Chapter 22: Summer's Almost Gone

Late summer, 1993...Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.  Our battalion's role in Operation Desert Falcon was in full swing.  Khobar Clinic was hopping the first few weeks we were in country with soldiers being overcome by the oppressive heat and a new illness we affectionately called the 'Khobar Crud.'  The crud was a severe abdominal virus that caused intense cramps, nausea and diarrhea.  Combined with the brutal heat, this could spell disaster for anyone working on a tactical site.  It seemed every day, more and more soldiers were reporting to sick call for the same sickness, including our battalion's executive officer.  By the end of August, Captain Kungys told all of us that after hours, unless the patient was in dire need, to just do an exam then dispense the usual medications for relief after a round of IV fluids were administered; there was no need to bother him due to the overwhelming cases we were experiencing.  One thing for sure, I really honed my IV skills that first month.
Tactical site duty had become pretty routine the first month in country.  I would trek out to the site in my ambulance and go through the usual routine of the wet bulb reading, setting up the aid station area and checking drinking water.  I would get bored by mid morning and wander around on site.  I always went to check the guys on sandbag duty and made sure they had water to drink, then I would go around to the ready platoon areas and make sure no one needed anything.  Usually, there was no activity, so all of us made the best of our time as we could.  Sometimes, SFC Taylor would do some type of soldier training or task out people for other duties to stay busy.  I rarely went into the CP unless I was summoned there or to give the wet bulb readings.  The thing about tac site duty is we all tried to find some way to stay cool and comfortable.
When there was absolutely nothing going on, some of us would catch the scorpions that crawled about and have scorpion fights.  The scorpions in Saudi Arabia were basically two types; a large, black scorpion with a stinger on the tail about the size of a hypodermic needle and a tiny brown one.  The big black scorpions were aggressive, but their stings weren't deadly.  The little brown ones, however, had a nerve agent type venom and could kill a human.  We would get the bigger scorpions and keep them in a water bottle that was cut off about midway.  When it was time to fight, we dropped the two competitors in a makeshift ring and prodded them to fight.  Yes, it was cruel entertainment, but my scorpion was considered 'king of the ring' and won many bouts until we eventually were told to knock it off and cease the activity.
On the days off duty, I, along with anyone else who would tag along, would wander out into the Khobar complex and see what was there.  There was a weight gym in a bunker facility that was accessible to us, a small post exchange store, and not much else.  Most of the time I browsed the market where the bootleg tapes were located.  Everything at Khobar Towers looked the same and there were areas we didn't have access to, not that I would personally want to anyway.  The area was just so foreign to me.  During a security briefing, we were told that some of the local people really didn't want us there and would try to get us out of country by any means possible.  Wandering into an unfamiliar or restricted area of Khobar was probably a recipe for disaster.  If we went into town, which was a rarity, we had to travel in numbers, but wear our military uniforms.  We were told that should a mob of people be moving our direction shouting, we should do all we could to go the opposite way in a hurry.  According to what we were told, these type of scenarios could play out anytime if a crowd became angry over just about anything...and they wouldn't think twice about taking out vengeance on outsiders, especially military types. 
Things were just so different than in Germany; not only due to location, but due to our overall mission and daily routine.  We weren't just doing PMCS on our vehicles then trying to find a place to hide until chow.  We had a purpose for once.  Clinic duty was always interesting for me.  I wanted to learn more about my role as a medic, beyond just patching up a laceration or doctoring a broken nose.  Captain Kungys was always great about including us when it came to patient care, and explaining the entire process.  Like one particular day, we had a female patient that came into sick call  complaining of back pain and was having trouble sitting down.  After examining her, Captain Kungys gathered us up and explained that the patient had a large cyst that had formed on her lower back that was causing the pain.  He showed wrote a diagram on a dry erase board of how the cyst was formed in the patient's back and then what he planned to do to treat the problem.  Donnelly was the only female medic there that day, so she was asked to prepare for a surgical procedure and assist.  I had never got to see anything like this in person, but Captain Kungys wanted to keep the surgery to the bare minimum of staff to avoid complications.  After several minutes, Donnelly emerged from the back room with her surgical mask still on.  I could see the doctor painstakingly stitching up the patient's back through the open door.  I followed Donnelly into the other room, and she told me about the operation in some detail.  It was fascinating, because this kind of stuff is what I had signed up for.  After the patient left, Captain Kungys presented a small metal basin pan with an object that looked like a large, bloody grape.  That was the cyst, he said, and the smell was rather disgusting, but it was still exciting to learn about the whole ordeal.
My medic skills were tested on Bravo's site early one afternoon, and was the one incident that I felt focused me more than anything.  I was in the ready trailer reading one afternoon when someone came in and yelled, "Doc, there's a guy that's hurt out here and he's passed out!".  I grabbed by medic bag and raced out to find a person partially under a truck near the CP.  I thought he had been hit by the truck, so immediately I started to think to myself, "crap...now what?".  Luckily, the guy started waking up and was very disoriented at first.  He had a large place on his forehead that was bruised and protruding outward.  Several other soldiers were standing by, so I asked one to go to my ambulance and grab a supply bag I had in it.  While he was doing that, I asked the injured soldier what happened.  He was under the truck trying to secure a spare tire in the stowage area when the tire slipped and fell, hitting him in the head.  By this time, SFC Taylor and the duty officer arrived and asked what was wrong.  I was knelt beside the soldier looking at his injuries and never looked up, only stating that I felt he needed to go to the clinic to be evaluated.  I felt totally in control of the situation for once, and it was like my training from Fort Sam had kicked up subconsciously.  The other soldier arrived with the bigger bag of supplies from the ambulance and asked what to do.  I knew the injured guy had a head injury, and my training said to immobilize the neck in case of a more severe injury.  I told my new medic assistant to get me a collar so I could place it around the other's neck.  Once that was on, I had another soldier who was standing by hold my patient's head to prevent it from moving.  The skills just kept clicking and flowing from me, like nothing before.  I then asked my assistant to grab the long wooden board from the ambulance and bring it over.  Once it was in place, we gently rolled the patient onto the wooden board and secured him with strapping.  Now came the moment of "what now."  I had just secured my patient, who was now fully aware of what was going on, onto a board and knew he needed to go to the clinic.  I told the soldier who had assisted me that he would need to drive us into Khobar.  After taking the patient's blood pressure and other vital signs, the group of soldiers helped load him into the ambulance and my assistant hopped into the cab of the truck.  I never asked for permission to leave site or to take the other soldier with me, I just took charge and did it.  The only other times I felt this in control of a situation was when I was fighting fire or playing guitar, and it felt great.
I had a portable radio on me that was linked in with Khobar Clinic.  As my assistant drove down the road, I tried to call the clinic several times, but was too far out of range.  Eventually, I got through and reached SFC Bechtel, telling her I was bringing a patient to the clinic and reported his vital signs and current condition.  It was like an episode of Emergency! where Roy and Johnny got on the radio and told about the dire situation and got direction from the waiting doctor.  By the time we got to the barricades at Khobar, my patient was fully alert and not complaining of anything, but the mark on his head was impressive and looked like it had grown.  I really didn't have to do much more than what I had already done, and I was starting to think, "did I overreact and cause a big scene for nothing?" 
We arrived at the clinic and had SFC Becthel, Lt Balser and two other medics waiting on us outside.  We took the patient into the clinic and Lt Balser started his assessment.  The two medics on duty, Bruce and Martinez, I think it was, started putting oxygen on my patient, who's name by the way was Reyes, and helped the lieutenant anyway they could. 
"What's the vitals,"  Lieutenant Balser asked.  I couldn't remember so I stood there with a blank look I guess until he said, "your hand.  Look at your hand."  I had written down the blood pressure, pulse and respiratory rate on my hand and luckily it hadn't worn off.  The adrenaline was starting to ease by that point and I wandered away to get some water.  Bruce came into the kitchen area and patted me on the back and said, "that was high speed the way you had that guy all bundled up."  I thanked him and really didn't pay anymore mind to the comment.  A couple of minutes later, Lt Balser came in and said, "So, did you work as an EMT before?"
"No, just a firefighter is all," I replied.
"Well, great job there.  He's gonna be fine."
That little boost really made my day....my year even.  My new assistant and I drove back out to the tac site and finished out the day with no more incidents.  For the first time, I felt like I was a true medic.
We were technically under peace time operations;  Desert Storm had ended in a cease fire and there wasn't any nightly SCUD raids or threats...or so I thought.  I was on site one day and summoned to the CP trailer for a soldier who was overheated.  While assessing him, an alarm went off and the room began buzzing with activity.  I had been on field exercises before where simulated attacks came across and the same excitement was generated, so I really didn't pay any mind to it.  I started to get up to move the dehydrated soldier to the ready trailer and was stopped at the door.
"You guys aren't going anywhere," the lieutenant barked.
"Sir, I need to get him to the trailer and get an IV in him, then he will be ok," I replied.
"Negative, we are under an alert and you are staying put.  When we tell you, grab him and go to the bunker."  An alert?  Come on this was an exercise...wasn't it?  A few minutes later, we received an all clear order and the alert was over as quickly as it began.  I protested the order to stay put, and was quickly told that we were "in the real world Army now."  The alert was in fact a real incoming threat that the Patriot radar system had picked up and started the targeting sequence.  Holy Hell...this was real.  Needless to say, I was very uneasy and the sergeant inside with us picked up on it.  We walked outside and he told me that there were things going on that was need to know and that I shouldn't write home about.  Meanwhile, my patient I had been treating suddenly felt well and needed no further intervention from me.  That was another epiphanious day for me...the day I realized the threat was indeed real.  There would be more alerts as the months went on.  For the most part, they were treated routinely and we were never in any direct danger.  But it was still very unnerving.
Another stark possibility was the threat of car bombs.  Over the years, and to this day, the preferred method of widespread chaos in the region has been detonating a car bomb in a populated area.  It first off kills and maims scores of people, and, secondly, creates an instant worldwide attention grabbing moment for the responsible group and its cause.  Our presence in the region meant we were prime targets for such incidents.  That is the key reason the zig-zag barricades were in place at the Khobar entrance gate.  We were told that if we ever saw any vehicles left unattended that appeared out of the ordinary or a group of people fleeing from a parked vehicle to report it.  So the threats were very real for us.  I hadn't seen any direct evidence until one evening when we went into town.
We were allowed to go into town occasionally to shop at the mall and gold shops in Dhahran.  We had to be in our uniforms and be in a group.  There were strict rules of etiquette we had to follow; like don't directly stare down anyone, don't flash symbols of Christianity, and especially don't eye the women.  Even though Saudi Arabia is one of the richest countries in the world, it still has an aura of third world country to it with some customs and the ways people live.  The women are looked upon as a man's servant.  They must be completely covered from head to toe with a black robe and veil and never show themselves in public.  They must also remain silent and not spoken to unless it is through their men.  So for a group of US Army soldiers to go into town and have a woman with them who is not covered from head to toe and openly conversing within the group was not looked upon favorably. 
Several of us went into town one evening and were walking near the mall.  A few people would walk up to us and speak to us, telling us things like, "thank you, USA," and, "you are our friends."  Then others would walk by and stop in front of us, holding their hands up and saying something in Arabic that I'm sure was derogatory from the expressions they made.  Then others would simply tell us to leave their country and not come back before spitting on the ground in front of us.  This was totally bizarre to me.  The most uncomfortable I ever felt was when we walked into the mall and the people stared and pointed at us.  Sergeant First Class Bechtel and Donnelly was with us that night and the locals made it very apparent we were not welcomed with the two women with us.  One shop owner even made Donnelly stand outside the door when we went inside to browse.  That was definitely one of those times where you watched every single person around you and stayed very keen to the surroundings.  To this day, in a large group of people, I find myself 'scanning' for anyone who may be a threat.  I was very glad to get out of town after that night.
There was one other night I went into town out of sheer boredom, this time with all guys.  We were in the gold district browsing the shops that lined the market area, taking in all the sights.  The market area was a narrow street with vendors all over the place and shops built right next to each other in rows.  Gold was unbelievably cheap in Saudi and we scooped it up, especially since one US Dollar equaled 3.75 Riyals.  This night, which would be my last visit into town, we were in a shop and across the road there were two Saudi women staring at us.  Of course they were covered and resembled ninjas or 'Jawas' as Peschke once called them.  One of the guys said, "man those chicks are staring us down aren't they?"  Etiquette dictated that we didn't return the stares directly but passing glances while scanning couldn't hurt, right?  Suddenly, while 'scanning' one of the women dropped her veil enough we could see her face, she was smiling back at us.  This lady was gorgeous!  One of the guys with us, nudged me and said, "aww man we gotta go!"  And we left the area quickly.  Lord knows what would have happened had we been the typical GI's and approached these ladies.  "Dear family, your son was beheaded in the town square in Dhahran for insulting Mohammed...."
Eventually, mail started trickling into Khobar.  I finally heard from Moni and the letter was brief, but still welcomed.  Of course mom wrote me and due to the mail, I would usually get two or three letters at a time, dated usually a week or so behind the other.  It was good to hear from everyone and my usual replies were very vague, just talking about how life at Khobar was at the moment.  I couldn't really discuss anything going on there because our mail was subject to random interception by military intelligence and could be read at any time.  The same went for us sending pictures back home.  We couldn't take pictures of the tactical sites and send them home, nor could we discuss the locations or activities on site.  That also went with incoming mail.  We couldn't be sent anything that would be found offensive to the locals.  One of the guys found this out the hard way when his wife sent some revealing pictures that were intercepted.  Not only did his mail get opened and confiscated, but anyone in the S2 section got a good look at his wife in all her glory.
Overall life on at Khobar wasn't all that bad.  I spent a lot of my down time at the recreational center.  I usually rented out a bass guitar and amplifier and just jammed.  Occasionally, someone would grab a guitar and join me, but for the most part it was just me jamming along with the music in my Walkman.  During weeknights, the center had a DJ and themed nights of entertainment.  Monday was rock night, Tuesday was dance night, Wednesday was country night.  Country night was always crowded and the new dance fad was line dancing.  This was the Garth Brooks King of Radio era and nearly every other song was by him. People would line up, wearing their colorful southwestern style shirts, jeans and boots, some with white or black cowboy hats, and do what I accustomed to a country version of a chorus line.  To me, it looked absolutely ridiculous, but people went mad over it.  One song that was played to no end was the Brooks and Dunn song Boot Scootin' Boogie.  I really got tired of hearing that song over and over, but since this was the country night was the busiest night and an opportunity to mingle with other people for a while, it would have to do.  Eventually, I noticed on rock night, no one would show up to DJ, so I took the opportunity to ask the desk sergeant if I could take a stab at it.  She handed me a box of CD's and said, "here ya go".  Thus, started my weekly DJ gig when I wasn't on clinic duty.  I familiarized myself with the control board and got the hang of it all rather quickly.  I could play all my favorite rock genre songs from 2000-2200 hours with free reign, and since I owned quite an assortment of CD's and tapes, I had a broad spectrum to choose from.  As my time in Saudi went on, the Monday night rock show generated a bit of a crowd and gave me the chance to escape for a while.
There was one night, a group of musicians came in and did a concert event at the recreational center.  The band consisted of 5 Philipino guys who played classic rock and weren't actually that bad.  They had a keyboard player and I remember the first song they came on with was The Final Countdown, a song made popular by the band Europe.  It was fun to watch and musically, not bad at all.  On break, I approached the guys and mentioned I played bass.  The bass player told me they would have me come do some songs with them, and I got instantly excited.  When they called me up, I plugged in, a little nervous since it had been since the talent show at Fort Sam since I had actually played in a live setting.  The room was crowded, but not filled, and several of the folks from 6/43 were there cheering me on.  We started out with a rendition of the song Mony, Mony and it was solid, considering I hadn't really ever played that song before.  Next, we did the Cream song Sunshine of Your Love, which went really smoothly.  I got a rousing round of applause from everyone there and saw some from the clinic cheering me on.  It was a good feeling, and the first time anyone from 6/43 had really seen me play. 
September arrived with no fancy fanfare or great turn of events, but for me it meant two things.  For one, it was my birth month, and secondly, it meant I had survived one year in the Army...just three more to go.  I started receiving some birthday cards from back home early in the month, including one from everyone at Owingsville Fire Department.  I really appreciated every card I got and hung them up on my wall locker proudly.  For me, that was my link to those back home.  I could look at those cards and see the names inside them and feel instantly better when I was down.  And trust me, there were those times I was down.  We could only call once a week for a limited time, and one particular evening, I called home to catch up with mom and everyone.  It had been a particularly long and stressful week for me, and I was for once feeling a bit homesick and down.  The phone rang, then rang, then rang again before the answering machine picked up.  No one was home...great.  I tried again with no luck.  I tried calling for a third time, hoping they were just outside, but again, no luck.  I tried to call Jason, then Jeff, then Chris, again, no answers.  So I went through my little red book, desperately looking for someone to talk to from home.  I was running low on time for the phone, so I chose to call Shawna, a friend I had known for years.  When the ringing went on for three or four times, her answering machine picked up.  Dejected, I left a message something like, "hey it's Rob, calling from the desert, guess you aren't home either. Don't guess anyone else in Owingsville is home, so I'll catch you later."  I left the phone area and went upstairs to my room and just put my Walkman on, disappearing into my music.  There comes a time where a simple familiar voice can do so much good, and later on, I got more than an answer on the other line of a phone.  I received a box from home that had some VHS video tapes in it. A couple were some of my bootleg KISS concert tapes, but there was one that mom and Dee Dee made of things like Casey's kindergarten graduation, my cousin Ashley learning to swim, the fire department meeting and more everyday life from back home.  I teared up the first time I watched the video.  On that tape, mom and everyone had a cookout at the old Slate Furnace Park where it looked more like a family reunion.  Then, they brought out a large birthday cake and held it up to the camera, signing Happy Birthday to me.  That was probably one of the best things I ever saw and meant so much to me, and still does after all these years.  Here I was thousands of miles away in a desert with God knows what hostility awaiting, and they had a party for me anyway.  That boosted me so much, and I will always cherish that video...and yes, I still have it.  For my twentieth birthday, the clinic had a small party for me with a cake and decorations.  Everyone signed a single card for me and I got a couple of CD's and a shirt.  If I couldn't be back home with family, I was glad to be among good friends and colleagues.
As with any situation, boredom crept in at Khobar, usually giving a prime opportunity to mischief.  We occupied the top floor of a seven-story building with a balcony overlook which had a commanding view.  At night, we could see the lights far off in town and at the airfield.  Closer, we got a good overhead view of the volleyball games that the Air Force guys and gals constantly played.  One night while on clinic duty, Smith and I found some glow sticks in a supply closet that were expired.  They still lit up just as brightly as if they were new, but we were told to throw them out or simply get them out of the clinic.  The next evening, while on the balcony, someone took an ink pen and tied a plastic bag to it.  They tossed the pen and makeshift parachute off the balcony and the wind carried it far out away from our building.  Smith and I became inspired and grabbed the glow sticks, securing plastic bags to several and tossing them out into the wind.  Soon, there were red, yellow and green lights floating all across the Khobar facility and we marveled at our ingenuity.  We also found it rather amusing when one of the glow sticks gracefully fell into the volleyball pit during a match and the airmen scattered away, not knowing what exactly they were seeing.  This kind of thing went on for a while, until one day, Kirk and someone else felt brave enough to toss some parachuted glow sticks off the balcony in daylight to antagonize the local workers doing landscaping.  Someone tossed a handful of the little chutes at the same time, just about the moment the base commander and commanding general rounded the corner of the adjacent building...right into the path of a falling glow stick.  I'm not sure what was said to Kirk and his cohort, but all I know is we were sent a command directive to cease any further glow stick bombardments from the seventh floor balcony.
Another activity that eased the boredom was the water gun fights, which also had a rather hasty, and nearly fatal, ending.  We went to the PX and bought several water guns and water balloon grenades, along with black t-shirts and headbands, creating the Khobar Water Gun Brigade.  Obviously, we really didn't think this idea through properly.  So the scenario went like this; we would split into teams and spread out into the area, establishing 'bases', like the playground that was on top of a bunker, open breezeways or anything else.  From those locations, we would either do a capture the flag operation or try to take over the opposing base in an assault.  We recruited some of the soldiers from the ordnance company and a couple of Air Force guys to be on our teams so there would be a good force to deal with.  The first night, we were spread out and my team saw the opposing team, thus taking chase through Khobar, wildly firing our water guns.  The group split up and my team split also, taking one man each.  I saw a couple of the other team members run inside the building which housed the clinic.  Smith and I gave chase in after them, but the other guys were ahead of us by a good distance.  We got in the lobby just as the elevator door closed.  Smith and I raced up the staircase to try and intercept the opposition when they exited the elevator.  A seemingly cut and dry offensive, right?  Not hardly.  We reached the third floor just as the bell rang to open the doors and Smith and I unleashed a water barrage into the elevator...all over the wrong people.  The pair inside the elevator was a lieutenant and a sergeant from another unit who were 'collateral damage', but they really didn't find the humor in it what so ever.  So after a long chastising from a superior officer and NCO, we ducked tail and retreated back to the upstairs.  Luckily, that incident didn't go any further than that, or at least no one from the battalion reprimanded us.
The next time we did the war games, we set rules that no one was to run into a building in an attempt to elude capture or a watery death.  We were in patrol mode when we caught sight of the opposition force ahead of us.  It was a perfect opportunity to ambush them from our position, so my team eased slowly up into the playground area, ready to take up a position when suddenly, a security officer on real patrol, accompanied by two other armed soldiers drew weapons on the other team we were watching.  This was not good.  They were ordered to drop their weapons and put their hands up while the armed security patrol surrounded them.  The team was patted down and ordered to identify themselves and unit they belonged to.  At this time, I had a couple of options; either hide and wait until the security patrol left, or surrender to them.  My team opted the best possible solution and came out of hiding with our hands up and weapons down.  After being properly identified, the security patrol, now with weapons at ease, told us that someone had reported what they thought were 'terrorists' running around the complex.  The security detail had been mobilized to find the threat, which was actually us.  We were all escorted back to a building where an Air Force security patrol sergeant was waiting.  The chastising we endured by the lieutenant and sergeant a few nights before was nothing on what we got that particular night.  We were told that we could have been shot on the spot and those weapons had real bullets in them. 
"What the Hell is wrong with you soldiers? Do you think this is one big game?" the sergeant barked at us.  All we could do is apologize and hope for the best.  Unlike the previous incident, this was reported to our commander, with our names, and we were reprimanded for our actions.  Our water gun brigade was deactivated and rendered undeployable indefinitely.
One evening while on duty in the clinic, I started playing around on a computer.  These days, computers are a common necessity, but in 1993, they were brand new to me.  I had an old Commodore 64 with a cassette drive back home that I dabbled with as a kid, but I never had any formal computer training.  Donnelly showed me some features, one being the paint accessory.  I could draw or make signs using this feature and it was awesome.  I started drawing random things, then made a red cross with a caduceus, or two snakes crossing each other on a staff, in the middle of it.  Above it, I wrote Khobar Army Clinic in large bold letters, and below, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.  The logo looked really good, so I printed it off to keep.  When I saved the picture, somehow, I made it the screen saver and didn't realize it.  The next day, LT Balser came in, logged onto the computer and saw my logo on the screen.  He asked who did it and I was notified that he liked it and wanted to use it as the 'official' logo for the clinic.  My next shift, I found some clear transparency sheets and a light projector.  I printed my logo onto a clear sheet and used the projector to project the image of the logo on a wall in the waiting room in the clinic.  The image looked great there and I thought to myself, "that would look cool."  The next morning, I waited for Captain Kungys to arrive and showed him my idea.  After about a minute, he said, "let me do some calling around and see if we can make this happen."  I was very excited about him liking the idea of my logo I had designed being put on the wall in the clinic.  By the next shift, Captain Kungys told me he had got permission from the base commander for me to do the painting, and he would go buy anything I needed to do it.  I wrote a list of the materials I needed and within about a week, I began the project.


I projected the design onto the wall and traced it with a pencil, which took me two days to complete.  Then, I started the painting, which all together took about a week to do.  I was very proud of the end result, as was everyone else.  A couple of days later, Captain Kungys told me that a representative from the Commander of Army Central Command wanted to stop by and see the painting.  The morning of the visit, Colonel Gault and his staff came into the clinic and made some small talk with everyone and toured the area.  He commended Captain Kungys and SFC Becthel on the clinic and how well it looked and then asked where the artist was.  Captain Kungys introduced me to the colonel and he shook my hand firmly.  The door to the waiting area was closed and when we opened it up, the smell of paint was very strong.  Someone turned the lights on and the logo on the wall stood out in the room, looking better than the night I had finished it.  The colonel and his staff walked over and looked at the painting, nodding in approval.  I followed behind with Captain Kungys and the colonel turned to me and said, "fine work, soldier, very fine work."  He reached into his pocket and handed me a large coin, the commander's challenge coin.
"Here, son, you have earned this," Colonel Gault said as he again shook my hand.  I thanked him and he told Captain Kungys and SFC Becthel that the painting would be a lasting part of the clinic and he would make sure no one ever painted over it.  After another round of thank you's and hand shakes, the entourage left.  I looked at the coin that was given to me and Captain Kungys explained that it was a true honor to receive it.  Not bad for a creative mood spawned from boredom.
As the month of September merged into October, not much had changed. On the calendar, it was apparent that summer was almost gone. Back home, normally the trees would be starting to change color and the air would start becoming a bit cooler.  Not in Saudi; it was still 100 degrees during the day and around 85 at night.  Things had become rather routine at Khobar by that point, sometimes it seemed too routine.  There would be changes coming in the near future, some positive, some negative, and some very tense moments.  I counted down each day while I was in Saudi Arabia, each day forward was a day closer to getting back to the real world...a world that seemed so far away.



Chapter 21: The Big Empty

Sunrise at Khobar Towers

Zero five-thirty, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, August, 1993.  I was sleeping somewhat comfortably in my room at Khobar Towers and heard a loud, resonating moan break the silence.  It started out low, then built in volume, kind of like an old siren.  Immediately, I jumped out of bed and looked toward the window, fully expecting to see the streaks of tracer rounds lighting up the sky.  I didn't know what was going on, but I knew it wasn't anything I had experienced ever before.  My room mate, Kirk, heard me and asked what was going on.  I told him I had no idea, that it had to be a SCUD alarm going off.  Kirk sat up and listened to the noise that now sounded like a chanting song more than anything.  With a smile, he told me to "relax, it's the morning prayers.  They do this five times a day here".  Kirk had been in country a few weeks before me, so he had already been through this ordeal;  I was sure that there was a SCUD coming down upon us, though. 
My first duty day at Khobar consisted of adjusting to the climate and getting familiar with the clinic setting.  Our medical commander for the clinic was Captain Kungys, who was the chief medical officer at the Darmstadt Army Clinic in Germany.  Our executive officer was First Lieutenant Balser, who worked at another clinic in Germany.  They, along with SFC Bechtel, made up the chain of command for the Khobar Army Clinic.  The medic platoon had been split up with some going to Riyadh, so it wasn't too crowded.  Martinez and I would continue to be Bravo Battery's medics as we had been before.  Our duties would be split between clinic duty and tactical site duty.  The clinic would be accessible 24 hours with two medics on shift, then we would have the following 24 hours off duty. The third day would be tactical site duty, which meant we would have to go to a Patriot Missile site out in the desert and provide medical coverage all day, and sometimes all night. There wasn't really any in processing we had to do; all of that was mostly done prior to our arrival.  Almost right off the bat, a guy came into the clinic complaining of stomach pain and diarrhea.  To this point, I had never really worked in a clinical setting, other than a simulated scenario at Fort Sam.  Any patient care I had done was in the field, and the most serious case was Allison's busted nose.  Specialist Donnelly walked me through the process of checking the patient in and getting his medical file.  We had all the files broken down into what battery they were part of and by platoon.  Once his file was pulled, we went back to the exam room where the patient told more in detail what his ailment was.  I took his vital signs as Donnelly documented in the medical chart.  We then took his chart from the exam room to Lt. Balser, who reviewed the chart and came out to do a more thorough exam.  After a quick exam, Lt. Balser ordered us to give the soldier an IV and prescribed some medications.  Donnelly went back to the dispensary to gather the guy's medications while I prepared to start an IV.  I had only started one IV since medical school, so I was a bit nervous, especially with Lt. Balser standing by me.  I attempted once and wasn't successful.  I was beyond nervous the next attempt, and I think Lt Balser noticed.  He looked at the patient's arm and felt for a good vein and said, "ahh you have those big, rolling veins that are hard to poke".  He pointed one out and said to try it, looked at me and winked.  I knew he was easing my tension and giving a good excuse for my inexperience.  Sure enough, the IV went in without problem and my tension dissipated.  The soldier even told me that was a "good stick" and fairly painless to him.  I felt good after hearing that and was pretty confident.  Lt. Balser told me to make sure I gave the patient fluids until he urinated and he should relax.  And that was pretty much it for that patient care.

First Lieutenant Balser, Task Force 6/43 ADA's physician's assistant.

 Donnelly showed me where to get the medications for dispensing and how to count out the pills prescribed.  We didn't have any really strong medications, just general pain relievers and other things.  There was also surgical items, such as stitches, chest tubes, and basic surgical kits.  We would be able to access any of those items to assist the docs if needed.  I hadn't been in the clinic 24 hours and already felt like a true medic.  I checked on my patient sometime later and his IV bag was running low.  I asked if he needed to urinate and he replied no.  Lt Balser told me to hang another bag and run the fluids in at a faster rate.  I did as I was told and eventually, after three IV bags of fluid, my patient urinated into a collection bottle.  After he did that, Lt. Balser told me to check the urine for everything and walked off.  I had no idea what he meant, so I followed and asked, with bottle of pee in my hand.  Lt. Balser asked if I had ever checked urine before, to which I said I hadn't.  He handed me a bottle of PH test strips and another device that resembled a scope of some sort,  The PH strips would test the chemical balance of the urine, and the scope was to check the density of the urine, or specific gravity. If the PH was in a certain range and the specific gravity was around 30, that could indicate severe dehydration.  Another lesson learned, this was going to be a great deployment after all.....
After my first patient was cleared to leave, I cleaned up the area and felt motivated.  Unfortunately, the day would prove to be rather uneventful for any further patient care.  SFC Becthel showed me around the facility a little more and took me outside to the ambulance area.  I would be assigned an ambulance, much like back at Shipton, but not a HUMVEE type.  The ambulance I was assigned was a GMC truck painted green with a big box on the back with a large red cross painted on the sides.  This truck had to have been from the mid 80's.  After I did the PMCS on it, SFC Bechtel showed me some other areas of the complex.  Our building was nestled in between some other buildings that backed up to a roadway that split Khobar Towers.  A small patch of desert and some concrete barricades separated the roadway from the buildings and not much else.  Of course we were in peace time, just under a cease fire operation.  It was brutally hot that day, along the lines of 118 degrees.  Part of our duties would include doing what was called a wet bulb reading to determine the relative humidity versus the temperature.  This measurement also determined how long a soldier could stay in the superheated conditions and perform regular duty.  It was explained to me  that the wet bulb reading would help us regulate the work load on soldiers and how they would sweat; if the measurement indicated a certain level, the sweat a body used to cool would evaporate causing heat stroke and possibly death.  SFC Bechtel showed all of us how to perform this task, one we would do in hourly increments starting at 0600, until the wet bulb reached the black measuring line. Our demonstration clearly showed that it would be considered a 'black day.'   Each medic would be issued one to take to the tactical site and this would be the lone tool to set the pace for daily activities for the site.
As the day went on, we toured surrounding areas such as the shops and Domino's Pizza place, which were located in an underground facility that was probably a bunker structure.  Inside the shopping area, there was a gold market, Domino's, a barber shop, a souvenir store with paintings and rugs, and a music store.  I instantly went into the music store to see what was available.  In Saudi Arabia, the currency is the Riyal, in which the rate versus the American Dollar was 3.75.  This meant that items were relatively cheap to buy.  Like Germany, most stores took dollars and did the ratio conversion  without any issues.  The music store was lined with cassette tapes and very few CD's.  The tapes, however, looked far different than American tapes.  They were in heavy plastic cases and the artwork was far different than domestic releases.  Another change was that most tapes were 'best of' compilations of random songs by an artist, usually 20 or more songs, and very obviously bootlegged.  The tapes were roughly three dollars, much better than the seven they were going for in the United States when I left.   This would be a regular stop for me in the months to come.
We left the shops and walked over toward the chow hall, which was a small prefabricated building that sat almost in the middle of the Khobar facility we occupied.  As we walked, I noticed outside every building, there was a volleyball pit; they were everywhere.  The air in Khobar was just so stale and smelled foul.  The best way I can describe it was as I said before...a landfill.  We walked into the chow hall and it kind of reminded me of the one at Fort Sam.  There was a mix of Army and Air Force personnel in there, and some with uniforms I didn't recognize.  I would learn that those were the British and French Air Force guys which occupied another part of Khobar Towers.
The food wasn't too bad at the chow hall, a bit better than back at Shipton, but the smell as soon as we walked out kind of ruined the enjoyment of the meal.  Directly across from the chow hall was a pool, which had a deck all around it and was very crowded.  With the heat, that pool was a saving grace, I'm sure.  We met back at the clinic, where CPT Kungys told us to get ready to head out to another site called Lucky Base.  We piled into an SUV waiting out back and headed out of the security checkpoints into the vast emptiness.  Off to our right was the airport and air base we flew into, to the left, not much of anything but brown and tan Earth.   We traveled down a divided highway past a tactical site that had Patriot Missile launchers positioned for defense.  I had seen this before back in Germany, but this was different, it was real world and not just a field exercise.
We arrived at Lucky Base after about a fifteen minute drive.  This facility was out in the middle of nowhere and was not much more than prefab buildings grouped together.  This was where the command section was housed, and further down, Alpha Battery was positioned for defense.  There was an aid station located at Lucky Base that was about the size of the one at Shipton.  One medic would be stationed there 24 hours daily, seven days a week.  There was very little to do at Lucky Base it seemed, so we would have to bring movies or reading material to occupy us while there.  The tactical sites operated day in, day out.  The ready platoon would rotate soldiers during their tour of duty every four hours, then rotate platoons every week.  There was little sleep on the site for those on watch, but it meant the skies were protected above us.
I felt that I had put in a full day of activity, then looked at my watch in disbelief as it showed it was only 1500 hours when we left Lucky Base.  I also felt dirty because of the sand and sweat; this was nothing like field duty in Germany.  When we got back to Khobar Clinic, I was told to check the duty roster for shift assignment.  While inside, I noticed another soldier with an IV lying in the exam room; another victim of the elements.  I was scheduled to go out on the tactical site the following day from 0800-1700 hours.  We would still be required to do PT at 0500 every morning as usual, which would totally suck due to the environment.  By 1700 hours this first day, we were ready to attend our end of day formation.  First Sergeant Banks gave us our safety briefing and welcomed those of us who were new in country.  The formation didn't last long and we were dismissed for the day.  I went back to the building and went upstairs to clean up and change.  Martinez, Lewis, and Smith were all filing in behind me,  Cowden and Peschke were downstairs in the clinic.   We had two bathrooms in our living area, so waiting for a shower was common.  All in all, the rooms at Khobar Towers were really nice, very laid back.  The room I shared with Kirk was spacious and had a sofa, two chairs and two big wall lockers in addition to our beds.  I had the bed closest to the window, which faced the inner part of Khobar.  I could look out at see the air base off in the distance and could see the fighter jets darting off into the skies.  I could also see the large minaret that towered above a mosque near the entrance to the facility.  I hadn't really seen anything like this ever before; it was desolate, yet inspiring. 
After taking a shower, Jeremy, Martinez and I went to the chow hall and to see what else was around Khobar.  It was around 1830 hours and still hot out, however the sun was behind some of the towers and not directly upon us like before.  After chow, we wandered around just taking in the sights.  Some Air Force guys were playing volleyball and were quite into the game, which reminded me of the Top Gun movie scene. We came upon another underground bunker like structure that had a sign indicating it was a recreational room.  Upon entering, there were pool tables, air hockey tables, foosball games and some other arcade type games.  It reminded me of Gateway Video Store back home.  On the walls, there were murals painted from different Air Force units, some depicting a combat duty scoreboard and others the unit's designated insignia.  There was a juke box blasting out some of the latest music over in the corner and several guys milling about.  Around the corner, there was a club-like area with a dance floor, DJ booth and tables set up.  There wasn't anyone around that area and no music was playing, but the place had great potential for an escape in the daily activities.
Inside the recreational center, they offered food and drinks; items like hot dogs, chips, soda and 'near beer'.  Near beer was basically a non-alcoholic malt drink that resembled beer, just without the kick.  That was going to be another down part of the deployment...the sobriety.  We were briefed  extensively before we left Shipton on the subject of no drinking while in Saudi.  For one, we were still operating under combative conditions and two, alcohol was frowned upon by the locals, as it was against their religious beliefs.  My escape from boredom and general stress was drinking, now I would need to find another outlet, and hope my liver didn't go into complete shock.
Martinez, Jeremy and I shot a few games of pool and left after about an hour or so.  It was getting late and 0500 would come early.  Even though it was after dark, the air was still stale and muggy.  The temperature had fallen to about 80-85 degrees and there was a slight breeze that whipped between the towers.  As we were walking back to our tower, there was a truck that resembled a street sweeper  emitting a plume of white smoke behind it.  It looked like rocket exhaust rather than just a faulty motor or anything.  As it got closer, the breeze pushed some of the white fog in our direction and the effect was instant.  Immediately, there was a burning sensation in my nose and my eyes watered;  the smell was like burning diesel fuel or something.  The three of us quickly picked up pace and darted into our tower.  Martinez asked, "what the Hell was that?" None of us had a clue, and to us, it could have been a chemical attack for all we knew.  We ran inside and began to wash ourselves down, thinking the worst.  After a few minutes, we realized that we weren't going to die in a convulsing and choking death and went onto the balcony, seven stories above everything.  We noticed the truck weaving through the complex, and the fog creeping around every nook and hanging  in the air for several minutes.  That was something very out of the ordinary, but we weren't sure if we needed to report it.  We watched as the truck faded from view and there was no alarm or any security mobilizing, so it must have been routine.  All I knew is that the ordeal gave me quite a reality check, and the effects would eventually surpass just the eye and nose irritations.
Before I turned in for the night, I sat down and wrote two letters, one for mom and the other for Moni.  We had our new address already established, but mail, we were told, would be slow for a while until everything got adjusted.  We were also told to be wary of what we wrote home about, as our mail could be intercepted and read at any given time to insure we weren't giving tactical details of our location or mission to anyone.  I wrote in both letters that I had arrived safely and it was truly a foreign place.  It was just a big, empty place, I wrote and one I wasn't sure I could adjust to.  My letters were short and simple, mainly an acknowledgement of my existence.  I turned in for the night, the first, busy day behind me.
Morning PT always sucked.  In Germany, it was the bitter cold at that early hour, at Khobar, it was the building heat and smell that made PT grueling.  By 0500, the atmosphere was already becoming thick and the temperature was near 80 degrees.  The truck that we saw the night before had made its rounds shortly before our PT formation, so the fog was still in the air, just not as thick.  We did the usual routine of calisthenics then started the run.  The route was basically a big square around Khobar Towers and equaled roughly 2.5-3 miles and ran along the perimeter road that bordered the complex, just behind the fence and barricades.  We would run through the Air Force section of Khobar, then back to our area of operations.  When HHB ran as a unit, we sounded off, singing cadences rather loudly as we usually did at Shipton.  Eventually, our commander notified us at a battalion formation later on that PT would be conducted at 0600 and we weren't going to sound off any more.  Apparently the Air Force Squadron Commander in the back side of Khobar complained we were 'too motivated' and was disturbing key personnel who needed their required sleep.  To each their own, I guess.
I reported to the clinic at 0730 to begin my first day at the tactical site.  I really didn't have an idea where to go, but CPT Kungys told me to get my ambulance and follow him.  We weaved out of the barricaded entry/exit point and headed off in the desert, toward Lucky Base.  Bravo Battery's site was not too far away, and was the one we had passed near the end of the airfield.  The ready platoon was already on site, most had been there overnight and was prepping the site for daily activity.  Captain Kungys and I were waved through the entry bunker and entered the tactical site.  It wasn't too different than when we were out on field exercises in Germany, but all the netting was desert colored and there were only a couple of tents rather than a tent city.  There were bunkers dug into the Earth that were fortified with sand bags and looked like the fire support bases from Vietnam.  Some of the guys were filling sand bags off to the side and stacking them on the bunkers.  It was already approaching 90+ degrees out and CPT Kungys asked me to do a wet bulb reading on site.  It was not quite into the black, but very close.  He accompanied me into the command trailer and the first thing he asked was how long those soldiers outside were going to continue to fill sand bags.  The lieutenant on duty dodged the question and said that it was necessary to keep the bunkers at a ready state.  Sergeant First Class Taylor shook my hand and told me to follow him to where I would be setting up a temporary aid station.  Captain Kungys gave me a salute and told me to call if I needed anything then left.  I was led to another trailer that had several bunks and a small office space in it.  This was the ready trailer, I was told and the ready crews rotated sleep shifts in there.  Sergeant First Class Taylor looked at my name tag and struggled to pronounce my name, and when I told him, he said, "shit, soldier that's too difficult, I'm gonna call you Kiss."  That was funny, because 1SG Franklin called me that from day one.  Again, he told me if I needed anything to just find him, then he left.  There was no one in the trailer at all.  It was air conditioned and comfortable, a little dusty but not unmanageable.  I sat my aid bag and ruck sack down and just...sat there.  On site, we were required to bring our full gear with us; all our TA-50, Kevlar, ruck sack loaded down, NBC mask and flak vest.  The flak vest was something that was new to us and was issued just prior to our deployment.  The vests were very heavy and had protective material inside them to protect us from shrapnel mainly.  A round fired from an M-16 probably would have penetrated the vest though.  The usual duty dress on site was our regular BDU's, except on Thursdays when it was sergeant's time for training.  The only thing I didn't have on site was my weapon; it was still locked up in the armory at Khobar. 
Around 0900, I did another wet bulb reading and it was in the black.  There was a status board on the outside of the command trailer, so I wrote the results of the reading on it.  I also went inside the trailer and told the duty officer, who just kind of acknowledged me and went about his business.  I went outside and found SFC Taylor and told him about the conditions and to watch his guys closely.  He went to the guys filling sand bags and told them to take it easy and get some rest.  I went back into the ready trailer and documented the wet bulb readings and who I told on a piece of paper.  I wasn't sure if I really needed to do this, but I thought it would help in case I ever needed to look back on what happened on site. 
Chow was brought to us in Jerry cans, like they were in basic training when we didn't do MRE's.  Jerry cans were metal containers that looked like big metal soup cans.  Our water supply was out of a big metal tank on a trailer we called a water buffalo.  From time to time, I would have to test the water like I had on our field sites back in Germany.  That was extremely important due to the desert conditions. Even though the water wasn't cold to drink, it still was refreshing.  There were cases of bottled water on site too, but those were reserved for emergency situations.  After chow, it was business as usual on site.  I took a few minutes to look around at the site.  Above me, the roar of two jet fighters taking off from the nearby airfield caught my attention.  They were still low to the ground and I could see they were well armed with missiles on each wing.  The jets raced off into the distance staying close together, again, like the movie Top Gun. 
"They are going up to the No-Fly Zone," a voice said from behind.  I turned around and it was a fire control sergeant watching the jets fade away too.  The No-Fly Zone was an area near the 32nd Parallel in Iraq that was restricted by the UN after Desert Storm.  The Iraqi Air Force could not fly into this area, and coalition forces patrolled the region to insure compliance. The mission was called Operation Southern Watch.  Any fighter planes or unauthorized flights in the zone could be engaged and shot down. As we watched the planes disappear, the sergeant told me to watch the planes as they came back into the airfield, as they most always had a missile or two gone from their wings.  Wait...it was peace time,wasn't it??  Little did I know, but a month or so prior to our arrival, there was a skirmish involving US fighter jets and Iraqi radar sites near the No-Fly Zone, and there was always something going on just to our north. 
I really didn't have an eventful duty day, other than one soldier who was brought in to cool down for a few minutes.  He didn't require an IV, but I'm sure had he stayed out any longer he would have needed more vigorous medical attention.  The duty day ended and I went back to Khobar well after final formation of the day.  I went into the clinic and checked the duty roster, I would have a 24 hour shift the following day.  Usually at the end of a duty day, I retreated downtown or somewhere out of Shipton.  I didn't have that option at Khobar.  I went down to the music store and bought a couple of tapes, then retreated back to my room.  The first couple of days in Saudi Arabia were interesting to say the least.  It was a different place and mindset there.  My buddies who were usually rowdy and liked to party down were all starting to become focused; the party days were on hold for a few months.  As I sat in my room and listened to my newly purchased tapes, I started thinking about where I had been so far, and how far I had came personally.  I had a birthday coming up, another one away from home.  I wondered how it would have been had I stayed home, or even more, what it would be like to go back for a visit.  I was so different than what I was just a short year prior, and I wasn't too sure if it was for the good or the bad.  I left my room and walked out onto the balcony, looking out over the Khobar complex.  Far off in the distance I could see the lights of a jet taking off...off into the big empty.

Chapter 20: Desert Song

By mid to late July 1993, things started moving pretty quick for the 6th Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery.  Our field exercises had came to a halt and last minute equipment checks were taking place within the battalion, all in preparation for the deployment to Saudi Arabia.  Ace left the second week of July along with several others in the battalion.  We had a going away ceremony for them, and the evening of the deployment, families, friends, girlfriends and all of us staying behind this round watched them all board the buses and leave out of the gate, into the unknown.  For some, deployments were no strange thing.  They had been there, done that during Desert Shield and Desert Storm.  A few had been in service for a number of years and did the Panama deployments back in the 80's.  For me, a nineteen year old kid who was just getting used to life in the big world, this was a big deal.

Task Force 6/43's advanced party deployment to Saudi Arabia, July 1993. My room mate, Ace, is in the foreground.

With the field exercises ending, we had a lot more time on our hands and the duty days weren't quite so long.  We still had to do guard duty and PMCS as usual, but no more endless days of inventory.  Most of my friends who stayed behind and were either waiting for deployment or staying on rear detachment took advantage of all the down time and commenced into partying.  Prior to the deployment preparations, Harold had moved off post to a housing area called Bliedorn, an old Army post near Barton Barracks, in anticipation for the arrival of his wife, Salina.  There had been some issues preventing her from joining him up to this point, but he was allowed to move and prepare the apartment.  He wouldn't be deploying with us to Saudi, but would be staying back in Shipton manning the supply section.  Across from Harold's apartment complex, nestled in the trees by a lake was a place called Cafe Waldsee.  Sal had taken us there a couple of times and it was a far different atmosphere than the Goose.  I would describe Waldsee as a biker type bar, lots of guys in leather jackets and multiple tattoos hung out there.  Few, if any, Americans frequented the place, but the music was awesome.  The DJ played nothing but metal and hard rock, none of the Ace of Base or Snow that was being blasted at the Goose.  I never really wandered in there much, mainly because it was such a long walk from Shipton.  Now that Harold lived across the lake, we went a few more times, but I always got an impression we were considered to be intruders and not really welcomed.  One funny story that Harold recently recounted to me is one night after a drinking binge at Waldsee and the apartment, I needed to relieve myself and somehow wandered into the closet in the apartment's hallway, then proceeded to urinate all over the wall and floor.  I eventually passed out on his couch, but I'm sure Harold was a bit perturbed over the incident, although he never let on that he ever was.  Even though I had all my party friends and a new girlfriend, Harold always remained one of my closest friends and one I could count on regardless of my predicament.  When Salina finally got to Germany, she welcomed me as her surrogate brother-in-law, a title I was humbled by.
Shortly after Ace left, I had to do a room inventory and account for all my personal effects; clothing, hygiene products, CD's, everything.  I wouldn't be able to take everything with me from the barracks room and this inventory would serve as a log in case I came back and found my room had been broken into.  Ace did the same thing and the day before he left, the first sergeant and his platoon sergeant put a secure metal strip lock on his wall locker door and night stand.  The usual baseball cards that covered the walls in our room were gone, the room looked so empty aside from my stuff.  At least Ace left his TV out for me to watch, I would secure it when I left out.  Things were starting to sink in some now that I had seen people leaving.  I couldn't help but think to myself, "what if they don't come back?"  Again, it was peace time, right?
Monika and I were getting along good, we spent quite a bit of time together.  After Ace left, she stayed in my room most of the time, but had to leave by 0600 each morning.  The way the guest thing worked was a guest had to surrender their ID card to the front gate guard and sign a roster of where they were going to be on post, including the soldier's name they were visiting.  On duty days, guests could stay from 1700 hours until 0600 the next morning, but usually on weekends, they could stay from Friday night until 0600 Monday.  Should a guest not leave by 0600, the guest and soldier would get called to the battalion's security officer's room and have to answer to him.  If a soldier had another occurrence, it could end up as an Article 15 and revocation of guest privileges.  I for sure didn't want that to happen with Moni so we made sure she left out as I was heading our for morning PT, no matter how late of a night we may have had.
Usually when Moni and I went out, her friend Mary would come with us.  She was okay as far as being personable, but I felt she was a third wheel.  Mary was half Turkish and and she was very outspoken, quite blunt honestly.  She liked a guy who I ran around with named DeGray, but he wanted nothing to do with her at all.  That meant any times I wanted to spend alone with Moni just simply walking through Ansbach or something were very few.  Ansbach is a romantic town, the 14th Century buildings are adorned with gold trimmed decorations and gives an outsider a sense of extravagance.  To me, I thought it was the ultimate date place, a place I could take a significant other and just enjoy the surroundings.  One of our favorite places to hang out other than Hai Life was a small ice cream parlor that was situated in the middle of some shops.  They made the most awesome sundaes with these big waffle bowls that were just unreal.  I liked Moni's company, thought a lot about her, but there was this nagging feeling that it was borrowed time, and I couldn't shake it.
We were told our deployment should last until mid to late December and we should be back before Christmas.  We all filled out leave paperwork for our projected block leave dates before we were to leave, the rear detachment personnel section would process all requests and hopefully have them ready to go when we got back.  If all went as planned, this meant we could all go home to visit family for the holidays.  At least it was something to look forward to while we were sweating in the desert.
I thought about home, how much things had changed since I went back to visit last time.  I talked to mom weekly and still received letters from people back home.  I sent pictures back home often and people wrote back saying how they couldn't believe how cool Germany looked. I just wondered how I would fit in now, I had changed so much since December 1992, and it was only seven months later.  I couldn't dwell on those thoughts and had to focus on mentally preparing for the upcoming mission in Saudi, and surviving the pre-deployment festivities. 
All over Shipton, there were deployment parties.  It seemed every weekend there was another room in another barracks partying it up, and yes, I was right there at most of them.  If I wasn't at the parties, I was down at the Goose or Hai Life as usual.  Moni was always with me, along with a few of the gang that was left in the barracks.  We all had a good time and the night usually ended with me passing out.  I had developed quite a tolerance by this point and could party longer, which at the moment was a great thing.   The only problem was  with the increased intake, I was having black out moments and passing out more often.  There is very little from July 1993 that I actually remember, other than duty days.  I remember Anderson telling people about how much I had drank when Harold, Sal and I stopped at the party before the Metallica concert, and how he was amazed at how much a little guy like me could drink.  I guess I had racked up a notorious reputation for being the "party guy", a title I hadn't purposely tried to obtain, but nevertheless, a title I tried hard to live up to.
I received my official orders at the end of July which gave me a definite date of departure from Germany.  I would leave August 7th, and arrive in Saudi Arabia the next day.  The orders stated my tour was to be over on December 10th, which gave me a sense of relief, knowing I would be able to go home for the holidays.  I couldn't call or write home with the specific dates., I could only tell that I may be back home in time for Christmas.  I didn't really want anyone other than family to know I would possibly coming back home when I returned, that way, if something happened and my leave got canceled, no one would be disappointed.  It was about this time that things started getting very real for me. I had seen news coverage of Operation Desert Storm and knew that SCUD Missiles were a threat in the region we were deploying, but again...this was peace time, right?  Our most recent battalion training had focused a lot on the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, or NBC as it was called, and the necessary steps to protect ourselves.  We were issued a gas mask and protective suit, called MOPP (mission oriented protective posture) Gear that would protect us to a degree from the effects of NBC weapons.  We had to be tested with our gas masks just as we had in basic training, which meant a trip to the gas chamber.  Before the advanced party left, probably around May or June, the battalion had performed these tests.  Now, our masks and MOPP Gear would mean life or death in the event of an NBC attack, which was a very real threat according to the reports from other units who were in the region.
A part of me was obviously uneasy about shipping out, but another part was excited.  I mean, where else could someone from the hills of Northeastern Kentucky go to all these places in such a short time?  I really didn't try to let the uneasiness show to anyone, not even Monika.  I was a soldier and was about to embark on a mission as soldiers have done all through history and are still doing now.  There was no room for fear to overcome me.  I was excited because it was going to be a new adventure, a new place.  I wasn't keen on the Arabic culture, as a kid, I remembered Yosemite Sam riding a camel and chasing Bugs Bunny, that was about all of the Arabic culture I knew.  The week before we shipped out we took classes on the culture of the Saudi people.  The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a Muslim faith based society, which was totally foreign to me.  In Owingsville, Kentucky, there is a church on every block in town; Baptist, Methodist, Christian, quite a variety of the one message.  The Muslim faith has some similarities, but their methods of worship are not at all diverse like America.  We learned that we shouldn't wear symbols of Christianity openly in public while in Saudi Arabia, as this is considered offensive.  Simple hand gestures, like the 'OK' sign with the forefinger and thumb making a circle while the other three fingers are extended was considered bad.  That gesture meant a person was giving the 'evil eye' to another and considered a curse upon them.  If we were to sit within a group of Saudi Nationals, it was preferred we knelt down with them and never placed the soles of our feet toward anyone, as it was considered to be 'placing that person under the feet of others' and offensive.  One thing the sergeant told us that made the whole room crack with laughter was the bestiality speech.  He began by saying, "soldiers,  the only way to put this out is direct, and because I have been mandated to.  Think of it this way; I wouldn't be talking about any of this if someone out there hadn't been caught doing it."  He then hit directly to the point by saying, "so, HHB, don't be screwing the livestock."  The whole room burst out in hysterics and the sergeant even broke his usual no nonsense approach to things.  Sure enough, this was mandatory training we had to be signed off on as receiving on a pre-deployment check list.
We had to start packing our duffel bags the days prior to leaving and everything was written off on a check list to insure we didn't leave any necessary items behind.  By this time, I had purchased a portable CD player, which was a new and improved boom box, and a few CD's and I wanted to take them with me.  The challenge was getting it all packed and ready to go.  I bought two gym bags for the carry on baggage; one for my personal items and a change of clothing and the other for my boom box and CD's.  At least I had my priorities straight, right?  As I packed my bags, I couldn't help but remember back at Fort Sam Houston, when I packed everything for the move to Germany...it seemed so long ago.  This time it was different, a different feeling than I had at Fort Sam.  I didn't feel as though I was leaving everything behind like I did then.  I wasn't entirely too torn up over leaving Moni, although I knew I would miss her and hoped she would wait for me to get back.  It was just different.
One night a group of us 'party patrol' caught wind of a new place opening up near Ansbach called Tivoli Park.  We were told it was going to be the best club around and we had to go to the grand opening. About ten of us convoyed to a town southwest of Ansbach called Sachsen in anticipation to see what all the hype was about.  There was a long line outside the club and it definitely was no Green Goose.  Tivoli Park was much larger and not as much of a dive as the Goose.  There were neon lights, flashing strobes and a techno music beat pounding as we walked into the club.  There comes a point that I don't remember much from this trip, I will explain later, but from what I do recall, the place was absolutely packed with people.  There was a large dance floor and a DJ booth high above it.  The announcer kicked the night off by welcoming us to the place, then a pyrotechnic flash of fire and sparks lit up the room.  It was like a rock concert with techno. I remember all of us walking around in awe at the place.  This was billed as a Rave club, something I had never heard of.  The music pulsated one continuous beat as the songs mixed together, creating a trance-like effect.  I remember some of us getting drinks and walking around, I started off with a beer as usual, and it was just so surreal.  Some of the guys started mingling with some girls that were there, the rest of us hung back taking in the atmosphere.I remember someone bought me a drink and gave it to me, a kind gesture, I thought.  I wasn't to the point of pure intoxication at this point, but soon after drinking this particular drink, I started really feeling hammered.  My head started swimming like never before and the lights flashing were suddenly so brilliant.  Combined with the sound, the lights gave me a sense that I was floating in space.  Then, I started getting hot; it felt like I was in a sauna or inside a burning house with all my firefighting gear on.  I got beer and drank it down quickly, but still I craved water.  I remember going up to the bar and asking for a glass of water.  In Germany, when you ask for water, the bartender will give you a bottle of carbonated water.  This is what I got when I asked, and after taking a few drinks, it still didn't satisfy me.  I had to explain to the bartender that I wanted a glass of regular water, and with a smirk, she plopped the glass of water in front of me. 
The lights and techno beats were starting to make me nauseous and I found a place to sit down. That's the point where things get blurry.  I was in a booth and laid my head down on the table.  Eventually, the guys I came with came over and nudged me, making sure I was alive I guess.  I got up and milled around, still sluggish and had a terrible headache.  I have no idea how long I had been out, but felt horrible.  I ordered another beer to try to make myself feel better, but after a few sips, I realized it wasn't going to go that way.  I sat back down and waited until it was time to leave, which was going on 4 am. Once we got back to the barracks, I crashed and slept nearly all day, still feeling horrible.  Moni came by and I'm sure I wasn't much company, but tried to make the best of it.
We stayed in the barracks all that next day, the idea of going anywhere just made me cringe because of how I felt.  This was beyond any regular hangover I had ever endured.  By evening I was feeling better and decided to go down to Hai Life with Moni.  Some of the other guys tagged along too and we enjoyed a night away from the pounding lights and techno.  I remember talking to someone about my Tivoli Park experience and they told me that it sounded as if I had been slipped an X in my drink. I had no idea what they were talking about, and found out years later it was probably an Extasy pill, a rather potent drug used in rave clubs to enhance the person's surroundings.  It had the effect of LSD but with a stimulant kick to it like cocaine.  I must have missed the memo on the stimulant part because I passed out from it.
In the days leading up to the Saudi deployment, Moni and I spent a lot of time together.  Like I said earlier, I knew I was going to miss her, but wasn't too torn up about it.  Don't get me wrong, I truly cared a lot about her, but we were just living for the moment and I don't think I ever saw it becoming a lifetime union; probably not the best way to look at a relationship.  Then it became crunch time.  Before I knew it, it was 48 hours until deployment day.  Our section sergeants came by and rechecked all our items to make sure we were ready.  When our bags were ready, we moved them to a holding area, leaving our carry-on bag and packed ruck sack and Kevlar helmet out.  I had packed my carry-on to the hilt, so my big green duffel bag was no loss to me.  We had to keep out our desert BDU's  but for the most part all of our military issued items were in the holding area.  Those first few hours weren't lock down hours, we could still leave post, and we did...ready to give Ansbach a hearty goodbye.

Partying it up our last night out in Ansbach before deployment.  L-R: Ray Abbott, Pablo Madera, Linroy Powell and Jason Stark

T-minus thirty something hours until D-Day....I went into town with a crowd of guys, hitting every place I knew of that let us party there.   At the local McDonald's restaurant they served beer, so we all ordered a Happy meal with a beer to drink to start the night off.  We went into Hai Life, then upstairs to the club where the Turkish guy had been beaten by the Polezi a couple of months earlier.  At some point we all got separated but somehow ended up back at the McDonald's later on.  How that was possible, I do not know.  We ended the night at the Goose, where most of the battalion was partying.  Everyone was buying everyone else good luck drinks, all having good fun until someone decided to get rowdy.  Sure enough, a brawl broke out, much to no one's surprise.  The Goose cleared out, the Polezi and MP's came and that was the end of the fun for our last night on the town before shipping out.
The day of our deployment was a calm summer day.  We had our PT and other formations, then ordered on lock down, meaning we couldn't leave post.  Families and friends could come see us, but we couldn't leave.  All day, we were dressed in our desert BDU's, a stark contrast with the lush, green trees around us.  Our platoon sergeants did walk through inspections checking our uniforms.  By 1300 hours, we were lined up at the armory getting our weapons out and readied for the trip.  From this point on, we carried our weapons everywhere.  After an accountability formation soon after weapons draw, we were released to the barracks until the buses arrived later.  Moni and Mary came to the barracks that afternoon and we hung out with everyone else, watching movies and just sitting around.  We couldn't have any alcohol and the shopette downstairs had all the beer and liquor cordoned off so we couldn't buy any.  Usually, boredom for me lead to drinking, so I was a bit edgy.  Moni had gotten me a necklace with a guitar charm on it for good luck,  That really meant a lot that she would get that for me after all I had put her through at that point, staying out and about all night without her.  Around 1800 hours, we were ordered into another accountability formation and got a briefing from the Battalion Commander, which was more like a pep talk.  The buses were starting to pull through Shipton's gates, the time was nearing.  After formation, it was more hurry up and wait for us.  Moni and I went upstairs and noticed my room, along with most others, had a piece of sealing tape on the door to show if the room had been tampered with.  We went into Degray's room, his room mate was staying back for rear detachment duties and the room wasn't sealed.  No one was around, so we made the best of our alone time in our own way.  Soon, I heard someone going down the hallway yelling, "let's go people everybody outside and form up."  We walked back downstairs for yet another formation just an hour or so after the last one.  This time, we were lined up to pass duffel bags up to the waiting buses, the move was in motion.  Darkness was starting to fall on Ansbach as we finished loading the bags and we had some more down time.  Moni and I sat on the steps that led into the lower level of HHB Barracks and Mary snapped a picture of us.  I was sitting on the top step and she was a step below me.  I had my arms around her neck as the picture was taken, neither of us very emotional.  This would be the last picture taken of us together.
Around 2030 hours, we got the word to form up one last time.  Our acting commander gave us one last pep talk and signed off by saying, "next time we talk we will be sweating in the sand."  We marched to the buses and stood by waiting to board them.  We were released from formation while others boarded so I took a minute to go to Moni and give her a quick kiss goodbye.  Mary gave me a hug and handed me a silver ring and told me to keep it as a gift from Moni.  Why Moni never gave it to me, or if she ever knew Mary gave it to me, I will never know, but I slipped it on my pinky and said my farewell.  I boarded the bus and found a seat.  Our tagged ruck sacks were stashed below us, but our weapons stayed by our sides on board the bus.  The motor fired up and idled as the door swung shut, making a hissing noise.  I looked out the window and saw Moni waving at me.  I smiled and waved back as the bus started moving toward the back gate.  I lost sight of her, the last image I had as the bus left Shipton was her smile and wavy hair as she waved goodbye.  I sighed and looked around.  Our next stop would be the airport at Frankfurt, the same place I had arrived just a few short months earlier.
There is a song that was released a couple of months after I got to Saudi by Def Leppard called Desert Song; it had lyrics that described my feelings at that moment.

Only the lonely will stand
 I'm holding the world in my hand 
 I got to believe
  
I felt lonely again, but felt that indeed held the world in my hands; that I needed to get my game face on and realize that everything was about to become real.  On that bus ride to Frankfurt, I sat in silence for the most part, thinking what I was going to see, what was going to happen once we got there and about a million other things.  I fell asleep sometime down the Autobahn and woke up in Frankfurt.  It was after midnight and had been a long day.  We exited the buses at the airport and secured our ruck sacks, forming up one more time.  We marched into the terminal and waited to board the plane...and waited.  The one constant thing about the Army was the hurry up and wait factor.  After what seemed like an eternity, we finally got the word to board the plane.  This was it...all the training we had done the past few months had accumulated into this moment.  We boarded the waiting jet and stashed our carry-on bags and ruck sacks the best we could.  As the plane taxied, then lifted into the German night sky I thought back to the last time I was on a plane and watched the lights below me fade into tiny dots.  I was more at ease this time as the ground dropped away.  The flight would take a few hours, so I dosed off.  I don't know what, or if, I dreamed but I felt at ease when I woke up and looked out the window.  It was daylight by this time and I could see brown mountains below.  I heard someone say we were over Turkey, but couldn't tell anything about the terrain under us; it all looked drab and brown to me.  Soon we were back over water, the Mediterranean Sea.  Our flight took a different route to Saudi Arabia for security purposes and came in from the west.  
After what seemed like an endless flight, we touched down in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  Those who had orders to report there exited the plane.  After a long while, the rest of us onboard the plane buckled back in for the flight to Dhahran.  The flight would only take a couple of hours, but by now, I was becoming flight weary.  We landed at the airport in Dhahran and taxied to an area off the main runway.  The land looked so bleak out the plane's window, brown and desolate.  A complex of tan buildings and half-round structures were off in the distance bordering the landing area. We secured our belongings and started to exit the plane.  When I got to the door, the desert heat hit me full force.  In Kentucky, the summers are usually hot and muggy, around 80 degrees.  There were summers that reached an average temperature of 90 plus degrees for a short period of time.  The summer I left home was one of those, but the heat I experienced when I got off that plane was unlike any I had been exposed to.  We formed up outside the plane and then marched into a building nearby, once again stashing our gear in a pile.  We all took a seat in an assembly area and waited.  The building was like a large airplane hanger with a stage and podium at one end.  The air was stifling once everyone got situated inside and there was no real air flow.  
A sergeant from each battery came up to the stage and read off a roll call roster, which took forever.  The heat compounded with the long journey was starting to wear on me and I struggled to stay alert.  Finally, the room was called to attention while CSM Jameson and LTC Geraci, our command element, arrived to welcome us.  We were told we were going to be bused to a place called Khobar Towers and had the usual safety briefing.  The only difference was this briefing ended with a statement like, "soldiers, you are in a combat environment.  Stay alert, stay alive."  That's one of the moments that made me realize that this wasn't an extended FTX or TAC-Eval operation, this was the real deal. Outside were a line of buses waiting, not like the large luxury buses that took us from Ansbach to Frankfurt.  These were little white buses that looked dingy and like they were about to fall apart.  The drivers were all dressed in the white flowing robes and wore checkered head bands that resembled table cloths at Pizza Hut.  I felt like I had stepped back into time.  The last time I remembered seeing anyone in person dressed as these drivers was when I was a child participating in a Christmas play at church, and they were dressed as shepherds.   After we loaded our duffel bags onto a truck, we started boarding the buses.  Not everyone would fit onto the buses, so we had to wait until another one arrived.  
I finally boarded a bus that had not much more than a padded bench as a seat.  With our ruck sacks and weapons in hand, it was tight quarters, with some people standing in the aisle.  We left the airfield and headed out a desert road around dusk; it had been a brutally long day.  There was absolutely nothing to see but barren, flat, brown Earth around us.  And the smell....We were based close to the Persian Gulf and there was a sweet smell of sea that hovered in the air, and also a smell of just plain dirt mixed with exhaust fumes.  It was about dark when we arrived into a civilized setting.  The Khobar area of Dhahran is a heavily populated area with a freeway running just to the west of it.  We turned onto a road and could see large buildings ahead of us that resembled high rise apartments.  This was Khobar Towers, a vast array of five to seven story buildings that housed members of the US Army and Air Force, British Air Force, French Air Force and Saudi Nationals.  The entrance to the complex was guarded by an outpost just off the main road that had a military policeman and a Saudi guard manning it.  They checked the bus driver's ID card and waved us on.  The road zig-zagged through a network of concrete barricades spaced at intervals to prevent a vehicle from going headlong into the facility.  At the end of the barricaded section, another checkpoint awaited with a gate across the roadway.  Two armed Saudi soldiers and a MP exited the guard shack and held us in place while another soldier dressed in full gear did a sweep of the vehicle, checking for bombs.  This was a bit unsettling, because at Shipton, guard duty was sham duty.  We never had to check anything more than an ID card.  We entered the Khobar Towers complex and stopped in a large parking lot.  The smell in the air had drastically changed from the sweet sea smell and dirt to that of a landfill.  It almost made me nauseous.  A few scrawny cats darted away from us as we exited the bus and got into formation again.  Even though it was now dark, it was still very hot and muggy, I felt like I hadn't bathed in a week.  We were released to our platoon sergeants and retreated to our respective tower.  The medic tower was a seven story building on the back side of the American sector.  The first floor housed the battalion clinic and an Army ordnance company attached to our task force.  I made my way into the clinic area and was welcomed by familiar faces.  The clinic was set up rather nicely; it had a check in area, waiting area and exam/treatment room.  There was also a kitchen, doctor's office areas and supply room.  This was far different than being in a tent out in a field somewhere.  
After I got the tour and a copy of the duty roster (yes, we had to pull regular duty 24 hours) I got on the elevator up to the seventh floor.  There was a sense of elegance to the towers; marble floors, brass ordained lighting fixtures and other amenities took away from the harsh environment outside.   The top floor was divided into several rooms and resembled a hotel of sorts.  There was one big living room at the end of the entrance hall and to the left of it was a sliding glass door with a balcony we could stand or sit on.  My room would be the first one as I came in the entrance way and my room mate was a Specialist Kirk, who was a food service specialist, or cook in layman's terms.  Kirk had been there a couple of weeks before me and gave me a run down of how life in Khobar Towers would be.  I was worn out and just wanted to shower and hit the bed.  It had been a long, long 24 hours and wake up was coming up at 0530, much too soon for me.
When I finally got settled in, I put my headphones on and listened to Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland cassette.  I listened to the mellow and soothing sounds of the song 1983...A Merman I Shall Turn to Be, and the musical breakdown part in the middle made me drift off to sleep.  I had no idea what to expect, but was ready for anything.  All I knew was being in Saudi Arabia would be a life changing experience for me....in more ways than a dozen.