Coda

Glamour shot, Mazar-e Sharif, 11/7/10

Right from the start, I wonder if I should prattle on about the myriad of reasons I don’t write anymore...about why such a significant period of my life, spanning two Operation Enduring Freedom deployments and beyond, will mostly remain boxed, gathering over time the type of dust and cobwebs that blur and warp the memories that aren’t already erased.  I won’t prattle, not too much anyway.  But I’ll restate something I’ve said before, at least once: It gives me no satisfaction to write about the experience of being in Afghanistan when I’m not in Afghanistan.  Many literary types manage to do that, but I’m not James Joyce…hell, I’m not even a writer. I’m just someone who absorbed what he could, and passed on as much as possible, while in the midst of some experiences.  When those experiences were done, my urge to write about them was done too.

I write now, after a deliberate stop to the post-post-deployment entries a couple of years ago, because the good people at The Sandbox have given me the opportunity to add a new post from AfghaniDan as they wind down that impressive collection of milblogs from the past two wars.  Not to sound like an acceptance speech, but I give them enormous credit for ending their valuable web page in such a way.

ANA cadets await a concert, Kabul, 10/21/10

For the purpose of a standard timeline check, and just to make this feel like even more as if I’m in a confessional, it’s been more than three years since I returned from the last deployment and four exactly since I was heading to Camp Lejeune for another inprocessing cluster---k.  It was eight (!) years ago this month that I took part in Operation Mountain Lion in Kunar Province during my first deployment to Afghanistan.  And just for the heck of it, it’s been 14 years exactly since I was in Kosovo with the 24^th Marine Expeditionary Unit, reinforcing a thin NATO peacekeeping contingent amidst a nervous population, thinking that was the hairiest thing we would be doing for a while (in fairness, most of us thought that).

Afghanistan elects a new president in two days, and Taliban attacks intended to disrupt it have failed, though they’ve brutally slain innocents and beloved patriots.  As our international coalition sharply draws down its numbers there, it is finally true that Afghan national security forces have the lead.  March closed as the first month in over seven years with zero American fatalities, while still we have military personnel and civilians heading over (the media rarely bother to explain troop rotations).  Welcome to 2014, the ‘year of transition.’

Afghanistan Electoral Alliance (source N/A)

I’d like to say the world has watched, or at least our nation has, as this era of American/NATO intervention in Afghanistan has flowed, ebbed, flowed, and ebbed again…but if you’ve paid attention, you’ve been in the distinct minority.  That’s one of the reasons it’s bracing to hear the chattering class bring up “America’s longest war” when a milestone is passed, because only the very few and far between have maintained any awareness of their nation being “at war.”  Over there, of course, it’s a different story, but in many settings, including the most populated ones, daily life generally has a normalcy to it.  A normalcy that’s often closely related to the presence of large numbers of international forces, if not directly feeding off the odd system that seemed as if it would retain semi-permanence for decades, but a normalcy nonetheless.  I tried to highlight that as my observations shifted from those of a fairly clueless newcomer to those of a more attuned participant, and one located mainly in Kabul in the advisory go-round.

Fruit vendors, Kabul, 10/31/10

Was it worth it?  Gen. Jim “Chaos” Mattis (ret.) – he who commanded the initial Marine Expeditionary Brigade that swept into the south of Afghanistan in 2002, before achieving far greater responsibility, fame and notoriety in Operation Iraqi Freedom and eventually at US Central Command – opined recently on the question of whether it was “worth it” for those who served in these conflicts (as my readers may recall, I’m not a fan of lumping the two together, but that’s apparently how it was asked and answered in this case).  The “Warrior Monk” went on to break down his answer in terms of national strategy and personal considerations, and while it’s all worth a read, it’s the latter that truly resonated with me.  These are summaries by the piece’s author, not direct quotes…

For veterans, "Was it worth it?" should be intensely personal. The focus should be on experiences while deployed and since returning home. What sorts of relationships were formed at war? How deep and rewarding were they? How have you stayed in touch with your buddies since returning home? Have you been able to integrate into civil society in a healthy and sustainable way?

You have some control over the answer to these questions, even if doesn't feel like it a lot of the time. This is where the ultimate judgment must reside for each of us. We claim - or lose - that mantle through our actions.

Iraq and Afghanistan vets pull no punches with General Mattis

Without subjecting you poor readers to a point-by-point breakdown, my reflections confirmed what I’ve long felt…that I’ve failed pretty miserably at reintegration, i.e. becoming a civilian, and that I’ve led a transient postwar existence.  I wasn’t exactly sticking to one career like glue before a return to service and the subsequent deployments, anyway, so if it wasn’t serving in Afghanistan twice (and in a few other scattered commands) as a Marine, who knows what my job(s) might have been.  But that jolt, that incredible jolt, of being on high alert and in incredibly heady situations for months on end, only to return to some place you idealized but instead seems to be fraught with uninteresting choices…that has played quite a role in my lack of a healthy and sustainable reintegration.

This reflection business is harder than I even thought it would be.  I won’t say every day is a struggle, the way it is for so many brothers- and sisters-in-arms, because for me that’s not always the case…I get to escape the doldrums, sometimes through my ongoing positions through the Reserve, sometimes outside of it completely, and not everyone is so lucky.  We’re all dealing with different shit, and as I was recently reminded, just about every single veteran refers to some who had it worse.  Still, it is never far from my mind how easy I have it, compared to the challenges in adjusting to postwar life that must be faced by the war's casualties: the multiple amputees, the traumatic brain injuries, the PTSD sufferers who struck an IED one day, or more than once…

Daybreak at Camp Mike Spann, 11/8/10

It was a welcome break from my issues, and a distinct honor, to spend two weeks recently augmenting the staff of the USMC Wounded Warrior Regiment as they staged the Marine Corps Trials in Camp Pendleton, CA.  The event is an extraordinary international competition among teams from the regiment’s east and west battalions, nine allies ranging from Colombia to the Republic of Georgia, as well as Marine Corps veterans who’ve been discharged but still qualify to compete.  I can’t imagine another experience that could be so simultaneously humbling and inspiring as this one was.  If you’re looking for the true warrior spirit, you need look no farther than the wounded, ill and injured service members and veterans of these games, or of the more widely known Wounded Warrior Games…

“I thought, ‘I need to get out of this funk. The world’s not going to stop moving, I need to get out and do something with my life,’” Sears said.

Battling it out at the Marine Corps Trials, 3/11/14

  

Marine overcomes obstacles, becomes mentor to peers

“Try and make it far enough…to the next time zone”  - Son Volt

- One of those lyrics that just stays in my head, after many long drives across and around the country over the past few years

Life isn’t bad in Colorado, despite constant indecision that has me stuck spinning my wheels.  If this was a video post, I’d probably do a voiceover with scenes of my energetic jackal-dog Daly playing, with the Rocky Mountains beyond.  It wasn’t bad on balance in the self-imposed exile to Miami either, or back in New York City before the western spirit ever succeeded in calling me out here.  But when it’s too much to unpack your boxes, filled as they are with smaller, more compact collections of notes, contacts, receipts, gifts sent to you overseas or ones you bought for others but never sent, REMINDERS all…you’re left to wonder if normalcy will ever arrive.

Was it worth it?  I guess “Mad Dog” Mattis is right (gotta get every major nickname of his in there)…it’s intensely personal.  How Afghanistan does in the next few years will certainly factor into my answer, as mission success has been defined for a good while now as a stable and secure nation.  But even if it’s deemed a ‘failed state’ once again, that would be due to so many more factors than how ably U.S. and allied troops performed their given missions.  For me it was worthwhile.

Cramped ride, Herat City, 11/4/10

If you’re enough the empathetic type, or just ever the overthinker, or especially both, you understand more and more why some adrenaline junkies (be they security pros, aid workers, journalists, many others) never stop traveling to the latest conflicts.  You also understand how the least fortunate lose hope entirely, how all the goddam flailing just gives way to morose resignation that some get left behind.  No matter how empathetic or not you may be, you don’t want to see another one go down that awful road.  And you definitely understand the pull of returning to a place where you fought for something, worked your tail off for something, sacrificed for something, and bonded with those who’d give their last breath for their country – or a stranger’s country – to make it.

Tonight I attended an event called “Failure to Communicate: Homefront Myths of Veterans and Civilians”, put on by Veterans Helping Veterans Now (VHVN), a group with which I was unfamiliar.  I usually avoid veterans’ organizations entirely, likely to my detriment, but I was compelled to check out this discussion.  With a new approach, its stated goal was for community members and veterans to come together and break down reintegration stereotypes.  Interesting concept, I thought, all the more so because of my difficulties in moving beyond Marine duty orders and becoming a part of the fabric of a community, whatever that means.

Krak and me, 8 years later… Boulder CO, 4/2/14

A bonus feature was that the guest speaker would be Jon Krakauer, the bestselling author I’d met in Afghanistan as he began the embed for what would become “Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman”.  Reconnecting with him was great, but what really stuck with me is what he pointed out in his humble remarks: that after volunteering for years now with VHVN, he couldn’t believe how many veterans described coming home and adjusting to ‘normal’ life as much harder than anything they experienced over there.  In the group chats that followed, I expressed a similar sentiment and seemingly for the first time, saw that fellow veterans – of a few different eras – fully understood and could relate. 

Up until that moment, I was still gripped with fear of telling a few strangers that I’m still figuring out what to do with myself after Afghanistan…but once I did, and found no judgment there, the relief was extraordinary.  It was a fitting ending to the days I’d spent contemplating what I’d write in this space in order to sign off as AfghaniDan. 

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