NATIONAL GUARD INFANTRY, IRAQ 2007 — The surge year as a part-timer

Pennsylvania Guard. I'm a high school history teacher when I'm not in uniform. We mobilized in October 2006 and were in Baghdad by January 2007 for the surge. The unit that replaced us was active component. The unit we replaced was active component. Sandwiched between two regular Army rotations was us — a bunch of guys who had a quarterly drill weekend and a two-week annual training, and who were now running combat patrols in Sadr City. We were good. The guys are the guys, and the guys did the job. But there is a specific Guard thing where you come home and your civilian employer expects you to be back at your desk on Monday as if you had taken a long vacation. My principal asked me, with genuine kindness, when I would be back to coaching JV baseball. I had buried a friend in Section 60 three weeks before. I did not have an answer. USERRA protected my job. USERRA did not protect my marriage, my blood pressure, or my sense of which life was the real one. I went to the local Vet Center for ten months of group. I went back to teaching. I tell my students about my deployment now because I have decided I would rather they think their teacher is weird than think the war is abstract. It was not abstract.