The World is Off My Shoulders

I helped our replacements get the truck ready for tonight's mission and then sent them on their own way!  They won't get back for at least four days.  I am officially done with combat operations!!!!!  Now I just have to sit in the heat for a few more days before we catch our flight out of here.  I feel so light and I really miss home.  It will still be three weeks before I can actually come home, but I'm one big step closer.  As of now, August 8th is the target date to be released.  Hopefully it's sooner than that!

Too Close to the End

Our final mission is finally over.  We will probably have another one shared with our replacements but it won't be the same.  At least I hope that is all that is left.  Our last mission was a little too exciting for my taste, especially this close to the end.  A couple of days ago we were the targets of a rocket attack.  They missed, but only by a few hundred feet!  Events like that that would have made for good stories a few months ago aren't so amusing when you know you are so close to going home.  We are all safe though and no one got hurt.  We are just glad to be back off of our mission and resting for a few days until our next one.

Short Timer

When I was on a mission they called us trunky.  Here they call us short timers.  Although it will take me longer to actually get home, I have less than 30 days here in Iraq.  That's getting close enough to make it hard to concentrate or have much enthusiasm about the work I have to do.  We are in the middle of a long and boring mission carrying the mail between here and the place it is flown into.  The days are long and we don't get much rest between trips.  While the weather has been bad enough to cancel everyone else's missions, we have special dispensation to roll without medivac support because we are carrying the mail (medivac helicopters don't fly in dust storms!).  The bright side is that our replacements will be here in just a few days and they might even take over our mission before we are finished with it.  That would be great.  

My thoughts are a little scattered today and it is hard to write about them.  I haven't written about this before because of how difficult it is.  I try not to think about going home so that I can focus on my job and not feel miserably homesick, but writing about it opens up all those thoughts and feelings.  The army doesn't make it any easier when they start the preparations to move so early on.  We had to have our extra stuff packed and put in the shipping container last week.  In two days we are moving out of our comfortable barracks and into transient housing so that our replacements can move right into them when they arrive.  All this with almost a month left.  It makes it seem like we are about to leave, but then the reality hits that it is not over yet.  It makes it hard to not think about going home.  

I think that I had forgotten what a burden this all is.  I had been just doing my job and going about my business and my mind let me thing that it was normal and ok.  Then we had to pack our stuff.  Try as I might, I couldn't help but realize that the end was near.  I let down my guard as I was rolling my boxes out to the shipping container and felt the weight of all of this suddenly fall upon me.  Even when I went on leave I didn't let my guard down like this.  I knew I had to come back so I didn't let myself fully relax.  Julie might have noticed how I didn't want to talk about my deployment to a lot of people and didn't feel comfortable acting like I was home.  I realize now that it is going to be a lot different this time.  This time I get to go home and don't have to come back.  I'll be able to take the weight off my mind and face the reality of what I have just done and what now lies ahead.  I remember how it felt to come back from my mission.  I expect this to be the same in some ways but different in others.  

I guess I am rambling.  I wish I could organize my thoughts better.  It's hard to take in though and I'm still resisting letting myself really thing about it.  I just can't wait to get home.