Chapter 3

Coming back from the middle east hadn’t been what I expected. I had my first issue when I got home. I come from a small town in Oregon. Just outside Salem. Most of the businesses in the area were centered around agriculture. It was a small, tight-knit community. Friendly and polite. Or at least it had been when I left. The issue I mentioned was wearing my uniform when I came home. Riding the Greyhound from San Diego had been a bit of an eyeopener. Some folks had been nice, thanking me for my service. Others had given me the fisheye and stepped out of their way to avoid me. I didn’t think too much about it. But it did bother me. After all, they didn’t know me or what I’d been through.

My brother and Mom met me at the bus station. The homecoming was as you would expect. Screams of joy, tears, hugs, slaps on the back, and shaking hands. It was so much of a celebration that I was oblivious to anything else.

Dad wasn’t there. He had passed from a massive stroke the year before I joined. It had been an agonizing time in my life. Mom got a substantial insurance payoff, which she banked into a trust fund for us kids. She was also able to get a one time payoff from Dad’s pension. Mom had always been pretty money savvy.

There was my brother and two sisters. I was the youngest and still in high school when dad passed. The rules of the trust kept me from accessing my share until I was 21.

Getting back to the neighborhood was pleasant. All of the relatives had come in, some from as far as Boston. There were banners and yellow ribbons, and balloons. For the most part, the neighbors that I remembered, the ones still living there, had stopped by and said welcome back. But there weren’t as many of them as I expected. one or two of my old school friends also showed up, which was a bit disappointing. I mean, I wasn’t the most popular person on campus, But I was still liked. Or at least I thought so.

Eventually, things calmed down, and it seemed that life in my mom’s little Cul-De-Sac had returned to normal. I spent a week getting caught up with family and friends and thinking about what I wanted to do.

One of the things that had been discussed during out-processing was physical fitness and mental hygiene. It was recommended that we set up a daily exercise and fitness routine. That we watch our diets and keep our weight under control. A whole week had been spent on diet and eating right.

I took what they had to say to heart. And so early in the mornings, I started jogging. This wasn’t difficult. I was having some trouble sleeping, and rather than go the pill route. I tried to set up an early morning jog to start the day. I included calisthenics as a warm-up, cool-down routine. The calisthenics were boring. When I was in the Corps, it was a group effort, and if not pleasant, at least it was tolerable. But in civilian life, it turned into a pain in the butt.

I happened to be passing by a park one morning when I noticed a bunch of older Asian folks. They were slowly moving in unison, and it appeared to be some form of martial art. Afterward, I caught up with the instructor, and he explained that they were practicing Tai Chi. He explained that it was, indeed, a martial art form. But that it stressed form and tension rather than speed and strength. He explained that many of his students used it as a form of meditation, a stress reliever. I signed up on the spot and spent as much time as I could learning for the next month. And he was right, I was feeling much calmer, and I even slept through the night a couple of times.

All of this helped, and I felt I was working my way through some of the things that bothered me about the military. One of the other things was that I would sit on Mom’s porch in the late afternoon and early evening and watch the sun go down. I used this time to calm myself, find my center, and reflect. It helped with my anxieties. Kind of a meditation.

Usually, the neighbors would wave at me when they came home from work. And sometimes even stop and talk. On the weekends, I enjoyed those moments. Of course, I knew that folks would be friendly if you were nice. But as with most good things, there were ‘Those’ moments.

One of ‘Those’ moments was in the early afternoon. It was warm, and the sun was shining. I was sitting on the steps and enjoying the sun when a voice intruded. “Hey, mister, you got any weed?”

I looked up from the book I was reading. A 13- or 14-year-old kid was standing at the foot of the steps. This was about 10 feet onto our property. “No,” replied, “I don’t smoke.”

“Why not? My dad says all you war fascists smoke weed and meth and all that shit.”

I had to restrain myself. This was a kid after all. “Sorry, Your Dad’s wrong. I don’t do drugs.”

“How about guns? Lemme see your AK77-15 assault machine gun. All you nutcases got guns.”

“Your dad tell you that too? Sorry to disappoint you. I don’t have any guns.”

“Ah shit, man, You bull shitting me, man. I’ll bet you got one of them assault bazookas. Come on, let’s see you shoot something. You’re a punk if you don’t.”