The Downward Spiral

"One year ago, we were nervous and excited and apprehensive. Ready to do this. Green as snot.

We jumped through training hoops at Fort Lewis, counting down months. This epic THING looming in front of us, like it was some kind of tidal wave we were waiting to catch.

Before we knew it, they stuffed us on buses and into airplanes and flew us to the other side of the planet, jet-lagged and confused as shit, dog-tired and sick of travel, SICK of fucking waiting and stopping and going, sitting on duffel bags. Not knowing what to expect.

We spent a few weeks in Kuwait, adjusting to the heat, preparing for our next push into theater, just more waiting, all of it, more headgames. Already we were reduced to phone calls and emails, otherwise effectively cut off from the World.

And then they stuffed us all onto C-130s. Wedged in there, full kit, miserable, everyone scowling and swearing at each other for so much as adjusting in their seat. Two miserable hours of loud droning engines. You're off to war, son.

We had landed, anticlimactically, and still, we were herded like fucking animals, STILL not knowing a damn thing, and the cycle would never end. And there I was, finding myself in Baghdad, chomping at the bit to get outside the wire, to experience This Fucking War."
The Unlikely Soldier