Hard to believe now Desert Storm was 19 years ago.
One of my published articles on an experience I had immediately following Desert Storm is going to be read at a DAR meeting on November 11. At this time, in 1990, I would have been in Saudi Arabia eleven days. We arrived at 10:00 at night. First thing I noticed getting off the plane was that it was 80 degrees and humid. And we did what soldiers usually do: Hurry up and wait. We were marched off the runway in a hurry so the plane could leave, and then we waited for the buses.
Then the buses arrived, and we waited and waited. And waited. One of the bus drivers even strung this hammock under the bus and took a nap (we were a transportation company–this is so a no-go. Big safety hazard, and a great way to get run over). Eventually we were finally able to board the buses. Nothing like I’d ever seen. The seats were like velvet, and there were curtains on the windows. It was good that the seats were comfortable, because we got lost!
By the time we arrived at the staging area, we were all exhausted. It must have been about two in the morning. The staging area was located in a truckport–that’s a carport for trucks near a port. The whole thing was very disorienting because no one really told us where we going or what was going on. Our sergeants and officers just told us what we needed to do and that was it.
We were like zombies when we dragged our duffel bags off a truck, and I was very glad my squad leader had insisted on marking ours distinctively with engineer tape (a white cloth tape we used to mark everything)–it made the bags easy to find. My squad took over a spot under the truckport, dropped our bags, and squeezed in between them to try to get some sleep. My friend Theresa just flopped onto her bags and went to instantly sleep. She was like a cat–in a most uncomfortable looking position and out cold. Me? I dragged out my poncho liner to put on the ground, but I was so exhausted that I couldn’t sleep.
All night long I smelled the truck oil that had soaked into the asphalt.
Filed under: military | Tagged: army, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, military
