As I stepped off of the bus, I was immediately overwhelmed by the general stink and sweltering humidity of Kuwait. It was January of 2005, but you wouldn't have noticed it because in Kuwait it was just hot as any summer day I experienced in the southwestern portion of the United States. The bus right had been aggravating. After disembarking from the plane, we had almost immediately been directed onto the most ridiculous kind of bus I had ever seen in my life. You could barely even see inside of it because each window was heavily draped with dusty dark curtains. Curtains and fringe. Curtains, fringe, incense, and horrendously loud Arabic music. I hated every second of it, but my unit was there to do a job, and we would do it.
I can't help but be amazed how vividly I remember stepping off of that bus, even five years later. All I know is I'll never forget the smell, the siring glare of the sun, and the sticky humidity that immediately made you wish you could have a shower.
We would spend almost a month in Kuwait, prepping for the convoy up North and training for the dangers we would be facing for the next year of our lives. At the time, I had a horrible female NCO. That might not sound like much normally, but in a warzone there isn't much worse than having someone in charge of you that you can't trust or rely on. She had a permanent chip on her shoulder, and was the most gigantic hypocrite I'd ever known. I was thankful though because I was in a good unit, and ultimately when we got up to where we were going to be, I was pulled out of her squad and placed somewhere else.
Those weeks in Kuwait flew by. I remember shooting my M16 out of the window of our truck during live fire lanes, and then pouring the spent ammo shells into the hands of some little Kuwaiti kids who were harvesting it. I remember getting as sick as I have ever been in my life the last week with what we all affectionately referred to as the Kuwaiti Crud. And I remember the first portion of our large convoy up North into Iraq. As we drove into the country, the roads were lined with people, all of them jumping up and down, waving their hands at us, flashing the "V" sign with their fingers. There were kids begging for candy, some of them really brazen and foolish for their own lives. They would run out in front of the trucks to try and stop us, but would run back at the last instance. It was a good thing too, we had orders to stop for no one or no thing. I don't honestly know what I would have done if one of the kids hadn't run out of the way, I think about it sometimes, but I can't say what my last second choice would have been.
Looking back, I recall that it was very rainy that night as we arrived at a camp we were passing through. It was ridiculously muddy, and we had to sit outside for an hour as our commander tracked someone down who could point us to a place to sleep. I don't know what anyone else was really thinking, but I knew I didn't need a dang bed to sleep in, I was dead tired and could have slept right there in the drivers seat of that deuce and a half truck! I was so peeved that we were made to wait like that, but at long last we were directed through the mud to some saturated green tents with some dirty beds in them. It didn't matter, I kicked off my mud caked boots and flopped down on a smelly mattress. Within seconds I entered oblivion.
My deployment was filled with lots of moments like the above, and lots of other instances that had no humor to them. But that's for another post. For now I'll leave you with the visions above. Take care for now.
