Seasons Greetings!

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

exit

time to move on...

random

A momentary lapse of reason falls upon us. Coinciding with the process of belief within the unhappiness that hath yet to befall. The sweetest sorrow escapes us taking with it the joyous drops of life in its simplest form.

IDK - Random

Chapter 5

When the FDA says no sand or reminents allowed back into the country, they mean it, we spent several days cleaning our gear and vehicles. By the time we put them back on the rail I imagine they were cleaner than when we first shipped them to Saudi. For some R&R they sent a few of us to King Fahds ocean front house, It might as well been a resort, a fabulous place. Water skiing in the persian gulf was a blast, lots of jelly fish floating around there... The flight home is really just a blur, I must have passed out as I really don't recall it, until I returned to the base. Lucky for me when I returned my Dad and grandma picked me up. Otherwise I would have returned alone. My dad asked me what I wanted to eat, well after all that time away I simply wanted a big deluxe from hardees, what the heck was carl jr. thinking when he got rid of that one? A few days later I received orders to Korea, a 13 month hardship tour. H-220 stories to follow...

Chapter 4

Leaving Safwan the sand felt more like talcum powder than the gritty white sands of America. An Iraqi General remarked at how we had been able to manuever, I guess they had never seen or heard of GPS before we came around. Old truck tires and oil barrels were strewn across the desert for markers, when the sand blew in it undoubtabley covered markers to a given destination. At any rate the road back towards the rail head was long and treachorous, sand and dust kicked up from the vehicles ahead stinged my tired red eyes. They were already red from hours of being wide open, no time to check your eyelids for cracks or holes in the desert. Shoot, move and communicate, 4 days straight running on empty... Upon arrival to Kuwait city, there were many children flashing peace signs and smiling while waving. We passed out food and drink as we strolled past. I did not see many adults amongst the children, I later understood that many of the Iraqi soldiers played a role in eliminating many, leaving several alone without parents to care for them. Kuwait before the war was a beautiful oasis, various picasso like paintings on the overpasses, green, green grasses and rich manicured magnificent palms lined the gulf, but now it was all amiss. There were bombed out storefronts, gigantic holes in the roadway and a stench that was earlier described in a song about the Vietnam war. "Ooh that smell, can't you smell that smell, the smell of death surrounds you." It was horrible. We went on through the town and headed for shelter further into the desert. We sat up camp on an oil slick nearby. There seemed to be so much oil there it practically was seeping out of the ground. The fires where near us, the smoke smothered out the sun most of the day and there we were breathing it all in.

The question...

where are you, I often feel lost without you...

Chapter 3

So 1/4 cav collected an amazing number of enemy soldiers in just one day, well over 1000. During the day brief firefights broke out but nothing really to write home about except for when I was searching one. I pulled out his wallet as I was patting him down and looked inside. There were pictures of him, his family, his identification and a few dinars. Nothing out of the ordinary but then it dawned on me, his wallet was like mine. We were just two souls on opposing sides, but not much different than that...He had a family at home waiting for him just as I did. Life lesson therein... We marched the weary soldiers for quite a while to a holding area with triple strand concertina wire. We treated them well, gave them food, drink and medical attention. Many looked as though they had been lost in the desert for many months. They were scared though of the water we provided, so they refilled there canteens with there own waste, strange eh? Anyway after that we went to safwan. If you search the web you may find a picture that says welcom to Iraq courtesy of the big red one. When we arrived on scene whatever battle happened there had already been fought and won. We setup comms and went to work. General Schwartzkopf was enroute and peace talks were imminent. Guess what I did, landed inbound helicopters using international hand signals. Kind of un-nerving landing an enemy bird with a 20mm cannon pointed at you but I did it anyway. The General arrived in a glorious display of military firepower, several attack helicopters, front and rear, m1 abrahm tanks and other bradley fighting vehicles were included surrounding a few black stretch limousines. I even met the General and Tom Brokaw.