a soliers rambling
I was a soldier for almost 14 years in the U S Army. I was stationed in Ft Campbell Kentucky when Iraq invaded Kuwait on the 2nd of August 1990. Being a soldier in a rapid deployment unit was exciting till we got the call to deploy to Saudi Arabia, after that it scared the crap out of me. All I could think about was here I am a married man with a 3 year old girl going off to who knows, " it was classified" for how long. We spent the next 7 days preparing to deploy, our Advance party departed on the 5th of August we departed on the 9th. It was the hardest thing to do, leave my family and go off for what would be 238 days when it was all over. Once we arrived in Saudi Arabia, at an Airport that was nameless, we received our water, ammo, food, and more water. After receiving our supplies we boarded on buses and headed to what we would call our Garrison base for the next 237 days. Our Garrison base was King Faud International Airport, (under construction) parking garage level 1. Our Squadron was the first Battalion sized unit in country with approximately 300 personnel so we had the run of the place for a few weeks till more units arrived. The only drawback to being the first ones there is that we got all t
MSR Newmarket and started following tank tracks in the sand, good thing they were the 24th inf. or we would have been in a bad predicament a few times when we came up behind their tanks. We drove the hole 100 hours of the ground war, except for the fuel stops, and occasional disabled vehicle the convoy never stopped more than 2 minutes at a time. When the ground war was stopped by the cease-fire my unit was 12 miles from Kuwait and way ahead of our supporting elements. We set up a US Flag, quick perimeter and 20% guard duty force, the rest of the Squadron slept for 8 hours. We stayed at that base for about 5 days doing nothing but sleeping and trying to catch up with our support unit for supplies. We ended up being over 100 miles further east than they had estimated us to be. Once we were released from our site we returned to Tapline road and started our slow return to the parking garage and a lot of work in repairing equipment. he details, filling sand bags, burning latrines, pulling guard duty, and all kinds of other duties. We ate cold meals, took cold showers, sweated a lot, and drank gallons of water every day. Even after the main force arrived we still had at least 2 "MRE's" (Meals Ready To Eat) every day. It gets old after a while when there were only 12 meals to choose from and you did not get to pick your favorite you got what was thrown at you. The days were long but the training we did helped to keep you busy and keep your mind off things back home. We would rotate back and forth to the northern part of Saudi Arabia about 15 miles from the Iraqi border to accomplish training objectives set by our Headquarters unit. I think it was just to upset Saddam Hussein and try to pick a fight. But what do I know I was too busy digging a fighting position in either solid rock or dry loose sand to care about politics. The best part of getting out of Garrison was the chance to get off the latrine burning details because up there we had to dig them in and we would just fill them partially with sand daily. We did this rotation about every 2-3 weeks till early in January. Once
Some common words found in the essay are:
MSR Newmarket, Saudi Arabia, Line Road, Desert Storm, Squadron Battalion, Highway Hell, Saddam Hussein, Murphy's Law, Arabia Airport, Ready Eat, ground war, saudi arabia, garrison base, guard duty, parking garage, weeks till, air guard, msr newmarket,
Approximate Word count = 1415
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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