The Army(part 4)

 I really need to talk about my time in the desert. Desert Storm was a big war that we had so little to do with. The missions that we were tasked with were what we called "ash and trash". We really didn't do a whole lot while we were there, to be honest. 

As we prepared to go to Saudi, there was little guidance on what we needed to take. We knew that we were going around December, we didn't have Google to see what the climate was going to be. The general consensus was "It's the desert, it's gonna be hot". So when we got there, it was raining and COLD! We spent weeks at the ports, got our aircraft off the ships, and prepared them for the harsh environment to come. 

We got to our first camp area, which was outside a small town in the desert. We needed to build a berm around the perimeter, set up our camp, dig our foxholes, and build our bunkers. Most of this was pretty easy, we had the engineers build our berm with bulldozers while each section got their areas put together. There were days of rain and days of wind and for the most part, it was cold. I am not sure whose great idea it was, but we were told that the camp was in the center, then the foxholes, next to the helicopters, and then the exterior camp berm. So in the event of a camp attack, the flight crews were to run to their helicopters and take off. Meanwhile, the rest of the camp would be fighting to keep the camp secure. So in other words, we would have bullets coming from the berm side and bullets coming from the camp side as we're in the middle. Luckily we never had anything like that happen. I remember the night that the ground war started. We spent the whole night in our foxholes, FREEZING the whole night in our foxholes. We couldn't have fires, lights, or even smoke in our holes. We were over 400 miles from where the fighting was, but it was total blackout. That was miserable.

The best part of my time in the desert came when I was deployed to Iraq for a couple weeks. I was sent there as a single aircraft to support a forward MASH unit and do recon work. I didn't have to report to anyone but my pilots and keep my aircraft ready to fly. We got in good with the MASH unit that was out of North Dakota, the nurses were really cool and their tents were much better than what we had. Where we were located was a former Iraqi air force base, it was bombed out and we were limited to where we could go. One morning they came to us and told us that we needed to evacuate as they found an unexploded 1500-pound bomb. They were going to blow it in place but we all had to leave. So we took off and flew to a French military camp to hang out. Those jokers had it made, their camp was amazing!. We were lucky enough to get there around lunchtime, they had a meal fit for a King. They were somewhat offended I think when we told them that we couldn't have a glass of wine with lunch. Wine?! For lunch?! The food was out of this world, not to mention we're in the middle of the Iraqi desert. 

After the war was over we were sent to a staging area for the units to leave the desert area of operations. We had to clean our aircraft and vehicles before they could go back to Germany. We spent from sun up to sun down on the wash racks cleaning everything. Once that was done the majority went home and a select few stayed to help load the equipment onto ships. We stayed in what was an apartment complex, that area later got bombed and killed a lot of servicemembers. There was a small PX(military store) where you could get snacks, smokes, and souvenirs. They also had a burger king type trailer where you could get a burger, they weren't great but after what we had in the field they were tasty. They made a "club" where you could go listen to music and dance if you wanted to. You could also get some locally made "liquor", unfortunately, some people overindulged and lost their sight. We were all warned about it, especially the part you didn't know what it was made with. 

I rode the ship back from Saudi to Rotterdam Holland, we had 6 Chinooks from our battalion that we were responsible for. There was one other guy and myself who were assigned to check the chains that secured the aircraft a couple times a day. The rest of the time we just walked around the ship. We were lucky enough to be staying in the officer's section of the ship away from all of the other Army personnel. We went through the Suez Canal, past the Rock of Gibraltar, and through the English Channel. Once we got off the ship, we got on a bus and were taken back to Germany. I remember one guy got some gin from the ship and brought it on the bus. I quickly realized that I was not a gin person. When I got to Germany I had to stay the night at a different Army post than where I was stationed. I finally made it back to my post and it was like just any other day. There was no welcoming party, not even a single person to greet me. I just went to my barracks and found a room to put my stuff. Just another day, just another soldier coming back from war.