A couple nights ago I had a dream that I was at home on leave, but instead of getting ready to go to NTC on Friday I was instead getting ready to deploy back to Iraq on Friday. In my dream I was talking to someone about it and the reality of going back to Taji for 15 months was sinking in during the dream. I don't mind going back, but what I am dreading is being there for 15 months. Last year around this time I was starting the countdown to coming home because it seemed like it was almost around the corner. Realizing that the unit that replaced us still has a long ways to go blows my mind. I think have about four months left in the states, but the months have been speeding up recently because there is so much to do an so little time. I wonder if once I get back to Taji it'll feel like I ever even left. I can still picture almost every detail of my run routes around the camp, the faces of the workers at the laundry facility, all of the ied hot spots on a map in MND-B (though I'm sure they've changed over the past year), the long stretches of commo blackouts, the Tigris River Chapel and the airfield gym. It's still all so recent in my memory. I was a fobbit last year and so, for the most part, all I knew was the camp. This coming tour I will start out as a fobbit given the mission of my platoon, but I don't know what position I'll be in later on in the rotation. Will I still confuse the sound of a controlled det or an ied blowing up off in the distance with the sound of a garage door closing? For some reason they sounded very similar to me and so when I heard the detonations I immediately thought of the garage door at home closing. It still hasn't completely sunk in yet that I'll be back there before the end of the year.
