I am finally looking at K-1 from the back window of an MRAP. I am not driving; I am not part of the “teams” in the convoy; no aid and litter team, no LZ team… I am just a passenger, I am just doing my last 10-mile trip across Kirkuk to reach the American base and then move on and fly away.
It was an eerie feeling to move out of my room on Sunday…I was out of my comfort zone now. That room witness so much of my life and yet, it was only four walls in a crappy Iraqi building. The tears, the laughs, the frustration I felt this past year was all displayed in the privacy of those four walls. My anger after the stomach revolting feeling of betrayal, and inability to do what it takes to fix it all was felt by those walls with every pen, phone, key chain—or whatever was in sight—that I threw against it. Most of all, the horrifying realization of loneliness while I cried for those that had never let me down, those that hold me when I was down and helped me up, was only safely flaunted inside those four walls.
At the same time, moving into a transient room gave me the sense that I was leaving soon; that soon I would not have to worry about running to those four walls in order to be myself. This has been a life changing year and it is not because I saw dead bodies—which I did not—or because I was engaged in huge battles—which I was not—it is because I saw some of the real Iraq. It is because instead of fighting them, I tried to live with them, to co-exist in the same space and with very little distance. …A new temporary room …focus…focus!
On May 16, 2008, I took my last trip to the nasty bathroom, last trip to the coffee pot in the kitchen, and finally my last walk through the doors of the building that accommodated me for almost a year. I jumped in the back of the MRAP—after putting my bags inside—and I sat in the back; “I am passenger today,” I thought to myself. We drove to the range for the last time, I looked at the airfield where I went to run—, or walk—then I looked at all the other buildings in the compound as we passed by. 
Finally, out the gate and into the streets of Kirkuk but somebody else if honking the horn to the incoming traffic, somebody else is keeping the traffic away from the vehicles behind us. She is gentler than I was. I was too jaded to be patient; it is time for me to move on. I watched the whole town pass by from the back window of an MRAP, something I have never done before. I have always driven while I was here, only for four convoys did I not go as the lead vehicle. It is very different when you can actually look around. I saw things off the left and the right that I have never seen before because I always focused on the road and the immediate sides of it.
I am living out of a bag again. Usually, that is something that I detest but today I made an exception because this time, this bag will take me home. I am not sure how long I am going to be staying in the American Base in Kirkuk, there are horrible sandstorms today, and visibility is poor to none. Flights have been canceled and I am not sure how that will affect us but one thing is for sure…I am coming home!!! I am on my way, home sweet home!!!!
