The Real World

No matter where we go or for whatever purpose, we always have what we call “real world missions.” Ft Lewis is no exception. Today our unit assistor (the active duty guy who tells us where we need to go and what we need to do while we’re here) called to tell us that a buddy of his, who just got home from deployment needed to talk to someone. I ended up meeting this guy at the local Starbucks and talking for about 90 minutes. As it turns out, this guy is an active duty Scout Sniper who has done 4 combat tours since joining the Army, one to Afghanistan and three to Iraq. As is so often the case, his marriage is falling apart and he is having some significant anger control problems. In talking with him, I get the impression that his issues are expectable reactions to literally spending over 1000 days and nights on forward operating bases in two different combat theatres. How can we possibly say what is normal or abnormal in this situation. Can anyone even come close to understanding what that must be like? I know I’m struggling to understand. I’m glad I was able to help this guy and his friend and I plan to research options for him while I’m here. On the way back to the barracks, they told me about the Legacy Veterans motorcycle club and I think I will look into joining when I get home.