, was perfect. I hope that those still in Ramadi, and anywhere in the Middle East, can execute their own part of the mission, get home safe, and brave their own transitions back into American life without too much pain or hardship.

I'll be re-publishing all four of my recent NYT pieces, and in the name of promoting the archives, here are the links to what I wrote in that same forum back in 2006, in the midst of my combat experience. When I stop to look back, which I inevitably do quite often, I am filled with gratitude that I am home with my kids now. My opinion about this war has changed and become more convoluted with distance, but I am still glad I went.

The Fog of War

A Staff Visit

Fighting with Honor

Just Drop Me Off When This is Over

Listening to the Land

In and Around Ramadi

Good Medicine for the Heart

Incoming! 

Embracing Change