Our Daily Gift From God

 

Our daily gift from God is simple:  it's today.  At midnight each night tomorrow turns into today, and it's ours to do with as we please.  And make no mistake about it, each day on this blue ball we call home is indeed a gift from God.

I had this proven to me early in the morning of January 22nd, 1991   I was at King Abdul Aziz Air Base in the city of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf War was nearly in full swing.  We were going through our fourth straight night of SCUD attacks, and it was on this day that we took a direct hit on the base from a very large piece of debris from a SCUD missile that the Patriot battery stationed at my base had destroyed.  Only thing it, the damned thing was literally right over the base when it was taken out, and the tremendous mid-air explosion was followed by a rain of shrapnel before the warhead section of the missile impacted at the alert end of the runway, blowing the biggest crater in the ground that I've ever seen before or since.

After the all clear sounded we got out of our MOP gear (the chemical protective suit for all you civilians), stowing it back into our C-bags until we would need it again.  I was assigned to a mobile patrol on the flightline that particular morning, and I had parked my hummer at the end of the parking ramp so me and my gunner could take our gear off.  Once the gear was stowed and we put out web gear and helmets back on, I lit up a cigarette to try and calm my nerves.  Right then my gunner called out to me from his perch behind the M-60 machine gun mounted in the turret on the roof.

"Uh, Sergeant Craig, are you ok?" he said.

"Yeah, I'm fine.  Why?" I asked, looking up at him.  

"Look at your helmet," he said, pointing at my helmet.

I took my helmet off and looked at it, and I felt all the blood drain out of my face and fall right to my feet.  Right there on the top of the helmet was a rip in the camouflage cover that was about an inch long, the edges jagged and torn.  I touched it with my finger, then stuck my head into the hummer and looked up at the roof.

There was a hole about the size of a quarter in the roof, right above where I was sitting behind the steering wheel.  My hummer had taken a shrapnel hit during the previous attack, and a piece of the destroyed SCUD had hit my hummer, gone through the roof, then bounced off my helmet with enough force to rip the cover and put a pretty good gouge in the helmet itself.

If I hadn't been wearing my helmet I would most likely be dead.

"Holy shit," I said softly as I stood up, looking into the hummer.

"Yeah," my gunner replied.  

Then the thought hit me:  I have to find that piece of shrapnel.  So I pulled out my flashlight and started looking around the inside of the hummer, and it only took me about five minutes to find it.  It was on the floor of the driver's compartment, right under the brake pedal.  I picked it up, looked at it for a minute, then put it in my pocket.  Then we saddled up and went back to work.

Just another day in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Every time I think I need it, I pull that piece of shrapnel out of my memory box and look at it, and it reminds me of just how close to death I came that night so long ago.  And it never fails to remind me that every day is a gift from God, and that I should make the best use of it that I can.

Every day is a gift.  That's why they call it "the present."

But you've heard me say this before, haven't you?

So let me ask you again:  what will you do with your gift today?

Deo Vindice

IHC