A SOLDIER'S STORY
R & R
By
Franke Gracia
Imagine giving a kid a bowlful of his favorite ice cream. Imagine him enjoying only one huge wonderful spoonful before someone took it all away. Well, that’s what a soldier experiences when he goes on his 15 days of R&R leave allotted during a one-year overseas deployment. I know, because I just returned to Afghanistan after 15 wonderful days stateside.
I traveled from Afghanistan to Qatar, changed planes and flew to Kuwait, changed planes and flew to Ireland, where we refueled, changed our crew and flew all the way to Dallas.
I could scarcely believe I was back in the good ol’ U.S. of A. I didn’t know what to do or where to start. I didn’t know whether to sleep in for a change – or get up early and not miss a single second of my precious leave. (I mostly slept in). I took long, hot, steaming tub baths and didn’t have to worry about conserving water. I shaved, went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth – all in blissful privacy. I looked in the mirror and stared in fascination at the curious image dressed in civilian clothes. I could almost feel that phantom pistol attached to my hip – having it not there was unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
I went for a long slow drive and devoured all the beautiful scenery of my free country. I traveled in a vehicle without having to submit an operations order, conduct pre-combat checks or inspections, rehearse actions on contact, or test fire any weapons. I didn’t even have to scan my sector, call in my checkpoints or worry about snipers of IEDs. And my “radio check” was not with base operations, but rather which radio station I wanted to listen to. That was nice.
I ate at first-rate restaurants. I had real ice cubes in my drinks and ate with real metal utensils. Maybe not so big a deal for you, but for me, I was in high cotton. I ordered the most expensive item on the menu. I realized that after months of bland Army chow, my system couldn’t take either the portions or the richness of American food, so I had to cut back my portions so I didn’t get sick. I sat in restaurants and noticed that too many Americans have a problem that Afghans do not: obesity.
I sat there and wondered how many people were more concerned about high gas prices than soldiers dying overseas. I wondered how many of them even once a day gave a thought to soldiers in the Anbar or Ghazni province.
I paid $20 for only seven and a half gallons of gasoline, but I didn’t mind.
I went to a Dallas Cowboys football game and spent $10 even for a hot dog and a Coke, but I didn’t mind. I got all choked up when I listened to the national anthem at the beginning of the game. People around me probably wondered why, but I didn’t mind. When Dallas played badly, everybody around me was upset and disturbed, but I didn’t mind.
The gridlocked traffic getting out of Texas Stadium after the game had everybody frustrated and annoyed, but I didn’t mind. I just sat there in my vehicle with this big stupid grin on my face, because I was stuck in traffic in Dallas, Texas, and not stuck in traffic in Kabul, Afghanistan, where I always feel like a sitting duck.
It is the king of all understatements to say that it was hard getting back on that airplane that I knew would take me away from my country back to a war zone. Every one of us on that plane had the same look of sad resignation. There is a saying I heard once that I had filed away in the far recesses of my memory that I never dreamed I would fully appreciate – but now I do. It says: “For those who fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.”
I recently tasted that freedom for 15 days. It was wonderful. If the Good Lord wills it, in about 180 days, I will cross the Atlantic again, get off the plane, unashamedly kneel down and kiss the precious earth that is America, and taste again the cherished, priceless indescribable freedom of my country – this time, for a lot more than 15 days.
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Franke Gracia lives in Temple, Texas and was deployed in Afghanistan with the National Guard from May 2005 to April 2006. He is a math professor at Temple College and is very close to his family that includes two brothers and two sisters. He earned a bronze star while he was deployed, which he gave to his mother. As to why he decided to write this series of articles he says, "I hope folks who read my scribbling will gain a greater appreciation of what a citizen-soldier goes through during a deployment."