The 42nd Comes Home

Members of the 42nd Infantry Division from New York have been coming home via Ft. Drum. I have seen them on the streets of post and at the different offices. The familiar 1/2 rainbow patch on their sleeve and their DCU's easily gives them away.
I saw a line of them standing waiting for a taxi in front of the PX the other evening. I had some shopping to do, and was headed the other way. When I came out of the PX, the line was even longer. I don't mind taxis, but these guys had waited long enough.
"Who wants a ride to their barracks? You'll save the taxi fare."
A group of five guys together raised their hands. We trundled to my Laredo, popped the back hatch and completely filled up the back of my truck with PX supplies.
I drove them the couple of miles to the barracks. They had been back in the country about 12 hours. The lied when I asked if they had jet lag. They said "No" but the sat staring out into the black night and had trouble answering questions.
Then I started asking about what was different. All admitted that eating off of pottery and using metal flatware and having glasses to drink from was different.
"I drank water that was not from a bottle," one said and they all laughed.
One admitted that he had freaked out earlier that day in formation.
"We were standing there in formation and I realized I did not have my helmet or my rifle with me. I freaked. Then I remembered that I was back in the States and we had turned them in. For a minute there, I forgot where I was."
I did not have the heart to tell him that "for a minute there" will last for a long time for him.

"Daddy's home"

I went to get a new Ft. Drum vehicle sticker for my truck this afternoon. While I was waiting there, women with children came into the MP station to get a temporary pass. It was not difficult to tell that they were not familiar with post. I had an idea why they were there.
"Is your husband with the 42nd?"
"Yes, he gets home today," was the rushed response. She had a toddler in arms and three others crowding her legs. She had to go back to the vehicle to get registration papers and proof of insurance for the desk clerk. [I hate our bureaucracy that punishes innocent family members under the pretext of “security” concerns. Nobody can convince me (I don’t care their rank or position) that a wife of a deployed soldier with four children who has never been on post is a security risk and needs to prove liability insurance and registration validation before they can see their husband!!!)]
She was in a hurry….the tension was palpable.
“How long did you travel?”
“Four and a half hours,” was the reply.
“You have plenty of time. I know that the plane was delayed about 45 minutes and there are still lots of things to be done before he can be released. You won’t be late. He has been on the plane for 45 hours getting here.”
I played with the little boy who would not stop squirming.
“He only recognizes Daddy as the man on the ‘puter.’He has been gone so long that our son doesn't remember him in person, only on the web cam.”
At the mention of “Daddy” the boy started piping up “I-RAK.” “I-RAK”
“No, Daddy is not in Iraq. Daddy's home.”
“Will your husband be driving the vehicle while on post?” the clerk asked.
Silence.
“I don’t know. Will they let him out? Can we go somewhere?”
“Say, ‘Yes,’” I offered. “You never know. He may get to visit some.”
The Mom brightened at the prospect.
The clerk smiled and shrugged realizing she asked a moot question. She should have automatically included the husband. How would it hurt to write one more name on a line? It is too easy to be nice to these families, yet we love our policies and procedures.
By then four more wives and enough children to fill a school bus were in the small room each wondering what to do.
“Are you here to meet the 42nd?” I asked.
“Yes!” they all chorused, glad that someone understood who they were and why they were here.
“Welcome to Fort Drum.” I smiled and continued. “We’re glad you are here. Get a temporary pass at this desk and don’t forget to get a map with the yellow directions on it to the gymnasium where your husband is. You have plenty of time.” The relief was immediate. Their plans and waiting and anxiety were about to end with hugs and kisses.

I needed to leave the building. My eyes were tearing up. Reunions almost always make me cry.

Anticipatory Grief

It has been three years since one of my personal heroes and I presented a seminar on “anticipatory grief.” Chaplain Jeff Watters and I developed a seminar for the wives of the leaders of the 82nd Infantry Division (Airborne) when the Division was deployed to the Gulf in response to 9-11. In the seminar, we developed and explained the concept that during marital separation caused by a military conflict, the spouse that stayed home developed specific habits and behavior patterns that directly reflected the anxiety and fear they had while their partner was separated in a combat zone. Simply put, the wives of the leaders of the Division acted out while their husbands were in combat that caused additional stressors on the family. The wives began acting on an assumption that they would, at some point, be given bad news and they had already started the grieving process. They anticipated grief and began experiencing it whether it was true or not.
In the intervening years, I have been a student of this phenomenon in my own counseling cases, couples I have interviewed, stories that I have heard and now in my own life.
Leaving my wife always causes grief for me. I may not cry each time (though at some point I usually do), but I grieve at different levels. But the interesting phenomenon is when to grieve. I realize that I begin anticipating the grief and separation days before the actual separation takes place.
“I leave in four more days,” I think to myself. “There is more to do. I better appreciate this time together.” But thinking about the upcoming separation increases the tension and I find that I cannot enjoy the time I have because I am anticipating the grief that is yet to come.
As I talked with soldiers who went on mid-tour leave, they admitted that the time was too painful for them and they would not do it again, if given the option. As nice as seeing the family may be, the anticipation of returning to the war and leaving the family again was not worth the small joy they had. That recognition of not wanting to see the family increased their guilt and knowing that if the family knew what the soldier was thinking, then they would not understand. “Why don’t you want to visit us?” To be honest, the answer would be, “because I love you so much, it hurts to be with you.”
Anticipatory grief plays on all the minds of the family members facing deployment. I would try and stay focused on the present. “Live in the moment. Stay focused on the present. Don’t worry about what may happen in the days ahead.” All good self-talk to a normal person, but these mantras did not help me very much. By choosing to focus on the present, I kept realizing that the mental energy was detracting from the present because the storm clouds seemed to be so close and ominous.
It is no wonder that the planes headed back to the war are full of depressed and angry soldiers. And what does that say about the ones that are left behind?

Here is Cash--buy some guns!

Big events transpiring in the area of the Inspector General and in Congress in general. It seems that someone is missing a few millions in US dollars in the Iraq reconstruction issue. Congress is doing the handwringing and we, who have been there, are not surprised.
Understanding that there is a principle difference in how we do business and how the Iraqis (and many mid-Easterners as well) do business is important.
Here is how it works:
1) cash
2) trust
3) time

1) Cash talks. Lots of cash talks louder.
Hand a man a suitcase of cash if you want something.
Drive up in a truck load of cash if you want something big.
--a few months back a semi-truck was hijacked on one of the major highways in Iraq. A group of men in fake uniforms set up a roadblock and stopped a car and the truck that was following it. The car was hosed with automatic rifle fire, wounding or killing the family members in the car. The two men in the truck were dragged out of their truck and shot. The truck was driven away. It was loaded with cash. No suspects. No leads. The answer? Request another truckload of cash to finish the run.

Let's say I want to buy a case lot of rifles. The street price of an AK-47 is $115-$150 each for a reasonably worn, used rifle. It will cost me $200,000 US dollars for a thousand rifles with slings, magazine, bayonet in boxes. When the suitcase of cash is handed over for the goods, the second part comes into play:
2) trust
I trust (?) the guy to come through for me. He just walks out of the office with all that cash and I hope he delivers the goods. He is under some compulsion, because I know where he lives and I will come for him if he doesn't deliver. People taking the cash and running is infrequent because that would be dishonorable.
3) Whenever the goods are ready, I am told to go to such a place or someone will meet me with the case lot of rifles.
Now is when the rub comes....
What happens if I open the cases and find rusted, unusable rifles? How do I get my money back?
Every person who has handeld that suicase of cash to make the deal happen has already taken their cut. The finders cut is between 20 and 40 percent of the gross.
30% to the first guy = $60K, who hands the suitcase to his friend or cousin or contact who knows someone who can get the rifles.
That leaves $130K for the next guy to find the rifles. He takes his 30% ($40K or so) and hands on the suitcase. Now the buyer has less than $100K to buy the thousand rifles. A guy can only buy 1,000 rusted rifles for that little amount of money so that is what he gets. He pays someone to deliver the goods and I open a box of junk instead of my merchandise.
NO ONE GETS A REFUND, because the money is gone and there were no guarantees.
Try to equip an army, rebuild a country, restart the infrastructure, dig the wells, run the electric wires, pump the oil and do the millions of things that cost billions of dollars, knowing that the goods must usually be imported or trucked from elsewhere with no paper trail and no guarantees.
We bought tons of things that turned out to be junk and we could not take it back for a refund.
No one did anything wrong....just nothing went right...the way that we expected it would in the good ol USA. But Congress insists that we do it by our book and we did not realize that the Iraqis did not read our book first.
Some great people will lose their careers and some will go to prison because we did not understand the way to do business.