Homecoming Purgatory

"I’m happy to write that I’m now back in New Jersey—not home exactly, but close enough. I have to stay at Fort Dix, NJ for about 10 days to arrange all the logistics for the guys in my unit who will arrive here shortly. They’ll need things like barracks space, their demobilization schedule, a place to store their weapons, flights home, etc

Flying out of Taji was, to put it lightly, an ordeal. I had about 250 pounds of equipment to lug around from helicopter to helicopter, helicopter to plane, tent-to-tent, and so on. My shoulders and arms are still bruised and scratched up from the duffel bag shuffles involved with each move. Exiting a Chinook helicopter, I even got choked by my M4 machine gun’s shoulder strap, which crept up my shoulder and neck thanks to the 3 bags I had strung over my shoulders. I had to tough through the pain to get far enough away from the backwash wind caused by the 2 rotors in order to drop my bags.

In Kuwait, Navy Customs searched through every item in each of our bags, checking to see if we had any contraband."
Iraqi Partii