by Amber Fluck

Created on: March 13, 2007   Last Updated: April 06, 2008

Iraq and back. In war, there are casualties. In war, there are scars.

I was 19 years old when I wrote and signed my will. I was 19 years old and scared. I was 19 when I joined the rest of my unit, who were already training for our 18 month deployment. I was 19 years old when two months and thousands of tears later, I boarded the plane that would bring me to Iraq.

For months prior to my deployment, before I was sent to meet up with my unit, I had seen yellow ribbons everywhere, places where my friends should have been. I saw ribbons on porches, on buses, in college classrooms. I wondered where someone would see mine, if they would see mine, while I was away.

To say that being called up to go to Iraq had been a shock would be a lie. Pretending like I was surprised became a game I hated to play. No one wanted to hear the truth: I had volunteered for this war long before I was sent.

Joining the National Guard was an easy choice for me; one visit from the recruiter and I was sold. Two weeks later, I was at the in-processing station, signing all of my rights over to the United States Army, in care of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

I would never be deployed, my recruiter assured my family, but it had been two years since 9/11 and I couldn't have been the only one in the room that knew that THAT promise could never be kept.

Two years later, with basic training long behind me, I was home from A.I.T. All throughout my training, there had been rumors about my unit back home, and the message finally got to me sometime within the first two weeks of the New Year.
My unit was getting deployed and they were being sent to Camp Shelby, Mississippi for six months in order to "train-up" for the year they would be spending in Iraq. I'd been back for two weeks before I went back to drill with what was left of my unit. I did not have to go to drill, they'd called to tell me, but I could not shake the feeling that the longer I waited, the less of a chance I'd have to meet up with my unit.

"When will I be meeting up with the rest of Bravo Company", I asked SSG Milheim. He'd been in charge of the "stay-behinds", the ones who weren't done with training or were deemed unhealthy (and therefore undeployable), since the beginning of January.

"You won't", he said, seemingly proud to have saved me, "there aren't any slots to be filled, you're staying here."

"SSG Milheim, I don't think you understand! I need to be deployed. I can't stay back here while everyone else goes. Can't you switch

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