The Things She Carried

An Ode to My Mom

Classic Vietnam Memoir (Commons)

My mother,

Katherine Selber

, carried my life in little boxes for twenty years. Last week, I began unpacking them.

Inside these boxes are pictures from over 1,500 days in Iraq and Afghanistan, the things she carried, hoping one day that her son would come home. Throughout six deployments, she saw me leave and come home. She prayed for my safe return. And through God’s mercy, her prayers were granted when others weren’t.

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The Summer of Death

Baghdad 2006

It was our first goodbye. I was dating a lovely lady who, unfortunately, through no fault of her own, wouldn’t survive my first combat reintegration. My mother, Dr. Katherine Selber, a full professor at Texas State University, was also by my side. She would repeat this ritual five more times, seeing me off and welcoming me back home.

It was the first of many things. The first interpreter, the first rush of combat, and the first KIA (killed in action).

But the horrors I saw haunted me for a lifetime.

My bloodlust for evil men began in the slums of Baghdad. The horrors these men did to young women forever changed me. The innocence that I once had quickly evaporated.

When I came home, I did what all young combat veterans do or did until PTSD/Moral Injury became prominent again.

I drank, partied, and did things I would later be ashamed of.

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Shona Ba Shona

Kapisa, Afghanistan - 2008

Less than a year later, I left for training at Fort Brag, GA, to deploy on a Provincial Reconstruction Team. I wanted to go back. But I didn’t want to go to Iraq again, even though I would. I wanted to fight the terrorists who killed my fellow Americans, so I volunteered for my second deployment. This time to Afghanistan.

I immediately fell in love with the Afghan people.

But what I loved was the fighting. The bloodlust had set in.

But there was heartache, despair, and agony that I still cannot adequately describe and probably will never write about for public consumption.

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Victory?

Diyala, Iraq 2014

After I returned from my first trip to Afghanistan, I broke up with the girl I was dating and left for Tampa, Florida. I struggled mightily in the CENTCOM cubicles. Luckily, my best friend, Max, was by my side while he was working at SOCOM. I moved in with my second fiance to a nice rental in Ybor City, Tampa, Florida. Four months into my time at CENTCOM and a few months after my soon-to-be fiance moved in, I volunteered for a State Department-led Provincial Reconstruction Team deployment to Diyala, Iraq, in 2008.

It was a short sweet deployment. For the first time in a very long time, I actually thought we had a chance at victory. But like so many GWOT mirages, it was just an illusion covered in false promises and too much money.

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Into the Desert

Ghorak, Kandahar 2012

By the time I returned to the ‘Stan, I had lost a fiance and another relationship along the way. People don’t understand what reintegration does to good men. When you’ve seen the world blow up and have blood on your blade, coming home to a country devoid of any understanding of the real world creates tensions that are often masked by substance abuse. During my military years, it was just booze.

So, in between deployments, I partied hard. I volunteered for the Afghan Hands program even though multiple senior-ranking Air Force intelligence officers tried to dissuade me. They all told me it would ruin my career. But as always, the war’s sirens song called me back. And I am a willing servant who always wanted more.

So I went to the outer edges of the empire. Ghorak, Kandahar was the real Afghanistan. It wasn’t Kabul. It wasn’t some mega base. It was Village Stability Operations. We were alone and unafraid—and my G*d I loved every minute of it.

Whatever else I accomplish in my life, I doubt I will ever feel as free as my time in Ghorak, Kandahar. I really understood Afghanistan by sitting in the dirt with the Pashtuns for nearly a year. It was my pinnacle.

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Losing Pops & a War

Kabul, Afghanistan - 2014

Pre-Deployment Photo Before 2nd Afghan Hand Deployment

I went from living in a village to living in DC in less than a week. The Air Force didn’t even have anyone greet me after a year living in a village. Great service, let me tell ya. I eventually worked inside the Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute as an instructor.

While I worked at the State Department, I partied and tried to fight off old ghosts. But new ones were made while I awaited my fifth deployment.

My brother Casey McCausland would eventually succumb to his wounds from an IED that killed my driver, Jonathan Yelner, and took my interpreter’s legs. Sadly, my father would disintegrate in front of my eyes in between deployments.

For nearly a year, I flew to Austin to help my mother help my father, Joel Mark Selber, transition into hospice care. Even though I knew he would die, I left him for the ‘Stan, hoping that my sacrifice would make a difference.

Instead, at Resolute Support Headquarters, I saw incompetence in every direction. American officers who had studied hard to understand Afghan culture were mismanaged and used as glorified errand boys for senior-ranking officers. As my father slowly died at home, I saw the beginning of the end for America’s misadventure in Afghanistan.

During that fateful year, not only did my father die but also my hope for any victory in Afghanistan.

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Things Fall Apart

June 2020 - Present

By the time I returned to the ‘Stan in June 2020, I had been away for nearly five years. Along the way, I graduated from various American military institutions, and the United States Air Force intelligence community tried its best to “reblue” me. Nevertheless, I volunteered to return for one last push. Little did I know I would be serving for Afghanistan for the next four years of my life.

When I arrived in Kabul, my ex-wife told me she was pregnant. So, while I tilted at windmills, my ex-wife was alone during COVID with her first child. I checked in when I could, but my focus was on Afghanistan. Even though I saw the birth of my only child, it didn’t even really register until I returned in June 2020.

Less than two months later, in August 2021, Afghanistan would fall, eventually ending my career and my marriage along the way. I sacrificed everything for Afghanistan, and, in return, my government stabbed my Afghan allies in the back and shook hands with Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Haqqani Network.

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The Journey Forward

I’ve been living out of my suitcase for the past five months. I’ve been working erratic hours, trying to save some Afghans, setting up a non-profit, and finally creating Selber Security Solutions (S3), which will aim to employ our Afghan brothers and sisters.

It’s been a very rough stretch, to say the very least. But there was always one person by my side, no matter what. My mother,

Katherine Selber

, has helped thousands of veterans. She sat with them in court and bailed them out of jail.

So when the Prarie Village Police Department wrongfully detained me, she jumped on a plane and made sure that eventually, the State of Kansas released me from their dilapidated state mental hospital. While I recovered from that trauma, my mother cared for me. She never left my side, even when I broke down and wept.

Instead, she carried my forward. She helped me heal. She also helped me move into my first new apartment. She brought with her all of my old articles—the ones I wrote in middle school and high school. She carried with me my past so I could remember who I was and who I can be as I move forward in my life.

For the first time in 20 years, my mother has her son again. And that my friend’s is G*d blessing. Because this

Grumpy Combat Veteran

needs her as much as she needs me.

Lone Known Pic of GCV in Mess Dress and Momma (Air Command Staff College Ball - 2016)

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The Journey Foward

Time Now