Can you describe how you felt coming home from a deployment or combat?

I felt completely fine and it wasn't until a few years later I began to realize how fucked up I was. If people tell you you're different don't dismiss it, don't get pissy, just acknowledge their concerns and explain that you are still adjusting. Some of it gets better with time, the anger lessons in frequency but not degree. Talk to some professionals because everything you just did in combat is no longer acceptable in civilian life. Shits hard but you will make it through to the other side. It's a fight everyday but when have we ever given up on a fight.

Returning from Afghanistan in 2014, I felt like I had a newfound appreciation for all of the conveniences. It was the most wonderful thing to be able to hop in a car and drive to an In-&-Out or to go see a movie. I found beauty in the most mundane of things, like green grass.

I was on deployment twice. First to Somalia and second to Haiti. Coming home from Somalia was the hardest thing I've ever done. Before I left my husband had a nervous breakdown and I had to activate my family care plan. My oldest sister took my four girls, youngest being 6 months, for the duration. When I came home my baby was a year old and didn't know who I was. I broke me in ways that the deployment hadn't. I later found out my sisters husband had abused my daughters and she was high on drugs most of my deployment. I kinda hated my husband for not being there for our daughters. The very next year the 10th mtn went to Haiti. It was this big political hoopla. At the time it had come to the foreground that there were females in the aviation brigade who were crew chiefs on the helicopters. We were suddenly in the media and our husband's were these pariahs being stay at home dads and husbands. The whole time we were gone my husband was doing interviews and shows. When I came home I had a news camera shoved in my face when I was trying to hug my family. It made me mad as hell. With both deployments I had to reintegrate into family life which is harder than you would think and took months. I was proud of my service during both and would do it again if needed.

I know you probably want all good stuff, but not quite sure I really came back from the Desert. Every time I get in my truck, it feels like I am back on convoys. Guess I won't be getting a gift card. Lol.

Definitely, I was so happy and blissful to come home safely to be with my loving family members, church friends, and other US Army Fellow Chaplains friends. However, soon or later, the vivid and colorful memories from downrange experiences, and flashbacks keep chasing me no matter where I was going, what I was doing, even though I tried to avoid the repeated thinking of what I should have done in my earlier deployment. I was so sorry to those SM, who could not make home back safely. I was so ashamed that I was still living my life until these days and my fellow SM could not make it back home safely. But after 9 years all that effort of embracing my good and bad performance of my combat chaplain with 10th MTN 287 infantry battalion through my local VA medical help, my church members' hard prayer & helps, and my family members' non-stop loving and care for me, really had helped me to back the ministries that I loved to do in or out of Church system. Now I hope that I can utilize my good and bad experiences from my combat downrange to impact other fellow US Army personnel or veterans in positive ways so that they could embrace what they experienced in combat was nothing to do with their ability to save their fellow SMs or what they should have done more etc. We all were destined to be at the combat zone at that time whether we wanted to be there or not. And we all were trying our best to defend what we believe is justice and right. Now, I finally accepted what had happened in my Afghanistan deployment as just part of my life story. And I am just simply feeling relieved that the OEF war is over even though it did not end the way I had prayed about. what had happened in there was something that I could not comprehend in limited humanly understanding, it must be the divine meaning to it the big picture of How God touched our lives during our earthly time on this earth. Sincerely, and Respectfully, Former US Army Chaplain, Charlie An

My first concern was finding a job to support my family. It was not easy in a small copper-mining town on strike, but something came through to hold us till I could get work in the nearest city. It wasn't easy there either, but Our Father In Heaven stabilized things for us in time. What more could you ask?

I remember most the pain that I felt in my heart that my two young daughters did not instantly recognize me. It was like for a couple of agonizing seconds, they either did not know who I was, or just could not believe that I was actually there. Thankfully it was a very brief moment.

It was strange in 1978. Everything was strange. I had a family at home and wanted to see them as soon as possible. I was not spat upon but I witnessed it happening to other service members. It was in the airports and on the news. We were all in disbelief. We were doing our duty and were being taunted and harassed. it was bewildering and strange.

The support from everybody in airport was tremendously overwhelming with pride for the people who was there for us, and truly disheartening at the same time knowing my family wasn't there to witness it. The sacrifices each soldier had to make, the coexistence of virtually every nation all working together as a one team for a common goal of trying to help a country gain peace in existence.
To remember those feelings 12 years later and to see P.B.S. (President Bull Shit) Biden erase all of which we worked so hard and fought for with our blood, sweat, tears and lives truly makes me feel like my time and my falling apart body was utterly wasted and it was all in vain. I wonder why him and all his minions or his puppeteers have not been arrested and incarcerated yet, for treason of the highest counts for destroying many other countries futures including ours. They are not untouchable, why are we letting them think they are???????

Went to Iraq and left my daughter with my Ex-Wife to care for. I felt bad but also relieved, because I had to worry about my two sons who were with me down range in various units. I was worried for them when they went on convoy missions. The older son with 3rd I.D. was in Bagdad as a (PSA) Personal Security Attaché, to the General at Camp Liberty (The Green Zone). And my other son was in Sauder City doing Cordon searches door-to -door with the 82nd Airborne Division, and me with the 101st Airborne Division.
At 0230hrs, I remember arriving at the Bangor Maine Airport and hundreds of citizens gave us a warm reception welcoming us back home. I will never forget that!
Once we all arrive back home safely, it’s like with had to start from scratch again, rebuilding our relationships. It was kind of hard since we all suffered from PTSD. But Thank GOD, for bringing us home safe and continue to be strong.