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Just Drop Me Off When This Is Over

« H E Lieutenant K :: email
posted Sunday, 18 September 2005
When this thing is over ...

   Just drop me off on any Arizona or Utah highway, where the Buttes and the red rock canyons create optical illusions in the distance and across the horizon – I’ll walk home.

    Place me right at the top of a hill; I’ll let gravity help me down.

    Leave me on a back road in rural America, it doesn’t matter where, so long as the leaves crunch under my feet and it is dusk and as I walk the shadows deepen and every so often I can see the lights from someone’s house, and smell their cooking, and see families together on their couches watching movies, and hear their laughter.

    Airlift me directly into a canoe in the middle of Black Creek in Missoula, Montana. It’s fine, just leave me right there. I’ll wet a hook for a while, then paddle to shore at dusk, enjoying the sound of the oars splashing in the clear, cold water. I’ll clean the fish right there on the bank and cook it fresh over a small fire. Then I’ll find the nearest road and hitch-hike home.

    Believe me, it's no inconvenience.

   Instead of transporting me directly to my home of record, according to my official military personnel file, do something spontaneous for me. When I get back to the States, blindfold me, and then leave me in a Pearl White Corvette Stingray or a rebuilt 77' Jeep Cherokee that has a 3 inch lift, with a full tank of gas, a sleeping bag in the backseat, a compass, and a map. Don’t tell me where I am. Just leave me with my release papers and pat me on the back for my service to God and country. I’ll remove the blindfold, crank the engine, turn on the radio, and start driving.

   It doesn’t matter what state or what city you leave me in - pick one. I’ll have a grand adventure getting home.

   Better yet, ask me where I’d like to be dropped off. I’ll hop out right in front of my daughter’s school. Its only 9a.m. you say? That’s just fine. I’ll sit here on this nice wooden bench under this tree for a while. Leave me that newspaper, will you? Thanks. A little later I’ll stroll up the street where all the fast food places are. I’ll get a large fry at McDonalds and I’ll put lots of salt on them. Then I’ll get a Frosty at Wendy’s. And I’ll put all that with a Whopper with cheese, extra onion from Burger King. Perhaps I’ll browse the shelves of the local Barnes and Noble after lunch and finish up with a cup of Starbucks Irish Cream coffee. By the time I get back to the school, it will be just about time for the bell, and I’ll surprise my daughter and hold her tiny hand all the way home.

   My son’s daycare would be a fine place to drop me off too. I’ll go in and check him out early. It may take him a minute to realize that Daddy’s back, because he’s only three, but I know he’ll be very excited to see me. Then I’ll take him with me to lunch and the bookstore, and to his sister’s school. I'll walk all the way there with him on my shoulders. I’ll buy him a Happy Meal with a toy.

   Just get me on American soil.

   Get me to New Orleans, and then put me in a taxi. I’ll have the driver tune to a classic rock station that plays a lot of Queen and Styx and The Eagles and Steve Miller, or a nice Jazz station, and bring me straight to my parent’s house to surprise them. They’ll be very pleased. I’ll bring mom a dozen roses and dad the American Flag I flew for him in Iraq.

   I don’t sit around all day dreaming of home. We are too busy, and there is a lot of important work to get done.

   It’s when I sit down to write, and I'm trying not to bore readers with the little everyday mundane things that I do, that I get really nostalgic like this. I can’t help it.

   I honestly live an inspired life, and I am perfectly content to be here fighting in a war in Iraq if this is God’s plan for me right now, but that’s because I know this too is transitory. I wouldn’t want to stay here. It’s not my home.

   It is not America.

   My children are young enough that they won’t realize I was gone for so long until they’re older. One day when they are teenagers it will dawn on them, and we’ll be sitting around after a barbecue or something like that and I’ll get a far away look in my eyes and realize that they’re growing up too fast and that I am having an adult conversation with my children who were just starting Kindergarten when I went to Iraq.

   And they’ll say, “Wow, dad. You were really gone for a year and a half? I don’t remember it being so long.”

   In fact, they’re young enough that one more day won’t matter. I know, I know, their mother will probably pull her hair out if I wait any longer than I have to.

   But still, I mean it.

   Open a road map of the United States of America, pick a cozy little town like Kinston, North Carolina or Gig Harbor, Washington or Lafayette, Louisiana or Moab, Utah and just leave me there. It can be rock, asphalt, water, or sand -a busy college campus in New York or an abandoned park in Savannah, Georgia -the noise of a large highly populated metropolis, or the silence of the Appalachian Trail. Put me next to an interstate or next to a campfire - in a library or at a rock concert - in California or Maine. 

   Leave me in a nameless park, on a darkened street, or in a snowy canyon.

   Don’t ask me why. I don’t want to explain it, and I can’t explain it. But it will be fun and completely un-planned and I like the idea of that very much. 

    I’ll have time to be utterly alone and think about a few things as I journey the last leg home to the life I left behind.

    And I'll have a lot to think about.

   So just drop me off, and let me drive out of the past, through the present, and into the unimaginablefuture of this crazy life.

"Not all those who wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkien

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Leave comments for Captain K here: (9)


1. Danielle Watson left...
Wednesday, 21 September 2005 7:54 pm

You write very well, and I really enjoy reading your thoughts. Just one little thing: The quote is actually, "Not all who wander are lost." No biggie; I can just be a perfectionaist about some things. Ask my husband if you see him, he'll roll his eyes and agree! (He is in SVC, Spc. Watson.) Keep up the good work. And thank you for your service.


2. Valerie left...
Friday, 23 September 2005 8:44 am :: http://spaces.msn.com/members/val4batty/

LT Kelley! You have gotta quit making me cry! It is amazing how so many who are here really take what we have for granted. Our scenery, our freedoms, our french fries! If nothing else good comes from this war (which something else good surely will! I am like you, an optimist!) there will be many who look at life a bit differently because of it. I know that I personally look at everything differently. I appreciate it all more. I appreciate my husband more.

Thank you again for your talented way with words. Stay safe! And I know it is an odd request, but give my hubby a hug, wouldja? He needs one and I bet you could use one, too, so it would take care of ya both. Tell him it is from me!


3. diane left...
Saturday, 24 September 2005 1:10 pm

i am right along with you on this. i was there eating those fries, and drinking that frosty. we really do take things for granted. you are such a talented writer, and really bring my emotions to the front when i read these blogs. thank you and keep up the wonderful writing. you are an inspiration to many.


4. Subsunk left...
Monday, 10 October 2005 1:44 pm

So few of us ever stop to really look at what we spent a good portion of our lives protecting. You, on the other hand, can't even look at it right now, but you've captured everything we like about America -- and Americans. Put me down anywhere in the 50 states, and I'll find something to do, and find people I can love.

You are wise far beyond your years, youngster. Press on.

Subsunk


5. Marti left...
Tuesday, 21 February 2006 8:19 am :: http://enterthelaughter.blogspot.com/

I am reading all of the WBA entries, and enjoying the journey very much.

Great post - thanks for sharing!


6. Beth* A. left...
Saturday, 25 February 2006 2:12 am

Stumbled across this particular post tonight, and found it compelling. I hope some part of it is exactly what you get to do when you come home. Here's hoping for you. Stay safe and be well. Thank you so very much for your service to our country!


7. .... left...
Monday, 17 April 2006 4:10 am

I m sitting here, with a cup of coffee, thinking about you. And also cursing god for being so much older than you because you re such a great amazing smart guy whom i would fall in love with so easily ! So i m watching the trees with their new so green spring leaves through the window and i m thinking about you over there in this terrible place and i m wishing for time to speed till July and for you to be able to watch the trees too through your window and for you to see your kids hanging around in your house and for you to have that cup of coffee too. Even if it s not so good a cup of coffee i m having right now, i couldn t take time to brew it properly, i was too much in a hurry to read you that i did instant ! Love from francoise


8. Libby Abraham left...
Friday, 21 April 2006 11:35 pm :: http://spaces.msn.com/libbyluvshersoldie

Wow what a great writer you are it's great to hear positive amongst all the negativity. I hope soon you and the guys (my hubby included) are home soon. "We're Waiting!!!!"


9. Ariel left...
Wednesday, 25 October 2006 11:13 pm

You are amazing. thank you for your words. In such a busy life that i have here in the states, you opened a door in me and made me stop and look and feel and enjoy the small pleasures, the slow congested traffic in I 10 here in LA. I see a small dandelion on a crack on the roadside... almost perfect despite the decay and rubbish that the cleaning truck miss to pick up with its metal tentacled sweep.. AND I CRY... because there is so much beauty in life that i forget to notice. thanks.