This past weekend, I made several pizza deliveries to a section of Fort Bragg where the troops prepare for deployment - a sea of camouflaged people, an ocean of camouflaged emotions.
The new recruits have this cocky air about themselves, while nervously lighting a cigarette and rambling on about the weather. The more experienced solders have a sober swagger in their step and will tell you outright about their concerns.
The single members in ranks playful chat with nervous excitement about going. But they look with a faint sadness at the gather of families around their married colleagues.
The married ones say little. They have the stiff-upper-lip of commitment to their job; their brave, confident eyes hold back tearfully goodbyes for their visiting families.
Some of the troops believe they are fighting for an ideal of freedom. Most known they fight because that's what they are told to do - right or wrong.
In the end, all hope that they return - with as few emotional, mental, and physical scars as possible.
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