Silent Lucidity

I'm in the middle of week seven of an eight week treatment program, and while the progress I've made over the past few weeks in particular is tremendous, my brain continues to focus on my personal failures rather than my many successes. I guess the difference now is that I recognize this character flaw as it's happening, and my negative way of thinking is evolving. Slowly, sure, but evolving.

Every day here, I've walked into a classroom that feels like a minefield, and I've constantly feared the one misstep that would detonate the first in a series of daisy-chained bombs. Moreover, I was a thousand percent confident that my body wouldn't be able to withstand the blast. Except, well, those "bombs" are actually real-life events, and they're daisy-chained because the impact of one event radically distorted my response to the next similar event, which would unfold at some future unknown period time. I lived my life in fear of how my "body" might respond to the next traumatic impact, conveniently disregarding the fact that most impacts would be emotional (not physical) and that I actually had the power and ability to control my own reactions.

The greatest opportunity the Air Force has provided me is the chance to lead people in all kinds of situations. Once I discovered my fondness for leadership, I looked for other opportunities to lead. I found the perfect opportunity when in 2006 the local high school sent a base-wide email asking for a volunteer cross country coach. I'd been a runner for more than a dozen years, I love teaching, and I genuinely enjoyed sharing my passion for running with others. The head coach of the program was the most popular teacher in school, Mr. Turner, and though he had significant experience coaching basketball, he knew little to nothing about running. My experience and his personality were the perfect fit, and for an entire season, we watched a group of non-athletes develop into inspirational young runners.

In September of 2007, I returned to the high school to coach again with Mr. Turner. I'd spent the previous nine months studying coaching techniques, developing training plans to help our talented runners meet their potential, and testing ways to inspire our runners to become lifelong athletes. Mr. Turner had returned to school that year determined to change his own life, and asked me to also coach him into better physical condition. I was thrilled.

During our first practice of the season, Mr. Turner headed out on a run with the team for the very first time. He died of a heart attack about one mile into a three mile run. Two of our youngest runners heard him gasp "Oh God," grab his heart, and watched as he collapsed to the ground. He fell directly outside the school's perimeter fence, which was locked for security and angled with barbed wire at the top to prevent intruders. The only problem was that this time, the so-called intruders were the people running on the school's track who watched Mr. Turner fall and were unable to help him because of the fence, instead watching in aggravated horror.

We arrived at the track following our run, and I collected the kids in our gazebo, telling them that I didn't know what happened to Mr. Turner, but that as soon as I knew, I would tell them. By now, the school's administration was buzzing with activity, chasing the 150 or so students (football players, cheerleaders, runners) into the cafeteria because they couldn't figure out a way to shield them from the sight of their favorite teacher laying on the pavement 400 meters away. Mr. Turner, an American, had collapsed in downtown Germany, outside of the base, and it took the American and German authorities almost four hours to determine jurisdictional authority. In the meantime, Mr. Turner rested peacefully on the sidewalk, covered in a black sheet, his wife kneeling by his side.

The school principal walked into the cafeteria, nonchalantly declared "Mr. Turner is dead" into the microphone, and started to walk away. The cafeteria erupted into absolute chaos. My runners were in complete shock, as were each one of the students in that room. And every adult in the room.

I watched, in baffled silence, and took it all in. "This is my fault," I kept telling myself. "All last season, I teased Mr. Turner for not running with the team. And on his first day of running with us, he dropped dead."

The kids were all picked up by their families. I sat on the track in complete silence, tears streaming down my face, and watched for three hours, apologizing to Mr. Turner as his body remained in the exact position as it had been when he fell. By maybe 8:30pm his body was taken away, and I no longer felt obligated to stand watch. I walked to my car, hopeless and shaking while the clouds opened up and delivered a tremendous rainstorm. I got into the car and thought about the 45 minute drive home. I couldn't do it. So I called the Chaplain and begged for them to send someone to the chapel on this base to help me.

I never really talked about how I felt about what happened that day to anyone until this week. At the time, it was obvious to me that the kids needed a coach and leader, and I was proud to have such an incredible opportunity to help them transform adversity into strength. That season, I watched my runners, who named themselves Turner's Burners in honor of their fallen coach, take on the world. The girls were recognized as the fastest team in Europe. One of our boys finished in the top five fastest in Europe despite being weighed down by the flu on the day of the biggest race of his high school career. How could I possibly need help when the kids I was coaching were so talented and strong?

Turner's Burners were then and are now truly inspiring, and so many of them and their parents still touch base with me four years later. I've been thinking about them in particular this week as I've watched one of the senior girls from that season graduate from college, another senior boy (and his wife) have their first baby, two of the younger runners join the Air Force and Navy respectively, and my lone eighth grader from that year apply to and be accepted into college.

That ten week season was, until Afghanistan, both the most challenging and the most rewarding professional experience in my career...and it had nothing to do with the Air Force except a majority of my runners have Air Force parents. It leveraged everything I love about the Air Force into a series of some my very favorite memories.

And now I look back four years later, amazed at the strength those incredible kids demonstrated during such a challenging time, and draw from their strength as I continue reassemble my own life into some version of manageable. Each day of these eight weeks feels like a Saturday morning cross country race...I know I've trained properly, I know that my body is prepared for the task, but when the horn sounds the beginning of the race, my brain seems to respond in a shock-filled paralysis instead of with a graceful stride.

At the end of each race, regardless of my performance, I imagine my teammates commending me for making a solid effort, which then inspires me to train harder...which is exactly what I watched the kids do for each other instinctively that season. And at the end of the season, I hope that I, like Turner's Burners in 2007, will have the personal courage to set and achieve magnificent personal goals in the face of daunting adversity.

Every Girl Like Me

My life is colored by so many of the incredible people and experiences I've encountered in my 32 years of globetrotting adventures. But sometimes, and yes I am admitting this, I have a knack for looking all over the world for inspiration when in fact the most mesmerizing events are unfolding right under my nose. And such has certainly been the case as three unbelievably strong women have made brief (yet dramatic) appearances in my life over the past few weeks. My therapist likes to tell me that we have friends for a reason, a season or a lifetime. Below are the stories of three women who walked into my life for a reason...and whose stories will always be a reminder of inner strength and resiliency.

1. Jenny. She was a nursing school student in Iowa in 2004 when her young husband, an Army Specialist, was hit in Iraq. And by hit, I mean his body was torn apart in his unarmored HMMWV, burning 80% of his skin and changing every minute of the future they had imagined together. Unphased, she visited him at the Brooks Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas every month for two years using frequent flier miles donated by community members from her hometown. Jenny stood by his side as other wives, overwhelmed by grief, left their battle-scarred husbands to fend for themselves in the maze of an underprepared military medicine beaurocracy. She shared her story as we overlooked a beautifully green golf course in Germany, the trees swaying in the gentle March breeze, and the sun bouncing off of her Ray-Ban rockstar sunglasses. Jenny glowed as she told me about her husband, bragging that he still "spoils me rotten" more than eight years later, and just that morning he'd woken up early to make her coffee. He left her a travel mug with a quick note wishing her a great weekend, which she was spending out of town on a work project. She's stunningly beautiful in a way that exudes confidence and inner peace. I had to coerce the story out of her...she just didn't think it was a big deal that she'd stood by the man she loved through his traumatic journey from the battlefields of Iraq, through the medical system, and then back into life as an Army transition expert still on active duty today. "I can't believe how lucky I am," she told me, with her genuine smile. "I appreciate him more now than I ever did before. He might look different now to other people, but to me, he's just as attractive as he ever was." I sat there, across the wooden picnic table from her, staring at my lunch and trying to put my own life into a perspective even one bit as healthy as the one that seemed to come so naturally to Jenny.

2. Charlotte. On our second week in the program, we participated in a retreat called Project Odyssey, a tribute to Homer's epic play in which Odysseus takes ten years to return to Ithaca after fighting in the Trojan War (and no, the irony of the city name is not lost on me). The retreat is sponsored by an organization called the Wounded Warrior Project, arguably the best kept secret for war veterans of the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Charlotte, a social worker based in Florida, organized our retreat (which is sponsored entirely by public donations to the Wounded Warrior Project) with the primary intent of exposing us to healthy, new, adrenaline inducing activities at a lake not far from Landstuhl. We spent three days and two nights learning to golf, climb, scuba dive, shoot a bow and arrow and fly fish in classes all taught by local veterans, and she watched me like a hawk as I resisted every new activity. The thought of putting a mask on my face, jumping into the water and breathing through a tank was absolutely overwhelming...until, well, I stopped thinking about the worst thing that could possibly happen ("only fish breathe under water," I repeated over and over to myself) and just jumped in. As it turned out, scuba diving at the bottom of a dirty pool in Germany wasn't so bad after all (though next time I'd prefer to see colorful fish instead of human hairballs), and I had a knack for fly fishing, which I found to be both unexpectedly relaxing and incredibly thrilling at once. Charlotte and I didn't really talk much during the weekend...she just observed from the sidelines...but at the end of the weekend, she came up to me, looked directly at me and said "I'm so proud of you. You can do this, girl!" And in that moment, and after those excruciating first two weeks of treatment, she gave me the push I needed to buckle down and get serious.

3. Emily. Until the past year or so, I'd never found a way to incorporate yoga into my life. I'd tried a bunch of classes (and DVDs and Podcasts and everything else under the sun), but nothing had really stuck. When Jane and her best friend were in Europe over Christmas about 18 months ago, they dragged me, terrified, into a Bikram Yoga studio in Berlin where we practiced 26 poses in 105 degree heat for 90 minutes. Now we're talking! When I start to feel things spiraling into chaos, I drive the 90 or so minutes to Frankfurt and sweat myself silly, feel cleansed, and walk away beaming. I just figured that once I knew Bikram, nothing else would do. Then I met Emily...and she introduced me to Power Yoga. Like me, she's an Air Force veteran, and was a young cop when she was raped by a fellow Airman in her squadron. It was our final day of the retreat and she sat on her yoga mat in front of a room of 30 or so perfect strangers and told her story. She hadn't reported the rape at the time, and for 12 years the haunting memory of that day drove her every life decision. It was yoga that in her words "brought me back to life" so many years later. Connecting the mind, body and breath gave her control over 60 or so minutes of her life at a time, and as I sat there, I thought to myself "that's her equivalent of learning to breathe underwater," a skill I'd acquired just one day prior. I watched, transfixed, as she continued to talk, and eventually her words bled into my own internal monologue. I knew in that moment why I'd been "stuck" for so long, and for the first time I recognized that my journey back to being myself needed to start with a public admission of my own experience, and the impact I've allowed one bad night to have on every minute of my subsequent life in (and out of) the Air Force.

I never imagined myself in an eight-week mental health program...it just didn't make sense. But tucked under the public shroud of self confidence and determination were some very painful and emotionally charged memories acting like a demagnitized compass and driving my every day into total unrest. So here I am, finding calm from the storm, and preparing at the same time to navigate my way safely through the changing weather when I leave the program in a few short weeks.

There's a Better Life for Me and You

It's been a tricky past few days, which is to say I've invested a huge amount of emotional energy trying to render my black and white perception of reality into a full color tour de force. And in classic fashion, it only made sense to me that such an undertaking would consume no longer than one weekend, or perhaps three weeks of my life at the absolute most. It's now been three weeks and one day and I'm nowhere close to done...in fact, it feels like I've hardly started. Luckily I'm here five more weeks (and unluckily patience is my weakest virtue).

Deciphering the monochrome is daunting because the shapes are perplexingly intertwined, making my task of injecting a bit of color into particular sections feel much like a game of Jenga. Under routine circumstances, it may be possible to inspect each individual block, determine the structural significance and act accordingly. But under the current conditions (and given the perceived time constraints), my game of Jenga has been repositioned from the stable dining room table to the San Andreas Fault, the 54 wooden blocks infested with termites, and the object of the game is now to remove the most critical rotting pieces before time runs out. Along the way, I need to start some type of extermination regimen, prevent future decay by laquering the newly freed blocks with a brightly colored waterproof paint, and gingerly re-insert them into the tower.

The purpose of group therapy is to play this impractical game as a member of a team. As I look at the tower and start to consider which block to pull next, there are ideally five other players ready to help me see the three blind sides of the tower. But lately, I think I'm all alone (by choice or by chance), and the more isolated I let myself feel, the more willing I am to start tugging on one of the weight-bearing blocks just to see who (if anyone) will stop me, hardly considering the traumatic impact of such a choice.

I pulled one of those critical pieces out last Thursday, and told a story to five near-strangers that before that day was known to less than five people in the world, if I include the Air Force Colonel who taught me early in my career that such things would be normal (and therefore acceptable). What I didn't consider was my audience...at least my in-person audience...that morning. I had dropped a grenade, pulled the pin, and ducked for cover. It took about five hours before detonation, and by the time it hit that afternoon, I was extracting shrapnel from unmentionable places...a process I continued throughout the weekend.

The decisions leading to my personal disclosure last week were a profound lesson on why my journey through Landstuhl, triggered by post-traumatic stress, applies in every aspect of my life. It's taken me 32 years to sketch this picture, and I've relied primarily on a thick-lined black Sharpie. I now see how perhaps drafting first in pencil may have been more, well, practical, and how shading would have also been appropriate.

Last week, I trusted five people with one of my most haunting memories, which could have been okay, except I'd distanced myself from said audience since the day I arrived here. I came into the program with the flawed notion that our group table is a community landfill, where organic and non-organic trash would decompose at the same rate. It's not that I tossed in a plastic bottle and everyone else has been dumping banana peels. The flawed quantum leap I made was thinking the mere act of sitting six people in a room automatically builds a community under these circumstances, knowing full well (through hard-earned experience) that such is not the case in the real, non-treatment world.

Somehow, and I'm still not sure how, I decided that I deserved access to the landfill without paying the requisite taxes. And that, right there, is the perfect metaphor to explain the combustion of so many things in my own little reality since my return from Afghanistan.

I came to Landstuhl three weeks ago, proud of myself for claiming eight weeks of "me" time. In truth, what I'd signed up for is an eight week exercise in laying the foundation then framing my dream house...and helping five other people do the same. I assumed, and wrongfully so, that I could contract out the difficult parts, watching from the sidelines as the "experts" did all of the heavy lifting. What I know now is the very thing that makes my new house so special is the investment of blood, sweat and tears. Not only my own, but also those shared by five fellow warriors who have also been to hell and back, each in his own way, and each returning with his unique perspective.

It's taken three weeks to see the three blind sides of the Jenga tower. Just now I'm starting to see similarities between the blocks erroding in my tower and those in the towers of the guys on my left and on my right. So maybe...no definitely...the best way for us to start to transform these termite-infested time-bombs into liveable homes is to take it one small step at a time.

Somebody that I used to know

I've never been in a position to analyze every aspect of my life for eight hours a day, five days a week for eight weeks in a row. And now, after 10 years of complaining how I gave my soul to the Air Force and got very little in return, I must admit that the support I've received from across the Air Force (including, for the first time in my career, from my chain of command) has been overwhelming in a positive way.

Picture standing in an enclosed room and kicking a hornet's nest while wearing the sweetest perfume imagineable. There's nowhere to hide from the angry critters newly (and unexpectedly) unleashed from their comfortable nest. At first, there's a sense of shock..."oh my God what have I done," followed by "this is gonna hurt," and then finally a realization (at least in my case) that "I kicked that nest on purpose, so this is clearly happening for a reason."

Those hornets are memories (some quite traumatic), spanning some 30-odd years, 16 household moves on three continents, and a tour in Afghanistan. When I say it that way, it's daunting to think that I survived this long without a mental break. I did, and that's good. But a little more than two weeks ago, I recognized that the level of help I needed return to the world as a productive member of society was well beyond what one hour of therapy one day a week could provide.

My therapy assignment for this week is much more challenging than anything I've tackled before, and is possible only because of the incredible treatment I've received since arriving at Landstuhl's Evolution Program...write a letter to someone you lost. And the person I've lost who I've missed the most for the past 13 or so years is...myself.

Dear Lisa,

It's been too long since we made time to talk, and I've missed the joy and passion you shared with everyone around you for so many years. Sometimes I think you forget what an incredible person you were before you headed to college, and I think it's time to remind you of the you I remember so fondly.

You were always an athlete, playing softball, basketball, gymnastics, swimming, riding your bike, and leading other neighborhood kids in outdoor games. Remember the schoolhouse you built for Maria in our basement, where you patiently taught your little sister everything you knew, sitting her at the desk, and drawing lessons on the chalkboard? I knew then that you'd pick a career where you felt like you could make a difference...and you have.

I know that growing up in a Navy family was hard, and I'm sure that if we all had it to do over again, we'd make more time to spend together as a family admidst Dad going out to sea for six months at a time and Mom managing the house as the Navy moved us from place to place.

What I admire about you is ever since you were a teenager, you've always kept a tight-knit circle of friends by your side, and many of them remain your closest friends today...a true testament to your ability to reach out and connect with others.

But it's in high school, particularly your junior and senior years, when you blossomed and were the happiest I've seen you. Pieces of your art and photography hung in museums in Washington DC and you were recognized for your exceptional talent by teachers and later college admissions officers who lured you to their universities by offering you scholarships to study at their institutions. Teachers praised your writing skills, and you took great pride in everything you created. That same year, Loren challenged you to run on the high school's distance track team. You'd never run further than down the street, and by the end of the season, you were running 7 and 8 miles a day. You left for college glowing and confident...determined to face whatever the world had to offer.

And just as clearly as I can recall those great joys, I also remember exactly when we lost touch. It was your second year in college. There was no way to predict that your first serious romantic relationship, and one with a fellow Air Force ROTC cadet, would end in a date rape in your dorm room early that spring. Though your military leadership said over and over that it was your fault, and I think you recognize now, 13 years later, that nothing you ever said, did or wore made you deserving of such a crime.

As you entered active duty, I watched as you found solace in helping the Air Force establish their Sexual Assault Prevention program, meeting with more than 2,000 military women, hearing their stories, and filling a void by building a support community where there was previously nothing. But then I watched as you gave up on the things that brought you the greatest joy...art, photography, writing, sports...instead, drowning yourself in work you found unfulfilling, in relationships with no future potential, and in your personal quest to be "the best" at everything you attempted at all cost. You ran, just as you did in high school, this time not for enjoyment, but rather as a way to escape the pain and remind yourself of happier times.

For some reason, and maybe I'll never understand exactly why, Afghanistan brought back the you I'd missed for so long...the one who finds joy in little things jumping on trampolines, who isn't afraid to say what she means, and who makes choices that lead to personal happiness, instead of basing so many decisions on what others may think and feel.

You know who you are, and you've known that person for as long as anyone who loves you can remember...but now the challenge is to embrace that true, gleeful, intelligent and passionate version of yourself. Don't lose sight of your ultimate goal...to live a happy and fulfilling life. One with no regrets being surrounded by people who love and appreciate you for who you are and not who they wish you could be.

Watching you come back to life is like discovering the volume switch on the radio. A beautiful song has been playing quietly for years and years, and just recently did the crescendo begin. Use these next five weeks, then five months, then five years...and then a lifetime...living in the way that keeps you the happiest, making choices that keep you happy, and dreaming of all the great things to come.

It's a tough world out there, but you've taken the first step. You see what you've been missing. Now just get out there and do what you do best...make it happen.

I'll be watching. And cheering.

-- me

You Can Ring My Bell

Post traumatic stress for me has looked and felt a whole lot more like post deployment paralysis. The only way to describe it is to imagine a dunk tank at a carnival...the one where people pay a few dollars to throw a series of round softball-like objects at a target, and a successful hit lands someone into a tank of dirty water right after a distinct gasp and splash. Every day I'm balancing on the edge of a triggered seat, swaddled like a mummy but in a dark, soft blanket. Below me is an aquarium as large as an Olympic swimming pool with clear glass walls, populated by a few schools of friendly fish and a small group of sharks.

As I balance on my wobbly perch, an endless line of people slowly walk past, each lobbing a round object at a tiny little bullseye a few feet away from me. Some of the objects are small enough that I feel the seat slightly quiver when they hit the target, and though I hold my breath anticipating the worst, I don't fall. Some objects make a whistling sound as they approach the target. I have no idea how many hit equals a dunk into the pool, so before each pitch I inhale and every muscle in my body contracts, bracing for impact.

Plunging into the water should be a relief, but I'm swaddled. Above water the swaddle was perfect...I felt safe and warm. But under water, my arms and legs are tangled and I think my only hope for survival is for a vicious shark to gently nip at the cloth, releasing me to swim to safety.

The spash of my body smacking into the water causes everyone in line, hundreds of people, to congregate around the tank, each one yelling what they think is helpful advice, but their voices all blend together through the glass and water, and I hear the words only as a roar of chaotic noise.

Post traumatic stress disorder is a body's normal response to an abnormal sequence of events. My brain has learned to associate what were formerly normal objects and circumstances with my most vivid emotional memory of those objects and circumstances. A ringing cell phone puts me right back on the main road leading to our base in Afghanistan. We watched someone throw a cell phone out of a car window about 100 meters in front of us, and heard a dull thud as it failed to set off what we assumed was the intended IED underneath our vehicle. The metallic clank of doxens of pieces of newly cleaned silverware being dried and sorted in a restaurant brings me right back to the Afghan dining facility where I pulled my weapon, later second and third guessing myself into hysterics wondering if I had responded in the "right"way.

The most interesting analogy I've heard is that PTSD responses are much like the responses conditioned into Pavlov's infamous dogs. The dogs learned to associate a ringing bell with food. Suddenly, the ringing bell no longer meant food, and at first their mouths, still thinking "bell equals food," salivated in eager anticipation. And only over time did they unlearn that association, now recognizing that a ringing bell is indeed just a bell.

It's been more than three months since I returned from Afghanistan, and the ringing bell still indicates food to me. The first few weeks, I hid from the bell, asleep in bed, hardly ever leaving the house. Then I tried to avoid the bell as Melissa and I travelled a few thousand miles across two continents. First, I tried to hide in my office, drowning the noise in work. When that failed, Rob tried to protect me from the ringing bell for the past few weeks as we flew from Germany to New York to San Francisco and back again. But at the end of each day, the ringing bell still made me salivate, thinking food was just a few seconds away.

The stand-off ended three days ago, when I entered an intensive PTSD program at the military hospital about 20 minutes from home. I came here voluntarily, and through the encouragement of those closest to me both professionally and personally. So for the next eight weeks, I hope to find some peace through methods I would have never associated with military counseling...art therapy, yoga, and classes on brain function, spirituality, relationships, addiction, and on and on, plus more (and higher quality) individual talk therapy than I would have received under any other set of circumstances.

Eight weeks will likely not be enough to make the bell stop ringing completely, but since my full time right now is to heal, I am determined to turn down the volume. Or at least to begin to regain control of who and what can ring my bell. 

The Calculus of Coming Home

This week's homework assignment for my therapist was deceivingly simple...answer the question "Why me?" with an answer more insightful than "Why not?"

I've said it before and I could say it a hundred more times. When I was 19, I volunteered to serve my country, not really understanding what I had gotten into. Seeing the military in it's most pure form (at war) made me feel like an upside down snowglobe, waiting for the fog of plastic snowflakes to settle to reveal some magnificent landscape. Reality is a total white-out right now, and I feel like someone spun me like a top and now I'm stumbling to walk in a straight line to the exit door.

Why me? Because it took drastic measures...the three days of notice, the 9 weeks of pre-deployment training, the adrenaline of being in a warzone for 6 months, the amazing people I met along the way, and the shock of reintegration into reality...for my stubborn brain to finally face some harsh realities. Realities that have been hiding for years under the treads of my Nikes, at the end of 16 digits imprinted on a piece of plastic, or at the bottom of a tall Starbuck's latte. This is happening because until last April, I maintained absolute control over nearly every detail of my life. Then suddenly I didn't...and instead of that making me furious (my own anticipated outcome), my loss of control was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. And that made assimilating myself right into my former life not only painful but downright impossible.

It's no secret to those who know me best that I have this underlying urge to be a people-pleaser, all the while scorning such behavior in others. I guess my own act was so convincing that over the years I managed to fool myself into thinking it was genuine. Or something. I needed to be everyone's "person," their best friend and confidante. In my Air Force life, I am guilty of some covert political wrangling, carefully aligning myself with the "right people" at the "right times" without appearing (to myself) to be manipulative. It's a dirty game we all seem to play in this warped game of reality that is life as a military officer.

But at the end of the day, advice from a near stranger after four weeks at Fort Polk still makes the most sense, and has unlocked my answer to the question of "why me?" Before I met this Army officer, no one was ever brave enough to tell me that I was trying too hard, but I'm sure they noticed. Maybe it was just glaringly obvious right then, an experienced Army infrantryman watching an outsider struggling to assimilate into his world in a few short weeks. That was far beyond anything resembling my comfort zone. So I overcompensated. And he called me on it during a four hour conversation which began around midnight.

"Lisa, you have got to stop trying to prove yourself and just be yourself," he'd said to me in an exasperated voice I would only tolerate from a bonafide badass, cigarette in one hand, beer in the other, sitting on the corner of the dirt road that led to our laundry trailer. It was probably three in the morning and his words buzzed around me like mosquitoes, lingering in the humidity, their wings quivering in the otherwise noiseless night.

In my mind I was tough as nails, but in reality I was uncomfortable in my own skin, a paradox that was not lost on me in the least as I sat in my Afghan connex some six months later, where for the first time in my adult life I gave myself permission to get lost in my own head. For ten years I had been successful in the Air Force  in spite of myself, somehow convinced that the only way to stand out was if I was willing to work harder than anyone else...and I was. Every day it felt like I, the English major, was trying to solve the quadratic equation with no idea of the values of a, b or c, where x equaled happiness and, well, the calculus of life just became too overwhelming...so instead I deferred to basic math. Five miles (by foot) plus eight ounces (by mug) plus 20 milligrams (by pill) equaled a version of happy that would just have to suffice at the moment.

Why me? Because Afghanistan was somehow the math professor who spoke English instead of Russian. The equations were no longer written in the Cyrillic alphabet. And the values of a, b, and c seemed like things I would possibly understand if I could just have a little more time to study. And if I made a conscious decision to apprentice under Issac Newton or John von Neumann instead of studying with a Teacher's Assistant.

So why me? Because why not? I'm ready. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I've lived the most honest version of my own life, but in my mind, that was only possible in Afghanistan and isn't yet attainable in reality. I can also say that in my eyes, anything that gets me just one step closer to understanding the quadratic equation for happiness is worth every bit of the struggle. And solving for x is a journey I'm ready to take.

To Support and Defend

There are a lot of new people in my life lately. It's certainly no secret that for years and years I've used my closest friends as sounding boards, but lately it's been glaringly obvious that professional sounding boards are much better equipped to help me sort through the rainbow of emotions that followed me home from Afghanistan.

Over the past month, I've averaged roughly 90 minutes of professional counseling a week, derived from various sources. Before Afghanistan, the social and career stigmas of therapy were unwanted blemishes on the perfect (though rather disingenuous) life I was living. I'm an excellent talker. I'd also like to think of myself as an excellent writer. But as it turns out, writing about my personal struggles (at the command of my therapist) has been overwhelming.

For a week I've been staring at my "homework," a white 3 x 5 index card on which my assignment was painstakingly scribbled, not by me, but by the person to whom I have to answer tomorrow afternoon. I've carried my assignment in my pocket everywhere I've gone, and though it's now tattered, it's no less daunting.

"I have a homework assignment for you," he said at the end of my last session. "Write about the most traumatic event, and note how the event impacted on your views of yourself, other people and the world. Talk about why you think this event happened to you, and how the event has changed your views about yourself, other people and the world."

Yeah, that's easy. Just sift through nine months of memories, each mildly traumatic in a unique way, some positive...some negative, and pick the most significant one. And I'm back to old habits. My "homework" is due tomorrow at 11am, and it's taken me until now to piece together my thoughts...the pressure of a deadline never fails.

And what it came down to is that it's one thing to prepare for war, shooting rubber bullets and paintballs, and pretending the various pests (both human and otherwise) in Louisiana were the enemy. But for me, nothing stirred more authentic trepidation than knowing I was flying into a country where the enemy could be anyone, anywhere, anytime.

I boarded the United States Air Force aircraft headed into Afghanistan with 15 guys who had spent an extraordinary amount of time over the past 60 training days teaching me everything they knew. I admit to nerd-like qualities, which were immeasurably beneficial as I basically sought to become fluent in my personal equivalent of Swahili in 9 weeks. I felt safe on that airplane...flanked on either side by my favorites of the young mentors.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have entered the combat zone," declared the Loadmaster, who was all of maybe 22. And then, it was real. Just eight months earlier my father put his United States Navy uniform back on and swore me back in as a Major in the U. S. Air Force, and in my oath I had sworn to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." I'd taken that same oath each time I was promoted, but somehow those words seemed hollow for a personnel officer, sitting in a comfortable, safe office, away from any real danger, living an Air Force life governed by email, Power Point slides and staff meetings, where my job was to "support and defend" the Almighty Dell.

I entered the combat zone on the 2nd of July, and even now on my toughest nights, that Loadmaster's declaration of danger still reverberates in my ears. And as I sat in my tiny little airplane seat that afternoon, I had no idea of the true meaning of "support and defend." I know now, and returning to that same Dell-driven monotony I left behind months ago has proven a significant undertaking.

Exiting the combat zone was anti-climatic by comparison, and it lacked the closure I now think may have been helpful in returning to my former life. This time I was alone, hidden among a large Air National Guard unit redeploying to somewhere in the central United States, holding in my lap the same black bookbag with the same pink and white polka dotted ribbon tied on top I'd clutched some 160 days earlier, heart racing, ears ringing. This time there was no Loadmaster declaring that we had "exited the combat zone." We landed. It was cold and snowy. I was exhausted. We dragged our bags full of combat gear in circles like an army of ants. We slept. We woke up again, dragged more bags in circles, returned our protective equipment to the United States Army, and then waited. And waited. And waited.

Before I was sent to Afghanistan, I couldn't fathom "real" danger. The best way to describe wartime danger is to imagine a wooden rollercoaster at an old amusement park, and listening to the soothing sound of the gears grinding as the car slowly chugs up the hill. That's the training. And then there's a moment of utter silence. The arrival. Your stomach muscles tighten. You draw a quick inhale, and your stomach drops as you're physically shaken all the way down the hill. Except there aren't restraints. And the hill never ends. And it feels like you're secured with dental floss, wrapped around your lap a thousand times, and every so often another strand snaps free and you feel one step closer to flying uncontrollably out of the car.

That's what it feels like to be outside-the-wire, to "support and defend," and to know that the only way to arrive safely the bottom of the hill is through patience, vigilance and a whole lot of Groundhog Days.

And getting off that outside-the-wire rollercoaster feels a lot like walking on flat ground after spending an afternoon on rollerskates. Every step feels awkward at first, but then a brain that has walked on flat ground for 32-odd years remembers the sensation of picking up one foot after the other and moving forward. That mind is willing to talk about every single step, and about why establishing closure to those memories is so important.

That's why I went to war. I had always sworn to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." Ten months ago, I had no idea what that meant to me. I know now.

It changed me. I've braver now, and my confidence feels earned. I'm brave enough to write my own advice for myself, and not to worry about what anyone else might think.

Be yourself...the rest will work itself out. Through patience, vigilance and a whole lot of Groundhog Days.