A Smack of Reality

Coming home -- or maybe not
By Franke Gracia
Special to the Star-Telegram 10-13-07

Now that I'm back from my overseas deployment, and now that my deliriously happy honeymoon of having survived is over, I find my native country troublingly different. Although I am positive that my experience overseas did not make me a better man, or a wiser man, I am certain it has made me a different man -- very different.

Something as simple as sitting down and watching sports on television is different. I see a professional athlete score a touchdown or cross home plate and point skyward, as if God has a personal interest in the outcome, and I involuntarily recoil a little.

I can't help but think back on how, when my missions in Afghanistan were over, it would have been appropriate to dismount our vehicles and point skyward -- but we never did. We were usually too exhausted.
I hear athletes talk about going into "hostile territory" or how "it was a war out there," and I try hard not to smirk, but I always do. It would be nice if pro athletes would realize that they are entertainers -- not anywhere as important as say, a teacher, a policeman or a soldier.
It's tough watching the news these days as well, especially when the lead story is about the preliminary autopsy reports of a former Playboy Playmate, while the reporting of the deaths of more troops overseas comes later. I don't like that too much.

Or when I was told that the Iraqi parliament was going to go on vacation while American troops were going to go right on dying. I figured there'd be rioting in the streets, demonstrations all over the country, congressional offices flooded with calls and letters -- but no. Seems there are more important matters, like why passports are taking so long -- and don't you know I might not get to go on my vacation this year!

Stuff like that makes me take long, long walks. But it never helps.
It also confuses me when politicians and ordinary Americans get so careless with pronouns -- you know, in phrases like "We've got to stay over there and keep fighting" or "I know how hard it is for our troops."

We? I know?

Look, if you can talk to me about "going outside the wire," if you've been used as target practice by religious radicals, if you've looked at the face of your buddy and it's not recognizable because of the IED blast -- if you can discuss things like that with me, feel free to use pronouns like we and I.

Otherwise, shut up - or be more accurate.

Things like that have alienated me from so much of society, made me feel like a tourist in my own country. America is not at war. Only a few are doing the heavy lifting, the sweating, the bleeding, the dying. So many have become numb -- or what's worse, they've never cared at all.

Thousands have died. Tens of thousands have been maimed, burned, scarred for life. Hundreds of thousands have brought the war home with them, and it's not going away any time soon.

And yet countless Americans regard the war as an unpleasant annoyance, like that one credit card with the uncomfortable balance -- the one I don't want to think about, the one I wish would just go away.
But U.S. soldiers keep fighting, bleeding, dying.

Like that young soldier I helped with his citizenship papers overseas. He was so thankful. And yet today, far too many Americans would see his dark skin, his thick accent, and immediately stick a label on him. They'd hope and pray that he doesn't sit near them at a restaurant -- or, worse, at church.

Never mind that he spent a year of his life at the tip of the spear protecting the very blanket of freedom that they sleep under every night.
I try not to think of things like that, but I do. It's not pleasant -- not pleasant at all.

I love America. When I dwell on what she stands for, it never fails to choke me up. But there are plenty of Americans I just don't get. Sometimes I wish they'd all just go away.

I thought coming home was going to be easy. Boy, was I wrong. So wrong.

Franke Gracia of Mansfield served in Afghanistan from May 2005 to April 2006. He is a member of the Star-Telegram Community Columnist Panel.