i'm freaking out a little bit...

it's almost over. in a very short time (relatively speaking) we'll be back in the states. and i have no idea how to put any of this in words. to us, in the scope of our lives, what we just did was a big deal. pretty insignificant in the whole of the human experience i know, but it was over a year out of our lives. we came together as strangers, built some awesome teams, came over here, did our jobs and did them well. we had an impact on the country, on the army, and hopefully this will all be successful. but it's over. time to go home and let the new guys do the job. and it's weird to sit here in this quiet tent and just let it roll off of me. this is the first real time i've had to sit and do nothing without interruption, when i haven't been so exhausted that i passed out almost immediately. someone just put a pin to the balloon. it's not an anxiety attack but it's just a really weird euphoric/depressing/high/low and everything in between feeling.

when you're on active duty, your unit is the village that raises the child. if things work the way they're supposed to, you bond and you're one huge extended family. members rotate in and out but it's still there. we've had that now for the last year, and that's coming to an end as well. alot of these guys aren't from this unit. they were add-ons, like me. i'll have to go find a new home at the end of this. it's weird. i've seen this before. some close bonds will stay, but the unit kind of dissolves quickly upon return. strange not to have that permanance like on active duty.

the other thing that freaks you out a little bit? or me rather? almost half our crew left tonight. they're on their way home now. right before they left the first sergeant came up to me, dragged me aside and made me promise him that i wouldn't let anyone do anything stupid before we got home. that it'd break him if we lost someone this close to the end because of stupidity. we've already had one memorial service, we can't do another. everyone is tucked in for the night. but we'll just have to step the vigilance up a little tomorrow.

last night i was in the latrine and a mortar round hit and hit close. that was an interesting experience. it's happened before, so close that we've seen shell casing parts fly past our heads and looked at one another and said a quiet prayer of thanks... but last night was a little different. "oh hell the f**k no! i did NOT get through an entire year of this crap to buy it with only two days left in country!"

just my lovely efforts to keep ya'll informed...