1985 Chapter 10: Your Ride is here

As summer set in, the daily cycle was always the same. Wake up with the mother of all hangovers, work at 7, inside my head, and my music during my work, which happens mostly alone. I pumped the skidokans on the beach 2 days a week and took care of odd jobs, vehicle maintenance, and, exclusively, installing and replacing street signs around the island.

During this time to think, I was trying to devise a plan to become mobile again. It was summer, and walking everywhere was getting very old. I was finally changing from the mold that I arrived in Port Aransas in. Island or no island, you could not get me to change my blue jeans, t-shirt, Frye boots dress code. But this summer, the island began to wear me down. Shorts, no shirt, no shoes. I would not be caught dead dressed like this, but now, I could walk a hot asphalt road, or a yard full of sticker burrs (something Port Aransas lawns contained: a small, star-shaped, pointy burr with the strength of a Lego). 

As I was working on a plan to get a mobile, Jeri drove into the yard one day with the vehicle I most wanted to see again. Towards the end of our time working at the refinery in Corpus Christi, he had acquired a blue 72 Plymouth Valiant, a 4-door sedan. It was nothing to look at, but it did have the 225 slant six motor and transmission (more or less) that my Dart had. My Dodge had sat in the driveway since Jeri, and I rope towed it in from 18-mile road when the front ujoint dropped and destroyed the transmission, exhaust, power steering, and radiator on March 4th. 

When he last had this, Valliant, my Dodge was still on the road. Shortly after, he sold the car, and then my catastrophe happened. A few times, Jeri mentioned that he might be getting the Valliant back. I heard a noise outside, and there they were, Jeri and Odette, they were bringing the Plymouth to me and dropping it off.  It was in a bit rougher shape now. It was loud, and each side of the body had taken some kind of impact. The tires were bald, and the suspension was tired.

That was nothing compared to the interior. It had a blue vinyl bench seat in the front and back. But the front seat was just the metal springs; there was no upholstery or stuffing, just metal wiring, so there were two couch cushions on the springs. The driver's door had been hit, so it did not latch. However, a bungee cord was tied around the base of the steering column, and the hook could be attached to the driver's door handle to keep it closed. 

In the dashboard, where the heater and radio used to be, there was a jagged hole in the metal. Through the hole, a white electrical plug hung out a couple of inches. To start the car, you would turn the key to the on position, then pinch the two plug prongs together. You could feel the jolt of 12 volts zapping you as the starter engaged and the car started up. It had an exhaust, but it did not sound like it did.

It was a Saturday. I was so grateful to have a car and for the kids being with their grandmother that I told D we could take a ride off the island. We got in, all excited for the adventure we were about to have. We stopped at the local Ice Box, gas, and convenience store and got gas and beer for the road. While I was fueling the car, I noticed something hanging down underneath. Curious, I reached under and pulled. It was the tailpipe. The entire exhaust came off with it. I walked it over to the dumpster and threw it away. This way, I did not have to worry about it falling off on the Ferry or on the road.

It sure was nice to be on the road again. We took the ferry to Aransas Pass, Ingleside, Portland, and finally northwest Corpus. I showed D where I used to work, and we found a dark spot looking across the bay at the harbor bridge. It was here that she talked, and I listened. She told me the most horrific stories that I would ever hear in my life. It was amazing to me that she was still here to talk about it. At most later points in my life, I might have recognized that she really just needed time on her own to sort it out. I was too young in the here and now to get it. I did not know how to support her, so I just listened.

We drove across South Padre Island Drive and into Flour Bluff, then north on South Padre Island, on 18-mile road, Park Road 53 as it was known then, right through the area where my Dodge met disaster in March. We got all the way home. I pulled into the driveway, adjacent to my Dodge, which was beautiful compared to this bomb we were driving. As I drove nose-first towards the passenger door and right-front fender of my red-and-black Dodge, I pressed my foot on the brake pedal, and it just swung effortlessly to the floor with no resistance at all. We slammed into the side of the Dodge and came to a stop, rolling back a little.

D jumped out of the car, cussing all the way. "I got my own two feet, I don't need this!" I was in shock. "I LOVE that car! Do you really think I would do that on purpose??? The brakes did not work at all!" From that day forward, I needed to keep in mind that every once in a while, the brake master cylinder would simply blow its seals, leaving no brakes at all, and I would have to "figure something out."

I did not have the money to pay someone to swap the transmission from this car into my car, so I took the easy way: I drove the Valiant. Despite its car from hell aspects, it sure beat walking. 

We used it for everything, but pretty much stayed on the island now. D's sister and the so-called brother-in-law went everywhere in it, too. The only thing he was pretty good at was fishing. But, really, when you live on an island off the South Texas Gulf Coast, how could you not be?

He and I clashed constantly. He always said that he and I were with the wrong sister. His "wife" and I liked the same bands, and he, in a very immature way, used that as a way to make passive-aggressive statements that the opposite configuration would somehow work better. So much for him being an advocate for the ex-husband. Although I was criticized at every opportunity, never directly, but in an undertone. I was riding along with D, who wanted to help her pregnant sister. Deep down, I knew this guy was not worth a thought or consideration from me, so, in a strange state of duality, I balanced it against the times when he was outright up to no good.

He also had no problem riding in my car. He did actually complain about its condition a time or two, but I told him he did not need to ride in it and that his feet could take him anywhere he wanted to go. Of course, he twisted that around to mean I was insensitive for talking about putting his wife out and walking. I told him I was not talking about her.

He fished frequently and one time, stupidly left a fish in the car, in the hot South Texas summer sun. I finally had to take the car up to the Landfill and blast it with the Skidokan cleaner, which had a flashpoint of 74 degrees, using a 1-inch high-pressure hose.

I did all I could to keep the peace and was even helping the sister and so-called brother-in-law move into a trailer from some cottages they were living in. We made a couple of trips and were all done around an hour before sunset. We took a break, sat on the truck of the Valiant, drinking beer. 

Suddenly, the Port Aransas Fire Department engine came in with its red lights on. They stopped and got out. "We have a report of a car fire." We looked around. "There's no car fire. We would notice that." Still, the firefighters walked around the cottages, looking around, when one of them suddenly pointed to the Valiant: "It's THIS car! It's on fire!"

I reached into the car through the window and pulled the release. They opened the hood, and sure enough, under the fuel pump, near the exhaust, fuel was dripping out of the weep holes at the bottom of the pump and igniting from the exhaust heat, setting the motor mount on fire. It was a small fire. One of the firefighters pulled the fire hose from the truck and blasted the engine with enough high-pressure water to put out a small building.

I felt this overkill was intentional. Defiantly, I closed the hood, jumped in the car, and wanted so badly to start it, give the helpful firefighters a friendly wave, and say "hey, thanks guys!" then drive away. Unfortunately, they got everything way too wet, and the car did not start till the following morning.

Because of this new issue, I decided to try to swap the transmissions one weeknight. We towed my Dodge to the City Maintenance shop, but by 11 PM, I realized I was way over my head and gave up. 

To deal with the car catching on fire if it ran for 15 or more minutes, I kept a gallon jug of water in the back seat floor. Pull up to the Family Center IGA to pick up some groceries for dinner, shut off the car, open the back door, open the hood, dump water on the fire in the engine compartment, close the hood, put the water jug back in the car, and get groceries. It was the routine. Deep down, though, I knew that if I did not do something soon, I might not even have this transmission for my car.

The final straw was when the engine started to knock really badly. I was still driving it; it was still catching on fire, and there was a persistent fish smell I could never get rid of. I went and talked to a local mechanic I had met during my A Auto Supply days. He told me to bring both vehicles to him, and $300, and he would make the swap.

It was amazing to have my real car back again. But it still had no power steering. The exhaust was damaged in the drive shaft incident, and I was having electrical issues. Port Aransas was taking its toll, but this was still a thousand times better than the Valiant, which we towed back home and parked.

September was here, and as colossally messed up as my life was, it seemed to be getting better. Our relationship dynamic had not changed. At times, we did well, and looking back on that, I could easily see those moments through the lens that said D and I were friends. All the other times screamed that she needed to be on her own; ironically, so did I. But I was not ready to see that, and she did not have many options for a place to live with 3 kids, so she sort of needed me, too. She could have and would have figured it out if she had to, but this was sort of working for now.

I was so busy trying to stay ahead of my life that would disintegrate at any moment that I did not get to see my Dad outside of work very much. I still hung out with him and Brooke, but it was not nearly the way that it had been before Memorial Day weekend, when all of this insanity began.

Undone in the Meltdown

The voices all around me rejoiced,

Freedom has finally come.

Lying down snow shovels in the armistice,

There was joy, tears, and relief until I noticed the whole scene had been left undone.

In the ash, in the smoke, I saw the wounds that we did not know how to fix 

They were abandoned for lack of direction.

I knew then, I needed to minister to all those left undone, unfulfilled, and unquenched 

Of course, I harbored fear of being caught in the gravity well of my mess that I could not see for 5 months

All of which had ended my life in the last revolution. 

But I knelt down and aided one fallen two years ago, and within hours, it leaped to its feet and danced a dance of freedom and humility.

Another hill to climb that I could not allow myself to even touch, I laboured for hours until its conclusion, and it joined the dance of liberation. We recoil. We mourn, we search for answers, and when none come, we have to get off the floor of the saloon, brush ourselves off, and walk out the door.

In my limitations, I feel like I am falling short. I have made promises, and I see them out of the corner of my eye as if they are piles of dirt underneath the carpet.

While there are some things we should never return to, I am finding that others, especially the things promised, need to be revisited, reevaluated, and addressed.

Then I ask, what was the collective combination of tasks that caused me to lose my footing and fall hundreds of feet, making no gain last year?

My burns and abrasions remind me of the missteps. I open the journal, and the tour guide looks suspiciously like me.

He is lean and fearless and still has the big goal in his words. Where did that stop?

Turning the page, I find another guide. His adventures are so much more than mine. He just liberated himself from his chemo drip; the hills he climbs have changed dramatically.

The visitors over the last week have been stark reminders of the need to test everything you can touch, everything you can see. We lie to ourselves and say it can't be done.

And you would be right if you listened.

But no.

You can be as wrong as you want to be.

It is up to you.

It is up to me.

1985 Chapter 9: Despite Repeated Warnings

 There was nothing I would not do for D. I gave her the attention she had craved for the last decade. Although that was good for her, what she really needed was to be alone and find out who she was. When you start having children at 16 and are an excellent Mom, you put yourself on indefinite hold. Now that she was free of her former life, what she really needed was to let herself grow and see what she had within.

She told me about experiences that were so dark and brutal, I never looked at the world the same again. I fell in love with her, not in a healthy way, but in this weird duality of ways. First was a sort of hero worship in which, despite inhumane adversity, D maintained a loving bubble around her children. The second was that I felt a primal desire to rescue her and somehow undo her past. This was a leftover, ingrained childhood habit of mine from taking the position of protecting and guiding my mother through trials. My mother really did not need me worrying or trying to fix things, but at the time, I thought I was having some effect.

I don't think there is anything more powerful and destructive than an ignorant young man in love. I had no clue. I did not let that stop me. I was going to fix everything. I had never stood up on my own in this world. I was 19; for the most part, I had lived with either my parents or grandparents, with a couple of summers when I lived alone in campgrounds. I made $355.79 on the 1st and the 15th of every month. You could not tell me anything.

Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash

Because our relationship began so feverishly, it caught the attention of D's so-called family. Her Mom lived on the island, so did one of her sisters. The sister was pregnant and in a common law marriage with a guy who used to work for the City, as I was now. He was a brutal antagonist. He had some strange connection to her ex and took everything I said as a derogatory statement aimed at him. I tried to find common ground with him, but it never worked. As time went by, I tried so hard to win that battle, which meant lowering myself to what he was. It took me only 3 years to mature to see that this guy was the lowest of the low. Lowering myself to him to relate was pathetic. I had no compass. All I wanted was what I wanted. When I look back, what an absolute freak show this had to be for my father to witness. I feel eternally bad that during this time, I gave my father nothing to be proud of. In large ways, I showed him the worst of what I was while he was still here, more than I showed him the best.

Speaking of him, he was the only reason I did not end up dead or at least ambushed and beaten up within an inch of my life. Her ex and the so-called brother-in-law would have loved to do this. Fortunately, they were extremely afraid of my father, which allowed me to walk with immunity.

Dad and Brooke moved out of Jeri's old mobile home on Avenue J were we had been living since last fall, and moved into Charlie's mobile home on Oleander. That was bigger, much more fancy, and was on stilts, as many houses are on the island, so it sat 20 feet off the ground.

My new little family and I moved out of the cramped travel trailer in Mayfield's Park and into the mobile home on Avenue J. Not long after, her ex came and took the trailer and his VW Bus; he needed a place to live. Having the extra room was nice. I was trying to make this perfect life for us, but there were red flags and warnings almost hourly for the person with their eyes open. Mine were shut, but I swore to everyone voicing concern that they were open.

D needed her cycle broken, and with me it was, but that was the part she did not need. At nineteen, I was too naive to see it. Everything with us was intense. Her sister and her sister's boyfriend were with us so much of the time. He could never "find" a job and was supposedly out all day, every day, looking for one. His presence was more problematic for me than for everyone else. He was a drain on everyone around him. Every word spoken was a passive-aggressive manipulation.

It did not take a genius to see that he wanted D and that all his so-called loyalty to her ex was just leverage to keep me away from her. She loved a little buzz, and he knew it, so he made sure to show up with a little pot to share with her now and then. I never knew where he got it because he was not capable of earning any money. 

We all drank. It was a way of life in Port A. A twelve-pack was legal tender. A windfall would be if you were walking on the beach and spotted black trash bags in the surf containing marijuana that was jettisoned off smugglers' boats, being approached by the US Coast Guard for inspection. The weed would be waterlogged, making it substandard. But it was like a redneck lottery in which the finder would dry it out, bag it up into small sales portions, and sell it for fifty cents on the dollar. Sea Weed it was called. The brother-in-law was frequently associated with these seaweed dealers and had some of this garbage on him.

He was always trying to get D alone and found many ways to do so. This consumed me with rage because I wanted her to tell him to get lost and never come back. It put a hole in me all day long as I worked. I was consumed with jealousy and worry. She and I worked at the same place and the same hours. There was one time she had the afternoon off. As I came down Park Road 53, driving past Avenue J, I could see her ex's 10-speed bike parked in my driveway, next to my dead car, which had not moved since the Great Dodge Space Time Disaster on March 4th. We walked and rode bikes to get around the island.

There were times her ex would stop by to see the kids, which, of course, was ok, but the history bothered me. I had heard about the bad, but I knew there were also many good times. The whole thing was too much for my immature brain to comprehend. Everything for me was a dance with hidden knives everywhere. 

One Saturday morning, D walked to the store for milk. She was missing for hours. I had searched all over the island for her. I eventually found her at a woman she worked with's house, mellowing out and visiting. At any other time in my life, I could have understood this as no big deal, but in the here and now, I could not believe she would be so insensitive as to make me think something had happened to her. It should have been my wake-up call that she really needed to start her life alone to work through the last 12 years. She was carrying so much. 

Every day was like self-inflicted conditioning for me, like Alice Cooper's No More Mister Nice Guy. I was an innocent, yet overbearing kid, just wanting to shower this amazing girl with all that was good. Most of the time, it was met with limited tolerance, anger, a lack of appreciation, and retaliation that seemed out of place. While it did not feel like it at the time, she was molding me into a very different person from the one I started out as. Somewhere down the road, despite all of the pain, the dying daily inside I felt, and inflicted upon myself, I would grow to become thankful for her and all of it. It was brutal and dark, but it wasn't her fault. She was always trying to tell me what she needed, and I could not hear it. 

I tried to do things with her, Brooke, and Dad. Those times provided a little few hours of releif from my panic. It was clear that Dad and Brooke saw no good in this union. They were right, of course, but I could not be told. I have never met a person more stubborn than I was here until I saw my sons grow up decades later.

The summer played on. I was a tense, twisted knot of a person wishing that I could fix everything. I did not even have a car, which made me feel even more powerless. My Dad, who had been my best friend for over a year, was now watching from a distance that I put him at. It had to be like watching a heroin addict slowly slipping into the abyss.

I drank hard to numb the orchestra of torture I was feeling. I showed up to work so hungover every day. I worked mostly alone, so my 1977 Chevy Pickup and its 8-Track player, with my cousin Tom's old 8-Tracks, brought me some soothing. But the fact remained, I was into something that I had to figure out a way to get D away from these parasites of her past.

My Grandmother had recently made public that she was going to give her car to my father. He said he did not want it. So, I called her and told her about an idea I had: D, the kids, and I would all move to Connecticut, and if she was giving Dad the car and he did not want it, we could use it to get our lives up there started.

My Grandmother has had to deal with adversity that I cannot imagine. She handled this well with me, always speaking lovingly but with absolute direction, not the direction I wanted. I am sure that the next time she talked with my father, he probably told her there was nothing he could do because he had tried. 

The conversation I did not know about was the one she had with my Grandfather. She was my father's mother. She called my mother's father. "You're his Grandfather. You have to get through to him. He is ruining his life. You have to go down there and talk some sense into him." As if that would ever happen, my Grandfather coming down to Port Aransas, to his ex-son-in-law's city of refuge. 

The summer days and nights continued to eat at me like cancer. Highs and lows. Listening to lies conjured up by the brother in laws unscrupulous lack of morality. D even spending a Friday night at her ex's to "talk." I kept trying to mold everything into something I could somehow understand and manage. The whole time, it was like running ahead of a title wave that I knew I could never outrun. no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much help I received, I could not get any part of my life or the lives of those around me under control. 1985 was a little more than half over, and it was going to get worse.

Lunch Break: Peak Hour

 It was really something,

you should have been there.

I was forever young, forever strong.

Time did not pursue me, though it somehow pursued me in dreams.

Power to do existed any time, any day.

That was never a thought whatsoever.

Every hill I saw, I dreamed of climbing.

The sun was at high noon, and I took energy directly from it.

It lasted an eternity and had no end.

Now I stand on the opposite edge of the canyon

I can barely see the other side upon which I once stood.

I was strong and invincible; 

It seemed even time itself could not smite me.

Photo by Daniel Schludi on Unsplash

Then I blinked...

And here I am.

Pain lives where my strength used to be.

The keepers of harsh wisdom used to warn me

I thought, what could they possibly know about me?

I was so ignorant

because they were indeed me.

On the other side, I was limitless.

I only lacked money and focus.

That first thing never matters, 

That second one burned my most precious possession: Time.

Peak hour was wonderful and it was wasted.

Does this happen to everyone?

Or was I just a fool?

I never knew I had such power.

I stepped through each day playing trivial games, 

Having empty conversations.

Peak hour was beautiful because I had no pain.

Little did I know I was banking it, so that it could grow in interest.

Today, I am paying a young man's debt.

I try to share wisdom with the young ones today.

It always looks like something else.

Dear Leonard, you nailed it when you said:

"and I lift my glass to the awful truth, 

that you can't reveal to the years of youth, 

except to say it isn't worth a dime."

I speak, but most of my words can only be heard after I am gone.

If only we could save peak hour for later on, 

what could we do with that?

Instead, I rambled along my peak hour, spreading poison on the very 

fruits that I must survive on later.

Peak hour was beautiful, and it was tragic

And it made me into this.

Is that good or bad?

I will never know.

Tired

 Tired of the wind

Tired of erosion

Tired of the lack of completion

Tired of no resolution

Tired of the exhaustion

Tired of the math problem.

Photo by Majestic Lukas on Unsplash

Contemplating all that grows in incarceration

No sunshine yet thriving

Hey, mister, can you tell me

What do you know, how do you think, what do you have?

Tired of the dreams

Tired of the weakness

Tired of the noise that never stops

ticking like a timebomb through the day

Tired of the secret life

in which I am stronger, faster, better.

Tired of deficiencies, reminders, and potholes.

I am tired of ice

Tired of the cold

I do not have the time to follow the sun to stay warm

Nor do I have the energy to make the trip.

Time is the great reckoning

I don't know how to negotiate

So I enter the room

making demands like I own the place

with no hope of ever backing it up.

I am tired of annexing what I need to survive

never knowing if  I got it right.

Is the paycheck the same if I just let go?

I am tired of the fever dream

the hysterics, the unprecedented antics

that changes with every tick of the second hand.

Facimille, paths not taken, and fiction

Tired of it all.

Just tired.

Dear Friend

 Dear Friend, where have we been? We climbed hills and travelled through dark and snowy lands, never worried about what would come our way. I never doubted you, and in doing so, I took you for granted. I was under the delusion of invincibility, much like my youth; I saw yours as even greater than that.

The marauder bands do not come in like falling skies, but like gentle snow falling, soft piano keys played, and lullabies. They seem invisible, and yet, they are nothing but seen, nothing but laying siege upon us, fires burning, acid falling, crying in the rain, pain and deterioration, and we fell slowly and denied it over and over again.

Unsteadied our steady love. It broke us without my knowing. It promised me we would go everywhere and do everything, and that things would only get better. As the sun rose one day, I packed for that wonderful journey. In one minute, I found myself standing at your bedside next to a window overlooking our oblivion. I did this. It was within my hands to stop it. I was blind. I was careless. Stupid. Ignorant. Petty. Cheap.

The days since that day have been first borrowed time, then catastrophic, then a graveyard that extended for far too long. I did this. I know it now. It gives me insight, and suddenly, I see there are so many like me now, slowly doing the same thing. I run around like a madman, screaming of the danger coming from Santa Mira! But they just look at me like I don't know anything. I am screaming in the vacuum of the same ignorance that broke my dear friend and me. I will watch this over and over again. It will always remind me of you, my friend.

My hope for you in the next world remains, because despite my limitations, you are still spectacular. I have to believe there is more for you. Yesterday, as you disappeared from view, I felt that there was. Saying good-bye did hurt, but there was nothing more that I could do. We had our day, and it was magnificent. I like to think that because of you, I will never be so careless ever again, that I will have an edge that no one else knows. You were here for the best days ever, and I am so grateful. Thank you, dear friend. Thank you.

At the End of the Disaster

 There was no fanfare.

No parades.

No sorrow,

 except for what we have suffered over the last 45 years.

 We always thought that day would come decades ago, and yet it did not. 

Instead, the lack of it taunted us, reminding us of the choices we made or did not make. 

Our justification is confusing and complex. 

We will be unwrapping it for years to come; in the end, we may still not understand.

It is not a sad day; it is a somber day to mark the end of all of the sad days. 

Thousands of them that broke us.

There were no memorials.

 No fond words.

 No tears shed.

 Forty-five years ago, we made a comparison, and it made the incarceration all these decades seem like freedom.

 We died thousands of times as we thought about it.

 What have we done? 

Photo by Abhinay Tharu on Unsplash

We embraced destruction and emotional wreckage to the highest degree.

 I was fooled in the worst possible way.

I feel shame because of that.

 I thought I could do better. 

I regret not starting a war.

A teacher once told me, with some people, that's your only option. 

No tears were shed on the day the nightmare ended. 

There were no parties and no parades.

 The great disaster came to its end quietly and left us with nothing but the pain of enduring something that should have been detonated a long, long time ago.

There is no honor, no love, no loss, no fond memories. 

We lined up like cattle headed for the slaughter.

 If I could go back and tell what this really was, would I believe it? 

Would you believe it, too? 

I worry about the answer to that. 

It's just wrong. 

The Art of Falling

 I heard it in the night

The sum of the cost I could not see

Thinking about how hard it will be

Will there be a sacrifice?

Will there be failure?

I wasn't looking.

I wasn't asking. 

What if I just did not move?

What if I did nothing?

The answer was quiet like a whisper, but it was there.

It adds weight to your carry

It steals your self-esteem

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The ground upon which I trusted my judgement

being disassembled one stone at a time.

I wake up, and the land is all gone around my bed, 

the burden of lava flowing all around.

How did it happen?

I always knew the answer, 

But the song on the winds of distrust

sang a clandestine treachery I could not discern, 

Or perhaps failed to look at it directly.

Hesitation bursts in like a heist.

Maybe one day, maybe tomorrow.

Don't reach for the high shelf, or

turn off the dream, and just go to bed.

I can feel in the daylight that everything is harder, 

but I fail to understand why.

In my distrust, I streamed across a barren land which only I can cultivate.

The dust slowly rises from my tired steps.

Time slipped away too fast, leaving me with no momentum.

False starts stripped all confidence, stealing peace.

Progress was almost immeasurable. 

Too late for the train to take me to who I was supposed to be.

Right now is the key.

Time to measure the room I occupy.

Look for the resources that lie about.

Pick something and look at it.

How much does it cost?

What is the loss by just sitting still?

What is heavier and grows just by existing?

What can the work of my hands do?

The taxman takes account of the seditary.

A moving target is so much harder to hit.

The longer we wait, the river gets wider.

The antagonist grows stronger.

30 minutes becomes 30 days of hard labor.

I have written the play, 

Prevented the steps.

But that is what is needed.

One step

Breaks the dry mud and makes that step lighter.

Small things matter, because good or bad

They eventually become big things.

I can, I can, I can...

What is the one thing I can do now?

One thing that I will not walk away from?

Be real.

It is about this one step

and

Nothing else.

The Bravery in out of Range - Part 12: The Long Run

 I was not going back to Iraq. I went and talked with the administrative officers at Echo. They told me that I would need to fill out a form for emergency leave. Emergency leave would give me 14 days to fly home, take care of things, and then return to my post. It sounded simple. 

Starting this process began with meeting with the local Chaplain to get the paperwork started. I went to the Chaplain's tent to meet with him. We did the normal interview, which gave me a chance to explain what was happening back home. What happened on the way back to my tent was bizarre. I was walking back when I passed a large, imposing man. I looked at the subdued rank on his Kevlar and his collar. It was a full bird insignia. 

If you are not familiar with military regulations and protocol, the rules change when you go from an administrative environment to the field. In the admin environment, when passing an officer, you would salute, holding till the officer salutes or you pass each other, whichever comes first. At the same time, a formal greeting: "Good Morning Sir (or Ma'am)" is appropriate. But in the field, no visible salute or acknowledgment is demonstrated. A verbal greeting is expected, but to show visible respect, one could show an enemy reconnaissance soldier which high-priority targets (officers) are in the camp.

I knew my regs, so as I passed this Colonel, I firmly stated, "Good morning, Sir." Then it happened. Just as he was passing me, I noticed his right arm reflexively went up.  Surprised, I began to turn as I was walking. He did the same in unison with me as if we had practiced the choreography. We both stopped. He harshly addressed me. "What's the matter, son? You don't salute officers?" I boldly retorted, "I am in the field, Sir!" He did not miss a beat. "You are in the Seventh Corps, son! You salute officers!" His voice was not raised, but all of his words were harshly emphasised.

I was not upset by this, but instead, amused. If this guy's ego was so big that he needed to order people to break the rules and jeopardize his own safety and the security of the log base, so be it. This was soldier 101 stuff. I know this war threw so many rules out the window that I had been taught in Basic Training, but, wow! This was funny. 

I immediately, sharply clicked my heels, putting myself at attention as I snapped. "Yes, Sir." I performed a perfect salute by every measure you could throw at it.  He saluted back. I kinda was waiting to hear that sniper round zip in from some unseen perimeter and drop him right in front of me, but of course, and thankfully, that did not happen. Log Base Echo was secure. This was very surprising because, during Desert Shield, as we prepared to ship to Southwest Asia, one of the big points they drilled into us was that we would not be able to tell a Saudi civilian from an Iraqi or Kuwaiti one, so we needed to keep those small details of security in mind to stay safe and secure. This incident, which involved all of that training, was wheeled out to the burning latrine cans and torched.

Each day passed. I did not do anything because it was generally understood that someone might step inside the tent and tell me to grab my stuff, that I was headed to a plane. Jeff and the others reported daily for local supply moves. Life was becoming commonplace and routine. Because we were in the main forces area again, Armed Forces Radio played all day and all night. 

It was March, and an international story of devastating proportions broke across AP Network News, the preferred feed for Armed Forces Radio. A large part of the world had unified through agreements made at the United Nations level to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and prevent his fourth-largest army in the world from overrunning any other oil-rich nations in the region. The objective was met swiftly and decisively. What could possibly take center stage on the world scene next? 

Devastating news suddenly burst from the States. 22-year-old New Hampshire teacher, Pamela Smart, began her trial, which alleged that she had had an affair with a 15-year-old student and coaxed him into murdering her husband. It was a dark time in time for anyone hearing this. We were the New Hampshire National Guard. It was ironic that ten thousand miles away, on the other side of the world, we (and I am not making this up) literally heard about this on the radio every SEVEN AND A HALF MINUTES!

Mealwhile during the barrage of news coming from New Hampshire, we carried on. I met new people every day as I tried to find out when I could get home. The answer was often the same; there was no precedent for my situation. In the military, it must be specifically written down somewhere. No one thought to put "spouse arrested and kids going into foster care" in any of the regulations. How shortsighted!

Slowly, others stationed in Iraq were coming down to Echo. Our tent was filling up. We had more than our fair share of "Bob's" in the unit and even our platoon. Literally, people named Robert. I was walking into the tent one afternoon after getting back from the phones. There was Staff Sergeant Bob, our assistant platoon sergeant, our state of NH legislator, Claremont's former Mayor, and my one-time driving partner. He was face-to-face with another Bob, an E4 Specialist. Specialist Bob had a full beard at least half an inch long. No matter what you see on TV, there are no beards in the Army. Period. Staff Sergeant Bob raised an eyebrow and said, "Specialist, don't you think it is time you shaved?" As I passed these two, I looked at SSG Bob and, channeling my best Trapper John from M*A*S*H, I said, "Relax Bob, there's a war going on."

Suddenly, SSG Bob went full-on unhinged. "OH MY GOD!!! THERE'S A WAR GOING ON!!! WE SHOULD SMASH ALL OF OUR EQUIPMENT, DENOUNCE ALL OF OUR OATHS, AND THROW ALL MILITARY REGULATIONS OUT THE WINDOW!!!!!"

He stopped. Specialist Bob and I blinked for a second. Then, channeling my very best Leonard Nimoy-like Spock, I raised an eyebrow and quietly said, "Really, Bob, you should learn to control your passions. They will be your undoing." Then, he smiled. War is a strange thing. We see sides of people no one else will ever see.

From Wayne, I heard stories about things going on back home that would have been better if I had not. This war had turned life completely upsidedown. We were over here, and our families were trying to mesh with each other, trying to make sense of this. As if we were arranged in a mirror formation with the family members I worked with over here, it made us feel closer. The best I could tell, it did nothing like that, and in some ways, potentially made things worse. 

There were stories of spouses with health issues, infidelity, and financial woes. It was like having our hands tied. Our unit was doing what felt like busy work. The war was essentially over. Why were we still here? I knew the answer was still very complicated.

Around this time, the mail that family and friends had sent to me when they learned I was deployed had somehow finally found its way to me. I received mail from my Grandmother's sister-in-law. It was like a trip to another planet to hear from her. I never did get to see her again, but it was wonderful to have this contact with her. I also felt bad for her because the worry and pain of having me over here came through in her words. 

I also received a letter from my cousins Dave and Janet. They are my second parents. When my mother was pregnant with my sister, she was put on bed rest. Unable to take care of a 3-year-old, I stayed with Dave and Janet. Although I was very young at the time, I have clear memories of those days. They were good days filled with love and adventure. Their letter was encouraging and reassuring.

I also received a letter from my good friend Steve, with whom I used to camp and work at Lone Oak Campground in East Canaan, Connecticut. His letter was really long and warm, like a casual conversation around a campfire. Every now and then, he would break the subject and tell me, "Keep your head low!" I was touched. There was so much irony in this letter. I was a John Lennon fan; you might say I would give the president of the Lennon fan club a run for his money. No military for me. Absolutely no war for me. I was very outspoken about this in my teenage years. 

Steve, on the other hand, did the ROTC program in High School. He was enlisting in the military as soon as he could. When I returned from Texas in '86, he told me what had derailed his military trajectory and that he had left.  He was out, and I was in. This dynamic was the most unlikely scenario, and yet, here we were. I was sitting on my cot, in a GP medium in South West Asia, reading his letter, and he was home, writing me, telling me to keep my head low.

I had an Any Soldier letter as well. This is where students write a letter that is distributed to troops, and you, in turn, develop a pen pal of sorts. My first one was from a teenage girl from Texas named Dawn. Her letter was nice enough. I could not figure out whether she was shy or was mandated to write this letter as an assignment. Giving this young woman a chance, I decided she was shy. I wrote a warm and appreciative letter back to her.

My second letter came from a man who lived in California. His name was Stoney Burke, and he had a public access television show called Stoney Speaks. He was sort of an activist. He brought things to people's attention 20 years before social media. He had an edge about him, and yet, he wrote. I later looked him up, and he is the real deal. Wikipedia says:  

Stoney Burke (born January 17, 1953) is an American street performer and actor based in California.^[1] His street performances often emphasize the protected right of freedom of speech in the United States, in spite of his many arrests for speaking freely in public on college campuses, with experts categorizing his work as a form of civil disobedience.^[2]

In addition to his public speaking, Burke has appeared in many different film and television shows, including the documentary series The 90's, where he performed unscripted, live street interviews with politicians on the floor of the 1992 Republican National Convention. Burke is also the author of the book Weapon: Mouth–Adventures in the Free Speech Zone (2014). 

It also said his major influence was George Carlin, and let me tell you, you could see that for sure!

 He told me that if I wrote back, he would read my letter on his TV show. (Yeah, I am flashing back a little bit to the Rolling Stones' "The Girl With Far Away Eyes"). I wrote back to him, never expecting to hear from him.  Months later, when I was home, I received a VHS tape of his show, and in it, he read my letter. The fact that a guy like this, who holds the establishment responsible for its actions, cared enough to write to me really told me he wrote to truly be a comfort to someone sent into a war by a system he could never trust. He brought no political bias into his letter to me, nor when he read my letter on the show. It was poetic of a man who could really separate what drove him from doing something nice with sincerity. 

Every day, we were relentlessly bombarded with absolute torturous cruelty. It was tireless and never stopped, no matter the time of day or night. I wondered why we were not trained for this abuse back at Devens; we were, after all, stuck there for two whole months training on everything imaginable. But even the war machine could have predicted this assault, by which I mean the media coverage of the Pamela Smart Sex-Murder Trial. Stepping back from these words for just a second. Little did we know that, in a short 39 months, we would survive all of this to watch the slow-motion ride of a white Ford Bronco as it becomes our flagship mission into the descent of our shame as a people. I have said it many times, the world became a much more dangerous place on August 2nd, 1990, the day Iraq invaded Kuwait. I could string so many things to that date like a crime board if I like had nothing else to do.

More people began to come down from Iraq, and the word was that we were closing shop up there. Daily supply moves were being made locally, so all hands were on deck. I was getting bitter about my situation because everyone kept saying the same thing. What was happening to me does not fall within the definition of Emergency Leave. If it is not printed somewhere, it can't happen. Jeff asked me to take care of the burning detail. I was indignant, pointing out that the Army kept asking me to perform, but they failed to do what they needed to do for me. Statements like this do not work for Jeff. He said to me, "If you are not visibly doing something and just sitting in the tent doing nothing, you're going to end up on these supply missions."

Someone else may have just seen this as a threat, but I knew this guy better than anyone. He was making the point that had I taken the dreaded latrine burning detail, I would be only yards away from my stuff and could be on a truck to the airport in minutes if something suddenly breaks in my campaign to get home. Jeff was putting me in the best place to succeed. Jeff does not use many words when doing something like this. He expected me to see his common sense, and I did. As I stated before, once you were burning latrine cans or trash, NO ONE messed with you. It was like a forcefield.

Once everyone arrived from the site in Iraq, we needed to expand our footprint here at Log Base Echo. We were given a new piece of land where the entire company could spread out with many GP Medium tents, officer tents, an administrative office, and a mess tent. We were good at this, so on moving day, we built our whole company area.  We were all together, from my perspective, for the first time since Devens.

The food was terrible, just like it should be in the Army. Fortunately, our daily supply runs were marred by accidental mishaps in which large #10 cans of freeze-dried shrimp and many other items the Army never saw fit to share with us would mysteriously fall off pallets and trucks.  Remembering how rude it is to litter, even in the desert, my friends always cleaned up the spilled supplies and disposed of them properly, by which I mean, brought them back to our tent and gave them to my friend Nick. Another Chinese cookstove-carrying member and I donated our stoves to a wooden plank on which Nick had prepared one absolutely delicious meal after another.

I checked in with the Chaplain every day to see if my case was moving along. Every time I called home, we could feel the disaster moving closer. My wife had even contacted state politicians in hopes that someone could lean on someone important and get me home.

We stepped up our efforts, taking my case further up the chain. My platoon leader, Greg,  a first lieutenant, was fearless and pushed harder than anyone else dared. His tenacity impressed me because he was putting himself at great risk of legal repercussions. He was not doing anything illegal, but in this system, officers were afraid to challenge it with a strong argument, as it was often seen as insubordination, even though it wasn't. No one dared test this, but it did not bother Greg. He saw stupidity and called it out. This got him noticed.

We travelled many miles because time was running out. Everything seemed to finally be coming together when another, "this does not qualify," came at the last minute. I was devastated. During morning formation, I was pulled aside by Greg and the First Sergeant, and they talked with me. I must have said something pretty threatening because the first Sergeant said to me. "You are on the other side of the world. If you try to take off on your own, you will not make it, and probably won't survive. If that idea is in your head, get rid of it. You have no chance at all. You need to do this the right way."

My anxiety got the better of me. I broke down. I told them that they were torturing me while my family was going to be torn to pieces. I was here burning latrine cans and trash while I could be at home making a difference. I came here, I did what I had to do, and I was there with a great attitude every step of the way. It was their turn to back me up.

Greg said we would go higher. That day, we drove even further. We found an administrative office willing to process an emergency leave request, but the Colonel was in Kuwait, and the paperwork needed to be sent to him for signing, which would take a day or two. While we were in an operations trailer, there was a Major named Ballard. When Greg spoke up, the Major looked at him. "Who are you?" As soon as Greg said his last name, the Major's eyes got wide. "You're him! Follow me! You and I need to talk!"

I could not hear what they were saying, but it was clear Major Ballard was giving him a piece of his mind. They seemed to have a lot in common. Their physical stature matched, and even though Greg was clearly being reprimanded, the Major did not appear condescending. He was letting a 1st Lieutenant know that he overstepped, but in no way was he assailing his character or being degrading about it. Their conversation continued; it got warmer, and they even laughed visibly at times. They broke with a smile and a warm handshake. It was impressive.

Our paperwork was cut and is now on its way to Colonel Mayhan. Greg only said that, in the future, he needed to temper his efforts and place a little more emphasis on respect. He was truly a good guy. Many officers get a bad rap, and often it is warranted. Not Greg, he was a whole person. Now, we wait.

Back home at Log Base Echo, people were getting bored. Nighttimes were filled with wild activities such as glowstick fights and other wild pastimes. It was 1991. Glowsticks were actually called "Chemsticks," and they were really expensive. Daily, we did chores. We washed clothes in muddy water and at night thanked Nick for treating us to a wonderful "acquired" meal in our tent, saving us from yet another day in the diabolical Mess Tent.

Word came to the administration, and my orders were finally cut and approved for emergency leave. We drove out to the same place we had been a couple of days earlier. This time, Major Ballard was not there. There was a Sergeant Major there now. When the clerk pulled my orders, the Sgt Major overheard. "Let me see those." Now what?

We stood there and watched silently as he read the orders. He started to shake his head side to side. "This is not emergency leave," he said quietly. I wanted to scream. I summarized what was happening. He listened and said, "Son, I understand, but there has to be a match in the regulations for this and there isn't. He grabbed a pen and blacked out the emergency leave part. He then wrote in, "sent to CONUS (Continental United States) and deactivated from Active Duty Status, transferred back into the command of the New Hampshire National Guard." 

Talk about overstepping. He took a document bearing the signature of a full-bird colonel and altered it, calling it "stupid." I was so impressed by his determined, cut-through-the-garbage attitude that I knew that, if I had encountered this man weeks ago, I would already have left. The new orders were typed by the clerk, and we were on our way back to the company area. This meant immediate departure. Well, sort of.

When we returned to the company area, we met our company commander, Captain A. He was shocked that a Sgt Major saw fit to overwrite the orders of the Colonel. He told the clerk to make multiple copies so that, when the Colonel returned from Kuwait and learned I had been deactivated, he would be covered. 

I packed my bags, and we drove to KKMC (King Kalid Military City), which has an airport. I was dropped off at the departures tent. My orders said that I was flying "Space A." That is, space available. Space available flights are something we are all familiar with. It means, if there is space on a plane, you could be stuck between a couple of vehicles or next to pallets of supplies. There is no itinerary, no plan, you just go if there is a space big enough for you. 

I remember when I was being recruited. Space A flights were listed as a perk of enlisting. You could fly anywhere in the world, Space A. Doug, the recruiter, told me the story of Justin the (probably fictitious) surfer, who 3 times a year, jumps a Space A flight to Daytona, sleeps on a cot in an armory in Florida, and catches the waves, all for free.

The orders not only said I was flying Space A, but also CONUS, which is to the continental US. That means if I landed in San Diego, it was my responsibility to get to New Hampshire. I had some control over my journey, as I could just turn down a flight to somewhere if I thought it did not fit. These were space available, first-come, first-served. I did not know how long I would be here in this tent. I was sitting on the floor on my duffel bag. 

Nighttime came, and I did not leave yet, as there were many ahead of me. The next day, around noon, there was word of a plane headed to Germany. This would get me halfway there. I put my name in for that. The waiting was tense. I scrounged for food and water while I camped on the floor. 

A couple of hours passed, and the German flight was pushed back. Suddenly, a flight to Spain was announced. I quickly added my name. As people lined up, we could count how many spaces were left. It really did not look like I was going to be on this one. They got to the last space. My name was called. This does not always mean you have it. All it takes is for one person deemed more important than you to bump you. Fortunately, that did not happen.

When we deployed to Saudi Arabia, we flew in a C-141, a very large cargo jet with webbed seating along the fuselage. This was different. The main bay was the same as the one we flew into before, but there was a ladder leading up into the ceiling. Up there, it looked like a commercial jet, with rows of seats, no windows, and the seats actually faced the tail of the aircraft. It would definitely be more comfortable than the fight here was.

I sat down and fastened my seatbelt. I was going home. I was not returning to the Middle East. This was history. Where would I be tonight? Again, I did not know, but that was OK. I was going home. I was on the precipice of saving my family and moving on with whatever the rest of my life would hold. 

During this war, Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, wrote a song called "The Bravery of Being Out of Range." It is the depiction of how world leaders threaten other nations with force, using young men and women, sacrificing their lives for the crisis du jour. The lyrics hit hard:

On their desert stage

And the bravery of being out of range

Yeah the question is vexed

Old man what the hell you gonna kill next

Old timer who you gonna kill next

Hey bartender over here

Two more shots

And two more beers

Sir turn up the TV sound

The war has started on the ground

Just love those laser guided bombs

They're really great

For righting wrongs

You hit the target

And win the game

From bars 3, 000 miles away

3, 000 miles away

We play the game

With the bravery of being out of range

We zap and maim

With the bravery of being out of range

We strafe the train

With the bravery of being out of range

We gain terrain

With the bravery of being out of range

With the bravery of being out of range

We play the game

With the bravery of being out of range

As the years have passed, the lyrics of this song have proven to be more true and less unfounded. We were told newborn babies were pulled from nurseries in the hospitals and thrown from windows in August of 1990. We were told stories of great cruelty to stir our emotions so that we could work ourselves into a rage that made us want to settle the score. Whenever we saw Iraqi soldiers, they were scared, cold, and hungry, forced by a madman dictator to lay siege to an innocent people. He, while yes, did have the 4th-largest army in the world, it was outdated and 30 years obsolete.

 We were told there were weapons of mass destruction that needed to be dismantled, so we feared for our family's safety. No such weapons were ever found.

We did what we had to do with the information we had at the time. It stripped us of things we would never get back. Had nothing been done, no telling what that part of the world would look like today. Something tells me stress and tensions would be right where they are now, just the pieces might be in different places. In the hour before getting on the plane at Westover, I told a reporter that I was doing this so my 8-year-old son would never have to deal with it. There comes a time when you find that all you did was kick the can down the road a little further. Nothing more.

The Bravery in out of Range - Part 11: The Time Bomb

 Back at the AO with the company, the personality conflicts continued. People were very irritable and had no patience with each other. I always had a way to decide not to be in a bad mood, whereas others might have no control over it. Just as little as they understood me, I could not understand them. I guess I could look at myself from the outside and never lose track of considering the other person. Anything else always seemed to be a choice as far as I was concerned.

Jeff and I were given a mission to move supplies down to our old location in Saudi Arabia at Log Base Echo. We learned that the 744th still had a small contingent there. The first and second platoon leaders were there. We basically had a couple of tents of people who were living there. Many of these were on a different offensive mission during the invasion that went straight into Kuwait, while our section supported the 1st and 3rd Armor Divisions into Western Iraq. 

We loaded up and headed south for Saudi Arabia. This was a pretty well-established track through the desert sand. We frequently encountered other military vehicles moving north and south. As we crossed the border, a tactical tow truck pulled up behind another military vehicle. They had better traction and decided to pass us on the right. There were no rules out here; that was very clear from the moment we arrived. As the towed vehicle passed, its tail struck our truck's passenger mirror, bending it forward.

We will never know why this happened. When the road is literally as wide as the global horizon that spreads out before us, how could the passing truck connect with our vehicle? This place was barbaric in so many ways. The sand, for instance, was baby powder fine. It could go through the gaskets of our vehicles and turn the gear oil into thick sludge. When following a truck, the wheels looked like they were driving through deep muddy water, but the sand was completely dry. It was just so fine; it moved like liquid. This was embedded in our gear, our clothing, our skin, and hair. There was no way to get away from it.

After several hours of driving, we pulled into Echo. We found our tent and walked in. There were faces we had not seen in weeks, since before the invasion. I came face-to-face with Wayne. "Call home," he told me. "What is going on?" I asked. He repeated. "You need to call home now."

We grabbed a HUMVEE and headed out to the remote phone center, all by itself in the desert, with a cluster of large satellite dishes pointed skyward.  I called my neighbors collect, and they went next door to get my wife. She had been on probation thanks to the lack of action of a public defender and the conspiracy of a group of people who had committed a much larger heist many years earlier. The probation term had ended, and she had not met all conditions; as a result, she was arrested and faced a short period before she would have to serve time in prison for violating probation.

I was stunned. This is what set everything into motion years ago. One fateful Friday morning, I got out of work after 3rd shift in the heat treat plant in Manchester, Connecticut. I ran out of gas on 84 on my way back to the campground. I had agreed to take her to court that morning. When I did, the hours that followed swept me away into this new reality.  It was another year of back-and-forth with the public defender, who was completely useless, and then the time bomb began ticking.

Photo: Released to Public Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files

I was at least ten thousand miles away, and time ran out. This whole Gulf War, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Multinational Coalition thing had distracted me, and I have not thought about this countdown in what seemed like forever. Honestly, I was not worried about my wife. She could adapt to anything. But we had two children, who did not ask for this to happen. Without me there, I had no idea what would happen to them. They were only 8 and 11. I knew then I needed to get home.

How hard could this be? This was an emergency. My kids were most likely going to be put into the system, but they had another parent: me. The Army would have to send me home: NOW. On the drive back to Echo, I thought about the storm at home, the fire that was burning, and was about to consume my family. Here in Southwest Asia, fires burned across the desert land, oil wells smoldering from the Iraqis setting fire to them as they retreated. I felt like I, too, was on fire. I felt like I was going to explode. I felt like my war was only now, just beginning. It seemed like it should have been simple, but somewhere deep down inside me, I knew it would be anything but easy. This would be the biggest fight of my life.

The Bravery in out of Range - Part 10: It Never Rains in the Desert

 Living at Nelligan, sleeping on a cot, and eating in a mess tent made it feel like we would not be going home anytime soon. After all, shortly after arriving in the Middle East, we were extended from a six-month active duty order to a twelve-month commitment. 

I noticed cracks in the people around me. Personality conflicts that I thought the people I knew were above. We had been together for too long. True colors were showing, and it was not attractive. I wanted a mission. I wanted to sleep on the hood of my truck and roam the desert again with Jeff, maybe with two other trucks. To be like we were before the invasion started. 

The days at Nelligan passed. We had dug very deep trenches around our tents for drainage, and what a good thing too. An overnight storm had filled these as if we had a giant mote around each GP Medium tent. You would think the water would just go right into the ground, but it took a while.

Anytime you got stuck with your company, it was inevitable that you would eventually be ordered to burn trash and latrine waste. This was a miserable duty that lasted all day, during which you dumped a significant amount of diesel onto garbage or into the 1/3 steel drums pulled out from under the latrine seats and set them on fire. From there, it was just a smelly babysitting job. I smoked, read, and just talked with others through the long hours of this necessary task. There was a shared observation, a silver lining if you could call it that, to this job. No one messed with you when you were doing it. It provided natural exemption from mid-rank egomaniacs from irritating you, trying to make themselves feel more important. Perhaps this was from the "There but for the grace of God go I" factor. Unspoken, but there.

I lost track of the days when we received a mission. We were to go to the supply area and move 5 trailers with MREs to Kuwait.  Finally! Jeff and I loaded up our supplies like we always did, planning for more than we expected, and went to pick up our trailer.

When we got there, the load was dangerous and ridiculous. One case of MREs was a 20x12x6 inch-ish box containing 12 meals each. The load was 40 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet tall. There were thousands of these on our flatbed trailers. The trailers had the four-foot sideboards up, but the load of meals was actually eight feet or more high, with a few 2-inch-wide hand straps thrown over it every few feet. There was no way these things were going to stay where they were as we off-roaded through the desert. I thought we might deliver somewhere between 45% and 50% of what now sits on the decks of these trailers.

You cannot argue with the stupidity of military leadership reasoning; they have an unending supply, so they will win every time. You just state your case, then you prove them wrong. The only time you outright defy them is when you know that you will hurt or kill others by doing it their way. If it is a loss of financial resources, that is how they roll. We win wars, well, most of them, because our checkbook is bigger.

It felt so good to be out on the... The ..... Well, actually! It WAS a road, sort of! Since all of these trucks have been getting stuck in the desert and spent more time sitting than moving, the Army Corp of Engineers thought it was a good idea to grade roads inro the desert sand, by running a grader blade through to cut the loose top sand layer away and push it off to the side, leaving a more firm road base of harder sand to drive on.

Before they did this, being in the tracks of someone before you was a bad idea, because they had loosened the sand, and it was "sand soup" for you. Now we were driving along these hastily made roads, passing entire companies of others from many nations. The British guys were always wild and crazy. They did not fit my preconceived notion about Brits, but here they were.

Photo Credit: Release Status: Released to Public Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files

We were right about the loads. We were dropping cases of MRE's like we were Oprah Winfrey on happy pills. The waste was disturbing and sickening. There was nothing we could do. But then there was. Coincidentally, many of the people whom we encountered on the "road" were low or out of food. We pounded through these graded tracks through the sand, hard and fast. People saw what we were carrying and would wave, jump, and shout at us, hoping we could stop and share with them. There was no need for such inefficiency, though.

One snappy, half-turn up the steering wheel, down, and then back up, would cause the trailer to rock side to side, and you could drop 10 to 12 cases of meals right at the feet of those watching us speed by. That's 120 to 144 meals delivered right at their feet. They cheered as they collected their delivery, and we felt so much better about losing part of the cargo we were carrying. We were forcing the meals there, which were jettisoned from the trailers at strategic drop points.

Where we were going was a long drive. We would not make it in one day. As the sun was setting, raindrops peppered the windshield. Hopefully, this would not last long. Sleeping in the truck is a brutal way to not sleep. We were parked in the graded "road". At dinner, we pillaged the MREs we were carrying and talked. The news from Africa offered no clues about when we would be going home. Lately, the news has been discouraging because it's so nebulous. At least before the ceasefire, there seemed to be something measurable happening.

The rain did not let up; in fact, it got much worse. Something like monsoon season assaulted us and our cargo. No sleeping on the hood tonight. I was so looking forward to that. When there was no point in saying or doing anything else, Jeff and I took our respective stations; he leaning on the steering wheel, me propped up against the door window. I was managing with sleep coming in waves, dipping into unconsciousness. It was an on-and-off excursion in and out of dreams. One moment, I was in Southwest Asia, the next, in one of my many childhood homes, or working back home. There was one consistent feeling. No rest.

The rain pounded the truck with a mighty roar all night long. I was sure the cardboard MRE cases were absorbing a good deal of it. That would make them even more unstable when we started moving again during the day. The roar of the rain on everything, the steel of the truck, the graded roadbed, and the glass made the night seem like it would last a few days. 

I was in one of my decent attempts at sleep when I noticed something. Something unrelated to the rain, sore muscles, and fatigue. My stomach was sending me an alert. I was not happy with the food choices I made the day before. I glanced at my watch in the deafening drone of the rain on the truck; 3:06 AM. Could I wait? The answer was clear: No. This was an emergency. I would need to step out of the truck in the rain, squat behind the tractor's tires under the trailer, and take care of business. 

I opened the door and climbed down the steps. As soon as I touched the ground, I knew this was much worse than I thought. Another great military decision was made to cut roads through the desert so military vehicles could move more easily. Now, the roads have become aqueducts. The water was halfway up my calves, the sky was dumping buckets on me, and I somehow had to get my pants down without letting them touch the water I was standing in.

As I performed this brutal acrobatic exercise, and my stomach hurt like I was being stabbed, rage hit me out of nowhere. "I AM THE STUPIDEST PERSON ALIVE!!! WHAT AM I DOING HERE? I signed up for this crap! I could be home! TEN FEET FROM THE BATHROOM!!! TEN FEET!!! I made this nightmare all by myself! I didn't have to do any of this."

Anger is something I channel well into strength and power. This was how I coped, and it got me through. After the ordeal, I was back in the truck and back to my lousy night's sleep.

The sun came up, and the skies cleared. Although the roads were no longer aqueducts per se, they were still a mess with washouts, deep puddles, and places to get stuck. I made coffee on the Chinese cook stove and was recounting my miserable night with Jeff. "At least you did not have to worry about Tumble Papers," Jeff said in his best Czech accent.

Tumble Papers: One of the most feared things we have encountered living in our truck in this war. As a soldier, you are self-sufficient; you carry first aid kits, ammunition, sufficient clothing, food, water, a weapon, and, of course, toilet paper. When nature calls, the standard procedure (when there is not a 3 AM monsoon in an aqueduct) is to walk all the way to just in front of the trailer's 3 axles, where the smooth sideboard boxes are. You can lean your back up against this box, hovering just above the "cat hole" that you just dug.  The problem is, the air currents in the desert are weird, and around a large tractor and trailer, they are even weirder. 

As each used piece of toilet paper is released into the hole, it does not stay there. The air currents under the trailer grab it and blow it out into the open, up into the air. It wouldn't be so bad except that, for some reason, the currents circle the back of the trailer. These white papers, with their frightening brown faces, start a relentless attack, bursting up into the sky, circling, and dropping like a bird of prey, diving for the kill, often, way too close for comfort, just before hitting the ground, shoots back into the sky and tries another run at you. After a few papers are deposited, this can look like a brutal distortion of an Alfred Hitchcock classic. Tumble Papers. I could never have imagined this horror when we were deployed last November.

We got underway to deliver these much-needed meals, but in much smaller quantities than we started with, to someone in Kuwait. Along the way, we encountered more people shouting at us for food. The dilapidated cardboard cases made it even easier to wag the trailer to drop a load of meals on the side of the road. We were very generous, and I dare say some were even dropping some to see if they could hit certain targets. 

We arrived at our destination around eleven. The commander of that unit was very surprised to see us there. "We don't want this stuff! We are leaving tomorrow!" They were relocating to another area the next day, and these trailers with MREs falling off all over the place would be a problem. We started dropping trailers, but the commander protested, telling us not to. We continued anyway because that was our mission. If he could provide direct communication from our leadership to support his position, we would follow that order.

We decided we needed the straps on the trailers, which would make moving them another foot even more difficult. One person from 1st platoon began taking straps off our trailer. Jeff got in his face and demanded an answer for this theft. Jeff had a way of making people explain their actions, and if they could not do that, it would highlight their selfish motives all by itself.

An hour passed, and the standoff continued. Jim, from our platoon, finally had an idea. He told the commander that we could not take them back because it would violate our orders. They also could not be left here because they belonged to the United States Army. So, in order for Army property not fall into unauthorized hands, there was only one answer: the trailers needed to be burned.

There was enough food to feed a city on these trailers, and setting it on fire would be such a horrific loss, but this was a real solution. The white phosphorus grenade could be set on the hood of a military truck, and that would burn so hot that it would burn through the hood, through the engine block, and down into the ground. When Saigon fell, the US Navy was pushing perfectly good helicopters into the ocean off the sides of the ships to make room for the people they took on. Waste has a mighty history in the US military.

The commander, realizing that Jim could and more importantly would do what he just suggested, reluctantly signed for the trailers of MRE's. We were free to go, now bobtail (that is, without trailers), meaning the ride back to Nelligan was the bumpiest, hardest ride ever, and if we didn't wear seatbelts, we could be beaten senseless inside the cab of our truck.

The ride was brutal. We carried everything we owned on our truck. We had duffel bags strapped to the cab's roof, and the strap ran through the inside of the truck, giving us something to hold onto during the bumps and slams. The ridge was so hard that my duffel worked its way out of the strap and flew off the truck at one point. We had to pull over and hunt for everything I had lost.

An unofficial behavior was starting. We were in the territory that the Iraqi Army had occupied for the last 6 months. It was becoming common for American soldiers to treasure hunt in the abandoned Iraqi bunkers and vehicles. This posed hazards from unstable munitions, unexploded ordnance, and booby traps. The war was over, and one could elect to find souvenirs and make it so his family might never see him again. Because of this, the military took a hard stance against treasure hunting and started a campaign called "Not One More Life". We, of course, twisted this into: "Not One More Day." Neither of these sayings appeared to have an effect.

We finally arrived back at Nelligan the next day, wanting to just be done with this mess and go home. We knew that was not going to happen. Not knowing what was in store for us was normal. It was our lives, yet our lives did not belong to us; they belonged to George HW Bush, Richard Cheney, Colin Powell, and Norman Schwartzkopf, respectively. None of these figures was obligated to tell us anything. Period.