Why it takes a lot to shake me story of the day

I ran into a girl I know the other night. The first time was at a bar and the second time was at the bagel shop. As she was leaving the bagel shop, I offered to walk her back to her car at a restaurant a few blocks away. For reasons that aren't that clear to me at the moment, we ended up walking to WinCo to get frozen pizza.

We talked as we walked and it wasn't long until her words turned to tears as she told me the things that were on her mind. Mostly, like other 22-year-olds who are graduating this week, she's unsure of a lot of things.

As we continued down the path that would eventually lead us to frozen pizza, which I would later learn would be a first-time purchase for her, I came to a stark conclusion: I was walking side-by-side with the person I would have been had I not spent a year in Iraq.

I remembered something I had thought on my first day to Iraq as I walked to the chow hall that afternoon. A lot of people in our unit were really excited about being in Iraq. I think everyone was a little excited about being there because it meant the end of six months of training and build up, a three-day convoy for most and the clock on our return home time could start. But there were a lot of people who were way more excited to be there then for those reasons.

But it seemed like to a lot of people who were older than me (at a newly-turned 21, that was almost everyone) were happy to be there because it would be the highlight of their life story. I can't recall what made me think at the time, it was just how people spoke of the deployment at the time. And maybe part of it was people wanted to believe they were giving up 18 months of their live for something bigger then themselves. Too many days have passed to be able to pin it down to an exact reason but I remember thinking it at the time.

At the time, and as I do now, I hoped that the year spent in Iraq wouldn't be the highlight of my life, that I would go on to do other things in my life and the time I spent in Iraq would just be a footnote in my life story, not the defining moment.

The deployment was hard on everyone for different reasons, and for the same reasons in so many different ways. But I remember thinking that at 21, I had an advantage over almost everyone else there. I left Idaho after completing my freshman year of college, I knew I had, and still do for the most part, my entire life in front of me. While everyone was going though this deployment in the middle of their adult lives, I was going through it at the beginning of mine. I knew that no matter what life threw my way, it couldn't possibly be any worse than the year that lay ahead of me. I knew that for the rest of my life, Iraq would always be the base of suckyness and hardness, that no matter what was in store for me in the future, all I had to do was look back and think, "This can't be any harder than Iraq and you made it through that, you can make it through this easy."

I started classes at Idaho just two months after returning from Iraq. I took an insane course load that allowed me to pretty much complete a four-year program in two years and was involved in so many things on campus that when I graduated, I had trouble limiting my resume to two pages. There were several times I wondered if I had gotten in to far over my head (looking back, I now know that was the case), but I would always come back to, "This is stressful, but nothing like Iraq was, plus, this is supposed to be fun, enjoy it."

As the time I've been home has turned into years, I've moved away from most of my Iraq memories, and have come to understand that some of them will always be with me. It's been a while since I've felt stressed enough to compare the current situation to Iraq (through, life is pretty easy and this is the happiest I've been since those freshman days at CSI), but it doesn't mean that I have forgotten the concept or that it isn't already intertwined with my personality to the point I no longer need to make the comparison because I already know the answer.

As we ate our pizza and our conversation continued, I came to another conclusion: she's never hit rock bottom and had to pick herself up. I know this is a general statement and I don't know every detail of her life, but I make this assumption based off the fact that despite she's one of the most driven people I know and has a lot going for her, about 80 percent of it was probably handed to her courtesy of her parents. That and the fact she didn't deny my thought after I said it.

I didn't hit rock bottom in Iraq, but it didn't take long for me to get there once I got home. Though those details are something I talk very little about, I think it's something everybody needs to go through at one point in their life. It's not about getting knocked down or even how long you stay there, it's about getting up and putting the pieces back together and trying to go on with your life. For that's when you learn things about yourself and decide what kind of person you are going to be. Perhaps that, and not the trip in Iraq, is what I really should compare any other stressful situation to, I don't know, I've never thought about it before.

I believe things do happen for a reason, even if can't see what those reasons are. I've come to understand that my time spent in Iraq, and the rough year that followed it, won't be just a footnote to my life story. While I still hope I live long enough to make it a short chapter of my life, it has to be the first chapter in many ways. The person I am today and the things I accomplish are a direct result of going through that experience. And after a rare glimpse of the person I'd be if I hadn't gone through it, I still don't know if I'll ever say I'm happy I got to go to Iraq, but I can honestly say I'm happy with what I made out of the experience.