Riding in Cars with Boys

I was thinking about ways war changes people today.

I was hanging out with a buddy recently, who just returned from a year in Iraq. He spent most of that time driving a humvee up and down the crazy roads of in and around Anbar Province.

Anybody else have that first experience of riding in the car, with the boy (or girl) driving--after the deployment?

Things are going along fine, you're deciding where to eat and just catching up. Then all the sudden, out of nowhere, you are on the other side of the road, half in a ditch. The boy is screaming and cursing, reaching for a weapon that isn't there, and you are left trying to figure out what the heck just happened.

In retrospect, it makes sense. The insides of an old cassette tape and a little loose wire running across the road. A discarded bag of fast food trash.

Freaking IEDs.

Needless to say, I drove the rest of the trip.

It has been a few weeks now, and it is a funny incident that we all laugh at, and he pokes fun at himself for.

Thing is, it's really not that funny.

It's the war, in the After.