Left of Right

It's the 4th of July, 2011, which means it's been exactly a year since I sat in the dust, my back to a tarp-covered fence that was shading me from the mid-day Afghan sun, and described a little of what it felt like to celebrate the 4th in country. It has not, of course, been a year since I got back (it's been 115 days and this morning), but it sometimes feels like it. This year my tuchis is parked not in some moon dust but on my plush microfiber couch, and instead of feeling sweaty and grimy I'm freshly showered (TMI?) and enjoying a typically temperate southern California breeze through my balcony door. A year, a world, a lifetime - pick your favorite measure of distance, and that's the difference between this 4th and the last.

So as you can tell, it's good to be back. That answers the most FAQ I get : "how's it feel to be back?" Others include:

What's it like over there?
What do you think will happen in Afghanistan?
So what do you do now that you're back?
What's next for you?

Knowing me, that's enough questions for four separate posts. I'll work backwards and see how far I get.

4. What's next for me is probably another deployment to Afghanistan, exact date TBD but likely in the spring. In the military, you can't be sure what's going to happen until after it happens, but I'll keep you posted.

3. Meanwhile, now that I'm back I will do some training exercises...next one is three weeks in Yuma, AZ (where it was 116º this weekend!). Back at the squadron between exercises, I'm the company intel officer, safety officer, occasional supply officer, get-this-distributed-before-the-meeting officer...I call myself the EEO - Everything Else Officer. But it sounds like more work than it is, and I'm almost always home by 5PM if not earlier (work starts at 0730 so don't worry taxpayer, you're still getting your money's worth).

As I said it has been 115 days, so what else have I been doing?

Well when I first got back I took it easy for a few days but within a week, I think, I was starting to PT hard to try to burn off some winter flubber and get ready for the PFT (physical fitness test). It paid off, as I got a personal best of 20 pull-ups (max score = 20), 100 sit-ups in 1 min 20 sec (max score = 2 min or less) and ran the 3-mile in 20:56 (max score = 18 min or less so forget about that). That may all sound ok, and I was proud of my performance, but I still have a ways to go to meet my goals. Next test is the CFT - combat fitness test:

CFT: the most painful 2 to 3 minutes of your life

It hurts just to watch.

Anyway, I've also done some traveling, though as most of you know my big road trip that I'd been planning for a year had to be ixnayed. The reason was that I got in a small car accident (no one hurt or anything) and it took too long to get my car back from the shop. Nonetheless, I got to spend Passover at my dad's with my uncle and fam, and a truly great time was had by all. Normally I would post a pic or two here but I don't know what happened to mine...! VM, do you have any? AH, did you take any? If so I want copies.

Shortly after that trip - by plane - I got my car back from the shop (as I told someone at the time, it was like having a girlfriend in the hospital. I checked on her daily). Then my youngest brother came for a visit, and we tore up the state of Arizona. In fact, I have a ton of pics from that trip to share, so that'll probably fill the rest of this post...questions 2 and 1 will have to wait for next time.

So. We drove out to Sedona, AZ, one of my favorite cities, and spent a week out there leading up to our hike in the Grand Canyon.

Dune-buggying...

...Sedona dirt made me a red-head.

Sgt Strike A. Pose

inexplicably puzzled

Arizona: indescribable

Mission Improbable

Scarlet Cowboy

"Feygeles?" "No, we're just merry."

transportation

COB, day 1

eh...what's up, doc?

Lake Pleasant, AZ. It was.

COB day 2

Days 3 we were at the rim of the Grand Canyon, and days 4 and 5 were spent hiking into it via the Grand View Trail to a spot called Horseshoe Mesa, camping out overnight, and hiking back out the next day.

On the way

The Grand Canyon. It is.

The view from my sunglasses.

Nice shot, E.

A model of the canyon showing our route.

In the pic above, taken from the Grand View trail head, you can see all the way to our destination, Horseshoe Mesa. If you view it full size, you'll see I added four dots. The red is the end of the trail, one of the two ends of the horsehoe. The blue is roughly where we camped out. The green is where we finally found water after some exciting (failed) attempts, and the yellow I'll explain in a minute.

Starting out

1,216 ft down...just getting started

Don't slip!

toilet paper tuna - Israeli delicacy

some desert flowers

another desert flower

Along the way we took a little detour to see some old caves. One of us was too chickensh*t to go more than a few yards in. The other is pictured below:

To get to the caves we had to scale some pretty gnarly cliffs. That's where the yellow dot comes in...that's where the cliffs are. Here are some pics:

Good thing you had that rope.

After the caves, we resumed our trek...

Incredible views

remains of an old miners' kitchen

HUH?

Almost there...

we made it!

The other end of the horseshoe

My best attempt at a collage of pics to show the view from the Mesa.

And here's another attempt to capture it. Nothing really can.

Cool...

...calm...

...and terrified.

Just realized we're both wearing our unit t-shirts. What a bunch of motards.

And it was evening, and it was morning, day the fourth.

After eating carrots for their water content and dreaming all night of falling off cliffs, we woke up the next morning juuuust about ready to find some H2O. How hard was it to find?

But eventually...

Mayim!!!

B'sason!!

What we hiked down in our search for agua...

...and what we now had to hike back up just to get back to the Mesa.

Leaving the Mesa

What goes down must come up...

Resting on the way

there.

~3000 vertical feet in 3 hours 11 minutes.

The next day was Shabbat, so we reflected on the miracle of our survival. Sunday was the road trip back to the coast, and Monday we unwound as any two elite Jewish warfighters would...

...by shooting Yassir Arafat.

Maybe with two guns I'll hit him.

So. That's kind of a long answer to #3. Stay tuned for more later!

Happy 235th, America.

Three days ago, I got home. Even better, I'm pretty sure it's real this time, not like the dream I had maybe a month ago which seemed every bit as real as this until I woke up in Afghanistan with a month still to go. That was...unpleasant. Hope it doesn't happen again.

So I'm home, after 95 hours and 30 minutes of travel time, door to door. After 8,551 hours (356 long days, and change) total time away. After watching some 18 different wing units or rotations head to the passenger terminal and begin their journey home, it was finally my turn. (Well actually, it turns out it was the SecDef's turn, so we deplaned after two hours of waiting, and waited another 10 or so before we flew out.)

Of course, everyone's asking "how's it feel to be back." It feels...great. I'm euphoric. Ecstatic. But not just. I've had many moments where I had to stop what I was doing and try to convince myself that I'm really here now, and not there. So disbelief has been one feeling, too. Also, rediscovery. I lived in my apartment for a total of about 6 or 7 weeks before deploying. I finished unpacking the last box the day before I left for the 'stan. I even had to look up my own address when I was mailing my stuff home from over there. So I'm a bit of a stranger in my own home - I have to open all the cupboards, for example, to remember where I keep my plates and glasses and such. The flip side of that is that it's Hanukkah again: everywhere I look there's another gift, something I forgot I owned.

A few first impressions from being back in civilization:

The roads are so smooth - like glass. Can't get over that. Between the roads and the suspension on my car (or any car that isn't a 1994 Toyota Hilux with 200,000 miles) it feels like I'm flying an inch above the road.
There is so much green. The vista (any vista) seems so much more vibrant. Did you know that the Afghans have 100 different words for "drab?"
We are so rich. I mean we all know this on some intellectual level. But I feel like I'm just drenched in luxury and comfort. Like I'm eating a 10 course meal prepared by the finest chef in the world and served in the most decadent dining room with chandeliers and crystal glasses and solid gold silverware (goldware?) with ivory handles and silk napkins.
I seem to have only one criterion for finding a woman attractive: she's not wearing a uniform.
I hate jet lag.

For months now, I've had a list of a few things I wanted to do as soon as possible once I got back. One was to get in my car, turn the volume all the way up and floor it down the highway. Now as I've said before, I'm fortunate to have found a very good car, and my very good car has a very good stereo. I wanted to make sure the first song I played would take advantage of that, but I hadn't figured out what it should be (so many great songs to choose from!) so I abdicated the responsibility of consciousness and let shuffle pick for me. It did not disappoint, with Seether's "Walk Away from the Sun." Perfect selection. The double sub-woofers thumped, the mids churned, the highs pierced, my engine screamed, the whole damn thing just caught up to me at once and I let out this visceral roar at the top of my lungs. I know it sounds stupid but it felt great - like I was alive and breathing fresh air for the first time in a year.

Then I hit 55 mph, which after a year of 15 mph speed limits on base felt suicidally fast, and I had to slow down. Baby steps.

I'm hoping to put up a really long post here soon on some of my thoughts looking back on the last year...but right now it's time to take another hot shower. So I'll leave you with some pics: