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.
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