5 military things about me

1.  I was in the Army Reserve, the Army, and the Army National Guard.

Those are three different services.  I started out with the Reserve because it helped me make the decision and decided to enlist in the regular Army after Basic Training.  The National Guard was a big mistake, and I was glad to be finished with it.

2. I was the least likely soldier to be in the military.

I have “Adams Feet,” or flat feet.  The whole family on my father’s side has them.  In my case, I have high arches and they drop.  It makes me a terrible runner, and I can’t march well either.  They debated about me, then decided to let me in.  The debate happened again during Basic Training, and then again at my first duty station.  No one ever told me I had flat feet!

3. I went to war.

It was Desert Storm, when the thought of women deploying was strange and new and different.  The photo above was taken when President Bush visited us for Thanksgiving.

4. I was enlisted.

With the way everyone talks about the military in movies and film, you would think that everyone is an officer.  They make up only a small percentage of the military.  Enlisted are the bulk of the service.  Because I had a degree from a community college, I came in as a Private First Class (still a private) and left the military as a Specialist.  I’m afraid I didn’t aspire much to come up in the ranks!

5. My Basic Training was at Fort Dix, NJ.

I went during the summer.  Hot, really humid.  Imagine a heavy cotton jacket soaked with sweat, and that was what it was like for us.  Most alarming though were the signs posted on the words warning us about ticks.  Yikes!

More military stuff to see:

• Seriously, are meals in the military as bad as MASH portrayed them?
• What’s it like on a military post?
• Getting shot at on Paragon Trail
• The League of Extraordinary Women Veterans

 

Photo of soldier girl from Desert Storm

I was cleaning up and ran across this photo of me taken in November, 1990.  We had gone to see President Bush speak, and there were thousands of soldiers.  The belt is the gas mask, more properly known as a “protective mask.”  I later wore it more like a purse because it kept pulling down my pants.

 

Beauty of a Woman Blogfest: My Relationship With My Glasses

When I decided to participate in the Beauty of a Woman Blogfest, I didn’t realize what a tough subject the idea of beauty was going to be.  The first image that often comes to mind is what we are bombarded with in the media: The too-thin woman who has been airbrushed into perfection.

So much of it is that we have to look a certain way or we aren’t beautiful.  Anything that changes that is perceived to make a person instantly unattractive.  Like wearing glasses.

GROWING UP WITH GLASSES

When I was in 7th grade, I had to get glasses.  My image of them came from my parents and the media.  My father was an absent minded scientist who wore Clark Kent glasses in basic dark brown.  My mother hid behind her 1950s cat eye lenses, also in basic dark brown.

The media image came in three flavors:

1.  The brainy scientist, as if somehow only smart people could wear glasses (which was never a complement).

2.  The outcast, who got stuck with thick black glasses that were always sliding down on his face and patched with white tape.  Other people taunted him with “Four eyes!”

3.  The beautiful blonde girl who got stuck wearing wearing glasses and only wore them when needed and as little as possible at that, even if she did walk into furniture.

And I was supposed to be wearing glasses?!

It didn’t help that, at the time, there were not a lot of choices for frames.  Anything as long as it was dark brown or black and plastic.

It was picking the best of bad choices.

I hated them, and hated wearing them.  I ended up being like the beautiful blonde girl — leaving them off until I needed to see, and then I would drag them out.  As soon as I didn’t need them to see again, I’d yank them off and stuff them back into my bag, hoping no one noticed them.

But I was seated in the front row and had trouble reading the blackboard, so eventually necessity won.  I looked at the school portraits in the year book –rows of smiling kids, and then this one girl that stood out because she was one of the few to be wearing glasses.  Worse, because of the frame design time had stuck me with, the glasses stood out more than me.

They seemed like the Grand Canyon to me, but looking back, I realize that no one made fun of me.  Instead, it seemed more like they pretended not to notice.

GLASSES AT WAR

I enlisted in the army in 1989.  Even they were determined to punish people who wore glasses.  We were issued glasses a pair known infamously as Birth Control Glasses (that’s the politically correct name. There was a far more offensive one that was in common use).   Those who could afford it, replaced the glasses as fast as possible.  Fortunately, the drill sergeants allowed us to wear our personal ones.  Maybe they felt sorry for us.  The glasses were uglier than the ones I’d been forced to get when I was a child.

Then it was off to Fort Lewis, Washington for my  first duty station, and a little over a year later, Iraq invaded Kuwait.  By September, we knew it was likely we were to go.  The biggest concern was that Saddam Hussein would use chemical weapons on us.  Every day, the news made sure all of the soldiers knew they were going over to Saudi Arabia to die.  We feverishly trained in chemical warfare, putting on a gas mask and the protective suit that came with gloves and shoes.

There was one small problem.

The most critical item was to get the gas mask on.

In nine seconds.

The time was not for people who had to wear glasses.  We had to take off Kevlar (helmet) and put it between our legs and yank out the mask and drag it over our head and seal it.  That’s a lot to do in nine seconds, and the glasses added two extra steps.  They had to come off and go somewhere.  I always tossed them in the Kevlar, but it consumed valuable seconds.

It was a struggle to make the nine seconds.  Contact lenses were not an option — we were not allowed to wear them because the gas could get under the lenses.  I spotted an op ed piece in USA Today showing a soldier with a skull for a face.

Would I be able to get my mask on time if we were gassed?

What would happen to my glasses after we had gotten gassed?

No one answered those questions, and I started to get that queasy feeling that I might die because of my glasses.  I went through the war, my glasses a constant reminder of potential death.

GLASSES TODAY

It’s only been recently that I’ve liked my glasses, and that’s because they’ve come into fashion.  My last pair of glasses were green and brown.  I picked the color because my eyes are green.  My current ones  are gold and white with some nice design work.  For the first time in my life since I’ve worn glasses, these two pairs got me compliments from both men and women.

But it’s still portrayed as something ugly in the media.  Women actors on TV rarely wear them, unless it’s to show a cliché.  Yeah, models do wear them, but only when they are selling the glasses, and I hate to say it, but I can tell the model doesn’t wear glasses.

How come not being the same as everyone else is portrayed as unattractive?  Do you wear glasses?  How were you treated by other people because of the glasses?

 

Seriously, are meals in the military as bad as MASH portrayed them?

Photo courtesy of U.S. Army

This time of the year is always about the food.   We go over to family’s house and load up on turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and my favorite, pumpkin pie, and repeat again at Christmas.  The food’s always delicious.   But what about the military?  When I was growing up, I watched MASH and saw Hawkeye Pierce inciting a strike because the food was so bad.  Was it really that bad?

The field is a challenging environment even for the most experienced of cooks.  The Next Iron Chef recently aired where the chiefs all had to cook on a beach.  They had limited resources, which not only included the types of food available, but the equipment, and environment.    These were extremely experienced chefs, and they struggled with the environment at times.  Now imagine someone inexperienced in the harsh environment of the desert, where food spoils quickly and they’re using portable stoves.

We left Dhahran after about six weeks, leaving our catered food behind.   Our cooks had to prepare the meals for our battalion.  The battalion had two active duty units, one National Guard, and one Reserve.  The latter two met once a month and trained two weeks a year, so not much experience cooking in the field.

In a logic only the army could have, the battalion pared the two experienced units on one shift and the two inexperienced ones on the other.  The result was two meals that were great, and two meals that were … well, bad seems kind.  How the heck can you botch up  hamburgers and hot dogs?!

Then there was the chili mac, which was the most common army meal.  Tim Dugan, an army cook, notes:

Sometimes we get to change it up, but as a whole, we are required to follow the recipe card exactly.  As a result, when you eat at an Army quality dining facility, you get the same product.  Cooks want to “flex” and make the product a little different, taste a little better, or have a little more flavor.  However, a good shift leader, first cook or DFAC [Dining Facility Manager] manager will keep his or her eye out, and will prevent that from happening.  Non-cooks should know that the Army sets these standard recipe cards to limit cost, control nutrition and prevent allergens.

As a result the soldiers will add hot sauce.  So we’re having chili mac in the mess tent.  We sit down, and there’s this guy across from us pouring on the hot sauce.  He eats a spoonful of it and then takes off his hat and slams into the table.

Oh, dear.  Seems someone got a little too creative with the seasoning …

Yup.  Military meals can have their moments of serious badness.

Okay, I know everyone’s got holiday food horrors.   What’s the worst holiday meal horror story?

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Linda Adams – Solider, Storyteller

Yay!  My short story “Six Bullets” is now available from Starcatcher Publishing in the the anthology A Princess, A Boatman, and A Lizard.  The story is about a princess who enlists in the military and then must battle her way up a river with only six bullets.

 

Thanksgiving During War

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.  ~Thornton Wilder

I always think it’s strange to have a sit down Thanksgiving indoors.  When I was growing up in Southern California, our neighbor had a potluck outside — yes, outside!  We’d haul out the lawn chairs or sit on the asphalt as Candy, their black dog, wandered around, collar jingling.

But when I was in Desert Storm, Thanksgiving was another thing entirely.  We’d been over there maybe a month and were still at the exposition center in Dhahran.  We called the building “the white house,” because it was white, because it was air conditioned, and because the officers took it over.  We stayed in tents on the sand and ate meals in a gigantic tent.  Meals were catered, and repeated themselves about every three days.  Usually chicken, salad, and fingers of cake.  The food was pretty good, but tiresome because it was always the same.  No fresh fruit because of the heat — everything went bad too fast.

But because we were in Dhahran, we had the opportunity to see President Bush when he came to visit the troops.   Each platoon picked a person to go, and I got picked.  We had to stand in a long line that ran next to a runway.  Air Force One sat on the runway, sharply outlined against the blue sky.   It was hard to believe I would be so close to the President of the United States!  Granted, President Bush was too far away from me to see much more than an ant-sized version — there were a lot of soldiers out there!

Afterwards, we were treated to a huge Thanksgiving feast — really, all you could eat.  They’d done a lot of work getting all the food out to us and serving it to us.  A table in the center of the tent had Thanksgiving decorations, and scattered at the base were Mars Bars.  I hadn’t seen candy bars in a month, which doesn’t seem long now.  But then, time was longer because each day was the same.  It felt like ages.  So I was pocketing as many as I could manage for later.  Then, at last, the meal was over, and we all had to return to reality.

What are your favorite Thanksgiving memories?

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Linda Adams – Solider, Storyteller

Yay!  My short story “Six Bullets” is now available from Starcatcher Publishing in the the anthology A Princess, A Boatman, and A Lizard.

 

The Secret Journey of a Book

Books can sometimes go on adventures themselves.  When I was in Desert Storm, strangers back in the U.S. sent us paperbacks that could be carried anywhere, so the books traveled to foreign locations, and even witnessed war.  One came back with me, and I still have it.

And sometimes there’s something special in the book that makes it stand out on its journey.  Perhaps it’s something the last reader left inside.  I’ve found receipts, theater tickets, checks, notes, and cards.  But my most interesting book took a journey and came back, curiously, to the right person.

My uncle, Ernie Rydberg, was a writer, along with his wife Louisa Hampton Rydberg (my grandmother’s sister).  During the 1940s and 1950s, he wrote short stories and children’s books.  Then, they were called children’s fiction, but would probably range range from middle grade to young adult.  Ernie tried to make a living at it, writing over 400 shorts and reprinting them.  A writer could do that then because so many short story magazines were available.

I always remember seeing copies of the books at my grandparents house, copies from the author.   Lou, as we knew my aunt, was less prolific, primarily focusing on short stories and working with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

Lou died first, and Ernie died in 1990.  With the internet, Ernie’s publications became available to me, so I started looked for them.  I bought some short stories in both magazines and anthologies — not sure we would ever have an accurate list of what he wrote — and his books.  Then I ran across a bookseller who had a book I’d never seen and described an inscription from Ernie.  No big deal.  I’d run into autographed books before, and had one to me.

But this one was different.  Ernie had signed to Wade and Maye Hampton.  My great-grandparents.  Wade had died in the mid-60s, and Maye in the early 70s– both in California.  The book ended up on the East Coast, with a sticky glued over the name part of the inscription.  The only thing I can imagine how it got there was that when Maye died, all her belongings were given away, including this book.  It probably looked unimportant and not a family heirloom.  Someone bought it and perhaps moved to the East Coast.  Or perhaps they gave it away and someone else bought it, and maybe it traveled.  And eventually it came right back to a family member because I bought it right away!

The Memories of Smell

The sense of smell is easy to neglect when writing any kind of scene.  I’m always forgetting to include it myself, and I have to make an effort to check for it.

But consider the following:

When I was deployed to the Persian Gulf for Desert Storm, we had a long and exhausting flight.  After we arrived, we drove around for hours before finally stopped at a port that was a temporary staging area.  We dropped our great under a carport for trucks and sprawled out on the ground to go to sleep.

And I couldn’t sleep because, all night long –

The smell.

Asphalt, completely saturated with oil.

It’s still the most memorable thing about my first day in Saudi Arabia, even 21 years later.

What smells have been most memorable for you?

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I hope you’ll drop in for a visit with my article Writing a Novel When You’re Right-Brained on Vision: A Resource for Writers.

 

21st Anniversary: Women at War

Twenty-one years ago today I was deployed to Desert Shield/Desert Storm and what is now known as the First Persian Gulf War.  Women soldiers then were more of an oddity.  Though women had been nurses in Vietnam — China Beach starring Dana Delaney was airing in prime time– there was nothing like what the military was experiencing for Desert Shield.  We would be truck drivers, supply sergeants, fuel handlers, clerks, and any other job the military could put us to work on.

From the day the news announced that Saddam Hussein had invaded Iraq, everyone in my company knew we were going — just not sure when.  No one would tell us anything.  There was this unspoken acceptance among all the soldiers that it was in our future, despite all the rumors that flew about so fast that it put Star Trek‘s warp speed to shame.

Getting deployed overnight is better than waiting for it to come.  Newspapers and TV news shows sensationalized everything.  Makes for great ratings, but hard on soldiers who are thinking about what might happen to us.  We were treated to a non-stop parade of news about Iraq planning to gas the soldiers.  One particularly memorable op-ed drawing in USA Today showed a soldier in a kevlar helmet and uniform with a skull where the face should be.

And we were going over to that?!!

The women soldiers were also given briefings by an Arab male soldier who told us what we would be facing once we landed in Saudi Arabia.  Even showing our forearms was considered a big no-no, and the covers on romance novels — well, my best buddy lamented the future destruction of her book covers.  Threaded through the instructor’s training was how much he disapproved of women going over there at all.  He didn’t say it, but it came across in way he talked.  We were all outraged by his attitude.  It wasn’t that he wanted to protect women; he thought we weren’t capable of being on the battlefield at all because we were women.

On October 25, we all got up for our final formation in the United States and marched to a nearby gym.  USO workers were standing by with lunches for us as we boarded a bus for a nearby Air Force base.  We were a quiet bunch.  Gone was the false bravado the guys had displayed while we waited for deployment news.  We were going, and we didn’t know what would be there when we arrived.

It was a little like leaving home for the first time — that fear that the lines have been cut, and we’re on our own.

The only difference was that the unknown we were going into might kill us.

Have you ever been in a situation where you didn’t know what you were getting into until you got there? What did you experience?  Tell us about in the comments.

 

A Female Soldier’s Life During War

My book for the week is The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq by Kirsten Hoimstedt.  It’s been a difficult book to read because, though it’s a different war than mine, the same issues are there.  The books contains stories about women soldiers who have been wounded, experienced post traumatic stress syndrome, or have been sexually harassed.  The book is a unique look into what life is like for a woman in the military and made me think about what it was like to be a soldier (Desert Shield/Storm 1990-1991).

Once a soldier deploys to a war zone — “Boots on the Ground” — she is in a different world.  She is surrounded by 20, 30, or 100 people she will see every single day and night. She might be the only woman in the company, or at least one of the few.  That’s her entire world.

The Army teaches soldiers to rely on their squad leaders and platoon sergeants, and to turn to them for help.  It’s one of the first things we learn in basic training and continues into active duty.

But war changes people.

Sometimes for the better.

Sometimes for the worse.

Then something goes wrong, and the soldier’s world shrinks to a world of one.  Here, in the civilian world, if something happens, there’s a lot of options.  But when in the middle of the desert, the only option becomes somehow surviving.

Then someone looks at the soldier when she returns and says, “You grew up.”  Looks at another soldier who was torn apart.  “She grew down.”

Do you know a female soldier, sailor, or marine?  Tell me about her.  And don’t forget to pick up a copy of The Girls Come Marching Home and Kirsten Holmstedt’s earlier book Band of Sisters.

I hope you’ll have a look at my story Grateful for a Gift to ‘Any Soldier,’ published in The Washington Post.  Also check out Voice of a Soldier: Operation Liberty, an anthology of stories about soldiers.  My story “Clarity” is featured in the book.

 

Sometimes the Adventure Finds You

While I was searching for action-adventure on Google, it seemed like everything that popped up was sports.  Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think sports count as adventure.  When I read adventure books as a kid, it wasn’t that we went off and found an adventure, it was that the adventure found us.  And, of course, it was never what we expected.  Fun to read about, fun to tell stories about, but not fun to be in the middle of.

When I was in the first Persian Gulf War, we had one of those, where the adventure found us, and we really didn’t want to have it.  We’d joined our new battalion (an organization made up of companies), and for whatever reason, the battalion leadership insisted that all the tents had to be dress right dress.  So we were in rows, with the battalion headquarters in the first row and my company in the second row.  There was about four feet between the tents, and they had the brilliance of wisdom to attach the tents to each other.

Anyway, we hear a commotion — people yelling and running around — and go to see the source.  We’re thinking Saddam Hussien is invading us, because that was our biggest fear.  A tent in the first row was on fire!  The fire had apparently started because a soldier had been filling a kerosene lantern and didn’t realize it was still lit.  The fire went up the nozzle, and into the can, so he threw it into the tent.

The army tents are very flammable.  This tent was almost gone in minutes, and the fire crawled across the ropes to the next tent, which was the battalion commander’s.  The wind’s blowing pretty good, so it’s whipping the fire around.  We’re not that far away from this fire — the female tent of my company was right across from it.  I ran into to see if anyone was inside, but it was empty.  As I came out, bullets started going off.  The heat of the fire was setting off bullets that weren’t supposed to be in the battalion commander’s tent.

At that point, everyone makes a run for it, because there’s a real danger of getting hit by a bullet, plus, the way the fire was spreading, we could lose the entire battalion.  Guys were diving over berms headfirst into foxholes.  My squad leader joked later that I had never run so fast (I’m an extremely poor runner.  I actually walk faster than I run).

One of our cooks, who was a former Marine, grabbed the water truck and brought it over.  While he hosed down the second tent, two other soldiers got knives and dropped the third tent, kind of like a fire break.  With that, they were able to get the fire under control.   About a week later, the battalion commander took my footlocker because his had been destroyed in the fire.

Have you had an adventure?  Tell us about in the comments.