Lay Me Down And Let Me Sleep

Right. People think leaving Iraq is easy. It goddamn isn’t. Firstly, you want to stay because it is home. My hatred of moving outweighs my loathing of being in the Army and being part of the Iraq war.
Secondly, the climate change sucks. I am back in goddamn Germany and I am freezing. The guys from Alaska who replaced us (complete with Governor Palin’s douche son) must have had it worse, but I am cold as shit and I miss the heat. Also, since all my belongings are in storage, my mom sent my “clothes” to wear until I am out of the Army. She sent the thinnest sweater known to man, a short sleeve soccer jersey, a pair of jeans and a pair of socks. Bless her heart.
Mostly leaving Iraq sucks because of the people. For 15 months, I lived a very Spartan life, and I loved it. Despite late at night, when things would go bad and I would get too much involved in my head, it was great. Problems come and go and at any given time, I have 700 people on a tiny piece of land I can talk to. I can help them. They can help me. We can smoke cigarettes and sunbathe. We can shuck and jive while we blow things up. We can place bets on how many outgoing rounds we will fire. We function.
You get used to the 12 – 18 hour days 7 days a week. You get used to no time to yourself, no hot water for showers, no food worth eating, no escape from the heat, Hadji, explosions, arrests, the smell, the dirt and being gone. You accept life went on without you. That people grew and changed and won’t give much of a fuck about your stories and experiences. And you know that those 700 men will always understand what we did and where we did it.
Then you leave. No more job. No more mission. No more operations. Just time. All that time you wanted, now you have and you don’t know what to do with it.
It took me 4 days to get a DUI after coming back from Iraq. I was hanging out with my bodyguard, the Squadron Sniper, and when we left the bar, a fight broke out, we won and he disappeared. I walked to a mutual friend’s house to try to find him. He wasn’t there. I walked to his room on post and he wasn’t there. Then I walked back to the friend’s house and upon seeing he wasn’t there, I decided to drive the path to town to see if he went there. I simply wanted to make sure this kid who is dangerous and on anti-psychotic medication which he hates taking didn’t go crazy. Then the goddamn Gestapo pulled me over.
I don’t know what will happen as far as punishment, but I know that it looks like the Army will keep me around just to get punished. This means I won’t be able to travel, take leave or take my terminal leave and be out of the Army soon. It looks like I won’t be able to spend Christmas anywhere except for my room again.
So now I walk everywhere.
I am living with my buddy. He is Mormon and has a wife and four small boys. His wife is assaulting me sexually. I feel like goddamn Jodi Foster in The Accused. Then she twists it all around and is kind of blackmailing me. I am sorry. I am using the present tense. I ought to have been using the past tense here as it is now over as she told her husband. So now I am homeless. He knows nothing was my fault. His wife told him the truth that she did everything despite me telling her numerous times I want nothing to do with it. He hates his wife. We run together most mornings. But I cannot sleep in his basement anymore.
In summation, I just kind of want to go home. I want to spend the holidays with my family and friends. I want to find a job. I want to leave. I want to download this Essential Bruce Springsteen CD from Itunes, except it is being modified.