The red-eye flight...

d2 here, again.

Still in DC. Still thinking about Idaho and world events.

Family saw me off for my trip here. It was going to be quite a long one: 10 days. My little girls are just old enough now that the announced trip shook them up quite a bit. So, even though the flight out was quite early, we rousted them so they'd see me to the airport, see me leaving, see me getting on a plane, then flying away. The connection/transition seems to make these trips more understood than words alone.

So, wee hours of the morning, we step into the airport and I'm planning the above choreography in my head when I notice three guys in desert-issue camo uniforms, duffles in tow, waiting at the ticket counter. Suddenly, my problems seem trivial by comparison...

Fifteen minutes later, we're at the threshold for airport security, dawdling and playing with the girls and saying our goodbyes. And the other three guys? Two have family standing close by, and are saying their own goodbyes. And from twenty feet away, it's obvious the women have been crying... a lot. All night, perhaps.

By the time we step into the queue, I count six women that have already been through the wringer, if their eyes tell the truth. Six women that have just said goodbye for months, a year... perhaps forever. Not a one looks very proud right now. They look exhausted. They alternate from brave to scared to uncomprehending. But not proud.

I said my goodbyes to my little angels. But the usual feeling I get, regretting my time away and wishing work didn't take me away for so long... it was gone. Instead, I was thinking of the red-eye flight those other families were facing, and of the year apiece that those families will be torn apart, and the trauma and death and divorce and a thousand other unpleasant futures that potentially wait for them on the other side. My being gone ten days suddenly seemed damn trivial by comparison.

God protect all these people. Please.