Home and Back Again

SPC Bailey Bullock
166th Engineer Company
2nd Platoon

Let me start off by saying that I hope everyone has been good this last month. It has been awhile since my last entry, and I apologize, but I’ve been on the go since the end of July. In fact, I’ve been to the other side of the world and back, literally. I came home on R & R during the month of August. As I’m sure some of you have heard we had a group get stuck in Germany for 53 hours. I was a part of that group. That was an experience to say the least, but it was all worth it just to get home. Let me just say, I will never look at bratwurst the same way again.

I’m sure that some of you reading this are current or prior military that have been stationed away from home or been deployed, so you will understand what I’m about to say: God, are we blessed to be Americans. It is something one truly comes to appreciate when you leave your home for a place that is truly foreign in every way. And, I think that we as soldiers experience this appreciation in a different way. While we are gone, serving our country, we are still connected to it through our service. We are not in the U.S., but we are an extension of it. Our country is a part of what we do each day, but also a piece that is absent from our lives. So, when we come home, we feel like we are coming back to a part of ourselves that was missing. The best way to put it is that we truly feel like our country is a part of who we are, unlike any way we had before. I know I’m not alone in this. I saw the faces of my fellow soldiers as we got off the plane in Atlanta, most of whom had hours more to travel to get to their own homes; once we set foot on American soil, we were all home. And in that, there is a bond unlike anything I have ever known. Even though we were all headed in different directions, we were together; we were a unit; we had a connection and commitment that distance couldn’t diminish. It is something I will forever be thankful for.

Upon returning to Afghanistan, I returned on the downhill slope, having officially passed the halfway point of our deployment. We have started and completed many missions, each one successfully, with a few more to come, but for all intents and purposes, we have completed the bulk of our mission. And this realization is palpable. It’s like something in the air has changed. We know we are working our way home.

Through all this time and work, we have become a cohesive unit. I can see it in all the work that we do now. We are confident in our abilities; we approach each new project with the experience and attitude of veterans, knowing that we will be successful. We have worked together for a long time now and know what we can do. The only questions are: what will we need and how long will it take? All of you would be so proud to know how your loved ones are performing their duties. Every project that has been thrown at our unit has been completed successfully, usually better than previous units and in less time. It is our cohesion as a unit that has made this possible. Truly working as a unit is part of our success, and it is something that I have seen is not always common over here.

All of that being said, I’m sure you can gather that things are going well for us over here. We are doing what we came here to do, and doing a good job of it. We are soon to be starting the process of winding down, and making our way back to all of you. Again, and I know I speak for almost everyone on this, I thank you for all of the support you have given us during this deployment. It has made a difference, and we wouldn’t be successful without it.