Arriving in Qatar is when it slams into you. I second guess my connection with my family over the past seven months. All the doubts just pour over me.
I didn’t Facetime the kids enough…
I didn’t appreciate the monumental amount of stress Jason handled so gracefully…
I didn’t tell my parents how much their support and love has mattered to our children…
I didn’t keep in close enough contact with my CXPA colleagues…
Why didn’t I write more letters home…
It’s overwhelming.
Then I start questioning – What the hell was I doing for 12-14 hours a day for the past seven months?
I thought I’d get more reading done. I thought I would work out harder. I thought I’d journal more. I thought I’d read the Bible. Did I just waste that time?
There is a lot of down time in Qatar as I wait for my next step in the very slow process of getting me home. It is odd to think that it takes close to four weeks from the time I leave Kabul until I’ll be able to hug my family again at our hometown airport.
It isn’t like this for all of the services, but the Navy, because we are reservists, has a very clear procedure for both deploying us and redeploying us (that’s the term they use when you are coming home from deployment).
We spend a few days in Qatar where the Navy has set up a forward administrative shop to ensure our paperwork is all accounted for and that they are tracking us as we leave theatre. We then await our next flight that will carry us on to the next stop in our worldwide travels for a “Warrior Transition Program.”
This program is used to help us “decompress” and turn in the hundreds of pounds of gear we were issued back in Norfolk and Fort Jackson. I’m more than a little eager to ditch all that, including the snow pants that I never broke out.
From there we move on to Norfolk where we proceed through the multitude of administrative requirements to bring us off of active duty and back into the Navy Reserve. This includes paperwork and medical appointments.
Finally, after all of that we board a place to get us back to our families – wherever they may be.
Throughout this process (and really everyday of deployment from the day I left), I hold the same vision in my head.
I walk off the plane in my uniform with my assault pack and find my children running up to me with arms open wide. I look up from hugging them and see Jason standing there smiling ready to give me a gigantic hug and kiss.
It’s like a little video that runs over and over again through my head. A returning service member survives on that moment in their mind.
With each day now, I come closer and closer to the real thing.
