Making the adjustment; Justin Hughes glad to be back on Canadian soil, despite difficult adaptation

CORNER BROOK - "We were coming home, but we had three guys in the bottom of the plane that weren't coming home to the same thing we were. They were supposed to, but they weren't."

The harsh reality of those words from Cpl. Justin Hughes of Corner Brook, as he sat at his parents' dining table, summed up the emotion of a Canadian soldier returning to his homeland after completing an eight-month tour in Afghanistan.

The mobile support equipment operator is only a couple of weeks out of a rotation that claimed the most Canadian lives of any in the war-torn country thus far.

Those three soldiers were Cpl. Andrew Grenon, Cpl. Mike Seggie and Pte. Chad Horn, killed at the hands of a Taliban attack on the final leg of their tour.

Hughes, who was joining many of the soldiers on decompression leave at the time, said being hit with that news was the hardest thing he experienced of what he described as a very difficult tour. The 21 lives lost were the most of any rotation in Afghanistan, he said.

The return flight to Canada landed in Trenton, N.S. and Hughes was one of the soldiers who saw the families salute their deceased loved ones.

Dealing with that experience is one of many the Corner Brook native now has to overcome. He says he is getting there, but the process is difficult.

"You see a lot of stuff over there you don't want to see," he said. "There is some kind of reason to other soldiers getting killed, it's a part of being in the military and being deployed, but you see small kids over there. It really hits home that way, seeing small innocent kids who have done nothing wrong to anybody and they are just caught in the middle. That is the hardest part of it all."

Hughes said there were many times his thoughts turned to his own four-year-old daughter Alayna, sitting at home visiting his parents Adlore and Agnes.

"You don't want any of that to come over here," the soldier said. "I've said it before that's why we are over there, doing what we are doing, so that we get to keep our way of life here."

However, in the battlefield, he said there was no time to think about those at home and no opportunity to grieve the lives of lost soldiers. He admits he has yet to deal with the losses of close friends and comrades, some of whom he witnessed go down, but he is doing his best. He said talking with friends who have been through it before has been a major help.

The change of scenery and the switch to the familiar, yet unfamiliar, quiet and safe streets has been a difficult adaptation. Sleep is starting to get back to normal, but so far some things are just not the same.

"You are so used to looking for things," he said. "I am still looking for things here. I am driving down the road and I see a garbage bag on the side of the road, I won't drive near it. I will swerve all the way to the other side of the road to avoid it, just like in Afghanistan. Stuff like that still sticks out in my mind. Even a pop can on the side of the road, it doesn't belong there so it's ... it just sticks out."

An improvised explosive devise (IED) that sent a 17-tonne armoured truck twirling in the air is difficult to erase from one's mind.

Hughes, who had a chance to return to Corner Brook on leave halfway through his tour, said the second half was much harder. He said things were really active and Canadian troops were hit quite a bit. Outside of his regular convoys, he had to drive for battle groups, knowing strikes could happen at any time.

"When we are on the road everyday, it's IEDs and everything that you have to worry about, but when we are out on OP like that, they attack us directly, head on, and they have no problems doing it," he said. "...We would be just showing a presence somewhere and they would just attack us out of nowhere.

"How they can appear out of nowhere is just unbelievable. There is nothing but desert for miles and all of a sudden there is 50 of these guys out of nowhere. You don't know where they came from. Then all of a sudden as quick as they came, they are gone.

"It's frustrating. You wake up to rockets flying over your head and bullets hitting the side of your truck, and you just scramble to get in your truck as quick as you can. Your body just goes into a flight or fight mode. Whatever you have to do, you do. That's where the training comes in."

About 60 members of Hughes' transport group began training together in April 2007. He said they were a close-knit group, who went about their jobs the same way as the rest of the Canadian army. But, all the soldiers in his group returned alive. He said it was only luck.

If that was indeed the case, his mother Agnes, is only too happy luck was on their side. She said the past eight months were very worrisome. There were many sleepless nights, even more so during the past month.

"There was a lot happening there and I knew he was very tired," she said. "I spoke with him often and I could sense the fatigue in his voice. I knew it wasn't just physical, but the mental also.

"...So many died so close to end of the tour. I would hear of someone being killed with a month or a week left, and I cried a lot. I found it very emotional because I thought about some mother losing her son and you never knew when our turn would come.

"Thank God it didn't, and you can only feel so sorry for the families that lost loved ones."
Hughes said he was the only one to volunteer when asked at the Canadian Forces Base Greenwood. He said he won't volunteer next time, but said he will go if he is asked directly.

"I have a lot of friends that will still be over there and I would gladly go to be with them ...if it's not for any other reason, but just to go with them," he said. "It's the friendship you get with people. You know they are going back over, so you want to be there with them to do your part. I guess, if you are there maybe you can do something that might stop something from happening."

After spending some time in Corner Brook, he will be returning to Greenwood for a few more weeks and then it is back to work. He doesn't really know what to expect - all the personnel he knew from two years ago have been posted elsewhere or deployed.
Fueling jets, delivering mail, driving tractor trailer or snowplow - whatever task he is given - will be a far cry from the past eight months.

The truck driver doesn't seem overly concerned.

"It's good to be home," he said, "It's good to be home."