That war affects us all is a truism that doesn't change with time.
QATAR - March 2003
Major Teddy Clover didn’t want to be there either. But he couldn’t say that to the young Airman driving the Humvee. The boy looked as miserable as the predawn desert they had to traverse, refusing to take his eyes from the bleakness of Salwa road, the major artery into Qatar from Saudi.
He was what Teddy liked to call a “non-coper”, someone simply unable to deal effectively with the change. The 1st Miss. 322nd bomber wing had been activated suddenly. In a period of days, a third of the young men in Bloom Mississippi found themselves in the Persian Gulf. Some looked on it as an adventure. Most saw it as a chore they had to perform and endure. Teddy knew that a few, like this one, had real problems with the transition. They were only slightly older than the kids in his high school Algebra class and he had developed a soft spot in his heart for them in spite of himself. He tried to be unobtrusive as he squinted in the dark cab at the name on the young man’s desert fatigues. “How do you like it here, Winters?” he began, breaking the uneasy silence that had permeated the vehicle since he had entered it at the Saudi border.
“It’s fine, sir.”
The older man was hoping the boy would confide in him, lessen the burden. After several seconds passed silently he tried again. “Now me, I wasn’t ready for this. Didn’t want my personal life disrupted to such an extent. How about you, Winters?”
The Airman spoke in something close to a desperate whisper and looked straight ahead. “I’m trying to put myself though college.” His voice was steady but plaintive, almost desperate. “I’m going to miss finals. I’ll have to take the whole semester over … sir.”
“I see. That is hard.” He waited for a response but none came. “You’re very young though. You’ll be amazed at how fast that semester will go by.”
Airman Winters only response was to maintain an even tighter grip on the wheel of the Humvee. An hour and a half passed. Teddy listened to the powerful, static hum of the engine and watched the Qatari sky brighten to a startling blue. The tiny dashboard lights that had been their only source of illumination became shadow-like holes. The scrubby desert looked incredibly harsh in the morning sun. White dust on rock and a few desperate, struggling bushes, more gray than green. The miles passed, each indistinguishable from the one before. Teddy knew that Qatar is one of the few places on earth with no evidence of pre-historic habitation. Why should there be? He wondered. Why would anyone stay here?
In the middle of what seemed to be nothing they made a right turn. It was unmarked but Teddy knew the way to Al-Udeid. The sprawling air base had become the collection point, the jumping off place for war, this time. There is always such a place. During the Gulf War it had been Prince Sultan in Saudi. Some, like Teddy could even remember Tan Son Nhut in Viet Nam. “Every soldier in Viet Nam had passed through Tan San Nhut at some point”, he would remind his friends after a glass of Old Grand Dad on the rocks. “Every damned one of em.”
BE PREPARED TO STOP
IDENTIFY YOURSELF
Signs warned them in stark, red letters. Razor wire and barricades seemed to sprout suddenly from the white rock. A bored young Air Force guard adjusted the strap of his M16 and approached the vehicle as they slowed down. He checked both of their badges carefully and they settled back to wait for the first checkpoint gate to open.
The two of them watched silently from their vehicle as a young soldier climbed effortlessly into a newly built watchtower. The guards were just now beginning to sight it in. One round at a time the soldier began to fire, the bullets striking in a measured sequence just outside the circle of razor wire. As each round struck, it kicked up a small cloud of white dust, meaningless in the vast sea of rock and sand.
The older man recalled a picture of himself in Tan Son Nhut, a young Airman then, like Winters. Perched on a parapet of sand bags, returning fire, pumping one magazine after another into the darkness. Below him on a transistor radio he could hear Aretha Franklin. “Re-Re-Re-Re-spect”, she chanted into a black ocean of jungle she would never see. This kid had a Kevlar helmet and desert fatigues but little else had changed. He could have been Teddy’s son or one of his students. SSDM, he thought. Same shit, different millennium.
The guard with the M16 re-emerged from the tiny shack to slide back the red and white striped metal gate. They could proceed to The Pit, a massive concrete bunker where each vehicle was searched for hidden explosives. Left and right they turned, slowly traversing an uphill zigzag course around yet more concrete barriers to the search area. Both knew the routine well. They opened the doors and hood and left the vehicle to the searchers. In the bunker they waited; next to each other, silently on plywood benches. “Better have some water, Winters”, Teddy ventured. “It’s gonna be a long, hot morning.”
For a moment, the boy said nothing. Then he opened up suddenly. “There’s more than just the problem with school, Major.”
“What’s that, Winters?” Teddy asked the question already knowing the answer.
“It’s a girl, sir. We just met two months ago. But I love her.”
Well, there’s a shocker. How many times have those words been repeated over the centuries? How many of Julius Caesar’s soldiers made that same lament when they set off to conquer the Gauls? But he couldn’t belittle Airman Winters for what he felt. To this boy it wasn’t ancient history at all but something new and deeply personal and seemingly unsolvable. The young man brought his hands to his face. He wanted to hide his own embarrassment as well as the fact that he was near to tears.
“I’m gonna lose her sir. My being here… She just won’t be around when I come back.”
“If she’s worth her salt she’ll wait for you. You’ve got to take care of yourself here and now, son.” Teddy hesitated, unsure of what to say next. He was close to being trite and silly and meaningless. He didn’t want to be. “You’ve just got to do your job.”
Teddy didn’t want to admit it but he knew all too well the boy’s angst. He’d endured it at various times in his own pubescent past. He’d endured variations of it in parts of his past not all that distant.
He had made it a point over the years never to date another teacher. Shelly was special though. She was worth taking the chance. Their last time together they’d chatted easily. They’d talked about nothing in particular, the minutia of life. Which flowers would she plant in the spring? Which grocery store carried the best vegetables, the most exotic teas? They both knew it was probably be the last time they’d meet like that. Do it gracefully. It was just a visit, just a chat. But as they talked he’d found himself memorizing her. Her expressions, her hair, the way her eyes seemed to peek out playfully from under the blonde curls, the way she walked and moved in that effortless, gentle, womanly way. He’d remember her like that later. He knew he would.
Back in the Humvee. This time it just might turn out differently, he confided to himself as they drove. Through two more quick check points and they were on the base proper. Row after row, tails of C5 transports appeared, gray-green like whales diving into a sea of white sand in the distance.
Major Clover had things to do. But his mind was locked onto Shelly now. Now more than ever, he wanted it to work. A complex of sheltered hangars, and the bombers came into view, rows of them, like the transports. He stared out at the massive, no nonsense, and deadly airplanes. Shelly, I really do want it to work.
They drove past rows of tan, camouflaged tents on powdered rock, dust and rock, white enough to cause snow blindness in the glare of the white-hot sun, on into the first row of bombers. He thought how the Humvees were more business-like, more powerful than the Jeeps in Viet Nam, darting now like squat, muscular maids of honor under and around the queen like bombers, preparing them for the ceremony they were created to perform. Winters stopped the vehicle and hopped out. Teddy moved more slowly, still thinking. The Airman pulled a white paint marker from the pocket of his fatigue jacket and proffered it to the older man. “Care to send a message sir?”
“Sure,” he answered softly, noting that the boy was already sounding stronger, more confident.
Teddy found a blank spot near the top and front of a two thousand pound bomb. He knew its inner workings and its capacity. It was a ton of pure destruction, packed oh so carefully into a fine metal sheath, long and heavy as a 1960 Cadillac.
He printed the words carefully, deliberately: For Shelly. And for me. And for what we might still have this time.
Teddy Clover strode quickly back to the waiting vehicle, slammed the door and looked straight ahead. “Let’s put that one right up Saddam’s ass shall we?”
“Absolutely, sir!” The younger man smiled broadly now, threw the vehicle into gear and started off the pad. So we don’t have to do this again -- not any of us -- not ever.
You write with such incredible imagery, making the reader feel as though he were actually there. A truly powerful write, Larry...just like everything of yours I have read so far.
Reviewed by Katherine Kaffer
8/27/2007
I loved it, LJ. It makes me feel like I am there with them -- you bring the scene and the feelings to life with your words. Well done!
K
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In a post-coup America, an Illinois farm boy is drawn into the resistance by his brother's death. Captured, he is given a choice: betray his friends, or the girl he loves will be lobotomized.
QATAR - March 2003
