By the first week of July, my squad had settled at a major base outside of Balad. Until then, most of our activities had taken place on the road from one miserable place to another. The huge base near Balad was a relief. It had a PX, showers, and good food. We even received a visit there from Arnold Schwarzenegger. The almost nightly mortar attacks there were the only downside to the place.

Around the second week of July, our First Sergeant paid us his weekly visit, bringing our mail and the company's iridium phone, which we could use for twenty minutes. After chatting with a few other soldiers, the First Sergeant walked over to me and asked about my discharge date. I told him the date-November 11 of 2002---just over eight months ago at the time. My heart began to race as I correctly anticipated his next words: "Grab your stuff. All of it. You're going home."

The members of our squad had become quite close, and each of them expressed their happiness at my good fortune. I was sad that most of them would spend three times as long in Iraq as I would. My next stop would be a major base outside of Tikrit, where the 4th Infantry Division had made its headquarters. I would out-process there, and maybe go home in a matter of days. That evening, as I slept on the hood of a humvee, relieved and content that my role in the war had ended, the First Sergeant woke me up at around midnight. He told me that I'd been strong-armed away from the company, and that I'd be sent across town to serve as a translator for some other unit for a period of five days. I was so infuriated that I couldn't sleep. I was a soldier, so I would follow orders and do my best no matter how I felt.

That mission ended after the five days and I returned to headquarters. It took two days to complete all of the out-processing paperwork. A group of five soldiers, including myself, waited for word of when we'd go home. It turned out that we were held there several extra days because some staff officer didn't want us to leave without our medals in our hands. We didn't care about the medals-we just wanted to go home. The medals never came. The trip home involved another road trip to the Balad base, where we'd catch a plane to Kuwait. Our plane, which was an Air National Guard cargo plane, arrived at about 6 p.m. About 40 of us, probably the happiest 40 soldiers in the Army, loaded our bags onto the aircraft and took seats, which lined the sides and faced the center cargo area. After taking our seats, Air Force personnel carefully placed a stretcher in a designated place just in front of me.

The stretcher carried a black, zip-up body bag that contained the remains of a soldier I didn't know. My happiness about leaving vanished as I thought of the devastating news the soldier's family would soon hear. I thought of how close I came to his same fate, and how life is terribly unfair. Two more stretchers carrying body bags were placed nearby in similar fashion. Two more families would soon be heartbroken by this war.

We arrived in Kuwait just after dark. We were shuttled to huge air-conditioned tents. I found a phone and called my wife, Beth. I remember hearing a choked-up silence when I told her that I was no longer in Iraq---that I was in Kuwait and the war was over for me. It was July 27. Twelve days later, at sunrise, I stood in line to board a chartered Boeing 777, just like the one I'd arrived in theater on some four months earlier. The captain and his officer waited at the bottom of the plane' s portable stairway, shaking our hands and thanking us as we passed. Flight attendants at the top hugged each of us as we entered the plane. They pointed to the floor, where a square piece of sod had been placed. "Welcome to American soil," they said.

The plane was decorated with yellow ribbons and stars and stripes. As the plane became airborne, everyone cheered. I looked out the window and saw the Middle East desert for the last time, and felt extreme hatred for the place. I wished that we didn't need any of their resources. I wished that the entire region would disappear from the face of the earth.

We landed at Ft. Hood some 20 hours later, after a brief stop in Dallas. We had to take a longer route to Ft. Hood because President Bush was at his ranch in Crawford, and the airspace in that area was off-limits. After landing at Ft. Hood's airfield, we were bused to a gym for a welcome-home ceremony. The gym was filled with families and friends of America's newest war veterans. A television crew was on hand. Mercifully, the general in charge kept his remarks brief, and tearful families were permitted to join their soldiers. Beth was there to greet me. My father had also made the trip from Kankakee, and I'd see him the next morning. Among my immediate priorities were cold beer, a long shower and civilian clothes.

I was elated to have survived the war and to be reunited with my wife, family and friends. I will never forget the soldiers who came home, or will come home, to un-televised ceremonies, with life-changing injuries or in flag-draped caskets.

Sgt. Lamb served in the United States Army for five years. He is a graduate of Kankakee Community College and Northern Illinois University. He is the son of Olen Lamb, Kankakee and Judy Lamb, Leesburg, FL. He is married to the former Elizabeth Dale. Cutline Sgt. Lamb pictured with wife, Beth, and dog, Smokey on the day he arrived home to Bourbonnais after serving his time in the military.

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