Surviving deployment, but not home

Fifteen months - way to long to be in Iraq for a deployment, but like most we survived it.  In OIF 06-08, our battalion made it through the whole 15 months without any deaths.  We had some injuries, but everyone had made it.  We were the only battalion in the brigade to have not sustained any casualties.  That was including one aircraft being shot down....

Upon returning from deployment, we had a four day pass before heading back into work for a couple of days to do all of our post-deployment processing and health screens.  Then it was time for leave.  Since our shift from a 12 month to a 15 month deployment happened about halfway through, many of us had already been on our midtour, so this some's first leave in anywhere from nine to twelve months.  Everyone left with the determination of making the most of it.

We didn't last the first weekend.  Unfortunately, like most units that have returned from deployment, we lost a soldier that first weekend.  This is a truth that has repeated itself all too many times in the last decade, as soldiers either return from deployment and are doing things to try to match the optempo from when they were deployed or the adrenaline rushes they were often in the middle of or just simply the type of accident that you see from time to time for whatever reason.  Either way, this ends up being extremely dangerous and often ends up with injuries or worse. 

The soldier we lost that weekend had been one of the door gunners.  Since most of the gunners were attached to the unit shortly before deployment, throughout the deployment was when they got to know everyone... this were the guys we sat around with and BS'd about things back home or what we wanted to do when we got back.  You learned about their spouse and kids, where they were from.  Then as you are all sitting in Kuwait waiting for your flight to come down the list, you think you are done, you celebrate the fact that we are returning home.

This soldier was killed in a car accident the day after leave started, his family was in the car with him when it happened.... they are survived but had injuries.  It wasn't until about a week later that I heard about the crash and the loss.  It took me back to those days sitting in the crew chief office in Iraq and all the dumb stuff you sit there talking about or the occasional times that things would get serious when the rare emotion would be shown.  To make it through a deployment and then lose their life upon returning home...