In Troop Travel Limbo, Mesmerized by the Writing on the Walls Twice in one year I traveled through the wing of Leipzig-Halle's airport reserved for United States forces surging to and from America's wars - en route to Iraq in 2011, and heading home from Afghanistan in 2012. The former Soviet bloc terminal - sealed from civilians - serves as a halfway house for people sporting tactical backpacks and camouflage on their way there and back. Not a war zone and not home, the airport features expensive telephones and Internet use and shops peddling chair massages, beer, energy drinks, schnitzel, cuckoo clocks and chocolates. German and United States flags are draped next to each other on ashen walls. Grime from tired heads form dark ovals above the worn airport seats. A German map and a poster of "famous people who lived close to Leipzig" loom above a photo of John F. Kennedy's Berlin visit and his famous words. And, a sign: Leipzig took part in the fight for freedom in East Germany, through weekly peace prayers and protests. During each visit, fogged by jet lag and adrenaline, I tried to persuade myself to send an e-mail home or buy a trinket for my kids, and each time I spent the layover mesmerized by soldier graffiti dominating the concourse. Under gym-style fluorescent lights and heating ducts, I slid my boots along the tiled floor and tried to digest the words from thousands of decals and notes scrawled in Sharpie or ballpoint onto the airport walls and glass partitions. It's hard to say what started the display, or the airport authority's position on what some would call vandalism, but the graffiti remains. The layered writings gave a conflicted feel - art gallery, billboard and war memorial. For me, the letters and symbols captured a mosaic of America. The decals popped with personal messages, hometown pride, endorsements, wishes. IEDS Suck OEF X. Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans Assoc. I love Kabul. I love Guam. I like Scotch. Cover your Cough. Clean your Hands. Tip of the Spear. Fobbitry Approved. MAINEiancs. American Samoa. Puerto Rico. Charleston, SC. I love the Dairy Palace, Canton, TX. If Route Clearance were easy it would be called your MOM! Support your local artist. Support your local veterans M/C. Support Boozefighters M/C. Shooting Star Tattoos. Honest Evil Tattoos. Mountain Dew. Shiner Bock. In-n-Out. Never Forget. I'd rather be studying, University of Maryland, College Park. One sticker, recalled a missing American soldier: "PFC Bowe Bergdahl - Captured in Afghanistan 6-30-09 - Please help find me" printed in a yellow circle with a photo of Private Bergdahl in the middle. Other decals boasted unit character through their fearsome, comical or fanciful logos: thunderbirds, doves, seahorses, wolves, warthogs, lions, tigers, bears, cobras, elephants, alligators, sharks. Winged skulls, smiling skulls, scowling skulls, eye-patched skulls, skulls above swords, flaming skulls. Aces, clubs, spades, diamonds, shamrocks, green feet, red crosses, iron crosses, iron fists, knives. Centurions, cavemen, vampires, pinups, pirates, Jolly Rogers, Jolly Green Giants. Kilroy, Bugs Bunny, Tazmanian Devils, Kenny Powers, Darth Vader, and Curious George hefting a machine gun. There were unit names: Banditos, Blackhats, Blackhearts, Black Sheep, Black Widows. Bladeslingers, Desert Gators, Dustoff, Expendables, Green Mountain Boys, Guardians, Hookers. Misfit Medics, Painkillers, Palehorse, Pathfinders, Pedros, Rogue Rollergirls. Role 3. Roughriders. Secret Squirrels, Swamp Foxes, Task Force Troy, Voodoo, War Donkeys, Warlords. And mottos: All American. Be polite and professional but have a plan to kill everyone you meet. First There. Kiss our asp. Laghman Pride. Re-enlist for the Thor Battalion. Veneer o Morir. Unleash hell. That others may live. The way of the shield. After reading through many of the entries, I realized soldier graffiti couldn't be foreign to Leipzig. This is a city, after all, that has seen much war. Nearly 100,000 men died in the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. After World War I, Leipzig's Supreme Court hosted one of history's first war tribunals, where 12 German soldiers faced trial and six received prison time. The harshest sentence - four years - went to two junior U-boat officers for torpedoing the hospital ship, H.M.H.S. Llandovery Castle, and machine gunning survivors. Nearly 72 miles from Dresden - site of firebombing by the United States and Britain - Leipzig also suffered heavy losses from Allied attacks throughout World War II. Bombings killed thousands and left thousands homeless. A 1943 attack created a firestorm. And in 1944, bombs destroyed most of the Leipzig airport where I stood. In April 1945, the United States Army's Second and 69th Infantry Divisions fought house-to-house until capturing Leipzig and liberating two Buchenwald subcamps in the city. The United States turned Leipzig over to the Red Army in July 1945. The name Leipzig springs from the Slavik word Lipsk, which means "settlement where the linden trees stand." Lindens, the tree of lovers, are symbolic as places to celebrate, restore peace and seek truth. Some use linden flowers for perfume or medicines. The wood is a preferred choice for crafting musical instruments and window shutters. But Vikings also constructed shields of wood from linden trees. And lindens provide a solid canvas for notching initials. Indeed, a 1970s-era American veteran told me that when he was stationed in Germany, he carved initials with World War II dates in trees as a joke. I wondered if any of Leipzig's lindens bore Napoleonic soldiers' names. I thought of a family relic - a Civil War bullet from Shiloh embedded in an initialed hunk of sycamore, cut from the battlefield - and how it sits dusted in a cabinet at my aunt's house. A British archeologist writing a dissertation on soldier tree carvings in England and France says the messages get more personal as the carver approaches combat. She has found grave markers bearing names she found on trees. The researcher said that even though the carvers were headed for the hardship of combat, none complained about their situations. Only three contained profanity. Most of the carvings, known as arborglyphs, expressed love for those at home. In the Leipzig airport, the soldier graffiti is filled with profanity. And there's not much love on these walls. But there is some. Penned in black or red hearts one can read: Smith & Hinkle, Together 4-ever. Padilla + Parcell forever. SGT Scorzelli + SSG Scorzelli. At the end of this deployment David M. Norris is going to make Stefanie R. Niromiya his EX-wife, Gen 2:24. I'm guessing someone added "EX-" after David wrote his note. I thought Leipzig's walls would hold many memorials to those lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. I found two. One read: "R.I.P. Stansbery 101st July 30, 2010." I later checked a Pentagon news release, which explained: "Spc. Michael L. Stansbery, 21, of Mount Juliet, Tenn., died July 30 near Kandahar, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. The second was a gravestone in pink highlighter with writing in fluorescent green that said: "R.I.P. SPC Mills SSG Estavano SPC Johnson SSG Proctor SSG Altamarino 1LT Vincent" Most of these soldiers died while I was in Iraq in 2011. I didn't know them, but I'd read incident reports and reviewed images. I knew the circumstances of their demise before I learned their names or saw their faces. The Defense Department said this: Spc. Adrian G. Mills, 23, of Newnan, Ga., died Sept. 29 in Kirkuk, Iraq, of wounds suffered when his unit was attacked by insurgents using indirect fire. Staff Sgt. Estevan Altamirano, 30, of Edcouch, Tex., died Sept.. 18 in Tikrit, Iraq, of injuries suffered in a noncombat related incident. Staff Sgt. Russell J. Proctor, 25, of Oroville, Calif., and Pfc. Dylan J. Johnson, 20, of Tulsa, Okla., died June 26, in Diyala Province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their unit with an improvised explosive device. Lieutenant Vincent died a few days after I left Iraq, the second-to-last American serviceman to die in the campaign: "First Lt. Dustin D. Vincent, 25, of Mesquite, Tex., died Nov. 3, in Kirkuk Province, Iraq, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with small-arms fire." The lives of thousands of young people - in limbo - are condensed on these walls. Their words ambushed me and triggered a surge of laughter, anger and tears. Mostly, these are walls of bravado. The wall writers' friends could see them unguarded if they wrote something honest, but it's hard to get more honest than a name and a date to prove one's existence. As I left Baghdad in 2011, I signed the California flag painted on a T-wall near the base gate - that ink has surely succumbed to the dust and wind by now. I ignored the chance to add my name to the transient art on Leipzig's walls. This summer I'll carve my family's initials on a smooth-trunked tree. My kids will help. Brandon Lingle served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a public affairs officer. His nonfiction was noted in the Best American Essays 2010, and he is an editor of War, Literature, and the Arts, published by the U.S. Air Force Academy. He is an active-duty Air Force officer stationed at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Air Force, Department of Defense or U.S. government.