Who Fought the Iraq War: Coming Home the Hard Way

About once a month, I would run into Chief Warrant Officer Tim Blosser on Tallil Ali Air Base.  He is a funny guy in a very dry way.  We would occasionally have serious conversations, but mostly we made rapid fire bad jokes then went back to whatever we had been doing five minutes before.  

Last weekend I called Tim up just to see how he was doing.  He is the sort of guy who can make the best of any bad situation and I expected him to be back into a comfortable life and having a good time. 

He's not.

Tim came back to primary custody of his two high-school age kids and a job that disappeared while he was in Iraq.  The people who rented his house while he was in Iraq left a big enough mess that he is renting an apartment until the house can be repaired.  Worse still for someone who spent a year away from his wife, he only sees his wife two days each month.  She lives in Maine, has two high-school-age children also.  She will continue to live in Maine until they graduate.  Tim wants his kids to graduate with their friends, so he will continue to live in Pennsylvania.

Tim said parenting is about sacrifice.  He and his wife knew when they married that they would only have occasional weekends together for the first four years they were married.  He said that an arrangement like this really makes him appreciate the time he has with his wife.  He even said they plan to continue to have special weekends together when they live in the same place.

He got a job, but it is with a small company and he is the new guy, so he did not sound really secure in his prospects.  But he talked about how the company is expanding and if everything goes well, there could be real growth.

Tim is an amazing guy.