I’m on a coach bus.  Lord of War is on the little TV screens.  We’ve made our way past all the people standing on the side of the road.  Waving.  Holding flags of all sizes.  Holding signs.  Waving.  Old men in hats saluting us with tears in their eyes.  They have been down this road.  Maybe Vietnam, maybe WWII, a few from Korea I’m sure.  Men, women and children, standing in the cold on a Sunday morning to wish us well, whatever that means.  I have a strange detachment, like I’m watching a movie of my own send-off ceremony.

I was riding shotgun in a big army truck.  One of dozens of identical trucks lined up for a mile and headed to Ft. McCoy.  The driver and I were both crying and I was bumming Marb Lights because I didn’t manage to make it to the gas station across the street from the reserve center before we left.  The ceremony, as it were, is a blur in my memory but I will always remember driving through that small town.  I’m sure there were some speeches.  I think the commander told us to “look right, look left, and bring that Soldier home.”  It might have been a Tuesday.  They let the kids out of school and folks were lined up five deep all the way down main street and out of town.  Miles down the road we passed people who had stopped and gotten out of their trucks to wave and salute.  The fire department had a giant – like Perkin’s giant – flag hung over the road from their aerial ladder and we all drove under it on the way out.  We cried and drove and smoked.

The scariest part then was the unknown.  We didn’t know where we were going.  We didn’t really know what we’d be doing.  It was 2003.  The scariest part now is knowing where we’re going.  My peers and I have troops to take care of and families to bring young Soldiers home to.  That’s an awesome responsibility and it’s terrifying if I think about it.  I try not to think abut it.

So today we made that trip again.  This time I’m in that coach bus, replaying in my mind that movie I just watched of myself hugging my family and my girlfriend and talking to a couple of reporters.  I’m not crying.  You can’t very well smoke on a bus.  There weren’t as many people on the street as there were in 2003, but the whole unit’s not going this time.  Just some of us.  Attached to another unit from another state.  This war is over.  We’re getting out.  Right?  But people still came out to stand in the sun in what passes for early spring in the Midwest and send us off.  And to wave.  And hold flags.  And salute.  And hold signs.  And wave.

The bus is quiet.  Some are sleeping.  Others staring out the window.  I’m sure some are replaying their own movies in their own heads.  And now it starts.  For real.