During these past seven years, my life has changed in such a way, that people tell me I am not the same person anymore. They say I am short tempered and very jumpy. At the least little noise, my shoulders seem to shrug, and a scared look comes over my face. During the night I seem to get up at all sort of hours walking the floors. I still don’t sleep in my beautiful bed that is not even a year old. I sleep on the couch, close to the front door. It has been four years since I been home from Afghanistan and still not much has changed for me. I deployed September of 2012, to Afghanistan. However, this my fourth deployment, but it seems like only yesterday. Thus, here are a few things that changed me during this deployment.
First, during this deployment, I had to go to Bagram, first of three stops. Bagram was surrounded with beautiful mountains. You would think, how could a place so beautiful be so painful and full of hate. While in Bagram, first night there we took on some incoming boobs. The boob shook the whole ground and took out one of our buildings. We were very lucky the building was empty. I was so scared my body would not stop shaking. I think I smoked a whole pack of cigs that night. However, the second week into this deployment, while posting security on an outer fence near our airstrip, I stood there and watch our jets and cargo planes take off. Thus, the fourth night standing the same post, I watched a cargo plane take off. The date was April 29, 2013, a date I will never forget. As the plane took off I noticed it seemed to be in trouble. The plane went straight up, and slowly was coming straight down. I screamed for my Chief, to hurry and come here. She ran outside and by that time there was a big explosion. I fell
Easley to the ground and felt the heat of the flames. I started to run out there on the field where it landed and my chief pulled me back. She said Easley, there is nothing you can do, the...