One of the activities that goes with the role of Military and Family Life Consultantant (M-Flac for short) is to be with soldiers who are being deployed  "down range". Today, for these soldiers, it's Afghanistan. We're being with them as they sit and stand and mill around waiting to get on the buses that will take them to the airport.

I did this for the first time a couple days ago.
What we do is  more or less roam among them. We're just making contact -  verbal, eye, and through the shake of a hand or a fist-bump, speaking with some, some just a head nod  to acknowledge,  "I can't say much really, but I'm seeing you." What I find myself saying is something like, "Where are you from (soldier, Sgt., Captain, etc.?)" Or, "What number deployment is this for you?" (Imagine that, that we're asking how many times they've been sent away to war! This is beyond the Vietnam experience for sure.), or, "What's your MOS?", and so on. Casual talk, normal talk which isn't really casual or normal even for the thrid-time, old-timer warriors (the oldest person I encounter is 49).

The experienc of being in suspended-feelings mode is palpable. Men and women sitting or standing next to their back packs, weapons hanging from shoulders or perhaps leaning up against a carry-on suitcase (or in one case resting atop a Victoria Secret bag with a pillow and an Teddy Bear stuffed inside), and so on. Some, knowing the drill, sit in collapsable chairs in the slim shade that the barracks cast in the late afternoon heat and humidity. Murmered conversations on the ever present cell-phone, now bringing the people at the other end into this place and moment in a way other soldiers in other times never could have. Young men and women intermingled with much older men and women. My kids among my friends.

This is my third rotation. This is my second. I was just about to retire and they got me. I'm 45. I'm 19. I'm going to drive amunition and weapons in convoys. I'm going be a grunt in the hills. I have no idea. I've been there before. My last rotation was Iraq. We're headed to Afghanistan. Can you mail this letter to my wife?

"Can you mail this letter to my wife, sir?"
"Yes, absolutely. I'll do it today. How is she doing with this rotation?"
"It's hard....." tears, unable to continue, quietly moving away to stand with buddies with his pain.
A father and grandfather.
Third rotation.
National guard from Phoenix, AZ.
A brother from home country.

A little while later I move to where he is.
"Give me your wife's phone number, I'll give her a call and let her know you're thinking of her, sending a letter."
"Would you?! That would be good. It's hard on her."
Big smile. Moist eyes.
I want to hug him and know it will be better not to right here/now.

Later, the call leads to a conversation about lonliness, duty, moving to Flagstaff.
A partner being brave, being worried: "So, he's off...."
Quiet pain.
"Do you have someone you can talk with?"
"You know, I've been wondering about that. I've been thinking I'd like that. I don't know how to find someone."
So, I give a number, we talk about her desire to leave Phoenix, how her husband wants her to wait until he returns, so they can move together from "the Valley" to Flagstaff together.
"Give me a call if you want, if you get up to Flagstaff this Fall," I say, going beyond what our protocol really allows. She's client, not a friend.
It just seems like the friendly thing to do.

My partner, shares/admits how she always feels like she wants to "mother" these people, to comfort and protect them. Moist eyes looking out over 166 lives waiting to get onto a bus to the rest of what may become for some, very short journeys. And they will get there together on one hand (we're with a National Guard Unit from Phoenix, AZ). On the other hand, it's a journey into the self. What's it all about, this life I'm living? A solitary journey.

My own experience in another time and another war allows me to feel a connection with this experience of theirs in a way that I can tell my partner doesn't and can't. In one way this is good, an instant bridge between me and them. In another, she can be present more clearly and allow it to be just their experience she's witnessing, acknowledging. I, on the other hand, realize that I'm using them to complete something of my own history. I'm seeing here in part myself. It's good that we are both here, a woman, a man witnessing, that we can bring our separate presences to this moment.

Looking back now, it is this that I see we are there to do. To witness their experience, their presence. And in doing this it is perhaps what one can really only ever give of value: I see that you exist and I am glad you do and to be here to let you know I know.

The words may be trite, sound so when we speak them. Yet, it is what we do anyway.  And, just the fact that we have come out to see them off, even though it's our "job", I can see gratitude in eyes and faces. It is spoken out loud too: "Thank you, sir, for coming out." And it's meant. It has meaning. It is, I realize, what I have come here to do. The pay off is bigger than any job description or pay. I feel seen too.

I have this idea that somehow it may be that human beings create extraordinary circumstances which go beyond the daily buzz of worries and problems in order to come into a space wherein one can only manage to handle this moment, this one right here right now. "Disasters" and "tragedies", storms and war have a way of "bringing us together". Remember 9/11, how good it was to be able to share our confusion, pain, anger, saddness. So, in this, there is a certain connection with life, with others, with ones self, with "meaning" that is generally lost in the buzz.

I have felt and I have heard other former soldiers express a certain "strange" desire to "go back", a longing to be in a place/time/experience that at the time was what one most wanted to escape. I don't think it is the circumstances. I don't think that it is making war or being in danger that is the desire or longing. I think it has to do with the simplicity of simply facing life at it's most fundamental level - that of doing what it takes to be/stay alive and to help others do the same. All the other complications which daily life is full of drop away and it gets really simple. Just do what's infront of me to do. Just be here now. Trust eachother and ones self. It's being present to all that really is, this moment.

So, the soldiers walk past us, feet shuffeling, audible sighs and grunts as packs are picked u, a feeling of relief in the air and on faces, and in words. "Finally." The wait part of "hurry up and wait, now for this moment, is over.

Passing by them, we hear, "Thank you, thanks for coming out, thanks." Hand shake, fist bump, eye contact, smile. You're welcome. Be safe.

You ARE welcome. Besafe. Be safe. Be all that you can be (laugh).

Busses leave. Empty space bewteen the barracks, efluvia of water bottles, wrappers, and here and there a pillow or blanket or some personal item forgotten or left behind because there just wasn't room in the pack and nowhere else to put it.

It's a moment in which I feel both sad and lonely and blessed and grateful. It is life and we have all just done the best we could with who we are. I feel human and I'm alive. That's it. That's all. It's enough.