six foot skinny's Open Salon Blog

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Mon, 1 Mar 2010 13:03:12 -0500

Kuwait: still hot, still flat, still full of sand. And waiting. Ft. McCoy: lines and civilian contract workers and paperwork and waiting and gestures of thanks and goodbye. I probably won’t see many of these people ever again. Late night, early morning, busses. Two coach busses take some of us back to Marquette, Michigan. Two busses take some of us back to Ellsworth, Wisconsin. And then later, after I’m gone, busses take the rest to the airport where they fly home to Oklahoma City. I am on the Ellsworth busses. Three hours west of McCoy. Three hours on the bus for the last time.

We meet a county sheriff when we get off 94 and then another squad car, an ambulance, and a fire truck just outside town. They cut all the kids out of school for the afternoon and they line the streets, waving flags and cheering – either for us or for the joy of not being in class. There are old men in hats, saluting and waving again – just as they did when we left. The fire department has hung another giant flag over the road and we drive under it. And then there’s the drill center. Looking as it did when we left. Cinder block buildings that used to be a car dealership. We drive by, go a couple of blocks farther into town, turn around, and come back.

There’s Mom. Dad. The Steps. The Dane. Broser, Sisser, Bubba, and Benjor. Friends. Hugs and tears and handshakes and more hugs and pictures and then we’re gone. Me and The Dane. In the car and headed back to Minneapolis. Back to our apartment. That was Thursday, now it’s Monday. I’m sitting at the little breakfast bar drinking good coffee and enjoying a little time to myself. The Dane went back to work today so it’s just me.

I know I have things to do. Have to go file my DD 214 and see the County Veterans Service Officer. Have to go pick up some of the boxes I mailed to Mom’s. Have to unpack. Have to go to Target. It’s weird, but good. Although I’m not wearing that damn uniform anymore, I am wearing more or less my civilian uniform – jeans and a t-shirt. I have to drive to get much of anywhere while I am used to walking everywhere. The food’s good here, REALLY good. I can have a beer if I want to, but I think I’ll wait until five for that.

The part that throws me is that it’s all the same. My friends are all still doing the same jobs. My family’s still crazy. I still hate doing dishes. I know I’ve changed but I’m still figuring out just what that means. I am no longer the crazy-informed political guy that reads three or four newspapers every day, that guy got left in Iraq somewhere. I am no longer a Soldier. No longer a squad leader. Now I’m just a veteran. Just that young man who might walk by you on the street and make you think, “There’s something different about him.” Sometimes it’s because we stand up straighter, but that’s not me. I’m a terrible slouch. A confidence perhaps? I don’t know. It’s certainly not my haircut. When I wrote that I had my last haircut, that was it. I’m a little shagged out now, at least for me. I’m still settling in. Still getting used to not being in charge of anything. Still getting used to being home. I’m home. And my troops are home. And we all made it. Safe. And that’s happy. Very happy.

Skinny and The Dane

One step closer to home.

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 14:02:36 -0500

White lights blink and go dark, replaced immediately by red ones. Engine noises increase in pitch and volume. The aircraft lurches forwards as it slips its breaks. We all lean towards the back – my right – as the C-17 accelerates down the runway We remain fixed that way while the pilot gains altitude. I look at my buddy, smile, bump fists, and we were gone. Gone from Iraq. Forever.

I can’t say that it was a joyous occasion. The excitement has been building steadily for the last week as we packed bags, made trips to the post office, and cleaned our CHUs. When you’ve been bracing for catastrophe for a year or longer, the absence of that weight is not cause for joy. Just relief. So as we rose over Baghdad I wasn’t ecstatic. I smiled, I do that sometimes. But mostly I just took a deep breath and tried to get comfortable in my seat for the one-hour flight to Kuwait. Which is where I am now but not for too much longer.

As happy as I am to be here in Kuwait, I had somehow forgotten my deep loathing for this place. I am sure there are nice parts, but I’ve never seen them. At this point, Kuwait’s only redeeming quality is its status as “closer to home than Iraq.” We are in the middle of the desert. Actual desert. Sand and wind and heat. As I said once before, all the fun of the beach without that lousy water. Another tour – my last – done, almost. We’ll head back to Ft. McCoy and get off the plane in the beauty of Midwestern February. It’s 28 and sunny in Wisconsin right now, and it sounds lovely.

We’ll be there for a couple of days. Long enough to make sure that we don’t have tuberculosis, check paperwork one more time, and do a final medical screen. We also have to turn in some gear – including our weapons. My M4 carbine has been a constant companion for almost a year. I will not miss it. There are lot of things I won’t miss, maybe I’ll make a list for a later post: “Things Skinny Doesn’t Miss About the Army.” For now though, I am a little apprehensive. I have a lot to do when I get home. I have to get back to life.

The Dane counts this deployment from June 10, 2008. That’s the day I came home from Ft. Irwin, CA, and told her that I would be returning to Iraq. It is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do and now I will never have to do it again. That’s the day our lives went on hold. House plans on hold. Career moves on hold. Engagement plans on hold. Life on hold. And now, we have to start it up again.

For now, we eat until we’re sleepy, and sleep until we’re hungry and we wait. But soon, very, very soon, I will take my seat on a DC10. I’ll feel the engines spool up, lean back in my seat, rise out of the Kuwaiti desert (one ‘s’), smile, and take a deep breath.

Short.

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 06:02:18 -0500

It’s gotten cooler here. I guess it’s “winter.” I hesitate to call it winter when we occasionally have air temperatures (that means the temp without the wind-chill to those of you in southern climes) in double digits below zero back at home. I don’t miss that, but I promise I will do my best not to complain about it when I get home. Which is soon. We welcomed the change in weather here, because it means it’s just that much closer to the end. We won’t have to endure the cursed heat of this country again before we’re frozen in our tracks by the icy winds of Wisconsin.

So winter here means low thirties in the morning, warming up to the low sixties by afternoon. I throw on an extra layer or two and I’m more than comfortable. We’ve even turned the heat on in the CHU a couple of times. Today the sky is as clear blue as it always is, little cotton-ball clouds hanging here and there, warm sun, cool wind. Our replacements arrived a week and a half ago, and we’re trying to make sure they understand that now is the time to train, while it’s cool.

They are a good bunch, stoic New Englanders with easy senses of humor. The sergeants that we have been working with directly remind us of us, and it’s good to have some new energy. They’re excited and nervous and anxious to get on with it. Ready for us to leave so they can take the reigns and do their jobs. They’ll be busy.

We, on the other hand, are not busy. We’re pretty much done. Now we wait. Again. Surf the internet. Play guitar. Watch movies. Work out. Think about home. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Home is an entirely abstract concept right now. It feels as if this – this Army thing I do – is my real life, and that civilian Skinny is but a long ago dream. Sure I can picture my apartment, quite vividly in fact. I talk to The Dane (my lovely lady friend) almost daily through video chat. I’ll still have a job. All my friends are excited to see me.

It’s more about the intangibles. I can’t remember what it feels like to snuggle. Get a hug. Kiss. I don’t remember what Minnesota smells like. I don’t know how it will feel to not have ten Soldiers to worry about. All I’ll really have to worry about is me, and The Dane. We have a Mexico trip planned. I’ll buy a new(ish) car. We’ll buy a house. We’ll get married one of these days. We’ll continue the life that’s been on hold since a year ago June – or longer.

So yeah, I’m short. As in short-timer. So short I can dangle my legs off a dime. So short I have to stand up to drive. It feels good and I can’t wait to get home and remember what home is. Wherever it is, whatever it is, that’s where I’m headed. And that’s where I’m staying.

Oh dark-thirty.

Mon, 4 Jan 2010 09:01:53 -0500

Alarm, too early, as usual. It is truly “oh dark-thirty,” and it’s cold. Start the coffee that I ground the night before so as not to waken my roommate. Rub my hand over my face – I shaved late yesterday because we had the day off so I’m good for now. Brush my teeth and spit in an empty water bottle. Pull on flame-retardant uniform pants and undershirt, combat shirt over top of that. Check pockets. Notebook, pens, dog tags, ID, room key. Lace up my boots. Drink my coffee. Surf a little while I wake up. Time to go. Wind breaker over everything else. Grab my helmet and gloves and sunglasses. Make sure I have clear lenses in case we’re out past sunset. Sling my weapon and hoist my body armor onto my arm. All on autopilot, all silent as I can. Out the door to the motor pool.

I am the first one there. I even beat my driver, so the truck’s not unlocked yet. Stack my gear by the passenger side door. The eastern sky is starting to glow, the sky transitioning from midnight to that clear and startling blue that is every day in Iraq. My coffee steams from my battered aluminum travel mug. The hot liquid warms me from the inside and the caffeine and nicotine combine to give me a happy buzz as my head clears for the day’s activities. I watch shambling shadows morph into human figures as my Soldiers make their ways to the trucks, also toting body armor and helmets. One by one the lights go on and the trucks cough to life, diesels protesting in early morning chill.

As my driver checks fluid levels and tires and my gunner mounts his machine gun and prepares his turret, I turn on the dizzying array of electronics. Radio, check. GPS unit, check. Blue Force Tracker, check. Jamming equipment, check. My Lieutenant – “ell-TEE” – is at my door, there’s a glitch of some type. We work it. Find a solution. All good. A quick briefing, checks of personal equipment and protective gear. We’re rolling. All snug in our reinforced up-armored steel and kevlar and thick glass vehicles that sprout antennae like some giant beetle that just might eat your children - we’re here to help.

I listen to the trucks in front of me call off their status, letting the convoy commander know that countermeasures are operating and weapons are loaded. My driver always loves it when it’s our turn and I click my button and announce “one-seven is amber, amber, hot, and jamming.” She smiles to herself and we’re out the gate. Two hours north today, all on a modernish four-lane highway. Through slums and commercial districts and along the overpass that goes through “trash city.” It is just that - a smoldering garbage dump as far as the eye can see on both sides. There are livestock and people and homes. The shacks are made out of things cast off by others. Reminds me of a documentary I saw about a similar place in Guatemala.

We BS and smoke and drink energy drinks and watch. Always watching. Watching for people and cars and trash and anything that looks out of place. Mid joke I mention a suspicious-looking dude to my gunner and continue the joke knowing that he is paying particular attention to the guy watching us intently with his hands in his pockets. And then, we’re there. I always breathe a little easier when we clear the gate and are safely inside the wire. We make our linkup, do what we need to do, eat lunch, and get back on the road. More of the same on the way home and we’re back before we know it. Again breathing easier to be safe and sound. It was a routine mission, and uneventful and boring in hindsight, but never boring at the time. Just like a dozen other trips I’ve made in the last year. And just like all the others, it’s one day closer to home.

The kid in the blue-striped shirt.

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 12:12:32 -0500

She is sitting on a step that leads to a door in a wall. Surrounded by Iraqi kids. Her rifle, magazine in - no doubt locked and loaded - in one hand, muzzle skyward, butt on the ground. The Vietnam-era flak jacket (yeah, we had those) riding up a little, kevlar helmet askew due to the small boy leaning on her head. And there, sitting next to her and clowning with a younger boy, is a kid in a blue-striped shirt.

The kid in the striped shirt is Saef. He was eight years old when that photo was taken. If he survives this war, he will run Iraq someday. If he is alive he is fourteen. When we were first consciously aware of him, his English was limited to “HEY! Jou-need-any-ting? I get Pepsee, Coke-a-cola, cheeken…” A huge voice booming from this impossibly little man. When we moved into the city, to a former Baath Party headquarters-turned Provincial Government Center, he was our lifeline. He brought cigarettes, foam mattresses, kabobs, falafels, and anything else. Once he brought us a couch.

Saef was hyperactive and wild and sweet and hilarious. He became our crazy little brother, an Iraqi Tazmanian Devil, and we loved him and he us. He was a constant ball of energy and good spirits. We never got to meet his family, never saw his house. Judging by his clothing, they were poor. Very poor. His vocabulary grew and he picked up our nuance and sarcasm and curses and greetings. By the time we left, he was bargaining forcefully with my platoon sergeant – a man thirty years his elder and easily four times his size. Saef on his tiptoes, JC leaning over at the waist, red in the face, lip quivering. Trading expletives waggling fingers at each other. I think Saef won that one.

The day the photo was taken, we were guarding/facilitating/witnessing the dispersal of severance pay to former Iraqi Soldiers. It was a mess. It was hot. It was dangerous in a way that we half-joked about then, and that amazes me now. There were twenty of us, tops. There were 1,500-2,000 of them. The first day, when we took over from some American Military Police, all the former Soldiers were crowded around the teller windows on the outside of the bank, banging on the windows and hollering for their money. It was a mob-scene. Literally. Saef brought us Cokes and falafel sandwiches. No, not for free. Kid had to make a living, and he did it well. He figured out how to inflate his prices enough to make a profit AND keep our business, ensuring future profits. Brilliant. I am fairly certain he supported his family throughout our tour.

When it was time to leave our little outpost and return to the big Forward Operating Base outside town, we told Saef to come that morning and say goodbye. The vagaries of military timelines had us rolling out the gate as Saef and his posse arrived. He immediately broke down in tears, and that was the last time I ever saw him, from the window of my truck as we drove away. We were crying too. That was the second time I ever saw Saef cry. The day B was killed, Saef showed up shortly after the chaplain and first sergeant had left. “Where’s B?” He asked. He saw the answer in the tear-tracks on our dirty faces. This little man, a tough little street guy and hustler to the bone, dissolved into an eight-year-old pile of tears. He cried as if he had lost a brother.

There are rumors that Saef was killed in the violence of 2004 and 2005. The town where we were posted, one corner of the Sunni triangle, was an ethnic mix of Sunni and Shi’a and it dissolved into sectarian killings shortly after we left. I choose not to listen to those rumors and I choose not to believe them. When I got home from that tour, I looked at my youngest brother, the same age as Saef, and tried to picture him doing what Saef did. I couldn’t. I hope he’s all right. I hope he has a crush on a beautiful little Iraqi girl, and that he’s going to school. I hope that he has dreams about a peaceful Iraq where he can raise his children and tell them stories about the guys from Minnesota that he was friends with one year. And tell them about B. Mostly though, I just hope he’s OK.