INTRODUCTION STUD ALERT SCORPIONS CHASE NORTH POP CORN VIPER BLUE LASERS RAMBO SOCCER JOAN BENOIT BULLIES WATSON MERYL IN THE MOONLIGHT STEAK AND POTATOES SPIDER RECONDO SCARED STOVE SHAMAL TOUGH BBC HELEN RULES OF ENGAGEMENT RUBBER STAMP THERMITE BUCKET LOADER ED WHAT'S THIS? FIRE WORKS SERGEANT MILLS THIRTEEN ANNIE DILLARD MAINE WAR'S END WINONA VINCENT
A Maine Soldier in the Gulf War
Most of these writings are excerpts from my replies to Any Soldier letters. Since I didn't know many of the people I was writing to, I could imagine them as being interested in what interested me: the battle between a dung beetle and a scorpion, discovering Annie Dillard, seeing my first dead soldier, remembrances of Africa, trying to explain why I don't speak French. I'm sure that many of the people who wrote letters addressed to Any Soldier were not prepared for the replies they got.
This book is dedicated to my wife, Jacquelyn, to my children, Eliza, Joseph, Michael, Sofrona, and Daniel, to my pen pals - particularly Helen Roettiger, to the soldiers of the 2/18th Infantry and the soldiers of the 299th Engineer Battalion.
Essayons.
A Stud Alert? Was Stallone in the area or what? Months in desert isolation had caused our senses of humor to flare, and this sounded like yet another in a recent string of jokes, some practical, some otherwise. With a twinkle in my eye I asked the sergeant on the phone, "What kind of alert did you say?"
"Stud Alert," he said again.
I almost laughed. But there was something in his tone that sounded earnest. Perhaps a bit strained. Suddenly my mind made a connection.
"Do you mean SCUD Alert?" I asked. All conversation in the tent stopped; every person turned and looked at me.
"Yeah, that's it," the sergeant on the phone said. "Scud. "
The expression on my face must have relayed the message. There was a second of deathly silence. Then the First Sergeant swore and everyone started moving faster than you can imagine.
SCUDs are Soviet-made missiles that usually carry chemical warheads. We donned our masks and protective clothing and spread the alert throughout the company.
It turned out the Iraqis actually had fired SCUDs, but not at us. Three of the missiles (without chemicals) were launched from eastern Iraq and impacted in the western part of their own country. This was probably a test of their missiles and of our reaction.
I know that in Bravo Company it got a great reaction. Plus a bonus. We now have a new expression: "Stud Alert. " Most of the soldiers in our unit feel it applies to them. They say it instead of hello when they walk into a tent.
One young private got us all during a meal. He stood up and shouted, "HEY, YOU GUYS!"
Everyone stopped eating and looked at him. "I'm leaving now," he said. "Stud Alert's over. "
We laugh about it, but when the SCUDs were fired, it scared the wee out of us.
So much for rumor control.
A certain young sergeant (The same one, in fact, who told me Stud instead of SCUD. ) has a friend who caught a scorpion in a clear plastic baggie and was carrying it around to show. When the sergeant saw it, he grabbed the baggie, stuck his face up to it, and, looking fierce, growled like an angry dog. He did this, I guess, to let the scorpion know he wasn't afraid of him. The scorpion, unimpressed, stung him right through the baggie, hitting him on the lip.
As we said when we buried the black beetle,
"So much for looking fierce. "
Thank you for your letter. It makes soldiers happy when people write to them.
Let me see if I can answer a few of your questions.
Do I wear armor?
Yes, but probably not the kind you're thinking of. My armor is like a heavy shirt with no sleeves. Do you know what a bullet-proof vest is? It's kind of like that. Inside the vest are layers of Aramid which is a plastic that is stronger than steel. We call the vest a frag vest. Frag is short for fragment which means little piece. When a bomb blows up it explodes into millions of tiny pieces or fragments that shoot out in all directions like bullets. We wear our frag vests to protect us from these shooting fragments.
I also wear a helmet. The old helmets used to be made out of steel, but now they are made out of Kevlar - another super strong plastic - so the Army calls our helmets Kevlars. Soldiers, however, call the Kevlar a turtle; I guess because they sort of look like turtle shells. Anyway, a guy will say, "Hey, hand me my turtle. " and someone will give him his helmet.
Over my frag vest I wear a pair of suspenders that fasten onto a wide belt. The Army call the suspenders Load Bearing Equipment or web gear. On the belt I carry canteens of water, two ammo pouches that contain 180 bullets for my rifle, a compass, and a bayonet which is like a large knife. On the suspenders I have a first-aid kit and a cord with rubber beads threaded on it that I use to tell how far I've traveled if I'm walking. Every 100 meters I slide a bead down the cord. When I get where I'm going I just count the beads and I know how far I've gone.
Some soldiers carry their bayonet upside down on their suspenders so all they have to do is reach up and grab the handle and pull it out. I think they learned this from watching movies. Carrying it on the belt like I do is better. It keeps it out of the way. If we ever get in a situation where we need to quick-draw our bayonets, we are probably soup anyway. (Soup is one of the funny things we say in the Army. If something is really messed up we say it is like a soup sandwich - a soup sandwich would be pretty messy, huh? Instead of soup sandwich, sometimes we just say soup and everybody knows what we mean. )
Do I ride a horse?
No, I ride in a truck we call a Deussenhaf. It's really called a deuce-and-a-half because it weighs 2 1/2 tons, but everyone says it fast so that it sounds like Deussenhaf.
Do I carry a lance?
No, I carry an M16 rifle. I am a very good shot with it, but the Army likes me because of my brain more than because I can shoot the center out of a target. The Army likes my brain because I'm good at figuring things out and at coming up with good plans for how to do things.
Like I said before, I carry a bayonet which is larger than a regular knife, but smaller than a sword. If you like sword fighting, I bet you'll like the movie The Princess Bride. Have you seen it? It's one of my favorites.
I wrote you a story called "Chase and the Magic Sword. " I'll get it in the mail in a day or so. Be looking for it.
(I don't like wearing them, anyway. )
And stare to the North.
Cardinal directions are easy here.
East is where the sun rises.
There are no clouds,
So up it comes,
Crisply,
Cleanly,
And suddenly it's day.
West is opposite the sunrise.
It's where the sun sets,
without splendor,
without fanfare.
Just a slight reddening
before it disappears.
There are three stars
known as the Great Triangle.
Before midnight
They are directly overhead
And point the way South
Down the length of Arabia
Across the Gulf of Aden
And on to Africa.
I use my neckerchief
To wipe the dust
from my glasses,
But don't put them back on.
My shoulder is uncomfortable.
The strap of my M16 has twisted.
I straighten it,
and squinting a little against the glare,
Continue to stare
to the North.
"Let's pop it," I said.
The XO just looked at me. The craving suddenly got worse.
"We don't have a microwave, do we. " I said. The XO slowly shook his head. We were very sad.
"What if we set the bag on a rock and put it in the sun? Do you think it would get hot enough to pop?"
"I doubt it. "
We both looked sadder.
"Wait . . . a . . . minute!The sun," I said. "Don't go away. " I dashed to my tent and unzipped my softsided briefcase. In the lining was an 8" by 11 inch piece of plastic stored in a protective bag. On the bag it said:
SHEET MAGNIFIER
Lightweight, unbreakable
For best results hold sheet 4" from page to magnify
Essential for reading maps, telephone directory, dictionary, newspapers
I snatched the plastic free and ran back to the XO.
"The sun. We'll use the sun. "
Unlike the puny magnifying glasses we used as kids to look at ants and burn our names on stuff, the sheet magnifier (Scientists call it a Fresnel lens. ) is serious business. I had seen its power demonstrated in survival school. The instructor had sprinkled a brown paper towel liberally with water, then with a single focus of a Fresnel lens caused the dampened towel to burst into flames.
"If it's heat we're wanting, it's heat we've got," I said excitedly. We carefully tore open the bag and extracted a few kernels and laid them out on a flat rock. I focused the sun on one, expecting it to burst into white wonderfulness. Instead, it turned black and burst into flames. The XO gave me one of his looks. I tried again. Instead of focusing on a whole kernel, I focused beside it, letting the sun barely touch one end. Half the kernel burned. But the other half. Oh, the other half. It burst open and designed itself into pure white deliciousness.
The XO carefully picked it up by its burnt end and daintily tasted the good part. He smiled.
"Do another one," he said.
We spent the next ten minutes creating little ebony and ivory explosions of corn which we took turns sampling. We discovered that the burnt part didn't taste bad and instead of biting off the good part, we soon were popping the black and white kernels into our mouths.
Further experiment showed that if instead of sharply focusing the lens, we aimed it full on the kernel, but slightly out of focus, occasionally, if we were patient (We were. ), we could cause a kernel to pop as perfectly as a microwave. This new process slowed us down. But something we had learned in our months in the desert is to savor things. Back home I would impatiently wait three and a half minutes for a bag to pop and then have that eaten before bag number two was done.
Not here. One kernel at a time, with extended pauses in between, seemed just right. I suggest that the sheet magnifier people make an addition to their list of essential uses:
In certain instances of unrequitable craving,
pops popcorn.
I didn't get to see the viper until later when head and body, housed in a shallow cardboard box, were brought proudly to the First Sergeant somewhat like a cat bringing a squirrel to its master.
I understood that vipers often have a bite reflex that is active for a considerable time (an hour?) after death, even if decapitated. I tested my understanding with a stick but got no response. Could the severed head sense the difference between a dried stick and my succulent finger?I didn't find out.
The body, which was still writhing about in agony or anger (or both), was full of something. There was a swollen place where it looked like a belly ought to be. Some said it was full of baby snakes. I voted for a mouse or two and volunteered to find out. I had on my belt a razor sharp Gerber bolt-action lockblade which I took out and opened.
First Sergeant Hogan (whose word is law and who hates snakes) said ABSOLUTELY NOT and gave the man with the box an order to take head and body well outside the bivouac site and bury them. DEEP.
The lasers are part of guidance systems and, unlike those in Star Wars, are invisible to the naked eye. That means you could be hit in the eyes with the laser and not realize it until you had been blinded by having your retinas burned out.
Thousands of Iranians had been blinded by the use of these lasers. What made this particularly interesting to me was the fact that there were not enough protective glasses to go around. They cost something like 85 dollars a pair and are only being issued to drivers of vehicles and primary gunners. I checked with the 2nd of the 18th Infantry, the unit we are supporting, and they too have a shortage of these glasses. Again the priority is to drivers and gunners.
I thought a lot about blindness. I don't see too well anyway, having 20/80 in one eye and 20/100 in the other, but that's a long way from having no vision. When I first got glasses I was in grade school. I remember what the doctor told me, "These glasses will not make your eyes better. What they will do is allow you to see. If there is something you want to see, wear the glasses. If not, don't wear them. "I have taken him at his word all these years and have worn them only when driving or at the movies.
Being nearsighted has not bothered me much. I tend to be a reader and thinker rather than a doer, so not having good far vision has seemed a minor inconvenience. The thought of having no vision, however, gave me great pause to appreciate my eyesight.
Confronted with the thought that what I see now could be the last thing that I see caused me to develop a new appreciation of my surroundings. I began to look about me with new interest, even digging my glasses out of my shaving bag where they had been stored for the last several months and putting them on. Several soldiers commented, "I didn't know you wore glasses. "
"I don't," I replied.
I thought about being blind and tried to imagine my life. I know I wouldn't give up, I'm too resilient for that, but I would certainly miss all the things I'd looked at but hadn't seen over the years. Thoughts of blindness brought two things to mind. The first is a chapter called "Blind" in one of my family's favorite books: Turn Not Pale, Beloved Snail.
The author, Jacqueline Jackson, describes an incident from The Treasure of Green Knowe by Lucy Boston, in which a boy named Tolly meets a blind girl named Susan. Later, to see what life is like for Susan, Tolly spends a morning blindfolded. By noon he is exhausted. At lunch he says to his grandmother:
"It's very tiring not having eyes. "
Jacqueline Jackson's book is really about writing (And, by the way, it's one of the best books on the subject. Believe me, I've read most of them. ) and she uses "Blind" to introduce the idea of developing other senses and sprinkling your writing with information gained from them. Don't just tell what the characters in your story saw. What did she hear? What did they smell? What did she touch? How did sense of taste affect his impressions of his surroundings?
When I think of blindness I think of Turn Not Pale. I also think of my friend Patti. We hadn't seen Patti and her family (husband and three children) for a number of years. When we came to town on a recent annual leave and gave them a call, they promptly invited us to their house for dinner. We accepted and had a lovely evening. It wasn't until the evening was over and we were on our way home that my wife and I realized we had neglected to tell our kids that Patti can't see.
If you didn't know, it would not be something you would realize. Patti's eyes appear normal; she looks at you when you speak to her; and her attractive face and pleasant personality combine to all but hide the fact that she is unable to distinguish at one foot what most people can at 200 feet. A number of years back she could read extra large type, but now depends on books on tape, Braille, or friends and family for reading.
Patti makes blindness look easy, particularly in her own home where everything is familiar. Our kids thought we were lying. The only thing that convinced them is the fact that we don't lie to them.
Once they realized that we were not joking (We do that quite a bit. ), they were amazed and full of questions. How did it happen? How come she looks at you when you talk to her? Why doesn't she have a Seeing Eye dog?How does she find stuff when she sets it down?
Sure, Patti makes blindness look easy, but faced with the possibility myself, I realized that it certainly can't be.
What things would I miss if I could no longer see? First and foremost, the faces of my wife and children. After that, I would have to say reading. I have been an omnivorous reader ever since I learned how. (One of the difficulties of marrying late is that after 30 years of reading during meals - to the introspective, a most satisfying pastime - it is difficult to learn to look at people and carry on conversations while eating. )
We have heard how in the war with Iran, the Iraqis swept the battlefield with lasers blinding thousands of soldiers. Out gunned as they seemed to be, I have no doubt that they will certainly use the lasers again.
We asked questions about the blue lasers. Would wearing sunglasses help? No. Fortunately for me, I spend most of the time in the back of a canvas covered Deussenhaf. The canvas offers zero protection from bullets, but should stop a blue laser.
I wish I had memorized more. I began to memorize what I could. Mostly scriptures. A few poems. If I had memorized a poem a week for the last ten years, I would know 520 poems.
We had come to the end of a cycle and the trainees were about to graduate. This was a big deal. Everyone would be wearing their Class A uniforms, there would be an inspection, a colonel would speak, a military band would play, and the soldiers would march in review. Family members, as well as NCOs and officers, would be in the stands.
About ten minutes before the senior drill sergeant would call the company to attention and march the troops to the parade field, a young private came running up to me with a wild look on his face.
"Corporal Governale!" he said. "I can't find my belt buckle!"
"How could you lose your belt buckle?" I said.
"I don't know," he said desperately. "I've looked everywhere. It's just not here. What am I going to do?"
I looked at my watch. There wasn't time to go back in the barracks and look for it and there wasn't time to make it to the PX and back. It was a hot day and graduation was being held without jackets. A belt with no buckle, even if it could somehow be held together, would not only be obvious, it would be unforgivable. I looked at the private. He was near panic. He had been a good troop. He had passed everything with first time goes. He had done well on the PT test and at the M16 range. He hadn't been a slacker or a complainer.
I took off my belt buckle and gave it to him. His relief was instant and enormous.
"Thank you Corporal Governale. But what are you going to do?"
"Don't worry about it. I'll get another one. Go get in formation. It's about time to start. "
"Yes, Corporal," he said and headed for formation trying to install the buckle as he went.
Sergeant Rambo came walking up and looked at my loose belt.
"Where's your buckle, Corporal?"
"Sergeant, I gave it to one of my privates. He lost his. "
"What are you going to do?" he said.
"I don't know. I was thinking of running in the office and taping it. It will look lousy, but at least it won't be hanging loose. "
He took the buckle off his belt and put it in my hand.
"Now what are you going to do?" I asked.
"I'll go over to the PX and get another one," he said.
I looked at my watch.
"You'll never make it in time. "
"True," he said. "I'll be late. The senior drill will be angry, but he'll get over it. "
"But what about the buckle? You won't have time to polish it. It's going to look like crud. "
Sergeant Rambo smiled.
"Listen, Corporal. It's your job to watch out for that private. And it's my job to watch out for you. And it's the senior drill's job to yell at me for being late and for wearing a buckle that still has the lacquer on it. Now put the buckle on your belt and get to formation, so we can all do our jobs. "
"Yes, Sergeant," I said. "And thanks. "
Whenever the name Rambo is mentioned, it's not Sylvester Stallone that I think of.
Tell me about Stuart. He's not a large, hot-tempered guy who's going to feel like breaking my bones because we're pen pals is he?I mean, there are already 450,000 other guys not too far from here who want to kill me. . . .
It would be great if you would write to my family. I probably told you last time, but to be sure: my wife's name is Jacquelyn and my kids are Eliza (10), Joseph (soon to be 8), Michael (soon to be 6) and Sofie (newly turned 4). Child #5 is due in January. Did I ask if you had any leftover baby names? If it's a boy we're thinking about Daniel. (Waddaya think?)If it's a girl we haven't a clue. Jac would be happy to hear from you. In fact, I can't find your first letter in my writing kit, so I probably sent it to her along with several other Any Soldiers I've received.
Soccer's a great game, isn't it? At Fort Sill they had a giant Polo field that during soccer season had 13 soccer fields set up on it. On Saturdays there were swarms of kids of all sizes in uniforms of every color playing all day long. Eliza and Joe were on the same team because there was no PEEWEE coach. (Or was it PEANUT?) .
At the beginning of the season, Joseph, an interested but not stellar player, would often lose his concentration waiting for the play to come to his part of the field. Suddenly the ball would be there and gone, sometimes without him even having noticed. Jac and I died a thousand deaths, but always smiled and gave him an encouraging word.
By the middle of his second season, Joe developed into a pretty good player. One thing that he did onthe fieldd(I don't think I noticed it any other time. ) was an excited little hop-and-a-skip, almost like a dance step, whenever something good happened. I'm sure he was unaware of doing it and it made me smile every time. Now when I picture him doing it, it makes a terrible little tug at my heart.
Eliza, who is ten years old and looks fourteen and a half (good grief), could beat me one-on-one in our back yard, but on Saturdays during the game wouldn't attack the ball and seemed more interested in looking good (good grief) than in playing. One game during half time, I called her over and asked her as kindly as a frustrated sports father is able why she didn't play during the game like she played against me at home. She looked confused for a minute, then I saw a little light go on in her eyes. Encouraged, I said, "Just pretend that the kid with the ball is me, then take it away from him. "
Her performance the third quarter was startling. She was clearly the fastest, strongest player on the field. By the fourth quarter her energy began to wane and she soon reverted to her original level of play. For a while there she was Pele.
You're going to think I live for soccer, which is not true, but I just thought of another soccer story - can you stand it?
In 1988 the Army attached me to the British Government and sent me to Kenya as a staff member of an Operation Raleigh expedition. One of the places we worked was in the Tsavo Game Reserve at an elephant orphanage. In my group there was another Yank, a wild and funny Irish woman, a young man from Singapore, and a Swiss miss. The other expedition members were all from England.
One of the Kenyan park rangers (We had to have an armed ranger to keep us and the baby elephants from getting et by lions. ) invited us to play soccer against his village. On the appointed day we were fetched in a battered 2 " ton truck that looked like something from HATARI! The village we went to was a small cluster of decrepit block buildings and wooden huts in the middle of nowhere. They didn't have much, but they did have a soccer pitch. It had a dusty red surface and was bordered on one end by a fierce tangle of thorn bushes. Sometimes when a kick sent the ball off the field and into the briar patch, the game had to stop while some brave soul gingerly worked his way in and then back out with the only ball.
The whole village turned out, the women in their bright colored kangas - large, hand-dyed pieces of material wrapped around the body and tucked in; rather like what you might do with a bath towel - and the children, thin and ragged, but excited by the spectacle.
There was one chap on our side named Jonathan who would yell for the ball no matter who had it or where it was on the field. He could be heard above everything, shouting, "John! John! Pass me the ball!", "Rachael! Rachael! Over here!", "Dave! Dave! Center! Center!" By half time the entire village knew every player's name and would call in chorus to whoever had the ball "Ari! Ari!", "John! John!" I'm not a very good soccer player and I'm sure that never again in my life will a large crowd call my name when the ball comes to me. For a while there I was Pele.
Oh, yes. We won the game. We played again the next week and they won - with the help of a couple of ringers brought in from a neighboring village. We never played the tie-break, but I guess some games are better left unplayed.
For instance, there was the time in 1981 when I was flying from Portland, Maine to St. Louis. I had the good fortune to be seated next to Joan Benoit. The Joan Benoit. She had won the Boston Marathon two years earlier and had become one of the premier runners in the world. And Joan had the good fortune to be seated next to me, possibly the only resident of her home state who didn't know who she was.
Once the jet reached cruising altitude, I initiated a bit of polite fellow-passenger talk. I began by introducing myself.
"Hi," I said. "My name is John Governale. "
She smiled. "Hello. I'm Joan Benoit. "
"Glad to meet you, Joan. There's a store called Benoits. Are you connected in some way with the family who owns that?"
"Yes," she said, looking pleased.
"And where are you going, Joan?"
"I'm flying to California to run in a marathon. "
And I said, "Oh, really. You run marathons. Are you any good?"
If you agree that asking a world class marathoner if she is any good at running marathons rates high on a scale of stupidity, you will also appreciate Joan's gracious reply.
"Yes," she said simply, with a good-natured smile. "I'm pretty good. "
Then she shifted the focus away from herself by asking about my destination.
Would you believe it was two years later before I learned who she was? Remembering what I had asked her made me instinctively slap the palm of my hand diagonally across my face, hold it there, and mournfully mutter "Good grief. " But, hey. At least it wasn't the stupidest thing I ever said.
The bullies, with a few choice words concerning my mental capacity and parentage, swaggered off, leaving me feeling much worse for having knocked someone down (I helped her up. She was unhurt, thank heavens. ) than for the embarrassing abuse I had received.
There are not too many bullies, school yard or otherwise, even in twos, who would have such an easy time of it today. For the last ten years the single focus of my professional life has been to develop destructive abilities. At this point they are many and varied. I'd be ashamed to admit to you the things I know how to do.
Yet, I still have many of the same tender feelings I had three decades ago. I often think that I am too soft-hearted to be a soldier. I agonize over the thought of causing suffering.
Despite these feelings, I have no qualms about soldiering. I have sworn an oath to defend the Constitution and to obey the orders of the officers over me. If bullets were flying, I wouldn't hesitate to put a fellow human being in my sites and pull the trigger.
Is this the ultimate in ambivalence or what?
The hospital where I worked was in a small town. There was a young married lab assistant who was hoping to be offered my job by the pathologist. (I was getting out of the medical field to earn my living as a poet and a self-publisher. Right. )She could use the extra money ($25 an autopsy) and the pathologist invited her along on a call to see if it's something she could do.
There was no autopsy room in our hospital so we made house calls to the local mortuaries. It was a bitterly cold, icy, snowy day. We got our instruments and the three of us piled into the Doctor's red Audi. The Doc and I had a great working relationship. We were both Interested In Things.
Since most of our "patients" were elderly folk whose bodies for easily predictable and identifiable reasons wore out, this death was an interesting case. The deceased was a large, 50 year old bachelor who was found frozen to death in his front yard. The lab assistant stood back and watched while the Doctor and I set out to discover why.
The dead man, poor fellow, looked quite horrible. His eyes bulged and his face was purple. He wasn't frozen solid, but was quite stiff.
"It's not rigor mortis, but the cold," the Doctor said.
As the two of us straightened the body out to take initial measurements, he added, "He has a broken hip. "
"How can you tell?" I said.
"I think I felt something as I straightened the legs. "
We did the thoracic, abdominal, and cranial cavities before pursuing the notion of the hip. We turned the man on his side and the Doctor made a deep incision. He showed me how he wanted me to bend and manipulate the leg, then he reached his gloved hand into the incision to feel the pelvis as I did it. His face lighted up with discovery and confirmation.
"Do it again," he ordered.
We then traded places, he first showing me how and where to place my hand so to feel the bone separate as he moved the leg.
"I feel it!" I said, elated.
We weren't disrespectful in our happiness; we knew it was a human being we were working on. But sometimes we were like Holmes and Watson with the game afoot and we joyed in discovery.
"The fellow probably slipped on some ice and broke his pelvis and was unable to get back inside. The police report says he wasn't wearing a coat, so he probably stepped out for just a minute," the Doctor said.
Suddenly remembering that we were not two but three, I turned to the lab assistant. Handing her some gloves, I said, "Here, you feel. Put your hand in parallel to the body and when you feel the pelvis, lay your fingers along it. "It was then that I saw the look on her face.
There were tears in her eyes and her face was flushed. With as much dignity and control as she could muster, she said softly, "I'm sorry. I can't. Please excuse me. "And she walked out of the room.
The Doc and I finished our work, then joined her in the car. She looked better.
"Next time," she told the Doctor, "I'll be okay. I guess I didn't really understand what you do. " "Do you want there to be a next time?" the Doctor asked kindly.
"Yes" she said. "I'm sure I'll be okay. But next time could we put a towel or something over the genital area? On top of everything else, I was really embarrassed. "
I looked at the Doctor. He looked at me. Our looks said the same thing:
"My dear Watson. "
"Yes, Holmes. "
"We be stupid. "
"Yes, Holmes. "
"Sure," The Doctor said.
To take my mind off what's over the horizon, how about a story? Perhaps an and then there was the time I was in Africa story. Hmm, let's see.
Okay, you get three choices. I could tell you (1) about the time my expedition played soccer against a tribal village, or (2) about the time I was frightened by a lion, or (3) about the time I dreamed I was Robert Redford and I woke up to find Meryl Streep sleeping beside me. Number three? Good choice.
The staff members of Operation Raleigh Expedition 15A arrived in Kenya a couple of weeks before the rest of the expedition. The staff was made up of scientists of various specialties, medical personnel, experts and professionals such as mountain climbers and accountants, plus a few military types (me, for example) thrown in as trainers in bush-living.
For a few days the staff was housed in an old, stone one-room building with nothing in it but a concrete floor. As we arrived in one's and two's, each of us would find a piece of floor, set down his or her ruck sack, then unroll a sleeping mat and a sleeping bag to claim that spot. The room filled up, but wasn't crowded, there being a couple of feet in between sleeping areas. No effort was made to segregate the room by sex. A lot of the staff were European and it would never occur to them to do so. Whoever came in next picked a spot wherever one was available and set up a sleeping area.
In the middle of my first night there, while vestiges of jet lag (and the movie I had seen on the flight over) danced in my head, I woke up and saw, inches from my face, the face of a woman. She was asleep. For a bewildering couple of seconds, I didn't know what to think. I had no idea where I was. And try as I might, I couldn't figure out who she was or how on earth we had ended up in bed together. I lay very still, barely breathing, afraid she would wake up. I studied her face trying to draw from it some clue.
How could such a thing could have happened? I drew a complete blank.
Little by little though, my head started to clear and I remembered where I was. I also realized what must have happened. She undoubtedly had arrived after I had gone to sleep and set up camp in the area next to mine. I had slept restlessly and had rolled to my right, into the area between our sleeping mats. Apparently she had done the same, except she had rolled left and we had ended up face to face.
I had no idea who she was, but as I looked at her sleeping face, I found myself reluctant to move away from her. After all, I was an ocean and a continent away from my wife. And this was Africa, a wild and romantic place. Just ask Robert Redford. The huge African moon was shining through the window, gently lighting her face. She looked so beautiful, and it was all I could do to resist leaning forward a few inches and touching my lips to hers. The man in me kept saying do it, fool. But a saner part of me argued don't. Finally, I rolled back to my area, leaving her unkissed.
Two things I promised myself when I married Jacquelyn were (1) when around her I would act like a gentleman and treat her like a lady, and (2) when not around her, I would behave as if she were there. This has helped us be very happy together.
However, it has not been easy. Take swearing, for example. I would never use bad language in Jac's presence, therefore I don't use it at all, which as a soldier is a particular challenge. The Army is full of wonderfully raunchy expressions, and many soldiers use profanity to punctuate their sentences. Not I. If I smash my thumb with a hammer, even if I'm alone, I say (with great feeling) something like, "I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS! Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!"
So, I'm lying in the dark with my back turned to Meryl (not her real name), because I don't want my fancy captured again by how beautiful she looks. One part of me is saying, you should have kissed her, you could have played dumb and apologized. What a stupe you are. The other part is saying, this is not what you promised Jac at the alter. You wouldn't kiss Meryl Streep if Jacquelyn were here, so you know you shouldn't kiss her at all.
Finally, I went to sleep.
The next day I met my Meryl-in-the-moonlight: a very nice Yankee nurse. She was pretty, I discovered, even in the sunlight. As we were chit chatting, I said, hey listen, I gotta tell you a funny story, and I told her how I woke up close to her and how confused I'd been trying to figure out who she was and how we ended up in bed together. She laughed good naturedly. Then I told her (silly, stupid me) how beautiful she had looked asleep in the African moonlight and how tempted I had been to kiss her.
She looked me deep in the eyes, gave me a Meryl Streep sort of half smile and said, "You should have. "
AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!Do you know what it feels like when someone tears open a goose down pillow and beats it around in your stomach and feathers go all through your insides?And your toes curl inward? And your knees turn to putty?
AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!
She was not part of my expedition and soon went northwest to Mount Kenya. I ended up going southeast to Tsavo. I've thanked my lucky stars a thousand times that I had the good sense not to kiss her that moonlit night. There's a point when a man's body overrides his brain, and if she'd kissed back (She would have kissed back. ), I'd have been there in about 2 seconds.
Three months later when I got back to the States, how good it was to be able to relax in Jacquelyn's presence. I told her all my adventures. I told her about the tribal-village soccer games. I told her about being scared by a lion. I even told her the story of how I dreamed I was Robert Redford and woke up to discover Meryl Streep sleeping beside me. If she didn't think it was funny, she would have said so.
She laughed.
It was the sweetest sound I ever heard.
Christopher Robin, the story goes,
I carried my sand-clogged gear, flack vest, M16, protective mask, helmet, etc., to the operations tent feeling the epitome of misery, to discover Ta Daa! A package from you! And a story! And steak and potatoes!* And tapes! And books! Your timing couldn't have been better if you'd planned it. Mail is molasses here: slow moving, but sweet.
Was found with sand-between-the-toes.
What a lucky lad was he,
If that's where all the sand would be,
For we are found with sand abundant,
Sand abrasive, sand redundant.
Sand in silent, dark suspension
In places not-polite-to-mention.
Soon we will cross into enemy territory (There's a prepositional phrase that's taken on new dimensions.) and mail will become occasional at best.
Impending destruction makes people reevaluate their lives. I'm no different. (Did I think I would be?)One of the things I regret is that I haven't, over the years, maintained a correspondence with you, who once was my dearest friend.
* A beef stick and a can of shoestring potatoes
Something nice I can tell you is that for the last few weeks the night sky has been stunning. Not a wisp of cloud and no city lights make for a midnight like diamonds. The sky is very large, there are no trees or buildings and no hills to speak of, so the stars have free rein. I'm learning the constellations. I know Orion and Cassiopeia at a glance now.
I'd like to trade family pictures with you, but the only picture I have of my family is the only picture I have of my family. How's my credit? Send me a photo of you and yours and as soon as I get resupplied (How military. ) from home, I'll reciprocate - deal?
Well, crumb cakes. (A mild oath, not a term of endearment. )I didn't get this in the mail. I did, in the mean time, however, receive a letter from Jacquelyn. Here's a quote:
One night about two weeks ago, Sofie (She's four. ) kept interrupting Family Home Evening to go spit in the trash can. Finally she told me the reason.
"I swallowed a spider. "
How did she do it?
"It got on my finger. I was afraid, so I put my finger in my mouth. "
I told her not to worry, that it wouldn't stay in her body, but would come out in her poop. Later, she said she had to go to the bathroom, went upstairs and came right back down with a worried look on her face.
"Mommy, I was afraid to go to the bathroom, because I didn't want to see the spider in my poop. "
I then told her that the juices in her stomach would chop up the spider and she wouldn't even see it when it came out - after all, do you see carrots in your poop when you eat a carrot?
Another few minutes, then:
"Mom, do we have a food chopper in our body?"
Finally, the next day she had a bowel movement and was elated that she couldn't see any spider in it.
We were in an area of Ft. Campbell, Kentucky designated as a training area. Along the roads were signs warning drivers "Five Miles Per Hour When Passing Troops," so if we collapsed on a force march we were less likely to be run over by a speeding motorist.
One afternoon as my squad, decked out in full combat gear, began yet another force march, a jeep came along at a blistering 25 MPH and didn't slow down.
"Five miles per hour when passing troops!" I yelled as it sped by.
The jeep screeched to a halt, was thrown into reverse, and backed up to stop beside me. Behind the wheel sat the Sergeant Major of the Recondo School, a man who could have me thrown out of the course with little more than a word.
"What did you say!" he barked.
Here was an opportunity for me to compound my stupidness by trying to be clever. For a fleeting second it occurred to me to try to bluff my way out by pretending I'd said something else.
But the Sergeant Major was not known for his friendliness, his sense of humor, or for being stupid. Any attempt to bluff would have been fatal. To my credit, I did the only thing that could save me. I snapped to parade rest, looked right through him, and shouted boldly but respectfully,
"Sergeant Major! I said Five miles per hour when passing troops', Sergeant Major!"
"Don't you think I know how fast to drive?" he growled.
"Yes, Sergeant Major!"
"Don't you think you should keep your mind on your recondo training and leave traffic control to your instructors?"
"Yes, Sergeant Major!"
He gave me a hard look as if considering whether or not to choke me to death.
Finally he said, "Don't you think you'd better catch up with your patrol?"
"Yes, Sergeant Major!"
"Move out, soldier!" he yelled.
"Yes, Sergeant Major!" I snapped to attention, executed a left face, and took off at a double time, thankful to still be in school and wondering if I'll ever learn to think before I speak. Oh, well. At least it wasn't the stupidest thing I ever said.
I usually answer that with a question of my own. "Does a deer sleep in the woods?"
Here, perhaps, is a better answer. It is an article I wrote just before the land war. My unit had moved from central to northern Saudi Arabia and was poised on the border, west of the Neutral Zone. I sent the article up the chain of command for approval, which it received, and supposedly it was sent off to a military newspaper in Oklahoma. As I was later to find out, it didn't get there. Whether it was never mailed or somehow got lost in transit, I don't know. I'd like to believe that it fell into Iraqi hands and so demoralized them that they surrendered in droves.
ON THE BORDER OF IRAQ -
JANUARY 1991
Being scared. As a soldier in a war zone, I think I can write about this topic with some authority. I'm scared and I don't care who knows it.
How scared am I? I'm not sure. How do you measure scared? Since measuring involves making a comparison (That's what measuring is, right?), perhaps I should tell about another time when I was scared, I mean really scared, and compare what I felt then to what I feel now. It won't be as exact as a tape measure, but it should give some idea.
The last time something scared me, I mean really scared me, was in Africa in 1988. I had been sent to Kenya for three months as a staff member of an Operation Raleigh expedition. It was a humanitarian/cultural relations effort and involved a lot of hard work. The rewards and satisfaction, however, were great.
One of the rewards was that a certain number of us got to go on a game drive through the Nairobi National Park. We would be traveling in two Land Rovers.
For those of you with no military experience, let me explain a quick something. In the Army we are taught that in difficult circumstances(such as a drive in a game reserve) one vehicle doesn't go out alone. If possible, travel in at least two's. This is no big military secret, of course; it's just common sense. If something happens to one vehicle, it's not stranded. As a soldier, I liked the fact that there would be two Land Rovers.
In our group there were only two who were active duty military: one U. S. soldier (me) and one British quarter master sergeant. The others, college aged men and women from various nations, all seemed like sensible people and we all agreed that it was a good idea for the two vehicles to stay together. We even made a contingency plan. If we get separated, we said, we'll meet at the front gate at 1800 (6 pm). It would still be light then and the gate didn't close until 1900.
The closing of the gate was a serious matter. The lion, water buffalo and other dangerous animal in the park have lost their fear of man, having seen car loads daily for years. This didn't mean they were tame. In fact, it meant quite the opposite. The game wardens, as well as signs posted through out the reserve, warned us
DO NOT GET OUT OF YOUR VEHICLES!
THE ANIMAL HERE ARE MORE DANGEROUS THAN
ANIMAL IN THE WILD.
No problem. All we wanted to do was see some game, take some pictures, and be able to write home and say, "Guess what? Today I saw a lion. " Or giraffe. Or elephant. Or whatever. And we planned to stick together. And if we got separated, we planned to meet at the front gate at 1800.
Game in the Park is not necessarily easy to spot, especially for an untrained western eye. And it requires a cautious approach. Fortunately, in our Rover we had as a driver a Kenyan who drove slowly and would suddenly stop and point and say,
"Look!A wilder beast. "
"Where?" we would say in chorus, looking right where he was pointing.
"There," he would say, amused.
And one by one we would say, "Oh, I see it. "
The group in the other Rover grew impatient, I think, wondering why we crept forward and why we constantly stopped to look at "nothing". Before long, despite our plan, they moved on without us and we were separated. But not to worry. We'd meet at the front gate at 1800.
After a full day of dirt roads, some muddy, some dry, going uphillsup hillsound curves, through patches of forest and across great fields of high grass, we had tallied a considerable list of sightings. We had seen zebra and ostrich, wilder beast, elephant, a deadly snake: the black mamba, water buffalo, a great variety of deer-like creatures, and dozen of species of birds.
Once, a huge giraffe had stepped from the woods right in front of us, causing the driver to step on the brakes.
"Look!" our driver said, teasing us. "A giraffe!"
"Where?" we all said at the same time and laughed.
The giraffe didn't gallop away, but stood there in the middle of the road with a look of curiosity on its pleasant face. It lowered its neck and peered through the windshield at us. Someone with presence of mind snapped a picture which caused the rest of us to remember our cameras. A moment or two later it straightened its neck and walked slowly away in a dignified manner.
"Thank you," we called out our open windows.
"Goodbye," we said. Our driver looked pleased.
By the end of the day we were exhausted, but happy. At 1800 (6 pm) we pulled up to the main gate with thoughts of supper on our minds.
"We're the first ones here. " said one of our group. At 1830 we were still the first and only ones there. We were starting to get a little worried.
At 1850 I went to talk to the rangers at the gate.
"There's another Land Rover still in the Park," I told them.
"That is very bad," I was told. "The gate is locked at nineteen hours. "
"They must be lost or maybe broken down," I told them.
"If they are broken down, I hope they do not get out of their vehicle. It is very dangerous. "
I didn't feel like I was making any headway.
"Could some park rangers take a vehicle and go look for then?" I asked.
"Oh, no. We do not go into the Park at night. We lock the gate. It is very dangerous to be there at night. We will look for them in the morning. "
Our Kenyan driver joined me. He spoke to them in Swahili too fast for me to follow. Soon, no thanks to me, we had an agreement. They would let the people in our Land Rover wait at the Park Headquarters and would allow the driver and I to go back in and look for our friends. If we found them and returned to the gate, they would open it and let us out, regardless of the hour.
Off we went, driving slowly over the rough terrain. It took a long time, but eventually we found them. I credit our driver that we found them at all, for by that time it was quite dark. They were in a wooded stretch, mired to the axles in mud.
I started to get out, but a great shout arose from the other vehicle.
"Don't get out! There's a lion! We saw a lion!"" I got back in. I turned to the Kenyan for advice.
"Come back tomorrow and pull them out," he said.
It was not what I was hoping he would say. I sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Listen," I called. "I'm getting out. I'm going to stand guard. Get out one at a time and, as quickly as you can, run over and get in our Land Rover. "
My insides didn't feel nearly as confident as my words. I had the feeling I was about to do something very stupid. I took a deep breath and got out, holding a flashlight in one hand. With the other I picked up a big rock and stood ready to bash the brains of any lion foolish enough to jump out of the dark woods. Sure.
The Kenyan driver opened and closed the door as each person made a desperate dash. Soon everyone was transferred except the vehicle's driver, a British quartermaster sergeant named Peter. I dropped the rock, ran on tip toes through the mud, and jumped into the Land Rover with him.
"The rest of you go to the gate," I called. "Pick up the others. Then go to HQ and tell them the situation. Peter and I will stay with the Rover. In the morning, come back and pull us out. And don't forget to bring us breakfast. "
"Are you sure?" they said.
"Absolutely. We'll be fine," I told them. "You go ahead. "
Off they went and Peter and I found ourselves alone in the middle of a pitch black night. We sat there in silence for ten minutes or so. Then Peter spoke.
"I think we could get the vehicle out of the mud if you're willing to try. "
"Did you really see a lion?" I asked.
"I didn't see it, but three of the others swear they did. "
I didn't want to spend the night in a Land Rover, but I didn't want to get out and muck about in the dark either. Oh, well.
"Tell you what. One of us will guard while the other works. Is there anything in here we could use as a weapon?"
"There's an extra tire tool under the seat," he said.
"Okay", I said, hefting the tool in my hand. "I'll take first guard. How do you propose we get the vehicle out?"
"I think if we jack up the tires one at a time and put stones under them, we should be able to free the axle. Once we get a little forward momentum, the Rover should drive out. "
"Okay," I said with a sigh. "Let's do it. "I got out armed with the latest in anti-lion weaponry: a MiniMag flashlight and a tire tool. I'd read of nights that were inky black. Now I knew what that meant. My little torch seemed to barely penetrate the gloom.
Moving as far as we dared from the vehicle, we collected all the rocks we could. Patiently we jacked up the tires and worked the rocks under them. Little by little the axles began to rise up out of the mud. We had three wheels done and were about to jack up the fourth, when out of the woods came the worst sound I had ever heard: the full-throated roar of a lion. It filled the night.
Nothing in my life, no trip to the zoo, no Tarzan movie, not even my imagination had prepared me for that sound. I dropped the tire tool, turned around and ran head long into Peter, who evidently was having the same reaction as I. As we scrambled in confusion trying to get past each other, the light was knocked from my hand and disappeared into the mud. I hardly noticed.
Finally free of each other, we ran to the sides of the Land Rover, jumped in the same time, slammed the doors, and locked them.
The Rover was filled with the sound of our breathing. My heart was pounding so loudly I was sure the lion could hear it. It took us a minute or two to settle down and regain some measure of composure.
"I have NEVER been that frightened," Peter said.
The way he said it sounded funny. It made us laugh.
"I'm not sure if I've wet myself, or just splashed mud puddle on me," I told him.
This sounded even funnier. We laughed some more. And the more we laughed the funnier everything sounded.
"You know what's really funny?" I asked.
It was all Peter could do to say, "What?"
"The way we bumped into each other - three times!"
I was laughing so hard that my side hurt and I was wiping tears from my eyes. .
"You know what's even funnier?" Peter managed to say.
"What!" I cried.
"The way, when we got in, we both locked our doors!"
Good heavens, he was right. It was even funnier. We howled, shaking the Rover with helpless fits of laughter.
"Oh, please. Please," I begged.
We finally managed to get control of ourselves, forcing our laughter down into occasional chuckles which, in spite of our efforts, kept bubbling up, threatening to erupt us back into helplessness.
"Do you think we can drive out?" I asked.
"The jack's still out there," Peter replied. This sobered us up.
"I dropped my flash light," I said. "When we bumped into each other I lost the light and the tire tool. "I tried to make it sound funny. It didn't.
First we had been terrified, then hysterical. Now we were depressed. We sat there for a while.
"Oh, we're being silly," Peter said. "I don't think that lion was roaring at us. I don't think he was even very close. I say we get out, walk calmly to the front, get our things, walk calmly back, and get in. Are you for it?"
Good grief. I wasn't. I inhaled a long, slow breath, then let it out. Are you a man, I asked myself, or are you a mouse. Oh, great thought.
"Sure," I said. "Let's do it. "
Opening that door and stepping out was probably the single most courageous thing I've done in my life. Despite Peter's talk about calmness, both of us dashed to the front, frantically grabbed our stuff, ran back, jumped in and closed the doors. And locked them.
Peter started the Rover and shifted to low. "If this doesn't work," he said, "I think I've got another idea. "
I didn't say anything. I held my breath and uncharacteristically crossed my fingers. He let up on the clutch and gave the Rover a little gas. The wheels started to spin, throwing rocks under the vehicle and behind. I closed my eyes.
Suddenly, the Rover lunged forward just a bit. I squeezed my eyes tighter.
Despite his light pressure on the gas, the wheels were spinning. But then we started to make slow progress an inch at a time. I opened my eyes to make sure. We were sliding a little side ways.
Suddenly the front wheels grabbed solid ground and we were on our way. I hadn't realized it, but I had been holding my breath. I let it out.
"I'm not going to unlock my door till we're through the gate," Peter said.
We both laughed, suddenly feeling very much alive. I didn't unlock my door till we were through the gate, either.
And by the way, I checked. It was mud puddle water.
So, that's the story from 1988 of the night the lion roared. How does it compare with what I'm feeling now? Well, I'm scared. But I don't feel like we're facing a lion with a flashlight and a tire tool. I don't feel like we're in the dark. And I don't feel like we're alone. We've got good equipment, we've got training, and we've got each other. Plus, we've got about a hundred million people back home supporting us.
Sure, I'm scared. But I think we are the lion that's going to roar. And if the Iraqis are smart, they'll lock their doors and head for the gate, if you know what I mean.
Our camp fire isn't what you think. We had neglected to bring stoves with us to the middle East and had to improvise to heat our tents on chilly evenings and mornings. The stove in our tent was the invention of our executive officer who fabricated it out of an office trash can, the lid from a large ration can, and some genuine stove pipe scrounged from I don't know where. The damper is a soup can lid with a piece of welding rod slipped through slits cut with a bayonet.
Wood is not easy to scrounge, but we always have at least a small supply which the XO patiently splits. Packing boxes, scraps of two-by-fours, whatever we can find feeds the flames. One cold night we burned scrawny little thorn bushes pulled from the sand.
Our fuel gives us double heat: as we warm our tent with the fire, we stare at the flames through cracks around the lid and silently warm our imaginations. We call it "Iraqi TV. "
Because I like to read and to think and to stare into fires, I'm never bored. But this place is getting tiresome. I want to see pine trees and wooden houses. I want to hear birds sing and dogs bark. I want to eat ice cream. I want to eat pizza. I want to play soccer with my kids. I want to take my wife to the movies.
The aromas emanating from the mess area were overpowering and it was all the NCO's could do to keep the troops away so the cooks and KP's could finish their "surprise".
Then Mother Nature gave us a surprise of her own. About two hours before Christmas dinner a Shamal (industrial strength sand storm) began to blow. The desert has been a desert for a long time, so the sand is not like beach sand, but rather like grainy baby powder. When it blows, there is nothing the sand won't get into. Eating together in our outdoor mess area was impossible. Soldiers with camouflaged neckerchiefs pulled over their faces like outlaws dashed through the storm to the mess tent, got their fixings on a paper plate which they covered with another paper plate as a sand shield, then dashed back to their tents to eat their gritty turkey and potatoes.
I felt bad at having my dinner ruined, but worse for the mess hall crew who worked so hard to give the troops a good feed.
The Shamal has finally died down and a merry group of soldiers are using green chem lights for candles and are going tent to tent caroling. Hey, it's Christmas.
One year in Germany, we (Jac, Eliza, Joseph, and Michael - this was before Sofrona) did the twelve days of Christmas on some non-English speaking neighbors of ours that we didn't even know. We picked their place because the approach to the door offered good concealment and made for a quick get away when we rang their bell.
We did a lot of simple stuff. I don't remember what exactly, but you know. On the third day we gave three apples. On the fourth day, four snowflakes cut from folded paper. Then five Christmas cookies. Six origami swans. That sort of thing.
On Christmas Day we rang their bell and when they opened, instead of running away, we stood there and sang "We wish you a merry Christmas!" (Oh, how we had rehearsed, and oh, how our hearts beat as we sang. ) and gave them a dozen home baked something-or-others.
You should have seen the looks on their faces. They invited us in like we were long lost family. Though our German was terrible and their English pretty broken, it didn't matter. Everyone was introduced. Glasses were produced and filled. Children were admired and given chocolates. A tour of the apartment was conducted. All the while we chit-chatted, happily ignoring the language barrier. The meanings, after all, were perfectly clear.
When we finally left and walked up the stairs, across the upper corridor, then down our side of the building to our door, I felt as merry as I can ever remember feeling. The good will we shared that Christmas must have made the Savior smile. I know it did us. In fact, I'm smiling as I write this.
Oh, yes. The next day our doorbell rang. When we opened the door, no one was there. But on the floor in the hallway sat a large copper platter. In the center was a lovely red candle, lighted. Around the candle, filling the platter to overflowing, was a wondrous collection of nuts and candies and Yuletide taste delights.
We knew who had left it.
"Men are tougher than women. "I said that. And I meant it. But at the time I was in my twenties and without much experience in the world.
I went through Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. (Soldiers call it Fort Lost In The Woods. )The battalion I was in was all male. This is because we were combat arms kind of guys. Combat engineers with secondary MOSs as infantrymen. We were tough. And we were glad there were no women in our companies. We didn't want our training watered down to accommodate soldiers innately less tough than we were. Toward the end of Basic we came to a particularly fun bit of training called the Bunker Takeout Course.
Two soldiers, working together, would fight their way up to a concrete bunker, then one of them would rush it and toss in a grenade, just like in the movies. Except we didn't get to do it the Hollywood way, we got to do it the Army way: by the book.
This was live fire training, meaning that our M16's were loaded, not with blanks, but with real 5. 56 rounds. To keep us from accidentally killing each other, we fought our way up two separate, but parallel lanes which allowed one soldier to be ahead of the other without being in his line of fire. That was the theory. It was a dangerous range that required close supervision.
The idea was that two soldiers would leap frog past each other in a series of three to five second rushes, the lead guy firing while the trail guy rushed forward. Then he would fire while the first guy moved up. They would coordinate their efforts by yelling signals to each other.
"Moving!" one guy would yell, which was the signal for his buddy to shoot at the bunker. This was called providing suppressive fire. It would, it was hoped, suppress the enemy in the bunker from blowing your partner away as he jumped up and made a quick rush forward. On this range, of course, there was no one in the bunker firing back. Keeping us from accidentally shooting each other was thought to be challenge enough.
If you ran out of bullets, you yelled to your partner, "Reloading!" so he wouldn't yell "Moving" and jump up when you had an empty weapon and were unable to provide suppressive fire. It was a world of fun. Much better than marching around, or doing manual of arms, or cleaning the barracks. Especially since this time I got to be the guy who threw the grenade. We started. From his lane my buddy yelled, "Moving!" I looked around the chunk of concrete I was hiding behind and immediately began shooting at a target mounted beside the bunker a couple of hundred meters away. My buddy jumped up from behind his hiding place, sprinted up his lane, and dived behind a log. "Ready!" he yelled, letting me know he was set to provide suppressive fire.
"Moving!" I yelled back. He began shooting at the bunker target.
We were going to ace this evaluation. I just knew it. I jumped up and accelerated instantly into a run, dashing toward a large rock. I had taken maybe three running steps, when something - a stick, or a rock, or a root, something - reached up and hit the toe of my boot, causing me to trip. I fell oddly with the tripping foot tucked under me. My full weight came down on the ankle. An explosion of pain blinded me and my rifle fell from my hands, forgotten. I grabbed at the ankle and writhed in pain.
The NCO in charge of the exercise, who was supposed to be watching our every move, hadn't seen what happened. One second I was running and the next I was down and in a lot of pain. He thought his worst nightmare had come true. He thought my buddy had jerked his weapon to the left and had fired into my lane. He came running onto the course yelling, "Cease fire! Cease fire!" When he got to me he knelt frantically on the ground at my side. "Where are you hit?" he asked.
"My ankle," I groaned. "It's my ankle. "
He looked expecting to see blood. There wasn't any.
"Are you shot?" he asked.
"No. I fell and twisted my ankle. " His relief was monumental. He said joyously, "You twisted your ankle?"
"It hurts," I said.
He examined the ankle as best he could without loosening my boot.
"How bad is it?" he asked. "Do you want to be driven to the hospital?"
I was sure I had done serious damage, but going to the hospital was out of the question. Bunker Takeout was one of the core elements of Basic, designated as required training. If you missed an item of required training, you didn't graduate with your class, you were recycled. Recycled meant you were put into a unit that was a week or two behind yours, you did the required training with them, you graduated with them. It might even be that you were recycled into a noncombat arms unit, one with women in it.
"No," I said. "Please let me continue. I can do it. Let me complete the Bunker Takeout, then I'll go to the hospital. "
The NCO hesitated. He should really have me driven straight to the hospital for x-rays. I grabbed my rifle and managed to get to my feet.
"How can you do three to five second rushes with that ankle?" he said. "You can hardly stand. "
"I'll do it," I said. "Let me try. "
He thought about it.
"I won't time your rushes," he said. "But you had better do everything else perfect or I'll No-go your crippled carcass off my range. Got it?"
"Yes, Sergeant. Thank you, Sergeant. "
My three to five second rushes were more like eight to ten second hobbles. (This was in no way, understand, watering down the training to accommodate a soldier less tough. I couldn't help it. My ankle hurt. )I finally made it up to the bunker.
I pulled a training grenade from a pouch on my web gear. It looked and felt much like a real grenade. It worked like one, too. Except the explosive was a sort of low power blasting cap that sounded like a Black Cat firecracker when it blew. I stood beside the gun port with my back to the bunker and held the grenade in my throwing hand with my thumb over the spoon. I brought the grenade to the center of my chest and hooked a finger of my non-throwing hand through the pullring.
"Preparing my grenade!" I yelled at my buddy. I pulled. The ring and the cotter pin it was attached to came free from the grenade. The only thing that kept the spoon from flying off and the striker from hitting the fuse was my right thumb which held the spoon in place. The cotter pin could still be reinserted, if need be, and it would again hold the spoon, disarming the grenade, but that was not the point of this exercise.
"Throwing my grenade!" I said. I raised my thumb. The spoon, driven by a small, but powerful spring, flew off the grenade and the striker hit the fuse. There would now be a five second delay before the grenade "exploded. "Instead of immediately throwing it into the bunker where the enemy might have time to pick it up and throw it back out, I held the grenade and let it cook for three seconds which I counted out loud. "A-thousand-one, a-thousand-two, a-thousand-three. " There were now two seconds before the grenade blew. I tossed it into the bunker and yelled "Grenade!" as I hit the dirt. A second later from inside the bunker I heard the training charge pop.
The NCOIC of the range was suddenly beside me, clipboard in hand.
"Good job, you two. You maintained good communication. You covered each other when moving. The grenade went in the bunker exactly when it should. You are both Go's at this station. Private Governale, get in that jeep over there and my driver will take you to the hospital. "
At the hospital my boot was taken off, and my ankle, which was now the same color as my uniform, promptly swelled up. I was examined, then taken to x-ray in a wheel chair.
When I came out of x-ray, my chair was parked next to another private, a female, who was also in a wheel chair. Both of her feet were bare. She was a petite, mousey sort of woman, the type I was glad I didn't have to train with. The name tape on her uniform said "Kelley. "
"What did you do?" she asked.
"I tripped and sprained my ankle on the Bunker Takeout Course. How 'bout you?"
"I slipped off the rope on the Obstacle Course and fell into the concrete culvert. I bruised both my feet. It scared my drill sergeant. She actually jumped into the culvert to check on me. She thought I had broken both my legs. "
I laughed. "I scared the NCOIC of the range. He thought I'd been shot. "
She laughed. "Were you able to finish?"
"Yeah. I convinced him to let me take out the bunker, then go to the hospital. "
"Me, too," she said. "My drill wanted to bring me straight here for x-rays, but I said no way. I climbed out of the culvert, swung across on the rope, and finished the course. There's no way I'm going to be recycled. "
"That would be the worst, wouldn't it," I said.
"Yeah," she agreed. "The worst. "
A doctor came out holding two sets of x-rays.
"Private Governale, you have a bad sprain. We're going to wrap it, give you something to control the pain, and send you back to your unit. You should be able to complete your training. "
"Great," I said.
"Private Kelley," the doctor continued, "I'm sorry, but you have broken bones in both of your feet. "
Private Kelley didn't say anything for a moment. Then she said one of those soldierly words often used in moments of dismay. It was a word that I had committed myself not to say. However, I think if I had just been told that I had two broken feet, I . . . . two broken feet? Suddenly the realization sank in. The place where Private Kelley had slipped off the rope was at the beginning of the obstacle course. What she had done, in essence, is run the obstacle course on two broken feet. I looked at her.
The obstacle course is not a piece of cake. There are a dozen obstacles spread out over more than a mile. There are cargo nets to climb, 8 foot walls to scale, and inclined logs to run up. (To get a clearer idea of the course, look at the one in the film An Officer and a Gentleman. )
The drill sergeants were experts at getting troops to negotiate the course at top speed. They had us run it a platoon at a time against the clock. Time started when the drill blew his whistle and ended as soon as the last soldier in the platoon crossed the finish line. The platoon that did the course the fastest was rewarded. The platoon that did it slowest was punished. In my company, the reward was a day with no cleanup details. The platoon that took second did their regular details. The platoon that came in last (There were three platoons per company. ) had to do their regular details plus those of the winning platoon. Nobody wanted to be last.
In my engineer company, my platoon had won, but it required a maximum effort that had left all of us drenched in sweat and gasping for air. The losing platoon had finished less than a minute behind us. We beat the second place platoon by about 10 seconds.
An orderly came to wheel Private Kelley to the casting room. I felt bad for her and I felt sorry for her platoon. They must have lost because of her injured feet. If she moved like I had with my ankle, it must have taken her forever to finish.
"Hey, Private Kelley," I called.
The orderly stopped and spun Kelley's chair around so she was facing me.
"How did your platoon do on the obstacle course?"
She smiled and raised her fist. "We won," she said.
Instinctively I did the most respectful thing I could think of. I saluted her. She gave me a salute back. The orderly turned her around toward the casting room and she was gone.
Men are tougher than women. That may not be the stupidest thing I ever said. But, hey. It's close.
All those lonely, frustrating weeks of Desert Shield when I had nothing but time to write, I got very little mail. With few exceptions, everyone I'd ever known forgot who I was. Well, now that Shield is Storm and my writing time is limited, I've been avalanched. Not just friends and acquaintances, but friends of friends and acquaintances of acquaintances have written me.
As you may have noticed, I'm not much good at writing simple letters - the breezy sort. I enjoy receiving them, but can't seem to write that way. I always get sidetracked into some vast tale or another, so it's been interesting trying to keep up correspondence amidst the bustle of prepping for the ground offensive.
How was Florida? Tell me the truth. Is Mickey Mouse as handsome as he appears on the screen? I've heard that in person he's short, his ears stick out, and that he has an unpleasant aroma of cheese about him. Say it ain't so.
I have just about over-dosed on BBC. There is one female Scottish newscaster, however, whose voice and accent are so fascinating that after the broadcast I have no idea what she was talking about and don't care. I could listen to her all day. Unfortunately, she is not on very often.
I've taken to occasionally listening to French radio now. My French is so terrible I can't follow what's being said, but if I'm going to listen for voice appeal over content I might as well listen to the language of love.
If I had time, I'd tell you why I speak so little French. Another time perhaps.
Being a married man, I usually don't write to single young women, but you are too charming to resist.
Your letter arrived on 5 February which is my birthday, so it was kind of like getting a present hearing from you. My name is John Governale. I am from Maine. I have a wife, Jacquelyn, and five children. The youngest, Daniel Ezra, was born on 30 January of this year. The Red Cross tells me that mother and baby are both doing fine.
Living in Maine, I don't get to Minnesota very often, but when Desert Storm is over, if I happen to be in Winona on a Saturday night, maybe we could go out dancing or something. I won't tell my wife if you won't tell your boyfriend!
I don't know if you are able to see at all, but in case you have a little vision, I am writing this in large letters. If this doesn't work, perhaps we could send cassette tapes back and forth. Is there a cassette recorder where you live?
There is not much I can tell you about the war - everything is classified right now, but so far I am okay. Once the ground war starts it may take a while for mail to find me - it will catch up to me eventually and would make me happy.
Take care and save me a dance.
Your GI
John
"Rules!" he exclaims. "In a knife fight?"
It's at that moment of distraction that Butch gives him the toe of his cowboy boot in the worst place, and the fight's over before it even got started.
What brought this to mind is the Rules of Engagement card we've been issued. The one we got when we first arrived in country said this:
PEACETIME RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
THESE ARE PEACETIME RULES OF ENGAGEMENT. NOTHING IN THESE RULES LIMITS THE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUAL SOLDIERS TO DEFEND THEMSELVES OR THE RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF LEADERS TO DEFEND THEIR UNITS.
A. You may not conduct offensive military operations (raids, ambushes, etc. )
B. You may use force in self-defense in response to attacks or threats of imminent attack against U. S. or host nation forces, citizens, property, or commercial assets.
C. You are not permitted to enter the land, sea, or airspace of other countries besides your host nation.
D. If you inadvertently enter territorial land, sea, or airspace of another country, you may use force in self-defense to withdraw.
E. You may not seize property of others to accomplish your mission in peacetime.
F. Proper contracting procedures must be followed to obtain supplies and other items necessary to accomplish the mission.
G. Treat all persons and property with respect and dignity. Remember we are at peace.
REMEMBER
1. WE ARE NOT AT WAR.
2. THESE RULES ARE IN EFFECT UNLESS HOSTILITIES BEGIN.
3. KNOW THE WARTIME RULES OF ENGAGEMENT AND FOLLOW THEM IF HOSTILITIES BEGIN.
Here are our wartime rules of engagement:
WARTIME RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
ALL ENEMY MILITARY PERSONNEL AND VEHICLES TRANSPORTING THE ENEMY OR THEIR SUPPLIES MAY BE ENGAGED SUBJECT TO THE FOLLOWING RESTRICTIONS:
A. Do not engage anyone who has surrendered, is out of battle due to sickness or wounds, is shipwrecked, or is an aircrew member descending by parachute from a disabled aircraft.
B. Avoid harming civilians unless necessary to save U. S. lives. Do not fire into civilian populated areas or buildings which are not defended or being used for military purposes.
C. Churches, Shrines, Schools, Museums, National Monuments, and any other historical or cultural sites will not be engaged except in self-defense.
D. Hospitals will be given special protection. Do not engage hospitals unless the enemy uses the hospital to commit acts harmful to U. S. forces, and then only after giving a warning and allowing a reasonable time to expire before engaging, if the tactical situation permits.
E. Booby traps may be used to protect friendly positions or to impede the progress of enemy forces. They may not be used on civilian personal property. They will be recovered or destroyed when the military necessity for their use no longer exists.
F. Looting and the taking of war trophies are prohibited.
G. Avoid harming civilian property unless necessary to save U. S. lives. Do not attack traditional civilian objects, such as houses, unless they are being used by the enemy for military purposes and neutralization assists in mission accomplishment.
H. Treat all civilians and their property with respect and dignity. Before using privately owned property, check to see if publicly owned property can substitute. No requisitioning of civilian property, including vehicles, without permission of a company level commander and without giving a receipt. If an ordering officer can contract the property, then do not requisition it.
I. Treat all prisoners humanely and with respect and dignity.
J. ROE Annex to the OPLAN provides more detail. Conflicts between this card and the OPLAN should be resolved in favor of the OPLAN.
REMEMBER
1. FIGHT ONLY COMBATANTS.
2. ATTACK ONLY MILITARY TARGETS.
3. SPARE CIVILIAN PERSONS AND OBJECTS.
4. RESTRICT DESTRUCTION TO WHAT YOUR MISSIONS REQUIRES.
"I'm going to have a special rubber stamp made," someone said, "And I'm going to use it to stamp the foreheads of dead Iraqi solders. "
"What's it going to say?"
"Memorex!"
(The Memorex slogan is "Is It Live or Is It Memorex?")
I guess you had to be there. It really did seem funny at the time. It made me laugh. And I passed it right along.
Hey, I'm going to have a special rubber stamp made. . .
Then the fighting came
and I saw my first dead Iraqi soldiers.
I walked over to one.
He lay on his back by the side of the road,
his arms out flung,
his rifle by his side.
I didn't have to touch him to see he was dead.
Nothing seemed funny now. I didn't want to stamp his
forehead anything.
What I wanted to do was
hold him in my arms
and somehow lift him up
and put his life back into him.
I didn't pass that along.
I checked the others then got back on the truck.
"Sarge, were all those guys dead?" The voice sounded very young.
"Yeah," I said. "They were all dead. "
The truck started to move.
We rode in silence.
The most interesting thing we found to destroy was an anti-aircraft gun. It was a 20MM, designed to shoot fear and lead into pilots, and was positioned at the outer edge of the ASP to defend it against air strikes. The Air Force had targeted the ASP during the air campaign and a portion of the stockpiled munitions had been destroyed (There were still 4000 tons left for us to deal with. ), so it's probable that this particular gun fired on US planes. Grrr.
We walked around the gun, studying it. There were two cranked wheels, well lubricated, which, turned by hand, would point the gun any which way. One raised and lowered the barrel; the other caused the entire gun to slowly spin around, a sort of merry-go-round of death.
The place where the gunner sat reminded me of an old tractor seat. There was no padding; it was metal, painted olive drab, and shaped to be sat in. I tried it out. It was surprisingly comfortable. I looked through the aiming device, a combination of a mirror, a lens and a sight. I was unfamiliar with it and the instructions were in Russian, but it only took a moment to figure out. It allowed a gunner to track an airplane and give the necessary offset to his shot so tthat 20MMround and airplane reached the same spot at the same time. Grrr.
Where to put the grenade?" Drop it down the barrel," was a suggestion. An obvious approach, but no good. It wouldn't fit. I opened the breech and wedged the grenade into position. I pulled the pin, holding the spoon in place with my fingers. Once I had the grenade situated so that the business end would do the most business, I let go and stepped back. The spoon flew away and the grenade lighted up for a hot thirty seconds. As if to signify that the job was complete, a small, white-hot lump of thermite burned its way through and dropped to the ground. Metal pieces inside the breech had melted, then fused, rendering the gun unfirable.
That should have been enough, but soldiers are resourceful. Captain Harris stood looking at the gun.
"What if someone lashed a 50 Cal. to the barrel?"
I saw his point. The cranks still turned and a machine gun fixed to the barrel would be extremely maneuverable. I'm not sure how this thing came apart, but it might even be practical to put a new gun on the tracking system. Captain Harris picked up a grenade, stuck it into the gears, and pulled the pin. Less than a minute later the cranks were impossible to turn and the gun pointed harmlessly at a fixed point in the sky.
How pleasant to be destroying weapons. There are few occupations where a worker so enjoys ruining the tools of his livelihood. I heard a soldier tell about driving his bulldozer over stacked-up piles of Kalashnikov rifles, crushing and bending them beyond use. He was grinning from ear to ear.
What the hey?
Then who should lower the scoop and stand there looking like a hero? My popcorn popping buddy, the XO himself, Lt. Rein. He had been out on a recon scrounging for maintenance parts and had captured the soldiers at a bunker complex. He wanted the bucket loader and he'd captured the prisoners, so he just put the two together and brought them all back. What a guy.
I always thought that being captured by the enemy during a war was supposed to be a bad thing. You could never tell it by these fellows. They seemed overjoyed at the prospect. This is a weird little war.
What group of GIs could resist puppies?
Ed was referred to as "the puppy" or "the dog" for a few days until someone said "He's not the dog, he's E. D. , the Enemy Dog. We called him E. D. for a while, but soon it collapsed into Ed. Ed almost became D. D. , the Deceased Dog, when he peed on my sleeping bag.
Ed traveled from Iraq back to Khobar, Saudi Arabia with us and would have come to the States if it had been possible. (In this case his name would have to be changed to Ad. )
We found a good home for him in Saudi before we left. Who knows what he answers to now.
One young soldier handed his squad leader something he'd picked up and said, "Sarge, what's this?"
It was an unexploded cluster bomb from a US air strike. It was designed to explode if stepped on or if otherwise disturbed. Picking it up qualifies as "otherwise disturbed. " Definitely.
The sergeant stood there holding his death in his hand. He didn't dare drop it or even try setting it down. He ordered his squad to move a safe distance away, then started a slow, careful walk toward a four foot high section of concrete wall, the remains of a bombed out building. When he got to the wall, he slowly moved his hand over the top of it, then let the bomb fall from his hand on the other side of the wall. He hit the ground before the cluster bomb did. There was no explosion.
The sergeant spent the next twenty minutes making sure his men could recognize cluster bombs, and telling them for the thousandth time not to pick up anything.
Any time we are working with explosives, we always calculate a safe distance which is determined by the amount and type of explosives. Enough fuse is measured and cut to allow the firing party time to ignite it and then travel the specified safe distance away before the charge goes off.
According to the formula, two kilometers was thought to be an abundantly safe distance. However, surprise, surprise, artillery rounds and missiles started cooking off and shooting every where. Rounds were landing over five kilometers away. There were friendly troops bivouacked all around the area and they wasted no time in taking cover or jumping in their vehicles and driving off at great rates of speed while missiles and rounds shot, sputtered, whooshed, and exploded everywhere. The fireworks continued for more than two hours.
Amazingly, no one was injured and no equipment was damaged, though there were some very close calls, especially among the firing party.
Because of today's excitement, the order has been given: no more detonations until the division has been withdrawn from sector. B Company is going to continue to prep the rest of the ASP.
It was just a small section that was blown today. Imagine what it will be like when they blow the rest of it. I wish I could see it.
He wwas transportinghis dozer north into Iraq on a flat bed truck when a sandstorm began to blow. Visibility became so limited that the driver decided to pull over till it improved. The sand, however,was too soft and the flatbed, dozer and all, toppled over. No one was hurt, but there was no means to recover the downed vehicle. The driver and shotgun decided they would go in search of help, leaving Sergeant Mills there as a guard.
To get some relief from the stinging, blowing sand and to get away from the dozer in case it got hit by traffic, Mills took shelter in a fox hole he found nearby. When the storm started to die down, he heard the sound of voices. They weren't speaking English.
He peeked out of the fox hole and saw seven Iraqi soldiers. They were armed. He ducked back into the hole. His position wasn't easy to spot and chances were good they would pass by without seeing it. Out numbered seven to one, hiding seems to me like a reasonable thing to do. But as he was hiding in the fox hole, he didn't feel good about that decision.
"I almost let them walk by. But then I thought about their AK-47s. I thought If someone gets hurt and it's my fault, I won't be able to live with myself."
Can you imagine that? Alone on the battle field, out numbered seven to one, and he doesn't feel good about his decision to hide. Gathering his courage about him, he popped up out of the fox hole and said the only Arabic word he knew, "Qif!" It means stop. The seven stopped. Apparently it never occurred to them that there would be just one American soldier all alone in the middle of the desert. Surely there must be at least a platoon. They put down their weapons and raised their hands.
The American was now faced with an interesting situation. It was not long before the Iraqis figured out there was but one of him. In fact the leader of the group said something in Arabic and raised his thumb, as if to say "There's just one of you?" The American kept his M16 pointed at them and his finger on the trigger. Using his left hand, he raised his thumb, smiled, and nodded his head yes.
The soldier "gave me one of those looks like, I could have had a V-8. "
What to do now? One soldier with seven prisoners is awkward, at least. In the movies, of course, this would never happen. There would be a fight and all seven enemy would shoot, but miss. The American would shoot five of them and then kill the other two (including the leader, of course) hand to hand. But this was no movie.
Sergeant Mills had them move away from their weapons and, using gestures, had them empty their pockets. He discovered that the Iraqis had pilfered his lunch and his water bottle from the overturned dozer. The seven looked most distressed when he discovered their theft. The Iraqi army had been taught about the heartlessness and barbaric actions of the infidels from the West and these soldiers, apparently, feared he would kill them for taking his food.
What they took didn't amount to much: a few partial MREs (Meals Ready to Eat: the standard Army ration) and a couple of bottles of water. Not much of a feed for seven soldiers. As Sergeant Mills took a closer look, he saw what a pitiful lot they were. Their uniforms didn't match and weren't complete. They didn't even have on helmets. Their gas masks were cheap and flimsy. They were thin and looked tired and hungry.
Sergeant Mills marched them to his dozer and opening a locked compartment took out the rest of his MREs and water. These he gave to his prisoners.
One of the soldiers was so moved by this gesture, he slowly got up and walked over to Mills who had his M16 leveled and his finger on the trigger. Walking right up to the muzzle of the M16 the Iraqi slowly reached out, took Gary Mills' face in his hands and kissed him on both cheeks.
Eventually, a medical evacuation helicopter landed nearby and Sergeant Mills turned his captives over to the crew. As the Iraqis climbed aboard the chopper to be flown to a prisoner-of-war camp, one of them turned, put his hands together, gave a slight bow, and said "Thank you," in English. The others smiled and waved goodbye.
On the 25th of January General McCaffrey published a memorandum outlining the treatment of enemy prisoners of war. I'm sure Sergeant Mills saw it; we were all given copies printed on yellow, plasticized cards to put in our wallets. I'm also sure that the contents of that memo never crossed Sergeant Mills' mind as he dealt with his captives. Genuine kindness can never be commanded. It springs forth from the heart, even in the starkest and most desperate of circumstances. Even when an M16 is loaded with a twenty round clip and there's no one but God to see.
One of my most enduring memories of the ground war will be the radio traffic I heard during the attack. The voices of young infantry scouts ahead of us calling in the coordinates of enemy locations to be fired on by the speeding mass of battle tanks and fighting vehicles. Sprinkled through the combat communications I heard traffic like this:
"X-ray seven eight. This is Tango four seven. I've
got Bedouins. Four males. Six females. Two civilian
trucks. Camels. Two tents. Location: Romeo Alpha fife
two two tree six fife. I say again Romeo Alpha fife
two two tree six fife. I gave them food and water and
told them to stay put. Watch out for them. Over. "
Even in the heat of battle it springs forth.
All the soldiers involved in the rigging of the ASP have had to do hard and dangerous work to get it ready. Trenches were dug and many of the missiles, rockets, and larger rounds were places in them nose down so if they cook off instead of exploding, they will be less likely to go anywhere.
Shortly before the blast, a couple of blackhawks landed three kilometers from the ASP. LTC Dries told the pilots they were too close and to move their helicopters further away. The pilots thought he was being overly cautious, but grudgingly moved their machines.
To make sure the thing blew when it was supposed to, thirteen separate fuses were ignited at the same time. This may seem like overkill, but believe me, nobody would want to go back in and figure out what happened if the thing didn't fire when it was supposed to. Somebody would have to do it, and people have been killed investigating misfires much smaller than this. It's better to make triple sure the first time.
Everything went off exactly when it was supposed to and again there was a mighty fire works display. I'm sure the pilots opinion of the safe distance changed when they saw rounds landing 500 meters beyond where the helicopters had been sitting only minutes before.
All of this I am telling you is second hand, of course, because I didn't get to fly up and see it, but maybe you saw it. The ASP was the largest single destruction of Iraqi munitions and materials in the War, so guess what? CNN showed up to film it.
Let me know if you saw it. Better yet, find out if anyone taped it. When I get back I'd love to see it.
Help soon arrived. A VFW group in Michigan sent us some care packages. Among the paper and pens and honey roasted peanuts was a box of paperbacks. I saw it first and waded in like a child at Christmas. My enthusiasm soon waned. They were all westerns. I felt like a kid who asked Santa for Nintendo and got socks. Oh well, I thought, beggars and choosers.
The only western writers I could think of were Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour. I had read L'Amour's memoir Education of a Wandering Man shortly before the war, so reading one of his novels seemed appropriate. I searched through the box. Amazingly, there wasn't a single L'Amour. No Zane Grey, either. Trying to make a selection, I sorted through such titles as Fast Leather, Bullet and Arrow, and Dodge. Finally my choices narrowed to two: The Flaming Gun and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.
The Flaming Gun sported a picture of two gunfighters facing off in the street, whereas Pilgrim showed a girl dressed in buckskins sitting on some rocks. I was in the mood to try a real shoot-em-up western(You would think I'd had enough shoot-em-up for a while. ), which, based on the pictures, made Pilgrim less appealing. But a quote on the front said: "If you buy only one book this year, let this be it". Having so recently had my life in jeopardy, I was wary of trivia. I had misgivings about wasting my time with a cheap western. To ease my conscience I decided to opt for a quality cheap western: I stuffed Pilgrim into the cargo pocket of my DCUs (Desert Camouflage Uniform).
That evening in the chow line, I pulled the book out and waded in, ready for frontier action. I read the first ten pages in confusion, waiting for the story to start. I eventually took a second look at the picture on the front. The brown and tan picture had fooled me. What I had thought were buckskins, weren't. The person sitting on the rocks was shod, not in cowgirl boots, but in modern hiking boots. What is this? I read the title page. Suddenly I felt like an angler who bought Richard Braughtigen's Trout Fishing in America, then discovered it was a novel. I glanced up the line. There were still 70 or 80 guys ahead of me. I went back to page one and started over, this time with no expectations of gunfights, lynchings, or long cattle drives.
When the line progressed to where I had to pick up a tray and go through the serving line, it was with great reluctance that I stuffed the book back in my cargo pocket. I also felt that I needed to stop and put on my socks. Annie Dillard had knocked them off.
"I've been thinking about seeing," she says. Of course, I have, too.
During the months of waiting in the desert for Shield to turn to Storm, I had, with myopic foresight, tried to glimpse how the war would go. From my vantage point it didn't seem promising. When Saddam started tossing SCUDs about and the Allies began the air campaign (How polite that sounds. ), I remember thinking: the ground war could start at any time, artillery (We call it indirect fire. ) could rain in at any moment and what I see now could be the last thing I ever see. This startled me more than blue lasers. I took a serious look around. The bleak surroundings helped. With no profusion of color to distract the eye, the smallest things stood out, revealing the commonplace beauty that surrounds us. A solitary ant scurrying across the sand, the slight loosening and tightening of a tent rope as breezes played with the tent, shimmers of heat distorting the air, the smell of sand devoid of any helpful green: such things materialized out of the background as if a cloking device had been turned off. The drab seemed suddenly beautiful, and the mundane full of purpose and meaning.
I'm sure I don't see nature with Annie Dillard's intensity and clarity, and certainly my writing doesn't have her richness and stark, raving beauty (She is the absolute queen of the adjective. ), but I don't despair. My eyes are open. And so what if the reach of her writing exceeds my grasp. What's this life for?
"Maine?" they would say. "Is that a state? I thought it was a street. "
"You mean there are people there?"
"That's part of Canada, isn't it?"
Wise guys.
As we grew close to Bangor, the flight attendants began to wake us up. There were trays to be stowed, seats to be returned to upright positions, and seat belts to be fastened in preparation for landing. Six months earlier we had landed in Bangor on our way to the Middle East, but we hadn't been allowed off the plane. This time, we were told, it would be different; we would be allowed off for an hour and a half. Word was, other plane loads of returning soldiers had gotten a festive welcome home when they landed, but we figured the time for that was passed. After all, we weren't the first or second plane back, we were something like the one hundred and fourth. By now, the novelty would be worn off and the enthusiasm waned. At best, we expected a banner and a few posters thumb tacked to the wall.
When we deplaned and walked into the terminal, we were stunned. Along the passage way there was a receiving line of handshakes, greetings, and hugs. When we made it to the waiting area, there wasn't just a few posters. The room was packed. A happy, expectant crowd gave a roar of welcome and we were besieged with well wishers. Children armed with magic markers asked us to autograph their T-shirts. Families pinned yellow ribbons on us and asked us to pose for pictures with them. We were fed from a double table of home baked goods. Soldiers wiped tears from their eyes and gave people they didn't know the rank off their uniforms as remembrances.
When reboarding time came an hour and a half later, the crowd had not thinned. Another line was formed and again our hands were shaken, hugs were given, and with a cheer from the crowd we were sent on our way. We were headed to Ft Sill, Oklahoma where we would receive our "official" welcome. We were so happy, I think we could have flown the rest of the way without the plane.
When we got there, it was a big to do. A general spoke, and a band played, and 400 of us stood at attention under bright lights as people applauded. We were all proud, but none more than I. As we stood there for the world to see, dozens of soldiers, in happy violation of the Army's strict rules concerning the proper wear of the uniform, stood proudly at attention with unauthorized yellow ribbons affixed to their lapels. Printed boldly down the ribbons was the word MAINE. In the place where their rank should be, many had small round disks with the words WILD BLUEBERRIES superimposed over an outline of the 23rd state.
Now, when Maine is mentioned, it's a different story.
"Maine?" they say. "Maine is a great state!"
I just smile.
I raised my open hand.
What it was we were fighting about
Neither of us understand.
Looking at his tired face,
I thought at the fighting's end
That if he lived next door to me,
He'd probably be my friend.
I'd probably send my kids next door
To occasionally borrow stuff
Like eggs if we were baking pies
And didn't quite have enough.
And I would mow his lawn when he
Was away and his grass was high.
And he would help me fix my car
If it should suddenly die.
Our kids would walk together to school
And play on the same school teams.
Our wives would trade patterns and recipes
And we would trade stories and dreams.
An enemy soldier waved at me.
I raised my open hand.
What it was we were fighting about
Neither of us understand.
Looking at his tired face
I thought at the fighting's end
That if he lived next door to me,
He'd probably be my friend.
The Queen of England was visiting the United States at the same time my family and I were visiting your city. I doubt that she was made to feel more welcome or was treated more royally than we were. We had a wonderful time. I am writing to thank those who made our stay a delight.
There are not enough pages in your paper for me to name everyone who blessed us and deserves our thanks, but I would like to name a few.
First, last, and always, I thank Helen Roettiger, whose energy, sense of humor, and thoughtfulness dwarf us all. She dances well, too.
I thank Dick Boyd, whose generosity is boundless and whose friendship I cherish.
I thank Jack and Beverly Wagnon. I thank them, not just for all they did, but for giving us a good example of what we want our home to be like.
I thank Mary Ann Moore of Saint Anne Hospice. The world is full of good ideas; what is lacking is the will and energy and endurance to make them a reality. A hug and a thanks to Mary Ann, who not only thought up "Operation Home Coming", but made it happen. If The Guinness Book of Records develops a category: Most 1-800 Numbers Dialed, Mary Ann will be a contender.
I thank Jerome Christenson of the Winona Post and Shopper. I also envy his way with words. Of the dozen or so articles written about Helen and I, his were the best. The facts were straight, the quotes were accurate, and the writing sparkled. His gentle sense of humor made us smile.
I thank the dozens of people who at one time or another held five-month-old Danny, and kept him entertained. I send a special thank you to Emma for being Sofie's friend. I can't name all the people I'd like to thank and I hope those I didn't mention won't be offended or think we are not grateful for their kindness.
Even though we're back home now and the royal treatment is over (when my family arrived at the airport in Maine, one of my children said, "Mom, where's the limousine?"), our warm feelings and sweet memories will last forever.
Thanks, Winona.
Did I look dashing in my uniform dancing with Helen, or what? You wouldn't believe the time we had in Minnesota. Northwest Airlines flew Jac and the five kids for free (The Army flew me. ), Holiday Inn gave us a two-room suite for a week, a local car dealer donated the use of a car, the resident limousine service transported us to and from the airport in a stretch limo, and Saint Anne Hospice picked up the tab for our meals - talk about an expense paid vacation.
One morning we went to a posh