Brian Castner

So when I arrived in Saudi Arabia in August of 2001, as there was no chemical, biological, or nuclear war going on, all I prepared for was to be bored until it was time to go home. Obviously, that plan failed.

The Crazy feeling builds and builds. It never stops, it never ends, there is no relief.

But the shock wears off, more quickly for some, but eventually for most. Fast food and alcohol are seductive, and I didn__ fight too hard. Your old routine is easy to fall back into, preferences and tastes return. It__ not hard to be a fussy, overstuffed American. After a couple of months, home is no longer foreign, and you are free to resume your old life. I thought I did. Resume my old life, that is. I was wrong.

My wife is alone in our full bed too. Her husband, the father of her children, never came back from Iraq. When I deployed the first time she asked her grandmother for advice. Her grandfather served in Africa and Europe in World War II. Her grandmother would know what to do.__ow do I live with him being gone? How do I help him when he comes home?_ my wife asked. __e won__ come home,_ her grandmother answered. __he war will kill him one way or the other. I hope for you that he dies while he is there. Otherwise the war will kill him at home. With you._ My wife__ grandfather died of a heart attack on the living-room floor, long before she was born. It took a decade or two for World War II to kill him. When would my war kill me?

The Air Force was confused about what it wanted me to be when I grew up. I applied for an ROTC scholarship out of high school because I wanted to be an astronaut. None of my teachers had ever broken the news to me that I couldn__ fly into space, so the third-grade dream remained.