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.