I felt bad and embarrassed for the Army instructor discussing his personal convoy operations experience during his deployment to Iraq.

After the second year of war- the Army started using recent Afghan and Iraq War veterans as instructors versus service members with no combat experience reading out of a Field Manual.  Sounds like a good idea to me.

During my first pre-deployment training December 2003-February 2004, we did not have recent combat veterans training us.  Our trainers were just regular soldiers reading out of a manual.

Theory does not always equal reality and previous war tactics are not always suitable for the current war.

My unit’s pre-deployment training was going very well.  Much better then my first pre-deployment training experience back in December 2003 to February 2004.

We were all seated for convoy operations training.

The Captain’s convoy and war experience was much worse then mine.

He did not mention death or those who died; there was just a few seconds of silence.

It took a couple times then I finally noticed; the painful pause.

The Captain paused when bad memories returned.

He only paused- there were no tears running down his cheeks or his eyes watering, trying to shed a sad memory from his mind.

The rest of the audience, mostly from my unit, noticed the pauses, but did not understand why.   Of course they would not understand, this was their first deployment to Iraq and my third.

I understood the painful pause, on more then a few occasions I painfully paused.

Eventually, the painful pause become less frequent and almost but not quite end.