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

A feeling of exalt certainly. Being away for so long becomes second nature though. Sure, coming back home is a exuberant feeling, but when you don't see your family, your country, or your friends for so long it becomes all you know. There's a deeper level of gratitude that is gained having been away for such long stretches of time. It's only bound to toughen someone up. Which I don't think is a bad thing.

both me and my husband were enlisted. although I had not deployed at all, my husband was deployed the whole first year of our marriage (he was home a total of approximately a month... a few days here and there). we both felt excited and relief that we were both safe and reunited each time he returned.

I enjoyed my time in Germany and took as many rec center trips as I could so I could see all the places I had read about in my history books. I was disappointed to leave because there were so many more places I wanted to see

Coming home to my family and familiar ground after my deployments was always bliss for me. The life lessons learned from experiencing deployments within and outside the US has taught me a lot yet coming home to my life, to my family, there is nothing more centering.

I returned home July 1969 after thirteen months in Vietnam to my wife and seven month old daughter. I was on leave but still had eleven months of active service ahead. It was great making it home but too many things were happening all at once. I had a daughter that I didn't know and my mother-in-law was in hospital dyeing. I didn't know who I was and what I wanted. I know at the time the last thing I wanted to do was to go to Camp Lejuene, North Carolina. I did take my family to Camp Lejuene and served honorably and got back home the next year. I was in a different world than the civilians and I felt it. I was mad at my country and the civilians that didn't know a thing about war. Luckily I brushed it off in a couple of years later and moved on.

It felt good to be with family after being gone, to be able to relax after being in a stressful disciplined atmosphere. To be able to openly share my experiences in the deployment.

After returning home from combat in Iraq I felt very alone without my fellow soldiers, and found it really hard to try to adapt back to civilian life. It was strange being around my family after being gone for so long. Thank God for the VA and all the programs for PTSD.

I felt nausea, anxiety, excitement. I took couple of tours combat zone I was unemployed. I knew was unemployed again came back from deployment. Because I was working in the Army Reserve was hard to find jobs when getting back. Better prefer to stay on deployment the life was not so complicated just work 12 hours or more with extensive heat because you are in a combat zone.

My husband was enlisted. So coming home was just like any other day for me.

Two words—awkward and alone. My husband was still in Iraq and due to a mix-up no one met me at the airport. I paid for a taxi to get home. When I arrived my baby didn’t even know me and cried for any many days as I was a stranger.