When I was a young man I thought I was ready to venture out into the world by the time I was 16 or 17 years old. At least in my mind. Looking back I of course realize that I wasn’t at all ready or mature enough to be out on my own at that age, but I seemed a lot smarter to myself back then than I actually was. Probably not an uncommon feeling among young men. None the less, I really couldn’t wait to get out and take on the world, so to speak. This probably played a part in my decision to join the Army when I was 20 years old as well, and I certainly got more than I bargained for.

Suffice it to say that the Army really didn’t provide me with a whole lot of freedom, but it definitely gave me that ‘being out on my own facing the world’ feeling that I had been looking for as a younger man. I was stationed in Fort Lewis, Washington so I was stuck in one of the farthest corners of the country. Being in the military and not on a deployment is kind of a different experience. When you are at work you have very little decision making authority, but when you’re off work your conscience is your only supervision. Fortunately, I’ve always had a strong conscience, and those that didn’t often found themselves in some kind of trouble. And when we were stationed in garrison (in the United States) you could periodically go home.

Home while deployed was kind of a funny concept in that you remembered it and thought about it, but it seemed the farthest place in the world away. It was the ultimate goal to get back there, but there were a lot of times where I didn’t think I would ever make it back. At least not alive anyways. I would send letters home once in a while, and I’d call occasionally to check and make sure it was still there, but for the most part I tried to put it out of my mind. It always seemed like the more I called home the farther away it seemed which made the obstacles that were right in front of me more difficult to deal with. I really couldn’t afford to be worrying about wanting to go home along with worrying about the daily struggles that we faced each and every day. It was certainly nice to call home once in a while, and I’ve come to realize at this point that my being deployed in the situation I was, was probably more difficult for my family than it was for me. But calling home was more difficult for me even though I knew the importance of it for my family’s sake. Though some of my favorite calls were to my grandparents, when my grandma would give me news updates and my grandpa who I can’t imagine has used a phone since the 1980’s could be heard in the background yelling, “Give em hell Derek”, or some form of that. The worst call was to my mom after being discharged from the hospital after being wounded. And sometimes you just had to call home after a tough stretch just to know it was still there waiting.

I guess after going through a period of time like that you come to appreciate the people and places from where you came. I sometimes avoided calling because it reminded me of what I currently couldn’t have, but after it was all said and done I definitely left with a stronger appreciation of home.