Remembering Desert Shield’s First Day

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.

Writing About Military Rank

When I was in the Army, one of the cooks (a former Marine who enlisted in the Army) recommended a book he’d read.  It was a novel about the military, and the author had done a great job characterizing service members.  The book was the first in W.E.B. Griffin’s The Corps series.  I don’t know if the author served in the military, but if he didn’t, his research made me feel like he did.

On the other hand, a book I recently read, Laurell K. Hamilton’s Swallowing Darkness, didn’t.  The National Guard makes an appearance in the book, and crash went my credibility.  She did her research of the military ranks, but she didn’t understand what they were.

Military rank IS tough to understand if you haven’t been in the service.   Heck, sometimes it’s tough to understand from service to service.   Researching a list of the rank isn’t enough to get the nuances of it.  Two common mistakes:

• Service member acting inappropriately for the rank.  A romance novel I read several years ago had a senior officer (I’m working hard here not to give you military jargon) behave in a manner more suited to a private.
• Service member performing duties not appropriate for the rank.  A movie–believe it was based on a book–about a virus had a major (officer) performing a job that belonged to an enlisted soldier (medic; an officer would have been a doctor or a nurse).

In the case of LKH’s book, she had a specialist driving a princess in a vehicle.  Two problems:

1. A princess is an important person.  The platoon sergeant would have at least sent a sergeant,  and it might have even been higher.  A specialist is only one step above a private (a worker bee.  The private paints trucks, scrapes rust off the trucks , unloads the laundry, cleans the latrines, etc.).
2. The character was waaaay too nasty.  No self-respecting platoon sergeant is going to send someone who is likely to get themselves into trouble with a VIP. 

Best research resource?  If you don’t know anyone in the military, try dropping in on blogs written by the soldiers.  Pay attention to the rank of the soldier.  Think about what they discuss, how they discuss it, and how different it is–from enlisted to officer; from private to sergeant; from lieutnenant to general.

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