When it rains in the deep desert it comes suddenly. There are warnings to be sure...you can smell the storm a long way off. The hint of the approaching downpour hangs in the air for a long time then strikes with sudden zeal. It's a myth that the desert never sees storms.
I stood on the outer perimeter of our Tactical Assembly Area and watched the ocean-like rippling of the sand.When the night sky is clear, the moon casts a bright, pale, almost ethereal light over the desert.
The light has a dreamy quality. I enjoyed standing far away from our camp...alone and staring into the desert. The night light drew me to the perimeter every evening. You see, I was but twenty-two and I still knew how to dream.
I was awake and dreaming. I dreamed I was on a different sort of adventure. I had visions of Beau Geste...of dashing legionnaires...Gunga Din...caravans. I was an explorer. I hunted for the elusive and peaceful oasis.
Out on the perimeter, under more stars than I had ever seen, I could be someone else...could be somewhere else. It was my place of refuge and escapism.
But the rains were coming.
Our activities increased...I was less and less able to visit my night place on the perimeter. On one of our final nights at the Tactical Assembly Area, before we were to head north, I managed to sneak away for just a little while.
The smell of rain was heavy in the air. A storm was fast approaching. I tried to get into my explorer world...to find my oasis. To no avail. I couldn't tune out the revving of the engines, the clanking of the treads, the yelling behind me. The rustle of the sand across my boots, blown by a cold wind, was too distracting.
All I could do was look north. Bob Dylan's voice ran continually through my head singing about a hard rain that's gonna fall.
One of the perimeter sentries, on high alert this close to our departure, stumbled across me on his patrol. He questioned me a little and decided I was just loafing. As I walked past him heading back to camp...he played his red filtered flashlight briefly over my face. He must have noticed it was slightly wet.
"Hey, man, are you OK?"
"Everything's fine. It's just raining."
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Friday, September 14, 2007
Wind
The wind in the desert is pervading. With nothing to stand in its way...it comes in hot and fast...hugging the terrain. Sometimes it carries with it portents, sometimes it carries things away.
There really was no rest for the weary. After having spent the whole long night responding to one emergency call after another we had a new job at dawn. We had to walk the site of the previous night's fight to look for survivors.
In a long, staggered line we walked...feeling like interlopers on sacred ground. We prowled amidst the wreckage. It looked like the pictures of Pompeii...the unlucky ones frozen in the last moments of life. Their arms reaching out, fists gnarled, skin ash gray. And everywhere plumes of smoke rose like ghosts.
I took a break...sat on my helmet. I watched the wind whipping around the smoke that hung overhead....taking it away. It carried away the darkness and the stench. It let in the sun. It shifted the sands to begin covering what we'd left in our wake. At that moment, in a rare flight of imagination for me, I wished it would take me away too. I was just so tired. I'd had enough. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be gone out of there...
There really was no rest for the weary. After having spent the whole long night responding to one emergency call after another we had a new job at dawn. We had to walk the site of the previous night's fight to look for survivors.
In a long, staggered line we walked...feeling like interlopers on sacred ground. We prowled amidst the wreckage. It looked like the pictures of Pompeii...the unlucky ones frozen in the last moments of life. Their arms reaching out, fists gnarled, skin ash gray. And everywhere plumes of smoke rose like ghosts.
I took a break...sat on my helmet. I watched the wind whipping around the smoke that hung overhead....taking it away. It carried away the darkness and the stench. It let in the sun. It shifted the sands to begin covering what we'd left in our wake. At that moment, in a rare flight of imagination for me, I wished it would take me away too. I was just so tired. I'd had enough. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to be gone out of there...
Earth
It is an inescapable, omnipresent element.
The fine granulated sand is taken up by the constant winds. It clings to everything it touches. Desert earth is constantly shifting...moving...building up and wearing down. Sometimes it reveals. Sometimes it buries. The sand holds sway over life.
It is the blood of the desert.
You get used to it, or rather, you tell yourself you can and will. The constant grime, the chafing, the sore eyes, the itching. The sand gets in every crack, crevice and pore. It gets in the folds of your neck, your nostrils, eyes, ears. Every wrinkle and ridge in your skin stands out in stark relief as the sand settles and clings and you slowly turn grayish-brown. It gets in your helmet, your pockets, your rucksack, your underwear. Every morning you need to upend and pour sand from your boots. Every evening you need to disassemble and clean your weapon so the invading sand won't foul the mechanism.
You try and clean yourself and your gear...but the sand keeps on coming. The wind blows it across the camp, underneath your tent flaps, into your eyes and mouth. You spit it out, brush it off, dump it out. You wipe at it constantly. Pre-moistened towelettes and baby wipes have become precious commodities to be hoarded and traded. The chafing is maddening.
The sand becomes the immediate enemy. More real than whatever sits on the other side of the berm several miles north. It is more painful to your skin than the Arabian sun...more annoying than the big, black flies...more bothersome than the scorpions.
You tell yourself you can deal with it...that you will deal with it. All while it slowly drives you insane.
Late in the afternoon of the first day of the ground war. Our battalion is in "diamond" formation and moving northeast to take up position on the far right flank of the 2nd Brigade's area as the entire division is working on getting into formation to push further into Iraq.
I am riding with Bravo Company...we are at the "tip" of the diamond. We have been through the berm and in the enemy's land for twelve hours...but the only enemies we have seen have been those surrendering. Eagerly surrendering. We exited our ambulance to treat them.
The sand stirred up by this vast armada of our vehicles choked us. Each vehicle had a long plume behind it looking like a powerboat creating a long wake. We have our faces covered by scarves but it does no good. The sands get through any boundary. Relief comes only when we climb back into the rear of our armored ambulance (which looks like a giant shoebox on treads with red crosses painted all around). We spit thin mud onto the floor in vain attempt to clear the sand from our mouths.
As we reached the next phase line on the map, the battalion halted. We would wait until the entire division was in formation before continuing onward. And we would refuel, perform maintenance, eat, try to nap. My team got out to stretch our legs. Brownie, Scrappy, Deejay and myself. Three medics and a radioman. The sand had mostly settled as the vehicles wound down. A light rain helped keep down the dust. We could breathe for once.
From the other side of the ambulance where he was relieving himself, Scrappy called our attention to a certain terrain feature. What looked like a ridge in the sand was actually a ruined trench and bunker line, partially buried. Being curious, we ventured out the 50 or so meters to the trenchline.
It was many months later, after much reading, that I pieced together what had most likely destroyed the bunkers we saw. During the six weeks of the bombing campaign, the Air Force used displays of firepower to break the morale of the Iraqis to induce them to surrender. Massive B-52 bombers would drop tons and tons of 2,000 lb bombs on empty desert...then drop leaflets on the nearest Iraqi units telling them to surrender...or the big bombs would fall on them next. Someone miscalculated...and dozens of 2,000 lb bombs fell close to this Iraqi unit (we rolled past the bomb craters a short while later)...and the concussive force was enough to collapse the hastily constructed bunkers and trenches. And they were occupied at the time.
We didn't smell the dead before we saw them. They had been dead for perhaps weeks and the rot was well progressed. And the desert had already begun to dry them. In the bunkers that were not totally flattened, we could see them in clear poses of Muslim prayer supplication. They knew death was coming for them. One corpse still had prayer beads locked into a small, curled fist.Their skin was drawn tight, putrification had already bloated and split them. Now they were desiccating. Some had suffocated. Some had been killed instantly from concussive force. Some were buried almost totally, some half buried. Many were covered in black, dry blood. And all of them had sand in their mouths.
Scrappy spit on the ground. I had the urge to do the same. I think we all did. We went back to our ambulance.
That was 24 Feb 1991. Today is 09 Feb 2006. Almost fifteen years to the day. Sometimes I can still taste the sand in my mouth.
The fine granulated sand is taken up by the constant winds. It clings to everything it touches. Desert earth is constantly shifting...moving...building up and wearing down. Sometimes it reveals. Sometimes it buries. The sand holds sway over life.
It is the blood of the desert.
You get used to it, or rather, you tell yourself you can and will. The constant grime, the chafing, the sore eyes, the itching. The sand gets in every crack, crevice and pore. It gets in the folds of your neck, your nostrils, eyes, ears. Every wrinkle and ridge in your skin stands out in stark relief as the sand settles and clings and you slowly turn grayish-brown. It gets in your helmet, your pockets, your rucksack, your underwear. Every morning you need to upend and pour sand from your boots. Every evening you need to disassemble and clean your weapon so the invading sand won't foul the mechanism.
You try and clean yourself and your gear...but the sand keeps on coming. The wind blows it across the camp, underneath your tent flaps, into your eyes and mouth. You spit it out, brush it off, dump it out. You wipe at it constantly. Pre-moistened towelettes and baby wipes have become precious commodities to be hoarded and traded. The chafing is maddening.
The sand becomes the immediate enemy. More real than whatever sits on the other side of the berm several miles north. It is more painful to your skin than the Arabian sun...more annoying than the big, black flies...more bothersome than the scorpions.
You tell yourself you can deal with it...that you will deal with it. All while it slowly drives you insane.
Late in the afternoon of the first day of the ground war. Our battalion is in "diamond" formation and moving northeast to take up position on the far right flank of the 2nd Brigade's area as the entire division is working on getting into formation to push further into Iraq.
I am riding with Bravo Company...we are at the "tip" of the diamond. We have been through the berm and in the enemy's land for twelve hours...but the only enemies we have seen have been those surrendering. Eagerly surrendering. We exited our ambulance to treat them.
The sand stirred up by this vast armada of our vehicles choked us. Each vehicle had a long plume behind it looking like a powerboat creating a long wake. We have our faces covered by scarves but it does no good. The sands get through any boundary. Relief comes only when we climb back into the rear of our armored ambulance (which looks like a giant shoebox on treads with red crosses painted all around). We spit thin mud onto the floor in vain attempt to clear the sand from our mouths.
As we reached the next phase line on the map, the battalion halted. We would wait until the entire division was in formation before continuing onward. And we would refuel, perform maintenance, eat, try to nap. My team got out to stretch our legs. Brownie, Scrappy, Deejay and myself. Three medics and a radioman. The sand had mostly settled as the vehicles wound down. A light rain helped keep down the dust. We could breathe for once.
From the other side of the ambulance where he was relieving himself, Scrappy called our attention to a certain terrain feature. What looked like a ridge in the sand was actually a ruined trench and bunker line, partially buried. Being curious, we ventured out the 50 or so meters to the trenchline.
It was many months later, after much reading, that I pieced together what had most likely destroyed the bunkers we saw. During the six weeks of the bombing campaign, the Air Force used displays of firepower to break the morale of the Iraqis to induce them to surrender. Massive B-52 bombers would drop tons and tons of 2,000 lb bombs on empty desert...then drop leaflets on the nearest Iraqi units telling them to surrender...or the big bombs would fall on them next. Someone miscalculated...and dozens of 2,000 lb bombs fell close to this Iraqi unit (we rolled past the bomb craters a short while later)...and the concussive force was enough to collapse the hastily constructed bunkers and trenches. And they were occupied at the time.
We didn't smell the dead before we saw them. They had been dead for perhaps weeks and the rot was well progressed. And the desert had already begun to dry them. In the bunkers that were not totally flattened, we could see them in clear poses of Muslim prayer supplication. They knew death was coming for them. One corpse still had prayer beads locked into a small, curled fist.Their skin was drawn tight, putrification had already bloated and split them. Now they were desiccating. Some had suffocated. Some had been killed instantly from concussive force. Some were buried almost totally, some half buried. Many were covered in black, dry blood. And all of them had sand in their mouths.
Scrappy spit on the ground. I had the urge to do the same. I think we all did. We went back to our ambulance.
That was 24 Feb 1991. Today is 09 Feb 2006. Almost fifteen years to the day. Sometimes I can still taste the sand in my mouth.
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