Tasha realizes that Syd is speaking from experience.

TASHA: I know, but war changes perspective on everything and everyday life seems so trivial.  I don’t feel like I belong here anymore.  There is a natural connection between soldiers.  Shared experiences and understanding•a common attachment to the ones we lost.  Everything in Iraq is so real•so in the moment.  Here I look at things I once loved and seem to fear the familiar•and there’s no going back. 

SYDNEY: Every time you loose someone or something you love you lose a piece of yourself.  

TASHA: When I was in the Army there was such a connection.  Here I feel alone.

SYDNEY:  We enter this world alone and we leave it alone•and in between we take comfort in a little company.

TASHA: (sadly) What happened to so many of my colleagues….

SYDNEY:  I’m not interested in what happened to them, I want to know what’s happening with you. You obviously miss the Army.

TASHA: Yeah, Syd, I really do.  Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be a soldier.  Loved war movies and playing G.I. Joe.  Can you relate to that?

SYDNEY:  (shaking her head ‘no") Sorry, but the Sound of Music was my favorite war movie.  But from your perspective, not getting what you want could be a wonderful stroke of luck.

TASHA:  But it was more than just a job.  It was my identity, my life.  Do you know what it’s like to be so tied up in your profession and then have that taken away from you? 

SYDNEY: (sadly) Actually, Tash, I know exactly how you feel.

Tasha realizes that she has hit a nerve with Sydney having given up her medical practice after Susan’s death and the surrounding press.

TASHA: Yeah, I guess you do. I feel like a stranger in my own skin.  Someone who has my eyes, face and limbs•but the heart and mind are elsewhere.  A body that keeps breathing and walking but not living.  And I wonder if that stranger in the mirror will ever be me again. 

SYDNEY: (sadly) The key my friend•yours and mine•is not to allow those strangers to become us.