Sunday, January 13, 2008

Conflicting Emotions

As I am going through the plethora of pictures for our end of tour award ceremony I am putting together, I feel a conflicting range of emotions.  I look at the faces of my brothers and I see their smiles, their frowns and their fatigue.  I can see the same varied emotions on my face as well. 

 

I am anxious to be getting home and being with my family and friends; I am also sad in a way.  This place, this miserable, dangerous world has been my home for the past year and though I do not want to stay, I think I will miss the adventure. I know I will miss the rush of combat.  I will miss the experience of armored trucks and machine guns.  I have hated having to lug my M4 around everywhere I have gone for the past 15 months, but it has unconsciously become my security blanket.  I recently traded in my M4 for a pistol and I still find myself feeling a quick adrenaline surge when I think I have left my weapon somewhere.

 

I sometimes say that when we get home, I would be fine not seeing any of these guys for a long time as I have been with them day and night for well over a year.  I think that maybe I will miss them.  They have been my only family since we started this adventure long ago.  We have shared an extreme variable of emotions in such a short time and we have come to rely on each other for everything.

 

I think it is the loss of brotherhood I will miss the most.