Contemplation of a return.

(These pics are not of that land over there, but of Eastern NC, where I spent the past month...)

 So why am I going back?  That's something I'll undoubtedly still be trying to figure out, to some extent at least, six months from now when I'm ready to return stateside.  It's just not easy for me to answer, much less explain.  But I know that I barely hesitated before volunteering to take this post, as if there wasn't much on which to dwell.  Something inside, that stayed with me since first experiencing Afghanistan, wouldn't allow that to be my only stretch of time trying to know -- and help -- the fierce people of that historic crossroads.

I got something tremendous out of my last experience learning what I could about Afghanistan: the land, its many peoples, its traditions, culture and history.  At the same time I received a crash course in our involvement there, and how that manifested itself fully in some corners of the country, and barely if at all in others.  While I lack the pure excitement that I felt when I first deployed there, I am eager to see some different parts of it, and to see what has changed in the places I did pass through four years ago.

There will be countless frustrations, and probably at least a fair share of full-blown despair, before this deployment is over with.  There will be a hell of a lot of loneliness, and even a lot of boredom, no matter how hard I try to combat it and no matter how busy I get.  But there will also be appreciation on a much higher level of a good meal, a decent cup of chai, and a six-hour sleep that feels like double that.  And there will be sweet reward, in the relationships forged, the occasional sign of improvement, and the moments of universal awareness that can't be experienced in a life spent bombarded by TV, Internet and countless other nonstop distractions.  Off we go...