by K. Sue Roper
The sounds of heavy artillery fire, combined with the upsurge in the number and frequency of helicopters and jets flying over our area, led us all to believe a declaration of war was very close. Taking these and several other escalated war preparations into account, we began to speculate about the date that war would be declared. My guess was 17 March. Having no access to television or any other news outlet except the scant and erratic information we received during muster, we based our predictions solely on the sights, sounds, and heightened activities surrounding us. We continued to have no definitive idea when we would advance north. All we knew was that we were ready and eager to go.
We were issued diazepam bristojets (individually preset doses of diazepam in syringes for self-injection) to add to our war gear. We were to administer these bristojets to prevent seizures in the event we came into contact with nerve agents. We were also given a month’s supply of doxycycline for the prevention of malaria because Iraq’s rainy season was just around the corner. A fifteen-day supply of ciprofloxacin hydrochloride, a preventive antidote for anthrax exposure, was also issued.
We began packing our field hospital into International Organization for Standardization (ISO) containers. These massive steel boxes were twenty to forty feet in length and close to nine feet in height. Our entire field hospital, comparable to a stateside medical-surgical trauma center, was to be packed and transported in these durable, enclosed containers. It was extremely hard work that required every morsel of physical strength and fortitude we could muster. A single side of a tent, once rolled, weighed almost two hundred pounds, and the weight of all the equipment and supplies was measured in tons.
The day of 12 March was a long, taxing one because we spent it packing the ISO containers. It was the hottest day we had experienced since our arrival. The heat, combined with the daylong strenuous activity of lifting, pulling, and pushing tons of equipment, tents, and medical supplies into the containers, took its toll on us. By evening, we were all totally exhausted and looking forward to a night of relaxation and sleep.
As nightfall approached, however, the winds increased. Remembering well the devastation we had experienced from the last windstorm, we readily donned our helmets and goggles, exited our home, and began tightening the ropes and securing the stakes that were the only real supports of this small dwelling that housed all of our belongings and provided us with a small measure of safety and comfort. The winds steadily and rapidly increased as we labored, blowing sand into our mouths and lungs and coating every inch of our bodies.
After securing our tent to the greatest extent possible, Chaps and I headed to one of the job johnnies. The wind was blowing so hard that we had to hold onto one another just to remain upright and to keep from losing one another. Our flashlights illuminated nothing but a massive, swirling, thick curtain of sand in front of us. Blindly, we trudged our way through this sand in the direction we thought one of the johnnies was located. Had it not been for the sand wall berm surrounding the camp, we would easily have walked straight out into the open desert. The johnnie was located a mere two feet to the right of where we stood facing the berm, yet we could not see it. We finally located it more by feel than by sight.
As we struggled blindly in an attempt to return home, we found it to be impossible to distinguish one tent from another. Believing I had successfully guided us home, I inadvertently entered the executive officer’s tent, which was located next to ours. As I crawled through the tent’s hatch, the officer was sitting with his back to me. When he glanced over his shoulder in my direction, all he could see was a goggled, sand-powdered creature crawling slowly toward him. Startled at this unexpected and strange sight, he screamed, causing me to scream. I certainly was not expecting to see him, and he had no idea who I was or whether I was even human. Although it caused us to experience momentary fright that night, we both would share many laughs together during the next few weeks when we would recall this humorous incident.
Once Chaps and I finally did locate our true home, we decided to leave the lower part of the tent’s flap door untied and to open the panels on the opposite side of it. This would allow the wind to flow through the tent, diminishing the relentless pounding to its sides and decreasing the strain on the frame and ropes that were holding it upright. We knew the wind, along with the massive amount of sand it contained, would ultimately force the tent to come crashing down on top of us if we did not vent it in this way.
Our sleeping bags became our only real shelter from the sand and grit being violently blown throughout our home. We crawled into them, covering ourselves as best as we could, and settled down to what would be a very tumultuous and sleepless night.
As the night wore on, the wind gradually began to subside. Sometime in the middle of the night, I needed to visit the john again but was not looking forward to another trek outdoors. Still, I disengaged myself from the fragile cover of my sleeping bag; grabbed my mask, goggles, and flashlight; woke a battle buddy; and we headed out.
With less wind and improved visibility, our trip to and from the john was considerably easier, faster, and much less traumatic for the executive officer living next door and for us. It was sometime around 1 AM. Determining the exact time was impossible because sand had caked the face of my wristwatch with such a thick opaque coating that the numbers could not be seen even when the watch was illuminated internally and externally. This, I soon discovered, was just a small example of what we would be facing when our home and its contents were revealed to us in the light of day.
The next day, the wind continued to blow, swirling sand and grit in its unyielding, though somewhat diminished, assault on our camp. Fortunately, all of the tents had survived and remained standing. Wind and sand were a dreaded combination, and it never ceased to amaze us how sand could invade and imbed itself into the deepest, smallest, most remote recesses of our tent’s interior. Our belongings were caked with it, and it had even managed to find its way inside sealed plastic bags and containers. Our sleeping bags were full of sand, both inside and out, and all our clothing was filthy.
Cleanup became an act of futility. We could not rid all of our meager yet highly prized and cherished belongings of all the mire and grime in which they were encapsulated. We hand washed our clothes, returning them to a “clean dirty” versus “dirty dirty” state. Weeks of hand washing clothes and never getting them totally clean caused them to appear dingy and gray. Clean dirty referred to clothes that had been recently washed; dirty dirty referred to clothes that needed to be washed. We worked diligently, cleaning what we could, all the while fantasizing about the day we would construct a massive bonfire and readily destroy all that we had brought with us to this desolate land. There was no way we would bring this filth, including our clean dirty clothes, back into our stateside homes.
10
GROWING WEARY
For twenty-five days I had existed and adapted to this ever-changing hellacious sandbox world located somewhere in the bowels of Kuwait. I had no idea of either my precise location (somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five miles from the Iraqi border) or when and if I would ever depart from it. I had lost my first “home” and survived several merciless sandstorms. I was exhausted from the physical demands required to load the ISO containers, clean the filth from our windblown, sand-filled tent, and function on little to no sleep.
We seemed to be doing nothing other than spinning our wheels, performing repetitious, burdensome tasks, only to be told the following day to undo that which we had carried out. I wanted desperately to move on in pursuit of the mission for which we had been sent, to see something, anything, other than the flat, dull, brown sand on the horizon. I longed to see green grass, my spring bulbs blooming in the garden of my stateside home, and birds flying overhead or perched contentedly on the branches of trees. I also needed to feel worthwhile by providing the patient care for which I was trained. I had grown weary, and my spirits began to falter.
I was not alone in feeling disheartened. We
all were beginning to feel the stress and strain inherent in living day after day within this austere environment. We all missed our families and our friends back home, and we believed the sooner the war began, the sooner we would be able to go home and reunite with them. Waiting was miserable, and sitting idle began to gnaw at our positive “can-do” attitudes.
As survivors and, more important, as the warriors we had become, we refused to surrender to this strong, compelling sense of despondency that had invaded our world. Bonding ever closer with one another, we declared all-out war on the negative and defeatist emotions and mental attitudes we had begun to experience. It was time to take action, to take control over our emotional worlds, and to reignite our survivor spirit.
Strategies in this battle for emotional integrity incorporated a variety of tactics, ranging from various social endeavors to lone quiet moments spent in reflection, where we would remind ourselves of what we had instead of what we lacked. We constantly sought out basic, simple pleasures that would boost our fledging spirits.
We would frequently gather and spend time doing nothing more than cracking bad jokes and sharing tales of our lives back in the States. We watched movies, shared meals together, and celebrated the smallest, most trivial events such as the delivery of fresh water to the camp or the rare meals of spaghetti, fried fish, or hamburgers that were erratically provided. All our efforts became focused toward validating the worth and merit of one another and finding things for which to be grateful. We pursued anything and everything to elevate our spirits and to steer our attitudes on a more positive course.
The receipt of mail, even when it arrived almost a month after it was posted stateside, helped to lift my spirits and the spirits of my battle buddies. There was nothing like reading a letter from home or, better yet, receiving a package filled with Power Bars, premoistened towelettes, dried fruit, Chapstick, and packets of Kool-Aid.
The letters from my friends in the States inquired about the “fast food set-up,” gymnasium, swimming pool, and phone and e-mail facilities and capabilities within our camp. They were apparently watching CNN coverage that was being broadcast from other camps in Kuwait where these luxuries actually did exist. Our camp was the extreme opposite of what was being projected on their television screens. Fast food was something we could savor only in our dreams, and simply having water was a treat for us. At least we did have water more often than not.
The weather conditions also began to improve. Daylight temperatures now ranged from 75 to 85 degrees, and although the winds continued to blow, they seemed less fierce and destructive. For me, the biggest improvement was the elevated temperature at night. Instead of dipping below 40 degrees, the nighttimes were in the high 50s. I found that I no longer needed to sleep in seven layers, cocooning myself in three layers within my sleeping bag just to achieve some semblance of warmth. I also no longer needed to sleep with the clothes I planned to wear the following day tucked inside the sleeping bag to warm them up—that trick I had learned in Kansas twenty-three long years earlier.
One night in mid-March, Tish, one of the female lieutenants, invited me and several others to come over to her tent for a special “Friday night out.” I knew it would not come anywhere close in comparison with a Friday night out on the town back home in the States, but I was very intrigued by the invitation. Dressed in my best dingy, gray-tinged, clean dirty clothes, I walked to Tish’s tent and gathered with the others for this special event.
It proved to be a fun evening and perhaps one of my best since arriving in Kuwait. Tish had received a sixty-pound box from home filled with facial products, hand creams, foot lotions, and more. We spent several hours giving each other hand and foot massages, facials, manicures, and pedicures, laughing and giggling all the while as we pursued these frilly endeavors. It was such a “girl thing,” and that evening we felt just that—like girls, instead of warriors. The emulsion hand creams and oils we used were literally sucked in when we put them on our severely dried skin. Although the softness these items produced was short lived, it was wonderful to savor this temporary luxury. Our activities that evening were meaningless and silly nonsense, and we loved every minute of it!
We also found release and positive emotions through regular daily exercise regimes. I continued to run my early morning laps around the perimeter of the camp, and several of us would often gather in the afternoon to walk the perimeter again in full gear.
Daily intelligence briefings provided us with information that was reliable, yet also quite frustrating at times. At one point we were informed that six countries of the United Nations Security Council had voted against going to war, wanting instead to extend Saddam Hussein’s deadline to turn over his weapons of mass destruction. For those of us sitting in a hellhole a mere thirty-five miles or less from the Iraqi border, this information was not good news, and morale suffered as a result of it. I prayed that President Bush would just say “Enough!” so that we could get on with it. Both the Bravo and Charlie companies were packed and ready, as were the FRSS and STP groups. All we needed was President Bush’s order telling us to go. We knew we could not sustain our battle against low unit morale forever.
Our spirits were somewhat lifted when we learned of a meeting to be held among the United States, Spain, and the United Kingdom. They would be discussing the integration of forces that would join together to destroy the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein despite the lack of endorsement by other nations that were members of the Security Council. We viewed this as a very positive step, and it energized us. We really did not care about the political wrangling and how war would ultimately be declared. We simply just wanted to get on with it.
We firmly believed in the words of President Bush when he said, “Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. . . . The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.” We believed we had existed and survived for solely one reason, which was to fight and support a war on terrorism that would provide a more secure and protected nation—our true home, the United States of America.
Along with President Bush and our many loved ones at home, we too prayed for God’s blessings and placed our confidence in a loving God who would guide us in doing the right thing.
11
HEIGHTENED ALERT AND FINAL PREPARATIONS
On Monday, 17 March, we received information that President Bush was scheduled to address the American nation in a televised speech at 9 PM EST (Tuesday, 18 March, 4 AM Kuwaiti time). Throughout the day, we speculated about what our commander in chief would say and hoped he would be declaring war. Our fighting troops were prepared and ready to begin the quest of liberating Baghdad. All companies, platoons, and groups of the Second FSSG were also ready to provide these frontline fearless warriors with the highest quality of medical care we could offer.
Instead of a declaration of war, however, the primary purpose of the president’s speech that night was to give Saddam Hussein and his sons one final ultimatum—either leave Iraq within forty-eight hours, or the military would take action. None of us expected that either Hussein or his sons would leave, so we used this forty-eight-hour period to complete final preparations for not only moving north into Iraq but also ensuring our own personal safety.
We practiced Scud-alert drills. Whenever the alarm sounded, we grabbed our Alice packs that contained MOPP gear and our web belts with gas masks, helmets, goggles, and pistol attached and made a mad dash to the closest Scud bunker. These bunkers consisted of nothing more than a plywood-framed shed reinforced with sandbags stacked on the roof and around its sides. They were imbedded approximately four feet into the sand, and we needed to descend three to four sandbag steps into a trench to gain access to one of the entryways located on either side of the bunker. Once inside, we had ample headroom to stand, and depending on the number of people entering the bunker, we could use floor room to crouch do
wn on the sandy deck. More often than not, however, the bunker’s interior provided standing room only for the twenty to thirty folks who would take refuge.
The Scud bunkers were dark, dank, crowded, and claustrophobic. We could not see outside because the bunkers did not have windows and because the doors provided little more than a view of the entry trench where the sandbags steps were located. After my first visit to one of the bunkers, I found I could not tolerate the inability to see what was happening around me, now an instinct for me since that frightful nighttime invasion of my apartment in Orlando. As a result, I would take partial cover within the bunker’s entry trench at the base of the sandbag steps where I could see the sky and feel more in control of my surroundings and even my own death. Being crushed and buried alive should the bunker take a direct hit or collapse from the vibration of nearby explosions was not a desirable death to me, and although I was more exposed to possibly being wounded by shrapnel from exploding ordinance, I was willing to take my chances.
Once the “all clear” signal was sounded, we could remove our gas masks and return to our berthing tents, relieved to be outside of those suffocating, dark bunkers. Little did we know during this prewar practice period just how frequently we would be required to seek refuge in and around these crowded plywood-and-sandbag enclosures.
Packing Alice packs and seabags for the final time was challenging and difficult. We had spent countless hours anticipating, evaluating, and identifying items that would be essential for survival. Now that we were on the brink of war, we once again assessed the contents of the Alice packs, which would serve as our sole source of sustenance for three to five days of travel and desert living. What should be packed? What items could be left behind? What would be essential for our personal survival? What could I take that might also be needed to help save the lives of others? We had no previous experience on which to base our decisions; we simply did the best we could.