You are at a heightened state for such a long
period of time you come home and things
are a lot slower. To have to, you know,
we go to an undisclosed location for
decompression and it’s three or four days
of talking about some things but most guys
are looking for a means to release,
you know, and kind of forget about things.
There’s probably a lot of guys drinking.
But you get back home, you get back on
Canadian soil and things are
just a lot slower, less heightened and
you feel like it’s, “Why am I doing this?
This is not important!”
This is just trivial stuff, you know,
over there is where the real deal is
happening, what’s really going on.
So that was an adjustment and then
obviously there’s the friends that
have been lost, the acquaintances,
the friends, the guys you have seen
a hundred times walking around the
compound and now they are no
longer with us.
The individual I told you about
earlier on where I felt the
explosion rock the camp.
So I went years before I told his
parents but the day before or
two days before, you know,
operations for me were over for the day.
I am at the makeshift gym that we got.
I am warming up on the bike
before I am about to do my exercise
and him and a few guys , they’re getting
on the mats in front of me and
they are doing some MMA wrestling.
And then a few other, a couple Americans
show up and they’re joining in and
stuff like that but this individual,
he never got off the mat
the whole time. One guy would go
in for a minute or two and he’d twist him
up like a pretzel and then he’d go on and
another guy would go in and he would
twist him up like a pretzel so I was
impressed. I was watching this guy.
It was almost like eight, nine years later I
finally told his parents, you know,
just it felt like I really needed to say listen,
“I just wanted to let you know I remember
seeing him a day or two before!”
It was an emotional conversation but
they really appreciated it.
Because at the time when it happened
I didn’t know this because
communications are on lock down.
So my wife went over to
pay her condolences.
The only thing that she could say
to my wife was don’t worry
Cory is going to come home alive.
He is going to be okay.
So those are the things
that pull on your heart strings.