I tried to call Maddie a few hours later when I had to be up for duty. She didn’t answer, so she must’ve been sleeping pretty damn hard. She slept pretty lightly, so even a phone vibrating not waking her up meant she was sleeping like the dead. I left her a voice mail, telling her I was glad she was sleeping, that I loved her, and I would try her again later on today. But, conditions got worse near my base.

I saw the worst things that can happen to people, and the more I saw it, the more I noticed a lot of guys I had met on deployment carried that nastiness and darkness with them... for a really long time. I really didn’t want to be one of them. It wasn’t because they were or are bad people, but because I still wanted to be me. I still wanted Maddie to know me when I got home. I was terrified of losing her.

I watched how it could be so easy to get sucked into the problems that deployment could cause in relationships. So, I did everything within my power to make sure I kept my relationship with Maddie a priority. I called as often as I could, usually daily until fighting season began and it was hard to keep up with each other. Our schedules were constantly missing their intersections.

I remember one day in particular when things had not gone as planned. I was supposed to call. I wanted to call. I missed her face. I missed her voice. I missed everything about her. All of the things she hated, I missed.

I didn’t want to wake her when I got in from the mission where we saved a Navy Corpsman from a pretty serious injury. So, I sent her a quick email.

Mads, I'm so sorry. I know I was supposed to call you yesterday before I slept. I was so pumped for shift change. I'm disappointed it didn't happen, and I know you are too. A call came out that needed all hands right at shift change. I couldn't leave. I wouldn't have even if I could have. Added another to my list. I’ll call soon. I love you, and I miss you.

It fucking sucked when our daily calls turned into weekly calls. Eventually, toward the end of fighting season—and my deployment—our weekly calls turned into bi-weekly calls. Let’s just say it was a long motherfucking deployment, even up until the last few days before coming home.

I was happy to be saving the lives of our brave men and women, along with our allies’ lives. I was happy to be saving innocent women and children who had no say in the matter of their lives being turned upside down. I wasn’t super happy to see people with legs blown off and being rushed with the stressing time restraints to get my patients to a surgical facility during what we dub “The Golden Hour.”

Basically, it works like this: if you step on an IED and your leg gets blown off, if you’re going to die, it’ll be within an hour in most cases. If you can get to a good surgical facility within that hour, then there’s a really good chance you’ll pull through.

The Golden Hour had to happen. It was a goal we set for ourselves, and it’s one that wasn’t always obtainable. Getting in and out of a battlefield with a man, and what’s left of his severed leg, is hard work in it’s own right. Rescuing people while being shot at and putting your faith in your cover to make sure you weren’t someone’s mark took it up a notch. Next up on the list of impossible things to get done was to get out of that hot zone and stabilize my patient, not thinking about the fact that there was a target on my back until I got into safe air space again. Helicopters don’t exactly do the sneaking around thing very well. There were many times when we would have to split up from our helicopter duo and go into missions completely blind and vulnerable with no cover. In short, it was hell, but it was a hell I enjoyed the fuck out of.

The highlight of my deployment came when Maddie sent an email to see if I could chat. It had been a quiet day, and it felt like we hadn’t talked in weeks. When she answered my video call, her hair was a different color. My brunette had gone redhead. It didn’t look bad. It just looked different.

“Hey, pretty girl,” I said, smiling as I leaned back in the chair. I was taking her eyes in. Blue today, it looked like. It was always hard to tell when we chatted on video. Her new red hair, flashy in the sunlight from the window, looked pretty fucking sexy. Her lips looked like they needed to be kissed, and I wanted to fucking kiss them so badly. I groaned and slammed my hand down on the table beside the computer. She jumped, startled by my outburst, and stopped talking about whatever it was she was saying. I was a terrible husband then, too. I didn’t really listen.

“Are you okay?” she asked. I had never heard her be so timid before. I guess there was no way to let war not change you. I was definitely harsher. It was evident by the look on her face.

I took a deep breath and watched her. I sighed and rested my hands behind my head, leaning back in the office chair set up in the room with the “not shitty” computer.

“I’m sorry, Mads. I’m good. It’s just been rough. You know?” We met eyes via thousands of miles away, and I knew she knew how hard it was. I had never given Maddie enough credit.

“Tell me about your saves since we talked,” she said. And almost instantly, my tension started to fade. She knew talking about the people I had saved was always the best way to make me stop focusing on the negative, and fuck if I didn’t love her for that.

I told her about my last two saves. One guy with his left leg completely gone. She made a bunch of scrunched up nose faces that were adorable, and I was glad she didn’t really understand the horror of war that so many of us had to see. I told her about the kid who got caught with shrapnel from an IED who would live to see another day. I felt better. I felt good. I was still different, but I felt better.

I was OCD about the tally I kept of my saves vs. my kills. I was always in a better mood when my number of lives saved was higher than my number of lives killed or not saved. I didn’t want to hurt people. I most definitely didn’t want to kill people. But, if it came between someone who’d definitely take the shot on any of my brothers and sisters and me, I was going to take that shot, brother-man. So sadly, I had killed. Happily, I had saved a lot more. It was a fucked up tally system, but it worked for me. It still works for me.

Anytime anyone says they can see these things and not let it touch them, they’re just straight up fucking liars. You know what sucks? Losing. Having to use the body bag procedure for the first time. Making sure to include a flag for the family who would receive the hero they’d never get to go out to dinner with again. It definitely fucked with me. I was so worried about being the same me. But only a few months into my deployment, I was sure I couldn’t do this job and remain unchanged. Hell, I’d known that a few days into my deployment, but I was too stubborn to recognize it until it was almost time to go home.