Courtesy Photo | Spc. David Wilson keeps watch on the ground while Cpl. Christian Litzsinger mans the...... read more read more
By Spc. Chris Chesak, B Co., Task Force 2-116 Armor
FOB WARRIOR, Iraq - The day we should fly out of Iraq, this unit will have been deployed, including training time, for 486 days. Of that total, 333 days were spent in theater.
By my own count, our platoon completed almost 400 patrols during that time and about another 200 'logistical package' missions to the local airbase. Driving in Humvees, a total of almost 18,000 miles of highways, roads, and alleys were patrolled by this platoon.
If each mission was four hours long, that would be 1,480 hours spent on patrol. (But of course the total number of hours spent actually working, including the logistical package missions, cleaning weapons, sitting in meetings, maintaining our Humvees, and preparing for patrols, is incalculable.)
In between those missions, we also pulled 828 hours of guard duty, or the equivalent of 34.5 entire 24-hour days spent in guard towers and monitoring radios.
I also estimate that my squad alone handed out at least 300 toys and nearly 130 pounds of candy to Iraqi children.
But the actual work was nothing to the burden of being so long and so far from our loved ones. Not only did we miss and pine for them on a daily basis, but our entire home lives were put on hold. Wives worked double-time to take care of our homes, jobs went on without us, families had empty seats at holiday tables, and children grew up without their daddy.
We have 43 men in our platoon. That means in the past year and a half, roughly 64 of our own birthday parties were missed, 86 Fourth of July barbeques were one man short, and 43 Christmases went without a brother, son, and/or father.
A former Marine and thus no stranger to deployments, Spc. John Jolley celebrated his 25th birthday manning an observation post on a Kirkuk rooftop. It was his fifth birthday while deployed.
Spc. Steven Henson missed his family's 30-person large annual Labor Day breakfast. He had, in his entire life, never missed one before.
The men of Bravo Company, Third Platoon also missed about 82 of their children's birthdays and 31 wedding anniversaries over the last 18 months.
Staff Sgt. Brad Attebery missed his 30th wedding anniversary. Sgt. 1st Class Rik Williamson not only missed his 15th wedding anniversary, but also missed the funerals of three aunts and one uncle, and the chance to stand as the best man for his nephew's wedding.
Sgt. David Gamaza missed his daughter Morgyn's first day of school. Sgt. James Carter missed the first hockey start of his two oldest boys while Staff Sgt. Don Lamott missed his son's first start for his junior high football team. Spc. Jared McKenzie missed his son Torrin's baptism.
Three particularly poor saps, Cpl. Lyle Wing, Sgt. Warren Hurt, and I, missed the birth of a child. Wing's third daughter was born as he tromped through the Louisiana mud while my first child, also a girl, was born last December, just about one hour before I boarded a transport plane to fly into Iraq. Hurt was on patrol on July 4th when a message came across the radio that he was now the father of a second child, a son.
One soldier was divorced while on leave back home. Another, Spc. Dereck Birch, was engaged and a third, Spc. Matthew Timmons, was both engaged and married during his two-week leave.
And that's only 43 men, about one percent of the entire Brigade. You can extrapolate from that all that the men and women of the 116th have missed by being away from home during this deployment.
While I can lament all that we've missed back home, I have to also consider what I gained from this very long, very difficult year, even if that is but a tiny sliver of all that was missed.
I shared several thousand laughs with some good men. The majority of these guffaws were over things so incredibly frustrating, so mind-numbingly goofy, or so specific to our situation here that they will probably never translate to anyone who was not here with us.
Under the strains of our work and our living situation, I have forged new, possibly lifelong friendships. Since finding one true friend is a rare and wonderful achievement, I consider this an accomplishment of great value.
I have a greater appreciation for everything you have at home. There will be a little more joy in my heart each time I flick a light switch and the light instantly comes on, as I gaze upon the refrigerated bounty of an American supermarket, merge easily onto the smooth pavement of our highways, or choose from our plethora of restaurants. And I will never flush another toilet without respect for the consistently efficient U.S. plumbing that comes with it.
After witnessing two monumental elections here and the way the Iraqi people live, I have newfound respect for freedom. Not only is this for the capital 'F', Four-Freedom kind that we find in the Bill of Rights, but also the simple daily freedoms of sitting out at a restaurant patio sipping a beer or grabbing my keys, hopping into my car, and driving where ever the heck I want.
I have even greater respect and love for my wife. While my situation and living conditions were much more difficult than hers, it was she who had to raise a newborn baby virtually alone (try just taking a shower when you have no one else to watch over your infant, much less manage a day of errands), take care of our home, start a new job, and, worst of all, bear the burden of terrible fears and incessant worrying that only the spouse of someone deployed in a combat zone can understand.
Most monumental of all though, I now more appreciate life itself. I will place my family on an even higher pedestal and will better let them know just how much I love them. And I will be thankful, each day, when my alarm clock goes off and I wake up in my own bed, looking forward to another mere eight-hour day of mere office work, another day in the company of my family, another day that I am home.
| Date Taken: | 10.28.2005 |
| Date Posted: | 10.28.2005 14:48 |
| Story ID: | 3511 |
| Location: | KIRKUK, IQ |
| Web Views: | 109 |
| Downloads: | 22 |
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