Around this time my reserve rifle company, having just come off of a year of active duty in December, got the call for all Marines to show up for anthrax shots. It came unexpectedly and without explanation. No one said we were going to Iraq, but in his silence it was almost as if our company commander was winking his eye and nodding his head. The prospect of once again leaving our home so soon, left many of the Marines bitter and brooding. Emotions were running so high from our possible deployment and our recent return home that I barely remember even watching the news. I have no recollection of following the various UN resolutions and posturing by the U.S. and Iraq. I do not remember hearing of other military units being deployed to Kuwait, or the comments made by Secretary of State Powell at the UN regarding Iraq’s weapons program. The only news we waited for, or cared about, was whether the phone call to mobilize came again.
If a moment from that time can sum up the mood among my fellow Marines, it came during a three-hour long car ride from our company HQ to my house near Boston. My good friend was dropping me off on this way to Maine where his young wife and two dogs lived. When we first got in the car I remember him dropping into the driver’s seat without a word, starting the car, and turning on the radio–all the while staring straight ahead. I know that his perceived unfairness of our situation–that we’d just spent one year mobilized already–was grinding away at any kind of happiness our recent homecoming had given him: he’d been screwed by the military again.
We did not speak for a good long while. Interstate 90 stretched before us into the night, visible only in the car’s headlights as occasional rest-areas flashed past. At one point he asked, substituting his brooding expression with one of hopefulness: “You don’t think they’ll really activate us again, do you?”
I had no answer, and that seemed to make him more frustrated. A few minutes later we had a burst of arguing over what radio station to listen to. He wanted to change it, I wanted to keep it. I was surprised how angry I was at him for such a stupid thing. He probably felt the same way about me. After we compromised I felt better, and we barely talked for the rest of the drive. He dropped me off at my parents’ house, said goodbye, and two months later we were in Iraq.
