Exhaustion

I apologize to all for not posting for two months… Some of you guys are crazy enough to actually follow this, and for that, I apologize. As most of you know, I will have been deployed for two years this October. As I sit here and I reflect upon the choices leading up to these deployments and the decision to continue my deployment voluntarily, I ask myself why I continue to do so. The honest answer is unknown to me. I have my excuses that I throw out when I get the “are you crazy look” when I tell people how long I have been deployed. The answers are as follows: my main goal is to get 36 months active duty time to be able to receive 100% of the new GI bill. Granted, I have a scholarship, but the GI Bill pays better. The second is that I am trying to get all my bills paid off. My debt to income ratio would blow most people’s minds, as it is well below the national average. The third is that I am trying to save up as much money as I can. I find this last one to be difficult due to the fact that I am supporting my wife and also that we are trying to pay down all our bills. Lastly, I have a debt to my brethren that I be here supporting them, helping them out in any way that I can. All of these reasons are valid points, but I increasingly am asking myself if they are enough. I am concerned that the prolonged separation from my wife is taking a toll on our marriage. That my separation from reality and society is going to change me in ways that I never intended. I do not know how my deployments have changed; me only that they have. I do not believe any single person could tell me what those changes are, but I increasingly hear that I am not the boy, not the man, that left home two years ago. I am worried as to how these changes will affect me once I return home for good. I wonder if I will be able to reintegrate myself into the life that I once had, if anything that I can have from here on out will ever be the same. I do not know the answer to these questions, as only time will tell. I only hope that I can become a productive part of society and return to that which was before. Lastly, I feel the need to end this post with a quote, one which I find very fitting. I have never doubted my service to country, as it is what I have always wanted to do. Nor do I doubt that upon returning home that I will continue my military service. I cannot see myself doing anything else. “I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know- the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve” Albert Schweitzer, M.D., Nobel Peace Prize, 1952.