Cry Freedom

The future is no place
To place your better days
Cry freedom, cry
From a crowd 10,000 wide
Hope laid upon hope
That this crowd will not subside
Let this flag burn to dust
And a new a fair design be raised
While we wait head in hands,
Hands in prayer
And fall into a dreamless sleep again
-DMB

Well, that’s it. My time is finally up. My exit yesterday was a bit anticlimactic, and I have to remind myself that it’s really nothing new. Military people are trained to let people come and go easily. The military could never survive if it was a trial every time this sort of thing happened. Only two people that I started at Buckley with were there yesterday, everyone else has already moved on.

I went to go return my gas mask and mobility bag stuff to the LRS building out by the flight line and as I left the building, a group of F-16’s took off into the sky. It was deafening and as I watched them climb up into the empty sky over eastern aurora, I got so sad. Those moments are so awe inspiring and they won’t be the same for me after this.

I got news yesterday that my good friend Jessica is deploying to Iraq on New Years Day. That feeling that I should have gone, that feeling that I should have taken my place along side the others will always taint my time here. Not that I wanted to go, but I shouldn’t have let someone take my place. If I were a man, it would be completely unheard of for me to allow someone to take that place for me. Just because I’m a woman, I guess the shame is less. Less visible, but I’ll always feel like it was wrong of me to do that.

But I can’t make changes now. This is the end and it’s all done.

Who needs a drink?