Return To Base

Jess and I woke up at 3:15 am and got to the airport by 4:30. Groggily, she drove me to Piedmont Triad International Airport. She’s a saint. She walked me into the terminal as a way to assuage my anxiety about flying. It’d been over a decade since I last flew, and there weren’t digital boarding passes and phone apps the last time I flew. I made it through TSA, and of course, they needed to pat me down. The large gentleman touched my no-no spot. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I moved away from that early morning groping and found my gate. Then, I waited and waited.

On this first leg of the trip, I was seated in the absolute back end of the plane. I was almost the last person to board, too. I think there may have been a crate of live chickens behind me. I mean, I was way back there. Since I was in the last boarding group, they said they’d have to check my carry-on bag. There was no room left in the overhead bins. Great! I obsessed over every inch of that bag and packed it as lightly as possible so I wouldn’t have to check a bag. Ah! The adventure has begun.

Once I disembarked from the plane in Dallas, I realized my connecting flight was what felt like ten miles from the terminal where I landed. I kept seeing signs for “Sky Link,” so after hiking at a brisk pace for twenty minutes and getting no closer to my gate, I swallowed my pride and asked for help. A pilot was standing alone, and I figured if anyone knew what Sky Link was, he would. I mean, the sky is his office. He told me it was a train that would take me to my gate. I felt like the country mouse in the big city, but dang it, I was moving fast once I was on that tram!

After getting off the tram at my gate, I was only a five-minute walk to familiar faces. Most of us flew from our home airports and picked up the same connecting flight from Dallas to Missoula. It was awesome to see people I recognized from the internet. My knees are two inches longer than the seats are wide. They throbbed the whole flight. It’s a small price to pay for a grand adventure.

People trickled into the terminal over the next hour, and our number grew to around seventeen people. All of us were eager to get to Montana. I sat across the aisle from a former Navy Corpsman during the flight from Dallas to Missoula and immediately knew I was going to like hanging out with this guy for the next five days. He was a wildcard, and I loved it.

Everyone on this trip to Montana was part of a veteran book club hosted by a non-profit called Patrol Base Abbate. The event was called “Return to Base.” The intent was to allow veterans to rest and refit like when we’d come off missions and return to the safety of our base. The goal was to promote community and make veterans feel like they weren’t alone. I needed this. Bad!

I almost didn’t apply. My wife heavily encouraged me to put myself out there and fill out the application. I always advocate for others to get help and take advantage of opportunities intended to help them grow, I just never feel like any of those same things are for me. I often self-isolate and pretend that it’s just because I’m an outsider. It turns out I’m just taking the easy way out by retreating into the safety of my loneliness. I swung big and filled out the application. I figured I didn’t deserve it and wouldn’t get it anyway, so why not fill it out and prove myself right? I was wrong. Thankfully! As I mentioned above, my wife is a saint.

When I got the acceptance email stating that not only was I one of the few people selected for the return to base event, but they were also paying for my plane ticket. What?! That is amazing. That’s when the anxiety started to rise within me. I obsessed over packing lists and logistics that were out of my control. I was excited to go but nervous as hell. Growth happens when you get outside of your comfort zone, and boy was this outside of my comfort zone.

Landing in Montana brought with it a slight crispness to the northern air. The aspen trees, maples, and some sporadic conifers that were dotted among the evergreens were all glowing in full golden autumn glory. This place was as gorgeous as everyone said it was. I loaded up into a large van driven by my friend Keith and a handful of people I didn’t know—but I would later consider these people brothers and sisters. Having the privilege of sitting in the front seat on our two-hour drive from Missoula, Montana, to the patrol base in Thompson Falls gave me a unique opportunity to soak it all in as we drove. Again, this place is breathtakingly beautiful.

The site in Thompson Falls where we’d be staying was previously a home for wayward boys. How fitting. Many of us, myself included, felt wayward as adults set adrift post-service. I was relieved to see that the bunkhouse we’d be staying in had a heater. My sleeping bag was only rated to thirty-five degrees, and the overnight lows were in the upper twenties. Another crisis averted. My anxiety was proven wrong again. I dropped my stuff on a cot at the back of the bunkhouse and began to get familiar with my surroundings.

That evening, we had a short fireside chat around a large campfire where we introduced ourselves and gave a quick, fun fact. Mine went something like, “Hello, my name is Stan, I live near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and I have a basement full of tropical frogs.” I set the stage for my weirdness early. There were people from every branch of the military represented—well, other than Space Force, but we don’t count those guys yet.

Patrol Base Abbate is set up around interest groups in the hope of getting veterans connected and in community with one another. Our specific group was a book club, and the book we would be discussing for the next four or five days was The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. We had structured classroom times around the fire and journalling sessions. We had amazing meals provided for us by a truly phenomenal cook, and I was constantly blown away by each meal that she threw together for us. At the end of each day, we would have fireside chats that would go well into the late evening. The days were further enhanced with yoga sessions first thing in the morning and one in the evening before dinner.

The yoga sessions had me nervous, surprise, surprise. This was another irrational thing I was anxious about. I learned a couple of things during those sessions. First, I learned I absolutely suck at it, but that’s okay. Second, I learned sometimes, just by breathing deeply and focusing on a speck on the ceiling, you can release the tension you were weighed down by. Last, I learned that just because something seems weird to me doesn’t mean it won’t help me.

We got to visit an observation tower that was at around 7,000 feet of elevation. The air was a bit thin, and I found myself laboring up the mountain in the last ten percent of the group to make it up to the top. I had an epiphany once I reached the summit. Despite how hard it was to reach the goal, no matter how badly I wanted to quit, I didn’t. We all started at the same place and ended up in the same location. Some of us got there quickly, and for others—like myself—it was a struggle, but we all made it in the end. If that ain’t a metaphor for my life, I don’t know what is. The journey may be hard, and I may be late getting there, but dang it, I’ll make it to the mountain top one day, trust me! There’s no quit in me.

The next day, we visited a dam and sat along a river and journalled. The prompt was to write about the first time we ever felt cool. I chose to write about the first shows I played in my first serious, According to Perception. I started talking about hardcore, and the article shifted into a piece that thanked my mom for always believing in me despite disagreeing with some of my creative pursuits. I wrote how she not only financed a large piece of musical equipment (a PA) for me while I was in that band but also that she was at my first shows to support my dream. I can’t say the same for everyone in my family, but my mom has always been there, and I’m truly thankful for that.

The last day culminated in some targeted discussions about the book and journalling sessions writing about who let us come and who we were there on behalf of. Truthfully, I didn’t understand the prompts and wrote both journal entries about my wife, Jessica. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have stepped out of my comfort zone to engage in this life-changing event. I also felt I was there on behalf of her because she deserves the best of me, and sometimes, that requires me to do the hard inner work to fix the insecurities and anxieties I’ve built up.

One of the last things we did at Patrol Base Abbate was a sandbag ceremony. This event was intended to foster reverence and create a memorial for someone we lost. Typically, people chose someone who died in combat, a veteran, or someone they knew who served and passed away. The first person that came to my mind was Captain Rodney Thomas, our battalion chaplain. Captain Thomas concealed a terminal illness and was on back-to-back deployments to Iraq when he was our chaplain. Typically, chaplains are dirtbags. I’ve never actually met one before him, or since that wasn’t.

Captain Thomas was the literal definition of the greater love that is spoken of in John 15:13. He laid his life down because he loved the troops that much. He went on more combat missions than any of us. He put himself in harm’s way to give us hope. As a young atheist, he entertained my questions and didn’t condemn me for them. He showed true Christ-like love. His life preached louder than any sermon I’d ever heard. He died the week before we got home while running in a PT formation. His spirit was strong, but his body could no longer keep up.

The irony here is that I didn’t intend to talk about or even think about God on this trip. Yet somehow, the conversations always ended up there. We were vulnerable around the fire, in the bunkhouse, and on the trails. I made a point to speak to everyone, and many of the conversations went deep. We spoke of war, fear, death, faith, and shenanigans. We cried. We laughed until it hurt. We were reverent and irreverent all at the same time. It felt like I was in a platoon again. All the same archetypes were there, and it was beautiful.

I’ve written quite a few words in a feeble attempt to explain the week I’ve had. Still, I can’t find adequate language to explain how I feel and how good this experience was for me. I can’t make it make sense for you, and that’s okay. Trust me when I say that a weight has been lifted off of me. That’s probably why my crazy trip home didn’t affect me negatively—but that’s a story for another day. I felt like a broken cistern trying to pour what little I had out to everyone else, and finally, I felt my vessel had been refilled. Here’s to no longer self-isolating and knowing if I’m an outsider that, it’s because I chose to be. Community is where you build it.

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