(Editor’s note: Before working as a reporter for the Sounder and editor of the Islands’ Weekly on Lopez, Bagby was an embedded journalist with the Army and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan. This essay is in celebration of the Sounder’s special section “Women in Business.”)

We all break into laughter as the driver swears his undying love for Lady Gaga. Then something explodes beneath us. The vehicle swerves to the right. The truck commander radios to the rest of the convoy that we’ve got a flat tire. Suddenly other armored vehicles encircle us and the tire is changed instantly, as if we were at a NASCAR race. But the mechanics wear armor. Their large black M4 carbines are strapped over their sweaty backs. They work rapidly because no one knows what dangers lurk in the desert – snipers and IEDs are contestant companions of war.

But I find the situation hilarious. I am a journalist and the only female for miles in the middle of the desert and the biggest news I’ve had in weeks is a flat tire. Sometimes things are too bizarre to be scary. As we pull away from the side of the road and onto the endless stretch ahead of us, I wonder if I should feel something else.

I spent 11 months in Iraq. My mind labored there in the isolation of concrete and barbwire. I returned home to organized four-way stops, manicured lawns and children riding bikes under leafy trees. I felt the phantom limb that was Iraq. I did not miss the disturbingly hungry looks of male soldiers, the groping hands in dark helicopters or the sneers of “Why is she here?” when I wanted an interview. I had three strikes against me: I was female, a civilian and a journalist.

Despite everything, I did miss the possibility of something happening. So in my depression, I turn to rock climbing to cheer myself up.  I’m no hardcore free solo climber. All it takes is 70 feet and some slab to freak me out. But I love it. So when a climbing trip presents itself, I say yes.

We start the climbing trip driving in the darkness. My friend Darrell’s headlights reveal the Joshua trees standing still like monsters with hairy arms. Three of us, freshly returned from a year in Iraq, are boring Garrett, a recent biology graduate from Montana, about our war stories.

Natalie, a MEDEVAC Blackhawk pilot, Darrell, a MEDEVAC Blackhawk crew chief and I have a whole list of gripes. We rant about soggy vegetables in the chow hall, temper tantrums and all the constant grumblings. We haven’t seen much blood and gore, but we’ve been isolated – cut off from our familiar worlds.

My year as an embedded journalist with a MEDEVAC unit and an infantry unit came with its empty thrills of running to the concrete bunker when mortars were coming in, even if they were 25 miles away. Most of the time was spent wondering how to fill the day. The horrors of our deployment were subtle, full of walls, not just the concrete barricades or the thin tin of the trailers we called home, but also the walls we built to keep others out.

Everything in Joshua Tree National Park, Calif., is alive. Lumps of green and reddish shrubbery fill up the wide spaces. Monuments of rock jut out in all sorts of directions as if some great giant boy placed them like building blocks. My return to rock is not exactly graceful. A year away from granite and basalt makes me clumsy and unsure of my steps. My legs shake as I ascend the first climb.

Over the next few days we travel to Red Rocks, Nev., where the red rock walls nestle between the desert floors and the brown hills are dusted with snow. Natalie and I break away from the guys and call our climbing adventure the “Estrogen Hour.”  Up I go, leg shaking, breath cramped inside my ribcage and my heart thumping.

Four days later I finally feel comfortable again on rock. Yet on the last climb of the day, a gust of wind knocks a contact lens out of my right eye. Without depth perception I have to feel the rock below with my fingers before stepping up. An hour later, back in the warmth of the van, I continue describing my terror on the rock. By now all discussions of Iraq have dissolved for more entertaining topics.

Several days later I am home. I feel a nagging sense of depression. I start to look for my next job. My first location choice:  Afghanistan.