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 being able to save my family and move on with whatever the rest of my life would hold. 

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.

The Fallen

 It is always important to remember that when the words sound strange and almost repetitive, oblivion waits. I have held him to the mirror, and he keeps mocking in a sing-song voice, turning his head side to side, never looking forward, and demanding that he is an authority. The crash awaits my friend. I told you to scream at the top of your lungs, and yet, you dance and drink and do nothing. You recline in the grass, looking at the sky as though it were put there to entertain you. You have never carried anything. Your charge is adequate for one to carry, but in ignorance, you cannot even lift it.

So on top of everything. At least that is what you seemed to be, but it was never true. No one defies gravity. Conceal yourself in the protection of lies, and no harm comes. Oh, my poor, naive one. I got up early one unsuspecting morning. I read the news and could not believe it. You were swept away, just like that. Nothing protected you because every lie you ever sood on crumpled like ash, mimicking the shape of the wood it once was. Calling out the words, you found that they had no substance. 

Photo by Victor Serban on Unsplash

Did you know at that moment that you never had anything? That you built upon nothing at all. Did the light shine upon the stories you told yourself and testify that all your principles were not that at all? In the places you built magnificent things for yourself, one hand wiped it away like wiping fog off of glass and built something real, something forever, something that could never be undone in its place.

 A strange command has been given, and now all of the words and titles and authority are found to mean nothing. The very thing that could have provided the ultimate protection now has an objective: to show you what you really had all along. We cannot talk faster than the wind that moves overhead. Reconciliation comes, and it measures us by our own words. If only. If only. If only. To go back in time and do it all over, this time with a genuine interest in others, respecting all you were told. But, you know that could never be. The world is millions of miles away, careening through a different part of the universe. You had your chance back there, and it is gone. You have become what you thought was impossible, what you read about when it was not you, what could never happen to you. You are the fallen.

Despite Myself

 Writing about long-ago experiences has a liberating effect on me. These bits of history seem to be bouncing around in my head every day of my life. In an odd way, they prevent me from moving forward, in ways that are insignificant but cumulative. It creates a Memory Almost Full (McCartney album reference intended) effect. Releasing the words into space relieves the keeping of the guard on memories. It also augments the story, so that it is never forgotten. It is really the best of both worlds.

I have discovered a weird side effect in all of this. Some of these stories take months to write. I started in 1984 in the mid-nineties and finished it just a couple of years ago. Pleased with this result, I started a 1985 story, only to reach May and find myself suddenly staring down the barrel of one of the no-win relationships of my life. It has not moved since.

I started Safe Haven, but its heaviness was tiring, especially because it posed as fiction while offering a dose of anonymity. It stalled at a big event and is waiting for me to resume. I honestly do not know when that will be. 

Tired of the cloak and dagger style that Safe Haven demanded, I moved into "The Bravery in out of Range." This is a real account of Desert Storm, which begins the moment I deplaned in Dharan, Saudi Arabia, in 1991. I plan on finishing this story in short order.

What I have noticed is that when I get involved in one of these chaptered stories, it can be difficult to put a one-page, single-idea piece out. I miss those. So I am writing about it because there is something about the words that clears things up like this and sorts them out.

This is me, not waiting for inspiration or coherence. I am looking to overcome those weird little roadblocks I set up for myself. I recall during basic training. We were on the 20-mile road march. First of all, there is no road. We were walking full pack in deep sand. I recall that we were in a thick part of the woods, and we were tactical. (That's 2 columns of troops, each looking forward and flank, spaced out far enough not to be taken out together, but close enough for support).

Photo by Holly Landkammer on Unsplash

I saw something that day which proved to me that our minds are far more advanced than we can imagine. OP-4 was waiting on the right, tucked back in the foliage, completely concealed. Even more so, they were in full camo so that even if you looked right at them, they would completely blend into the backdrop. Head and eyes forward, all of us stepping so quietly so as not to make noise, I saw them, but in my brain, not with my eyes. They were green, and the shape of their heads made me think of lima beans. I could feel them watching. The tension was high, and my brain drew them so that I could see them without even looking. It was like nothing I have ever experienced. Immediately, the attack was on, canisters of CS (tear) gas hit the path, and we were scattered trying to defend ourselves while also trying to don our protective masks as the air in our lungs burned and turned us inside out. You just don't forget something like that. By "something," I mean that image in my mind's eye. Every time I think about this, I am reminded that we are made more magnificently than we think. I can do anything.

So what does it take? How do I break the ranks of long storytelling, just to have the freeing feeling of writing a short piece to get through the day, the week, this winter? I just have to do it. Because here I am, doing it. Despite the roadblocks, despite myself.

The Bravery in out of Range - Part 9: Running with the Gods of War

 Morning light came. It never really seemed clear in the desert winter. We were dirty, and that was endless. I longed for the days when we were free spirits, running the roads, doing what we wanted, stopping in at Log Base Alpha for hot pressurized showers. Those days seemed like they were so long ago now.

We were all up for about 30 minutes when it was clear that something was going on at the front of the convoy. Officers and gunships rushed up there, and we watched curiously. A group of Iraqi soldiers came over the next hill and surrendered to the group. They were starving and cold. Coalition forces had cut off their supply lines back in January. They had not been replenished since before Storm began. 

The officers came back and asked for our used chemical clothing. The heavy charcoal and neoprene line camo jackets and trousers would be more than enough to warm the prisoners up. I laughed about this, putting myself in the Iraqi soldiers' position for a moment. Of course, they were thankful to be warm and to be given food and water. I wondered what they thought about the clothes.

The NBC MOPP gear jacket and trousers consisted of a heavy, camouflaged cotton/poly outer layer, with an "everything-proof" neoprene skin inside, then a fine, heavy mesh with activated charcoal powder that would get all over you and your clothes. I cannot imagine what these poor guys must have thought as they put them on: "These Americans are the weirdest people ever!" I can tell you, we were filthy from wearing those things for all of the days that we had.

Once the commotion calmed down, I made coffee. There was a sound, something big. Earthquake? Tsunami? We looked back, and it was the entire 3rd armour division sweeping through. They came through like giant iron locusts. It was spectacular and humbling and made me thankful to be on their side. Watching them come through was like watching a parade on steroids. I suddenly put it all together. This area was not cleared yet. The foxholes last night, the 50/50 guard, the prisoners this morning. We were supposed to be behind these guys, but we ended up several hours ahead of them! Surprisingly, given how many times our trucks got stuck. Someone was messing up.

Iraqi T55 tank destroyed along our route

People from the 3rd AD took our prisoners, and later that day, we were maneuvered up the next rise and then relatively back to where we were, but facing the opposite direction. I was clear we were not going anywhere that night. The leadership had coaxed some fuel for the convoy, as well as food and water, since some people were really down and out. Jeff and I were fine in all areas. I even had the luxury of a shower. Well, sort of. I had strapped a 6-gallon jug to the tractor's catwalk. I loosened the strap, loosened the cap on the jug, and tipped it, creating a small stream of clean water to wash my hair and face in, then filled a small basin, climbed up into the back of the truck with the rockets, and cleaned up. It was crude, but way better than the alternative. Some of the people I knew in this convoy were so dirty, I could almost not recognise them at first glance. These are the unsung horrors of war.

As it got later, we learned that the captured Iraqis were armed, but had no intention of using them against us; they were cold, hungry, and missed their families. In fact, the only groups of Iraqis who fought back were the elite Republican Guard. They were Iraq's version of Special Forces. Our prisoners were not that. So, the weapons they left behind, a pile of AK-47S and grenades, were still with us. The leaders decided it would be fun to fire a few rounds of enemy weapons and throw two grenades. Of course, this was a huge attraction. No one got hurt, except when Bob threw a Soviet grenade, which kicked up a rock that then broke the small vent window in truck 31, and the glass had cut Marsha's arm. It could have been worse.

When you are trained for combat in the military, it is all about math. Your job is to take measures to reduce the odds of getting killed as close to zero. If you leave a percentage in place, in all evaluations, YOU ARE DEAD. That is a fail. Had this been one of the previous wars, like Vietnam, in which we were up against the Viet Cong, doing whatever they could to get us to leave their country, things could have been very different. 

Tactics like modifying weapons to detonate on the user when fired were common. Take your enemy down by whatever means you can, no matter how dishonorable the method. War is dirty. Jeff and I were discussing the boobytrap grenades. We had heard that the Soviets had crafted a grenade that would explode the moment the spoon was released. While the AKs were inspected before they were handed out, and the grenade clearly appeared to be a nomenclature that was familiar in the required procedures of identifying enemy weaponry, in my opinion, this is still an act of stupidity and blatant vulnerability. The leaders of this convoy were wrong. DEAD WRONG. These, my friends, are the gods of war.

The sun set after the "fireworks" and we got to sleep in our normal configuration this night, Jeff in the truck and me on the hood. Life was good again. We had no idea where we were going. The nighttime airwaves were just discussing the political aspects of the ceasefire. It was all white noise, offering no itinerary for what was happening with my friends or me. 

About an hour after daybreak, the convoy began moving again. We moved out of Kuwait and again northwest into Iraq. Everything was the same, and we got by the best we could. At night, Jeff and I would break into packs of MREs and steal the peanut butter packets, the cheese packets, and the crackers. "Chiz and Peanut Butterz" (in our trademark Czech accents). It was our food of choice. We were completely over everything else at this point. We would sit in the truck and exchange music cassettes so we each had something different to listen to. I loved one of these nights when Jeff asked if I had dental floss. I did, and he proceeded to sew up his favorite, non-military work gloves that were coming apart at the seams. We were quite a self-sufficient team. There were also quiet moments. I recall Jeff writing letters to his daughter Danielle. "Damn water." He complained quietly, wiping his eyes. Yes, all you winers, my partner, Jeff, did indeed have a heart.

Daybreak would come, and after coffee, we would be on the move again. Jeff and I cleaned up because we brought provisions to keep us that way. Other people, not all, you could not get within 20 feet of without holding your breath. 

The trek through the desert was brutal all these days. There were no roads, the trucks were too heavy, and many hurdles remained to be overcome. Iraq was hillier than Saudi Arabia. We had long climbs through loose sand. The convoy leaders did their best to manage the overloaded trucks through these traps. One particular challenge came with one of the biggest hills we had seen. We sat at the bottom per instructions, waiting while the trucks in front of us made a make-or-break run up the hill. It was a long process. I made coffee while we waited for the truck in front of us to complete the challenge. I had a full canteen cup of freshly made hot coffee.

Our turn came. Jeff kept the massive load moving without breaking traction as we hit the climb, differentials locked in, pedal to the floor, demanding that Cummins give all it could. The drive axles would hop every now and then as they broke traction, trying to pull the tri-axles on the back of the trailer through the deep sand. Jeff would back off the accelerator just enough to keep our momentum. 

Just as we hit the top of the hill, Jeff did not relent. He kept his foot pressed to the floor. The top was sharp. As we crossed the peak, the ground dropped below us. It felt like we were airborne. One thing went through my mind: SAVE THE COFFEE. I thrust my right arm out the window, canteen cup in hand. The coffee seemed to rise slowly into the air, leaving the open cup for a moment. Then, as the truck slammed into the ground beneath us, the coffee dropped back into the cup, and some rained down on my hand, but I managed to save most of it. The Captain, who was standing on the ground watching as we came over the hill, I could see him shaking his head in disbelief as he watched the truck and the coffee scene.

It was the ultimate test of a fifth wheel and kingpin for sure. The truck and trailer were asked to do something they were never built for. Had this been one of the old canvas-topped M818 Tactical tractors, it would have handled all of this without any effort at all. As the 40-foot trailer crested the sharp edge of the hill, two pallets of 155 mm projectiles took off into the air and smashed on the ground. There was no subsequent explosion, for which we were thankful.

Now we had a problem. As we got to the bottom of the hill, where the ground was firmer, the realization that when the next truck crested the hill, it would directly hit the 6 155 mm rounds we had dropped at the top of the hill. We parked and ran to the top of the hill. We could barely move them; they were so heavy. But knowing the next truck was at the point of no return, the was no option, we HAD to move these. We dragged the projectiles out of the path of the convoy, where they sat for who knows how long. Nothing exploded. These 155 mm rounds consisted of an armor-piercing uranium-lined steel casing, explosive filling, primer, and shrapnel. They weigh 100 lbs each, but these were fastened to the top and bottom wood pallets with steel straps in packs of 6. It is amazing how much strength you can find when you do not have an option.

The days all ran together, and we were marking them with a Sharpie on the windshield because we would never have been able to count otherwise. It was sunny, and our giant convoy rumbled into the military settlement of Nelligan in Iraq. We supposed this would be where we dropped the ammunition that we had just carried for over nine days. As we stormed through the compound, we saw the flag and sign for our own company, the 744th. We were amazed, they had moved to Iraq from Saudi Arabia. We were home. Our 36-hour mission had taken nine days. We roamed the desert low on food, fuel, and water, too prisoners, dug foxholes in a minefield, endured the most dangerous lightning storm I have ever seen, and that includes those I have seen in Texas and Oklahoma, man! We were coaxed to take experimental drugs (Jeff and I played along but never took a single one). We existed out of time for much of that journey. It will always be a nebula in my existence in which a memory surfaces. We did not know what was next. Some of us speculated that maybe they would suddenly direct us to Baghdad. 

Wakes you with a fever at five...

 I saw it written on the streets at dusk.

It would not be so average for me.

The hope, the knowing, the awareness, all part of the package.

I knew something was coming.

It frightened me.

The incredible capacity to see so much,

Like taking subspace bursts through a telegraph wire.

They gave me transmitters, somehow knowing that, 

at the time, I only wanted two cans and a string.

They gave me short waves,

and I fell in love with amplitude.

Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

It took a long time to understand that it went way beyond wavelengths.

It picked up impulses that they say are both electrical

and chemical

Something vibrating in the early morning hours 

has a beat that my heart assigns for filing.

I never understood it for years.

It wakes you with a fever at five.

A private universe there in the frozen world

I could not describe it even if I tried.

It led me down a selfish path. 

No, not of indulgence, but of presence.

Thinking I could turn the dials on every moment to make it better for all.

But it was not about me, was it?

Things begin making sense at this point, 

The more wild things become.

The tornado rages over my head, and I cannot hear the words, 

But I am calm, I am cool, and I am down.

I just need a little bad grammar to quench my heart, 

so that my tears of sorrow and of joy are not misconstrued.

The constant noise that no one is making 

wakes you with a fever at five.

Some mukbang sister goes to shows,

She thinks she's on the menu for many days to come.

But the faceless silhouette keeps thumbing the button, and she is gone.

Define me. Go ahead. Confidence. Tenacity. Disaster.

You never see it coming.

We are still on the screen, no matter what fever dream you are walking right now.

I saw the writing in the streets.

Warnings were everywhere.

There were hours before the darkness, but somehow, a minute later, it was dark.

I did not even have time.

I could barely run, and my legs felt like lead.

I wanted to know, but always looked the other way.

I was lying on a cold steel table.

There was a prickly blanket thrown over me.

I was very afraid, because I could not comprehend.

There were no words in my language.

My mother, sensing my doom, came and told me I was safe.

But I did not feel safe.

She yelled at me to snap out of it, but I was in both places.

It is fascinating when you are on the threshold of the fourth dimension,

and at that point, you can understand it all.

I struggled to hold onto the thing that could never be forgotten.

Too big to even stop thinking for a moment.

And in the misty morning dew, 

I woke with a fever at five.

It was there that I fell from my awareness.

Like falling off a cliff in slow motion, my memory of what cannot be forgotten, 

was being taken away from me.

I was relieved because there was too much knowledge.

My brain was burning under the load. I cried because I could recall nothing.

My thoughts eradicated.

My memories of this journey are gone.

I knew I had been saved.

I knew I had lost.

I knew something happened, 

But I could never say what it was.

Wakes you with a fever at five.

Parallel Lines

 The old grocery was out of a work of Norman Rockwell for me. The peddlers waved their wares in the face of my mother, who was commissioned to command a household. That was the choice she had, no matter which door she chose. That was just fine by her. Rubber mat with pressure plates under it, opened the doors in a very analog, cog and wheel world. 

Bulbs hung everywhere, like in the City of Ember. Little fires in glass all over, providing dim, yellowed light and slow-motion flash when they alternated. We did just fine in this teletype world, where thousands of dies were shuffled daily to tell another story to hundreds, if not thousands, of people eagerly awaiting the information. Always trusting, never doubting, the source that would leave them with blackened fingertips. They never minded. That sheet would then go onto warm a home, become a sculpture when coupled with paste, a hat, a sign, a barrier, or perhaps even gift wrap. It was all good, my friend.

If there was a lever before us, you can bet there was a cable attached to it. Transistors were new, and we were still turning on radios and televisions, then waiting for them to warm up before they actually came on. It was good for us. It allowed us to pace our lives. We did not need everything right now. The few things we had in life we really appreciated, and it made it seem like I had more than I do now.

Among all of the machinery, something happened, and the world produced musical genius all at once. Those who had the privilege of living then could never explain it to those who came later. Ironic, since all who came after owed those giants everything for what they themselves had.

Even the protegy can't explain it. They try, but they paddle the boat hard, lost in the nebulous anxiety upon which we now exist. I am so sorry that this is all that is left for you. If I could give you a taste of my memories, I would. I would like to take a day to go back every now and then. 

The way the world was, I see it too clearly. It can be good or bad. But it is, and there is nothing I can do about that. I walk on a parallel line to the one I can still see. I am happy and sad. I miss those whose reflections I see on the other side. I heard them talking because I have kept their words in my heart. I am okay with that. If anything, I really want more. 

Then I learn that the old store is where something terrible happened to my mother. The cables were sometimes connected to actuators, resulting in spankings for ambitious children who were left in the car while the parent went into the store. Life was not so simple, and things were always hard. Where there was trouble, it was hidden, sometimes for a lifetime. 

Yesterday, today, and tomorrow will mean something different for each one of us. What's the frequency, what's the time, and what is the cost? All of it is relative. Therein lies even more parallel lines. The same thing happened to you and to me, and yet it impacted us differently.

You just have to let it go.

Echo IV

There were days that I was taught to love.

I think it was the music.

The repetition was routine.

Sunday morning and the magnetic strips.

Magnets, cardboard, and glue, manifesting.

I'm in love, and I have always been.

I was raised in these fields, and it was beautiful.

When no one danced, you did.

When no one was there, you were.

On Sunday mornings, there was a special feeling when you were there.

Maybe you were sad, but I was not.

I knew where we were, and today I know you wish we were there, too.

---

We were living in wondrous times that we could not see.

I will never forget the days when the light was brighter, and we did not know.

We dreamed of trivial things.

We fought for information and were fascinated by all we were told.

We left the adrenaline and the dopamine in the parks.

Home was safe for some. Rest for some. Regeneration for some.

I am fortunate to be one of these.

Across the street, the unimaginable was happening.

There was nothing I could do. 

In the daylight, I saw their faces, and they were no different from ours.

At night, I cannot imagine what it was like for them.

---

When the music started, it meant something to me.

It always made me feel closer to you and still does.

I do know it meant something different to you.

An unrequited attention that somehow works, 

Because if it doesn't, then I have nothing.

Do you remember it the way that I do?

Do you know that you did inspire me, and that is nothing.

That is amazing.

It is a treasure I will always hold.

The Bravery in out of Range-Part 8: And the World Seems to Disappear

 I woke up on the hood of my truck. My favorite place. The impossible day was here. The sum of all fears, or expectations, or answers. I had no idea which of these this was going to be. For the first time in two generations, someone in my family was going into combat. It was definitely surreal. 

I jumped down, met all my friends, and fired up the old Chinese cook stove to make coffee. All we knew about today was that we were leaving soon, and we would know when we knew. I almost did not get to sleep outside last night because a few raindrops fell. I put my night desert jacket over my face. If this got wet, I would go inside the truck, and then Jeff and I would have to sleep sitting up.

Let me tell you something about an AM General M915A1 tractor. The backs of the seats were flush against the cab's back wall, straight up and down, with no play to recline whatsoever. The foot area on the floor was 14 inches from the seat box to the under-dash plate. No room to stretch at all. In the right seat, you were sitting up so straight, back, seat, and legs, you may as well have been sipping tea in delicate china cups. In other words, if it rained outside, you never really slept.

We collected our trash and lit it on fire. The fire and the coffee made things better. We all lived together in whatever this was, and times like these were the norm, making things feel normal. I always carried a giant jar of Nescafé and Coffeemate with me, so that I always had coffee for my friends who wanted it. Jeff did not drink coffee. I could never figure out how he could do that. But that was a Jeff thing.

The conversation as we stood around the burning trash fire could have been the same one we would have had had we merely been on a weekend drill, training at Fort Devens. There was a real bond among us that could not exist in the regular Army. Sure, you melt into one unit when you are thrown together in a situation you cannot control, but this was all that and more. We were neighbors; some of us grew up together, worked regular jobs together, and, ten thousand miles away from here, our families were hanging out together and having meals together.

We were notified that it was time, and we all saddled up and took off. 110 trucks, driving straight through the desert in a single file, northbound, in support of the 3rd Armour Division. We were carrying enough firepower to vaporize a small city. 

It was slow going. Our trucks, although highway tractor-trailers, spent a significant amount of time off-road. This entire invasion was off-road. It was so gray outside that it was impossible to tell what time it was. We were slowly crawling towards the Iraqi border. There were a couple of times earlier in the day when we could look to the right or the left and see off in the distance another line of trucks, just like ours, moving north as well. As the day progressed, they disappeared from our view; perhaps we were fanning out.

There was absolutely no concept of time now. All we could see was the distant tail of the truck in front of us. Military convoys have a prescribed following distance, so if one truck is hit with an RPG, artillery, or hits a landmine, it does not set off a chain reaction, blowing a 110 truck fault line into the earth. We had no radio communication. That could be used by the OP4 to rain artillery down upon our position. 

This ride for Jeff and me was a little quieter than usual. It just felt like we were in this void. Nothing changed. The convoy, or the truck in front of us, would move, then it would stop, then it would move again. We did our best to manage a safe following distance. The whole time, it felt like we were driving outside of time, just like a jet airliner flying above the clouds, keeping the weather below its movement.

There was no "Iraq Welcomes You!" sign. But we had a good idea that we were there, or at least nearby, because the convoy made one of its stops, and we noticed one of the command Humvees stopping briefly at each truck and talking to each driver team.

The Humvee stopped at the truck in front of us. It was Dan in truck 30. Dan, with whom I had ridden on one mission. Dan, who at times had a short fuse. Jeff and I sat in the truck and watched. This one was different; the Humvee lingered longer at truck 30. Then a Captain got out of the passenger seat. You could see an intensity about him. He was speaking sharply to Dan. Most likely ordering Dan to get out of the truck. The captain stood face-to-face with Dan. The Captain locked him at attention and was speaking sharply to him. Dan reached into his protective mask carrier on his left hip, pulled out the packet of pills we were given on the plane as we flew to the Middle East.

It made sense now. The pills. We were issued an experimental drug as we arrived in country. Chemical war is barbaric. We carried sets of two atropine injectors to self-administer should we get hit with chemical weapons. We had learned a lot about NBC (nuclear, biological, and chemical) weapons and the physical symptoms of what happens to the human body. It was hard to imagine wanting to live beyond that state. We also carried a high dose of Valium to follow the antidote because any level of active consciousness after a chemical attack or injection would not be humane.

When they gave us the pills, they told us there was a high probability that we could suffer a heart attack because the injectors sharply spiked our heart rate and respiration. These pills would raise these things gradually so that they were already elevated, and the injection would not be such a big step up. We were told the drugs were experimental and harmless. 

There were two reasons I decided to not do these pills. 1) I was not going to be a test subject of an experimental drug in a scenario where the provider gets to "win". 2) My friend Pete, who was about my father's age, meaning he was just a kid when he was sent to Vietnam, told me stories of his truck-driving days. There was a supply route through a very thick part of the jungle that was so dangerous that an attack was imminent. No person in their right mind would drive it, so the drivers were injected with a drug that made them fearless. I wondered, of course, if these pills were an excuse to boost a little adrenaline to help the cause.  I was not going to find out.

Now, Jeff and I watched as Dan was locked at attention, ordered to take the pill. When you are put at attention, you just become a tool for your superior officer to manipulate. You go from being a person to a piece of Army property. Failure to comply results in Court Martial. That is "Arrest and Conviction and Prison" for you "Civs". 

After Dan swallowed the pill, the Captain obviously even asked him to open his mouth to check to make sure he swallowed it. Dan climbed back into the truck, and the Captain into his vehicle. We were next. The Humvee slowed to the driver's side of our truck, and Jeff rolled down the window. "Alright, guys, start popping the pills." Jeff and I reached for ours and smiled at the Captain, "Yes, sir!" Just like two good little puppies. Happy with our obedience, he drove away from us to the next vehicle. We popped the pills out of the cards, I rolled down my window, and each of us threw the single pill out the window. We continued to do this at the prescribed intervals in case a check was conducted later for accountability.

We knew. We were now in Iraq. It was really happening. It was eternally gray outside. We were at MOPP Level 1, which means wearing the heavy neoprene/charcoal-lined suit, but carrying the boots, gloves, and mask. Nasty was not the word for what we were and what we would become. We were told that the mission plan was 18 hours to whatever our objective was. They always told us to double the provisions for the time they told us. Jeff and I always doubled that again. Sometimes even more. We knew from experience that we shouldn't let the military determine our well-being. That part was up to us. 

This thing we were doing was as surreal as it gets. We were moving across the face of the earth, while we knew that somewhere ahead of us, there was a firestorm on the ground. Oil wells were burning, tanks from the fourth largest army in the world were being pounded into the ground by the same artillery we were carrying. 

The day dragged on for what seemed like years. We were in this gray void moving at 15 miles an hour through the sand. The convoy would stop, then it would go again. We were never sure why we stopped, or for how long it would be. There was no consistency. I was assuming that trucks were getting stuck in the sand. They were not built for off-road use like the tactical trucks that the military had so many of. In the US, the DOT gross weight limit for a tractor-trailer is 80,000 pounds. When we did the math for these trucks with their loads, we calculated somewhere in the neighborhood of 115,000 pounds. That, combined with the powdery, soft sand, made the tactical parts of this operation a balancing act: velocity and momentum against the ground surface and the truck's weight. Some of us did well, and some of us did not.

There were no mealtimes or stops. We were self-sufficient. We were carrying our water and food. Alegedly, there would be fuel tankers meeting us when the convoy needed fuel. We had two gunships, which were HUMVEEs with an M60 machine gun mounted to a gunner ring in the roof. In the event of an attack on the convoy, the gunships would respond and take out the threat, calling for air support if the attack warranted.

Endless sound of the diesel engine, sweating in our MOPP 1 suits, the eternal grayness of the sky slowly began to darken, and into the night we went. Blackout drive, which meant we were using the pinpoint cat eyes to follow the truck ahead of us, which, after long periods, became almost subliminal.

Whoever invented the blackout drive system for the military was an absolute genius. They designed a solid opaque housing. In the middle of that housing, there were four vertical short hashes of dim red light. When you were too close, you saw all the hash marks in that housing, so looking at the back of the truck, you could count 4 on the left and 4 on the right, for a total of 8. This actually meant you were in danger of running into that truck.

As distance increased, the optical illusion caused the 4 hashes in the housing to morph into 2, which means 4 total when following the truck in front of you, and, by design, the exact regulation following distance of military convoys. As the distance increased, the two hashes in the housing merged into one, leaving a total of 2 on the back of the truck. If you only saw two, you were too far back and needed to move closer. Also, if the truck in front of you stepped on the brakes, a tiny and dim white light appeared above the red hashes. Specifically designed, none of these lights could be seen from any distance outside of the convoy, therefore never giving away your position.

I was at the wheel overnight. The convoy droned endlessly into enemy territory. Just those little pinpoints of light, almost imagined in front of me. There was nothing else to see, no dash lights, nothing. We would stop, presumably due to armed reconnaissance or stuck trucks. There was no way to know why. Some stops were momentary, some took 40 minutes. 

I kept resting my head against the glass window, seeking micro-sleeps to get me through. Every time I would open my eyes, those "cat-eyes" as they were called in blackout drive would be there in front of me. 

So many stops, with no rhythm of a schedule, made me even more tired. Jeff was napping in the passenger seat. We were stopped for an extended period. I rested my head against the glass again. I was so tired. The night spun in my weary head. The lack of sensory stimulation allowed a free mind to take over in my dreams. I was anywhere but here, yet somehow alert to my surroundings. 

There were no stars in the sky, and I felt like I was floating outside of time and space. Falling but slowly, losing not only where I was, but who I was. It was like I had been released from the life I owned, and now I was nowhere. I picked my head up, looked out the windshield. I was nowhere. The convoy was gone!  Well, all of it in front of me, I had the rest of it behind me. I fell asleep in enemy territory, and not only did Jeff and I lose, but every truck behind us did too. This was not good!

I put the truck in gear and turned the blackout drive light one more click, which turned on a very dim drive light that only shines down at the ground and is completely blocked from aerial view. This light is usually activated only on the lead truck so the driver can see hazards in the convoy's path.

I drove faster than we had been driving, but not so fast as to lose the convoy behind me. The time passed. I was concentrating heavily on staying in the tracks of the other trucks in the sand, and also sharply scanning for the cat eyes of a truck. Once I saw them, I would need to slow down our speed fast because these were only small flashes of light. As soon as I saw them, I would be right upon them. It seemed to take forever, but we finally found them. As we did, I slowed down and shut off the drive light. I could see that the truck behind me had kept up, and so, most likely, every truck behind them. I was awake for a while. The stop-and-go dance continued throughout the rest of the night. 

As the gray day broke, and the convoy stopped, I pulled out my Chinese cookstove and some Nescafé and made coffee. We rifled through the MREs we were carrying to pick something we wanted. The most common way to heat MREs was to open the butterfly hood on the right side of the engine and wedge your meal packet against the turbocharger. The running joke was, "Cook for 8 miles and serve."

Jeff and I grabbed all of the food that we could before we left. Letting the war machine decide for you if and when you would eat was not our way. We also had the same philosophy when it came to our truck and the fuel it used. The M915A1 had a 118-gallon fuel tank with 112 usable gallons. When we were gallivanting around Saudi Arabia, there were mandatory stops. Every US military vehicle had to stop at these locations to top off its fuel tank, no matter how much it had. 

Because we were National Guard, some of our unit members drove commercial tractor-trailers for a living. It gave them an excellent advantage over some of us, like me, who worked in a Rent-to-Own store. Like Jeff, who was a Mail Carrier. But there were also some things that commercial drivers were blind to.

During this operation, a fuel tanker would pull up and top us off; if they kept to that schedule, we would be fine. But that is not what happened. This march droned on through the hours and days. Jeff and I would shut off truck 32 whenever we stopped. The Commercial drivers in our unit strongly disagreed with that. "We leave our trucks on 24/7! That is how real truck drivers do it." The part about being in a war and not being able to just get off an exit and pull into a truck stop was never considered in the argument. 

We wandered the desert for days, never being told what was happening. As we did, food and fuel started running low overall. We were told the 36-hour run, which meant we should bring 72 hours of food. Jeff and I doubled that rule because nothing ever seemed to go as planned. We were out there, 110 trucks loaded with enough explosives to put a hole in the earth that could be seen from space, two gunships, a couple of command vehicles, and we, except for Jeff and me, were running low on food, fuel, and water. 

On day three, we arrived at this very flat space in Western Iraq. We were told to hold here. It was the first time in 4 days that we had stopped advancing. We had no idea where we were going. Some speculated we were headed to Baghdad. There was no Armed Forces Radio, and even if there had been, they would only have told us what they wanted. They had all of the control. 

This long line of trucks just sat in this spot in the desert and existed like we lived here. At any time, it felt like we would start setting up tarps for overhead coverage, hang up some clotheslines, and dig some latrines. We pulled overnight guard duty and just hung out. I ran the little stove all the time for coffee and water for anyone who wanted it. 

Night fell, and I slept up on the hood of my truck as usual. It was so lovely to actually stretch out and sleep. I cannot say it enough: this was the place where I got the most blissful sleep of my lifetime. It had to be something given to me to brighten things up. I had my GPX Walkman, with the oversized olive-drab bandana duct-taped to the back. The clip had broken off when it was only days old, and this big green rag was allowed to tie the thing around my arm or leg, and maybe even my waist. 

Trying to scrape news out of the sky, the FM radio dial had absolutely nothing on it since we were hundreds of miles from anything. If there was something, it would be in another language. The AM dial was my go-to. As a child, I would scan the night sky all night long, pulling AM stations from as far as 2000 miles away. I was good at this. Trying to sift through the AM dial here made me feel like I was on another planet. Every thousandth of an inch of turning the dial was another foreign news broadcast, prayer, chant, or program. Finally, English. The BBC World Service from London, or VOA (Voice of America) out of Northern Africa. VOA was funny. They did this thing called the news in "Special English." This was when they read the news, annunciating every syllable in a slow, steady cadence to help non-English-speaking listeners learn the language.

I fell asleep listening to VOA. I slept well. No worrying about losing the convoy, or dozing sitting upright. My body needed this. The airwaves played through my earbuds. This was the best possible life I could have at this time, and it was good.

Around 3:10 I awoke to something in my ears that seemed different. It was a broadcast on VOA, of President Bush's speach. I heard the words:

 "After consulting with Secretary of Defense Cheney, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Powell, and our coalition partners, I am pleased to announce that at midnight tonight eastern standard time, exactly 100 hours since ground operations commenced and 6 weeks since the start of Desert Storm, all United States and coalition forces will suspend offensive combat operations. It is up to Iraq whether this suspension on the part of the coalition becomes a permanent cease-fire.

The most important words I heard in his speech were:

"And soon we will open wide our arms to welcome back home to America our magnificent fighting forces."

He was talking about me. All of the people living on these trucks in this 110-truck convoy were going home.  I could not sleep. I jumped down from the truck and began waking my friends, one by one. This was something I could not keep to myself until daybreak. I wanted to fire rounds into the sky, like we have seen in newsreels of liberated countries. 

Daybreak came, but we did not go anywhere. We sat right where we were, wondering how fragile this cease-fire was. In reality, we did not have orders. We were just told to stand fast, and that is what we did. Food supplies were really running low, and Jeff and I were sharing with people from our unit. Fuel didn't matter because we hadn't moved in a couple of days, but that wasn't good either. Water was distributed, but it wouldn't go very far. All reserves were tapped.

The following morning, we were told that we were leaving. The ground was littered ridiculously with garbage from our MREs over the last 3 days. We were ready to just pull out when the order came down that we were to dismount and pick up all the garbage from the ground. This was, of course, the responsible thing to do, and I do not regret it. But let me tell you, at twenty-five years old, I bristled. I was downright mad. "Are you kidding me??? We just bombed this country into the mid-1800s, and you are concerned about littering? REALLY???"

So, we left this little spot of Iraq just as clean as we found it, while oil wells burned to our east in Kuwait, making the daytime look like night. We were actually headed eastward into Kuwait, which was the plan all along as far as we knew. We drove all day and into the night. Convoy distances were now much closer since the chances of the OP4 getting a plane into the air seemed to be zero. 

As the darkness set in, a lightning storm quickly approached. As it bore down on us, we were bumper to bumper. Obviously, military intelligence is at work here. It was the worst lightning storm I have ever seen. There was no rain with it, and we were the tallest objects in the desert. One strike to just one of these 110 trucks would set off a chain reaction that would be studied in military training for generations to come. Every strike felt like it might be the end.

After the storm raged on for what seemed like forever, it finally began to move away. We were expecting rain, so we had to sleep in the truck. I tried to sleep on the floor while Jeff slept in his usual spot on the seats. There was no room for me, and it was horrible and impossible. This night was going to last forever, and I knew that tomorrow also would be torturous because of being cramped and twisted up on this tiny spot on the floor.

A knock came on the driver's door. Jeff opened the window. We were ordered to get out, go out 25 meters, and dig foxholes. Then one person was to stay awake as the other slept. We could run the schedule however we wanted to.  We were warned that there would be HUMVEEs driving back and forth to make sure someone was awake. They told us we needed to take this security seriously. No doubt, there was enemy activity in the area.

There was a breeze blowing, so digging down as far as we could was good to get us out of the wind. We made a dugout area about as wide as a full-size bed. We made it deep enough to keep the wind over us. Sleeping bags in, we rested. The HUMVEEs drive by every now and then. I told Jeff I would take first watch. I tuned the GPX to BBC World Service in London, since it was after 9 PM. There was a lot of speculation about what would happen next. There seemed to be 4 points on the earth right now: Washington, Moscow, Baghdad, and London. They talked at length. There was nothing I could glean from this to tell me when I could go home. I was foolish to think there would be.

The news program ended. A music program began on the BBC. I heard the first few chords of a familiar song. It bounced. It connected my heart and my mind to it. It lifted me from the desert sand, resembling the shallow grave I lay in. All of my perspectives changed. Uncertainty did not matter anymore. It was going to be OK. I knew it. I would really go home. I beat this place! I had no fears or depression. I was on top of the world. And there it played over a staticky radio: INXS's "Disappear." 

The song is so bright and bouncy. Everything was going to be fine, and I knew it. I found genuine warmth and happiness in a foxhole, in what I would later learn was a minefield on the Kuwait-Iraq border. The music is practically skipping down the sidewalk. Falsetto full of free spirit. The lyrics show that, despite all the darkness, we can still feel the light. It was a moment I will never forget. I lay in the prone position, looking at the horizon for OP4 while in my ears, an Australian band sang:

Say I'm crying

I'm looking at what's on TV

Pain and suffering

And the struggle to be free

It can't ever be denied, and I never will ignore

But when I see you coming

I can take it all

You're so fine, lose my mind

And the world seems to disappear

All the problems, all the fears

And the world seems to disappear

Disappear, disappear

Disappear, disappear

Disappear, disappear

Disappear, disappear