AFTER THOUGHTS - WILL THE REAL REALITY PLEASE STAND UP

Well here I sit waiting another day for a flight out. This is the most difficult place to get to and from in SWA, no joke. It is hard to believe this time next week I will be on a plane bound for Philly. A doctor friend of mine over here said recently, " do not think this is reality, because this is not reality as you know it." He is right, it is a false sense of reality and it plays mind tricks on you after awhile. This is a strange phenomenon, the people I have written about during these past 6 or so months are living a different reality than I. This is their home, their existence, as miserable painful and uncertain as it maybe or as I see it anyway. This is their life not mine. I am but an alien, a visitor from another world who landed here in a C-17 plane and suddenly assimilated myself into their existence. It would be easy to just meld into this environment and become one with it for survival. I now understand how POWs from prior wars transitioned into a culture they were forced to live in for years. Survival instinct is to become a chameleon of your present environment. The trick is knowing how and when to turn it off to re-assimilate into society as once before. Mind tricks, all mind tricks. Holding onto memories of a once known existence, day to day routines, holidays spent with family and friends, cards, photographs, email, skype, phone calls, remembrances of a place before this place, remembering faces of people you have known for years (and some you prefer not to - No Linda I am not talking about you.....this time any way LOL LOL LOL LOL).

Personally, I don't think I will have a problem one bit knowing where my reality is. Home has never been off my mind not when we were out in 100 degree+ heat, or temps in the high 30s, or when I witnessed a man at the base check point with half his hand and leg blow off from an IED, or the rocket attack, or the threats, or the loneliness, or the laughter or tears, the MWRAP mishaps, the stresses, the month long painful bite from some unknown freakin bug, blind crippled and lame kids, adults suffering from the remnants of wars, brutal dictatorship, the loss of their friends and family to violence and torture, starvation and thirst.

Whenever we went OTW, without fail forty plus missions, I always carried pictures of my family with me as well my Bible, prayer beads, the Saint Michael's Medal my mother gave me in 1980 when I joined the Police Department in Faifax Virginia as well as a few other mementos. And no, these are not props, good luck items or superstitious trinkets, just stuff to remind me who I am (Bible = Child of God, Prayer beads = Intercessory prayer warrior) what I am (St Michael's medal = Christian solider fighting evil), and where I need to be (pictures of family = husband, father, son, brother, friend).

Yep I think I see it now, definitely. What is it I see?

There is light at the end of this tunnel and my reality is on the other side at Philadelphia Airport. Won't you meet me there? I would love to see all your faces.