Waiting out a pandemic that feels like war: Insights from an Iraq War veteran.
I was a young Army lieutenant deployed to Iraq during the war's early hostilities. I didn't know it then, but it would be the first of several deployments for me. What made that first tour different than the ones that followed was not knowing when it would end, the agony of wondering when my comrades and I could pack up and go home.
That first year of the Iraq War was a weird time for the military. It was before the brass had developed its now-familiar 12-month unit rotation tempo. In the weeks preceding the invasion of Iraq, the expectation among the tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines like me, waiting nervously in tent cities across the barren sands of Kuwait, was that the conflict would be quick. More like Grenada than Vietnam.
We thought: Look, we're soldiers. This is what we do. We fight the fight. We fulfill our duty. But please, just give us a date. Even if we are not meant to return this year. Even if we are here for the duration. At least that's something. At least it's clear. My wife and I have three daughters under 6 years old. They're great kids, thank God, but bursting with the energy of a thousand summer suns. They haven’t been to school in weeks. We all miss our friends from church and the neighborhood. My father is hospitalized back home in New Orleans. He's in bad shape. Leukemia, not coronavirus. Not yet. My mother is barred from visiting, lest she contaminate him. A visit from me is completely out of the question.
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