November 10, 1990

It had been nearly three months since the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing had deployed to Saudi Arabia in support of Operation DESERT SHIELD, and for the past month and a half – most of September and all of October – the speculation and the hopes of the people deployed was that the rumors they had heard about the deployment being only 90 days were true. We had no written orders stating that, but everyone we talked to from the Wing Commander’s office on down seemed to be in agreement that we would be going home in November, and another wing from the States would come and replace us.

And in the last few weeks of October, it got even worse – a redeployment date was announced, fueling the hopes of the Wing that we’d be going home soon. The rumor mill had our departure date set for November 26th, and even the folks in Base Operations – the ones who controlled the arrival and departure of all aircraft – had confirmed that a flight back to Langley had been scheduled for that date. Hopes were running high, and they were running higher with each passing day.

For the previous two months the guys in my unit had been asking me what I thought of the chances of us going home. I guess they were all coming to me because I was the relative newcomer to the unit and should have been “uncontaminated” by all of the usual BS that comes with assignment to any military unit. From jump street, when asked what I thought our chances were I always gave the same answer: have faith in the system. The system works, just be patient and have faith.

It was about the most perfect non-committal answer I could come up with, and it worked just fine. See, if you asked me the question and got that answer, if you were of the mind set that the system was going to send us home on time, then you got encouragement for your beliefs. If you believed the system was going to screw us and keep us there, then you got support for that belief as well. Whenever I was pressed for a more detailed answer I never gave one. Let people think what they wanted to, either way. I wasn’t going to burst their bubble or fuel their personal fires.

I had hopes – high hopes, to be sure – just like the rest of the Wing that the rumors were true, that we’d be going home on the 26th like they said. I had just spent the previous year away from my family, missing a full year of my kid’s lives, and after being home for less than four months I was gone again. Sure, I wanted to go home, more with each passing day. I woke up each day praying that this would be the day the rumors would be confirmed and we’d be told to pack up our gear and go get on the planes.

But deep down in my heart I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I knew that we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon, that we were going to be there for the long haul, and there was just no way around it. You see, I watched those big-assed airplanes arrive from the States full of equipment and troops, one after the other, non-stop 24 hours a day for nearly two full months, and I knew that with that much equipment and that many men in the country, there was no way in hell we would be leaving anytime soon. But I continued to hope against hope, and against my better judgment I let myself start believing the rumors of our impending departure.

All that changed on November 10, 1990.

On that day I was assigned to the Reserve Force as the Flight Commander, so for that day and the following three days after it I spent my 12 hour shift out in the field area, inspecting gear and training troops, keeping the 18 men under my control ready to deploy to any part of the base that may come under attack and need reinforcements. Boring duty, to be sure, but necessary and a welcome break from the normal routine.

Our shift started at 2300 hours (that’s eleven PM to you civilians out there), and after Guardmount and weapons inspection the SPs on the Reserve Force hit the chow hall in tent city for some midnight chow. Then it was back to the Reserve Force area, and around 0100 hours we were sitting in the temper tent set aside for us, waiting for our weekly Threat Briefing to be given to us by the OSI representative. It was more of the usual stuff, telling us about the ongoing negotiations and demands from the UN for Hussein to get out of Kuwait and about his continual posturing and defiance, threatening “the mother of all battles” should we decide to tangle with him. None of us took him seriously, and we all knew that we’d kick the living shit out of him in short order if it came to that. We were all hoping it wouldn’t but we knew it was going to end up that way, which was just one more reason we wanted to get the hell out of there.

After the briefing the Operations Officer, a captain whose name escapes me (Lonnie, help me out here) came into the tent and walked to the front. Once there he told us that he had an announcement to make, and the tent immediately fell silent. Every man jack there was hoping that this was it, this was the moment we’d been praying for, that the captain was going to confirm our departure date! But the look on the captain’s face told me otherwise; he looked like a man who was just getting ready to tell you that someone ran over your kitten.

He then told us that the Secretary of Defense had just announced that there would be no rotation of troops out of Saudi Arabia, and that all troops currently deployed would remain in place “until further notice.” The captain then beat feet, and I don’t blame him. You could have heard a pin drop in that tent.

With the departure of the captain I was once again the ranking man in the tent, so what happened next was up to me. I got up and went to the front of the tent, facing the men there, and told them that we had work to do. I then told them that they had 30 minutes to break down, clean, and reassemble their individual weapons and that there would be a weapons inspection in 35 minutes. “So stop feeling sorry for yourselves and get to it!” By that time everyone there knew me and knew that I was all business, that I didn’t play games, and that when I gave an order you damned well better carry it out, right now! So they got to work, breaking out the cleaning kits and starting in on the task I had assigned them. I knew that if I let them dwell on the bad news they’d just received that it would destroy them, so I set about keeping them busy for the next 10 hours so they wouldn’t think about it.

As for me…well, I walked out of the tent, climbed up on the hood of the big “deuce and a half” troop truck parked outside, laid my GAU rifle on the hood beside me, lit up a cigarette, looked up at the stars in the clear night sky above me, and quietly cried.

But only for as long as it took to smoke that one cigarette. After that I pulled my “Ranger rag” from around my neck, wiped my face with it, put it back around my neck, jumped down off the truck, recovered my rifle and went back inside the tent. We had work to do, and the time for feeling sorry for yourself was over.

Just another day in the desert.

More later.

IHC