"Uncle Sam wants YOU! To join the United States Army!"

As I sat, looking at Eric, in his older camo army uniform, with his tanned brown skin, the gold, celtic design, wedding band on his finger, I wondered what all he had been though, in training, overseas, and now home. He had a look in his eye, like he had seen many things that he never wanted to see again, like he had been though too much for anything to be the same as it was before...

He turned and looked at me with his big brown eyes, that looked like they had seen the world, and started chuckling a bit, and asked “Are you going to ask me anything or just sit and stare off like I am?” I smiled and asked “Why did you decide to join the Army anyway?”. He looked off for a second, like he was trying to think, smiled and said “I wanted to do something good for my country, and to make people proud of me. Growing up in a small town, there is never much to do, so I got into a lot of trouble with the cops, I messed up football and basketball scholarships, because i got kicked off the team for drug possession, and I got my friends in trouble also, I decided that I didn’t want to be the one to be doing drugs and drinking my entire life. I thought that the army would be a good way to get myself back into shape and it would help get me back onto a good track for life. Even though I got in trouble a lot I always loved to help out around the community and I never felt like I could do enough, and then once my dad got remarried after my mom died, I knew that I had to leave the house, and the army was where I wanted to go.” “So it sounds you wanted to get away from your step-mom almost? and wanting to do something to help the country, well that meant that joining the army was one way to do that. How did your family feel about you going into the Army?” I asked him. He looked up for a second, as if he was looking to God, seemed to get a little bit more serious and said, “My dad and younger brother were proud of me, that I was finally going to do something that wouldn’t end in a police call to the house, and my younger sister was scared. She thought that I was just joining the army to get away from our stepmother. My girlfriend felt the same way as my sister did, she was very scared for me, but also upset that I would go join the Army, leave her, and obviously with a possibility where I might not come back home.”

Deciding that there wasn’t much else I could ask him about before he went into the army, or why, I decided to ask him about when he started his training, and how long he was there for. Once again he smiled when I asked him, like he was recalling fun memories from when he was in training, “I started my training at Fort Brag in North Carolina in the spring of 2004, I was excited to actually be there, even though I knew that it was going to be harder work then I had ever done before. My training was about two years, before I could go into active duty. I was in and out of training often though, and I was allowed to go see my family, but about once a month or once every two months my dad and my step-mom would come to see how I was doing.” Since he told me how much trouble he used to get in back home, I asked. “Did you and the rest of your friends ever get into any trouble like you did before you joined?”. He got a very serious look on his face and said “No! Definitely not! And we all learned quickly that it wouldn’t be a good idea to get into any trouble. Our drill Sargent would have had us cleaning toilets with toothbrushes until they sparkled. Of course we did little things to each other, like hiding personal belongings, or going to out bars and starting small fights with each other, but nothing that would get back to our Sargent. This one guy that I knew did get a Article 15, because his ex-girlfriend had been in the reserves, and came on base and for some reason, he grabbed her around the neck and started choking her, and then elbowed her in the face, after we got him off of her.” “An Article 15? What is that?” I asked, surprised that somebody who was in the army, and would have to worry about what they would deal with would actually do that. “It’s pretty much just like a slap on the wrist.” He told me, “Article 15 just goes on your personal record, so when he gets out of the army, and if he tries to get a job, it will show up that he tried to strangle his ex, but nothing really major happens.”

"So you started training in 2004," I said, "so that means that you should have been deployed, in mid 2006 right?" "Yes," He answered, then paused, stopping to take a drink of water that was on the small, mahogany, coffee table in front of him, "my deployment date was June of 2006, but I didn’t actually get deployed until October of 2006. They had moved our deployment date back some any ways, but I had just recently gotten married and Lisa was pregnant, so I was allowed to stay in the States for a little while longer." Eric sat and looked at me, drinking his water, while I was thinking up something else to ask him, "So when you did get deployed, were you stationed in the Middle East?" I asked. "No I wasn’t, I was stationed in Germany, that’s where I had wanted to go. I wanted to see where my mother was from, and I had a lot of family that I had never meet that lived in Germany, so even though I was in the army, I got to learn about my heritage and more about my mother." He told me. "Because you were stationed in Germany, did you ever get to see the front line of battle?" He looked at me, with sad, but relief filled eyes, "Also no, I didn’t ever see the front line of battle, we were the back-ups in case we were needed in Iraq, or Afghanistan, during the new elections. It was hard being over seas, even though I didn't have to deal with hand on hand combat, I saw many of my friends come back in body bags, killed in action, or soldiers that were no longer fit to be fighting, either PTSD or a loss of a limb. Even some people who deserted. When you see people that you would never think would break, going crazy because they have seen to many people shot, or to horrific things to say, it makes you break down, I often questioned why I had ever wanted to be in the army, but always made myself think of my wife and baby daughter at home, to help keep me sane."

"After two years of active duty, when you could finally come home and be with your wife, and daughter that you barley knew, was anything different for you?" I asked. Now his mostly smiling face, turned extremely serious, like no more laughing was going to happen, "Everything was different, I was slightly paranoid, Lisa almost left me because she said that I wasn’t the same person that I used to be, that i had changed to much for her to still love me. I couldn’t be friends with anybody that I grew up with, because they didn’t know anything, nothing that I had seen. People told me that I was a coward, that I was over-reacting about things, that I probably hadn’t seen anything as bad as I said, because I wasn’t on the front line. People don’t realize that even though, soldiers who aren’t on the front line, don’t always see hand to hand combat they still see what happens to the people who are on the front line. Out of everybody my sister was the most supportive and the best listener when I got home, she told me I was different, that I had changed a lot, but for the better, but she always would listen to what I said, and never judged me."

I looked down, thinking on everything that he had told me, and I saw scares on his arms, "How did you get the scares? If you never saw the actual combat?", I asked, "O these" he started laughing a little bit, like it was amusing, and said "I got some of these before I joined the army, either from fights or getting attacked by dogs, and some I actually got during training, I don't have any major battle wounds, because like I said, I never saw the actual combat."


“I got no badge for bravery, I didn’t get recognized, I joined the army to help out my country when it needed it, and even though I never saw the front line I still believe that I helped, and did a good dead.”-- Eric Marshall