Intensely shared memories

March 01, 2005

The chow hall rolled away today.

The last time I saw it, it was hooked to a 5-ton truck.

Tomorrow, I will follow in its tracks and leave Gunslinger for the last time.

You may be wondering how a chow hall can roll away. Well, Gunslinger always remained a bit primitive. The chow hall was mobile, an army trailer that unfolded into a kitchen.

The motor pool is now empty except for a handful of trucks. And soon those will be gone, driven by 1st Battalion, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, which is taking over for 3rd Battalion.

The battalion will move back to Arkansas with little more than a rifle and two duffel bags for each soldier.

We’ll be living out of those duffel bags for a while, just as we did on the way to Baghdad from Fort Polk, La.

I’m sure that will add to the communal-living rage that I can almost guarantee will fester at surge housing. It’s hard to be transient.

But that’s what we’ve become.

I was in Adhamiya for the last time today. That district is a place where I have been scared for my life more times than I can count. I’ve seen death on those streets at the hands of U.S. soldiers; I’ve seen soldiers injured there and even shed a little of my own blood there.

As I watched the district zip by outside the bullet-proof shell of a humvee, I found myself oddly sentimental.

A select few of us shared some of the most intense moments of our lives here. That will always be with us.

Gunslinger is filled with so many memories of laughter and practical jokes, I wonder if my brain will remember them all. I thought of that as I walked over a divot in the concrete that I pass over every day that was left by an exploding mortar round a couple of months ago.

What an odd combination of memories.

You’ll only find a couple dozen people in this brigade who aren’t ready for those memories to end, however.

As the brigade begins to move homeward, leaving the safe havens they’ve created here at Gunslinger and Taji, it’s pretty easy to embrace those memories.

Guys share those memories with each other every day, as if to solidify them in their minds. Most of the stories end with the phrase, “Well, it’s funny now, but I wasn’t laughing then.”

As I look around, I realize memories have little time left to be made here.

Things are changing. People are leaving.

It’s time to go home.

The replacements are here. They’re fired up and excited. The 39th is tired and ready to go.

We just have to survive surge housing first.

Posted by Amy at March 1, 2005 06:12 PM