Waiting for a flight-
One that has already been delayed three times.
Talk about déjà vu.
They waste no time getting you to the combat zone,
but getting you home-that's a different story.
In my boredom, my hands have cleaned my weapon
at least a dozen times
while my brain remains transfixed by the amount of gum holding my bunk together.
I guess that moves the count to 1,001 ways a person can
die in the Middle East.
Only two of us females are slotted for this upcoming flight,
so I often find myself alone, which is an odd thing
after spending most of the year without privacy.
I wanted to be alone so many times on this deployment,
but now that I am,
I would gladly have the noise and the chaos back.
The quiet gives too much time to thinking and to overanalyzing and to criticizing one's contribution.
As I sit here waiting for my turn to leave,
I cannot help but dwell on the thought that I have failed.
Am I a POS for my lack of nightmares?
A nobody due to my lackluster experience?
As I sit here on my bunk of bubble gum and scrap
I think of home.
Mostly of those final moments before our departure
and all the things I took for granted.
I have thought about the long goodbyes to my mother
and the short farewell to my father who already knew
the charade too well.
I have thought about the long drive to post and how
I tried to take in as much as I could before we flew away,
as though I could store the scent of prairie grass
and freshly plowed fields in my mind to have
something to hold onto after everything else was gone.
I remember the anxiety and uncertainty
that would eventually turn to indifference.
Now I feel vulnerable as we make this journey home.
This is the one part of deployment we did not train for.
How are we to survive?
I wish we had more time to decompress before
being thrown into the confusion.
Today a soldier in Afghanistan--Tomorrow an imposter masquerading as a wife/daughter/friend/neighbor
in a small Kansas town.
Lani Hankins is a former Army female engagement team member and a veteran of Afghanistan. Follow her here. Listen to the Savage Wonder episode with her here.
She blogs and podcasts at Kruse Corner.
Bunny: Poems About Surviving Military Life by Lani Hankins
Bottled Away: Confessions of a Struggling Veteran by Lani Hankins
The Gaslit Heart: A Story of Service and Survival by Lani Hankins
Eased Pain: Poems About Surviving Domestic Violence by Lani Hankins
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