Desert Storm(part 2)

SECTION 1 — The Port

The flight in was its own kind of stress. Fear wasn’t the driving force, but the uncertainty sat in everyone’s gut. None of us knew what we were flying into, how long we’d be there, or what things were going to look like once we hit the ground. We carried weapons on the plane, packs jammed everywhere, and zero room to move. Every seat was filled. Every aisle. Everything about it said the same thing: this is real now.

Everyone thinks “desert” means heat. We sure did. We figured we’d step off the plane and just bake. Instead, we arrived in the dead of winter, and the first thing that hit us wasn’t heat — it was the cold. There was freezing rain, sharp wind, and absolutely nowhere to get warm. It wasn’t what we expected, and that only added to the whole “what exactly are we getting into?” feeling.

We lived at the port in a massive warehouse packed with thousands of soldiers. No heat, no privacy, barely enough bathroom facilities for the number of people crammed in there. It smelled like sweat, wet gear, oil, and misery. Nobody complained — there was no point — but everyone was trying to figure out where we were headed next, how long we’d be stuck here, and what the bigger picture was.

A few of us eventually figured out something nobody bothered to mention: the hoses next to the Saudi toilets — basically porcelain holes in the floor — had hot water. They don't use toilet paper there; they use water to clean up after dropping a deuce. (Word to the wise, don't shake a Saudi man's left hand. IYKYK) That became our “shower.” You haven’t lived until you’ve stood over one at 3 a.m., soaking yourself with a hot-water hose, hoping nobody walks in. Strange thing to get used to, but when that’s all you have, you adapt fast. 

There was no settling in once we hit the ground. We went straight to work on our helicopters. We had to prep the rotor blades for sand. Each blade had to be sanded smooth, meticulously cleaned, taped with thick polyurethane tape, and the tail rotor blades had to be coated with epoxy resin. Desert sand is basically powdered glass — it destroys equipment, so getting those blades ready mattered.

It was right in the middle of all that cold, wet, exhausting chaos that we ended up meeting General Colin Powell at the port. He came through, thanked us for what we were doing, glanced at the blades, and said, “If I had some Bondo, I’d come and help you guys.”

We just kind of looked at each other like, Did he really just say that?
One of those surreal, “holy crap, that actually just happened” moments.

And beneath it all — the cold, the work, the rush, the weirdness of meeting Colin Powell — there were still those quiet thoughts under everything:

What is this going to turn into?
Where are we going?
What kind of war is waiting for us on the other side of this port?

We didn’t have answers — we just kept moving forward.