"HOW IS MY WIFE?"

The title above comes from the question I ask every 501st Soldier I meet who has just returned from down range.

I had the opportunity yesterday to visit with an officer who has just returned from Baghdad - a woman who knows CPT Patti very well and knows much of life in Camp Provider.

I'll call her Cindy.

The conversation I had with Cindy is clearly indicative of the gulf between my understanding of the Soldiers' situation and the reality of it.

Cindy said she misses being in Baghdad. To be sure, part of that is that strange guilt Soldiers have when they have been through hell with their comrades, then one of them is fortunate enough to escape early. But that isn't all of it.

"I like it better than here" she said, referring to Army life in Baghdad versus the same in garrison.

"We had time to get things done. Time to finish all the paperwork, all the reports. Time to talk with our Soldiers. Time to read...time to focus."

I was fairly amazed at hearing this. I wondered if after 200 days Cindy had lost perspective - I'm thinking "sure, if you are on the job 24 hours per day, every cotton pickin' day, well, yeah...it just might seem like somehow you "found" a whole bunch of extra time to do your job.

But that wasn't it. I say that because of the next thing Cindy said.

"It was so relaxing in Baghdad."

Of all the words I might have ever anticipated hearing from a Soldier describing life in Baghdad, relaxing was never on that list.

To be sure, Cindy isn't just a little bit nuts. She said leaving the gates of the camp and driving through Baghdad was cause for fear. "The IEDs are real...we hear the stories about them just like you do. They train us to try to look for them, but you can't really. They could be anywhere and look like any thing. They've even begun hanging these things from trees above the streets."

And she didn't return unscathed. "I have scars", she said, "some ugly scars." She was speaking of the physical wounds she received in an ambush/firefight.

Cindy went on to talk about the improvements they had made to Camp Provider, most of which we already knew...the MWR building, the dining facility, two volley ball courts, a basketball court, a workout gym, the smoothie machine.

She did indicate that the MWR phone situation had somehow recently gotten worse, not better. Something about there being actually fewer phones than before. And she mentioned that she had received letters from Soldier's mothers wondering if her soldier is OK because she hasn't heard from him in two months. I know from my own time in the Army that sons and daughters never communicate enough with parents back home under any circumstance (from the perspective of the parents, that is) and surmise that dynamic is worse in a war zone. Perhaps Cindy's reference to disappearing phones helps explain some of that.

I asked how her health is. She said the intestinal malady the troops call Saddam's Revenge had only fully cleared up after she was out of Iraq for over two weeks. And she says she is tired. But she says the Army doctors did a million tests for parasites and other such things. And generally she feels good.

And talking to her was wonderful. Even though she spoke of wounds and scars and firefights, she seemed very, very normal.

And not to forget, she said life on Camp Provider is "relaxing"...and most of the 501st FSB soldiers spend most of their time on Camp Provider.

As she started to leave I thanked Cindy for all the assistance and friendship she had given to CPT Patti over the last 7 months. She gave me a hug and smiled. "I really like your wife", she said.

So I feel better. Perhaps you do too.