So I was discharged and issued my flight home. I packed my rucksack, cleaned out my wall locker and headed out San Diego bound. One last night of debauchery with the boys before I was sent home.

One night turned into a missed train connection to L.A. and missed flight the next day. Needless to say I made it home the following day worn out from the long trip home.
It was great to be home, but at the same time devastating. I now had to find a new path, somehow manage a disability I know nothing of and really find where I want to head what I want to do.

I took a good month and a half off to readjust to civilian life and to iron out any ideas I had about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do. During this one time I turned to a friends and a past time that always help settle and calm me. Fishing.

When I arrived home Salmon season was just kicking into high gear. I packed the truck and left everyday fishing all day and thinking of where I was going. The hardest past of my transition hit me a week later. I was headed to a party with some friends when I got a call from a good Marine friend. He informed me that a close friend had been killed in an IED attack his first week in Iraq. Lance Corporal Stout. KIA. 5 days after his arrival with his unit. His vehicle had been struck while on patrol.

This was a huge blow to my transition back to "normal" life. I wanted to be back so much worse now. I wanted to strike back revenge the same as everyone felt after 9/11. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do. That night and all week I partied hard for Stout.

Its a strange thing to understand this behavior. But as being Marines, it was a feeling that I believe we all felt. If I die, don't cry for me, Don't be sorry I'm gone. Be happy that I died in what I believe in doing, in what I believed in. And in the time remembering me make it joyous, have a party. Be loud and crazy rock out like its your last time. If I was home that's what would happen, so in my absence, do the same. In this behavior, I will be the closest to home that I can come.

Then back to the stream. The rest of my summer consisted of fishing, tubing down the rivers and BBQ's. A nice time to myself. After the summer I had decided I was going to move to Atlanta to work for my Dad. I wanted a new place to start over. Get my degree and I had a job already lined up. So off I went into the unknown.

I left Monday Morning headed east. I was determined to make it a scenic enjoyable venture. I mean how many times do you get to drive coast to coast? I headed to the high plains dessert in East Oregon, from there south through Nevada. What a fun route. Almost ran out of gas 100 mile straight stretches and cacti. I went through Vegas and 110 degree heat. Visited the Hoover damn and the Meteor crater in AZ. I spent the second night in Albuquerque NM. There was an awesome thunderstorm that surrounded me that night. It was spectacular. The next day I went through TX OK and into AK. I stayed the night with a friend who had also just gotten out of the Corps. Me and him took the next 2 days and went to New Orleans to visit the damage a year after Katrina. It was still a mess. The next day I finished my trip and arrived at my Dads at about midnight.

The funny part of my trip was I should have run out of money about the time I hit Arkansas. But a check I had been waiting for for months got deposited into my account. I guess this was a meant to be decision.