I was never an Army brat. However, I did get to travel around the country in Army brat style as my Dad was moving up the income ladder. We never stayed anywhere all that long. Never long enough to set up deep roots.

It shouldn’t surprise you, then, to learn that I am something of an expert on living somewhere then leaving forever. One of the places was overseas, as I was part of Operation Iraqi Freedom in Iraq. I was a platoon leader, and there were days when it was just dull.

So we read. Just to pass the time we would read. Anything. The longer, the better.

The Lord of the Rings was perfect for us. Three books, about a billion words, and plenty of words that take a long time to spell. By the time I left the country, my copies were worn out from use.

Something struck me while I was there, in the text. There’s a passage in Fellowship of the Rings that, as I read it, made me somewhat sad — for no apparent reason. It said something like, “…and they left the forest, never to return.”

It took me a while, but I found the reason I thought it was sad was they were never going to come back. I have no idea why it affected me so much, in the way that it did — but it did. The sense of loss I felt was real. palpable. It was because, in that instant, I realized I was never going to not be in a war in Iraq.

I would never walk in America having not been overseas.

I would never be able to stand bright lights again.

I would never be able to feel a hot breeze without getting a panic attack.

I would not be able to walk the same way.

I would never not be able to describe cold, desert winters.

I would never be able to say I didn’t know what it was like to be shot at.

I would never again be a child with that newfound awe and wonder, living without the threat of death, or taxes, or icky girls. I came of age reading an Inkling. It was a brilliant book, written by a brilliant man, and I was shocked in the moment of realizing just how much so.

There’s a fatality to the books. Unlike anything I’d ever read before, you knew those character might not make it. You knew they might die in their quest. What they were doing was right, but they might not succeed. The allusions hit me like a load of bricks.

Now, years later and quite broken, I can think back on those days in Iraq, knowing I’ll never go back. Even a return deployment wouldn’t be the same (though my injuries kept me home). There was only the first time, and it will never happen again.

And that fills me with a bit of sadness. Maybe sorrow. There’s a fancy word for that feeling — like ‘bittersweet,’ or something. Remorse, possibly — without the guilt.

Regardless, I can identify with a book, written more than 30 years before my birth.

Mortality

While in Iraq, my driver somehow missed a Volkswagen–sized pothole and the bounce caused me to fly up in the seat and bend my neck. It bent so much that it is permanently messed up. That’s my ‘old war wound’.

But it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as knowing I’ll never be able to go there and back again.

status: published
lastmod: '2008-12-18T12:10:51.000Z'
excerpt: 'I can identify with a book, written more than 30 years before my birth.'
author: meadowhill login
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  section: articles
  custom_1: iraq us+army the+lord+of+the+rings regrets