[Archives] On Coming Home

It's The Hardest Part

U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Robert Hedelund, (right) commanding general, 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing, stands at the position of attention while the National Anthem is played during the Marine Fighter Attack Training Squadron (VMFAT-501) homecoming ceremony aboard Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., July 11, 2014. The homecoming ceremony celebrated the long awaited return of VMFAT-501 to the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Aneshea S. Yee/Released)

Howdy,

Today is my birthday, so I can cry if I want to! 46 feels awfully good, I must admit. I’m not nearly as quick, fast, or strong as I used to be, but I feel wiser. That’s a very good thing. I’m truly blessed. I have a wonderful wife, a rambunctious daughter, a caring mother, a wonderful dog, and some fantastic friends. I write for The Bulwark, have my own Substack (GCV! GCV!), and should be out with our first podcast in the next few weeks - inshallah. I’m the lucky one, folks.

Which leads me to this excellent comment by Travis that I want to expound on:

This is exactly right.

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(From left to right) U.S. Army Lt. Col. B. Kirk Phillips, behavioral health consults for United States Forces – Afghanistan; U.S. Navy Capt. Michael D. McCarten, commanding officer of NATO Role 3, Multinational Medical Unit; and Rear Adm. David J. Smith, chief of the International Security Assistance Force, Combined-Joint Medical Branch, listen to a brief during the inaugural Behavioral Health and Concussion Care Summit held on Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, June 25.

Coming home is the hardest part, folks. It’s partly why I kept going back to Iraq and Afghanistan. Once you go into combat, coming home and being a part of modern-day America is taxing. The overwhelming majority of Americans mean well. They “support the troops” but are busy with their lives, trying to make ends meet and take care of their families while amusing themselves to death on social media.

This is the problem with the All-Volunteer Force: it excludes most of the population for shouldering the wars fought in their names. Americans have learned that what happened to Vietnam vets was wrong. (There was spitting involved. Go read Karl Marlantes’ What It’s Like to Go to War. I believe him). So, they’ve swung way over to the other extreme: the deification of the military.

Look, when I used to party, I enjoyed the free drinks. Perhaps a time or two, I pushed my limits, wondering, “Is that what it’s like to be a woman at a bar and having guys buy you drinks?” I liked the discounts. Some girls go weak in the knees for a man in uniform, especially if he’s returning from war. That’s a scientific fact.

But after the party ends, then the real fight begins. Many young troops party hard when they come home, making everything worse, but I understand. I did it after my first deployment and nearly killed a civilian at a horrible bar in Valdosta, GA. A very intoxicated civilian thought I was hitting on his girlfriend (she was hitting on me), and I tried to extricate myself from the situation until he put his hands on me.

It was a sweet, sweet punch. Yep. It still feels good even to this very day. Sorry. I digress.

I had him on the ground with my knee on his neck rather quickly. I’m not some Billy badass. I’m not combat arms. I’m a person other than grunt (POG).

But I’m not a rear echelon mother fucker (REMF) nor a FOBBIT (someone who has on the forward operating base - a play on HOBBIT). In short, I like to party too.

It wasn’t until a bouncer kindly forced me off the unsurprising lad that I realized what I was doing. Luckily, I didn’t go to jail. I had a rather strongly worded conversation with my commanding officer, who understood but was still not pleased.

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Marines and sailors listen as speakers with the Heroes and Healthy Families Leadership Awareness Conference relate their experiences at the Bob Hope Theatre aboard Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Calif., Sept. 12. The Honorable Pamela Iles, a retired Superior Court judge in Orange County, Calif., created the conference in 2004 as a result of large numbers of young Marines returning from war who appeared in her courtroom for offenses related to PTSD and Combat Operational Stress.

Throughout six deployments, I learned how to come home. I knew what I needed to do daily to quell the beast within.

At the age of 46, I’ve mostly quelled the lust for violence. It doesn’t mean that the beast is dead. He’ll never die. But with 18-months of sobriety, I feel in control for the first time. That’s a victory.

The rest of Travis’ laundry list is coming home to roost. My Combat PTSD is mostly in check. I still feel hyper-anxious. I have a hard time changing my daughter’s diapers because she screams, and those screams can trigger other episodes. When men die, they shit their pants. So, you know, you can put the two together.

I need help driving on highways. I feel like I’m back in Baghdad, and everyone is a potential threat. I’m constantly checking for danger. I hate it. So, now, I try to avoid the highways in big cities. I still love driving, but not in metroplexes.

The Moral Injury is always there. (It’s much worse than the PTSD, at least for me. I wrote and spoke about this yesterday.) It swallows me whole at times. Some days, I feel ok about Afghanistan. On other days, I weep. In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with me. This is how I should feel after a humiliating defeat. The more important question is this: Why isn’t the rest of America grieving over a lost war?

Anyway, Moral Injury will always be with me, like PTSD. I have to make peace with the war, and that will probably take my whole life. It sucks. I’m proud of what I did. I loved fighting next to my Afghan allies. I loved it. But, the way it went down and our reaction to it is a betrayal that will take a lifetime to heal — and it probably never will.

I have to make peace with that, too.

All of my TBIs are coming home to roost. I’ve been in this house for a month, and I’ve nearly killed myself a couple of times. I’ve fallen down the stairs twice and slipped on ice. My depth perception is terrible. I get migraine headaches daily. I get dizzy often. All of this is accelerating as I age, I’m afraid.

The truth is: the war isn’t done with me. And, in the end, somehow and in some way, it will probably kill me.

That’s a tough pill to swallow, but I don’t like living a lie —well, not anymore, at least.

Again, as Travis said, I’m the lucky one.

My daughter is the best antidote to all of this. She helps me heal, grounds me, and provides a way forward. My new mission is to be a good family man. I’m entirely behind that mission.

I’m grateful that I will raise her outside the military. It’s a very tough environment for kids, and it’s hard on military families, to whom this country owes an incredible debt. In the end, they are the ones who will have to take care of us. But at least she’ll only experience me as a civilian.

I’m happy for the first time in my life. Life is really good for me. I’m genuinely one of the lucky ones. I know that to be true. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to explain these wars to my fellow Americans so you can be prepared to welcome home our next round of combat veterans.

That’s my lifelong mission, too.

Until Next Time.