In Retrospect

I was deployed to Iraq between July 2005 and February 2006, spending the majority of my time in Saddam's home town of Tikrit. In an effort to record my experiences, I kept a journal and a much neglected blog while deployed. Since returning, I've ridden what can only be called an emotional roller-coaster. I've experienced everything from post-traumatic stress and nightmares where I would wake up thinking I was missing limbs to simply feeling guilty for my deployment ending when my friends were still over there.

Since returning I have bought a house, my wife has re-adjusted to me being in the same bed (I don't flop around anymore screaming), and I now have a beautiful daughter named Dylan. This attempt to re-hash and fully understand the narrative of my deployment is entirely for her. I want to make sure that I can tell her everything that happened and give her a chance to understand why we as a country are in Iraq, but also why I volunteered to go.

My great-grandfather died when I was nine years old. He was a soldier in World War II and I wish I had taken the chance to ask him all the questions I had, even at that young age, about his experience. I was fascinated by his picture in my grand-mothers kitchen; standing at a slight angle to the camera in the "at ease" position... in France. I was only nine, but I had questions.

What I remember most is his smile. I try to smile as much as I remember him smiling... regardess of what is happening in my life. Maybe I have spent a better part of my life trying to live up to a smile, to a picture in my grandma's kitchen, to my nine year old imagination of what war could be.

Hopefully I do him, my friends, my wife, and my beautiful girl Dylan justice by writing all this down.