Heading to War

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and the Middle East was in turmoil. By that summer, our military was deploying to Saudi Arabia. Our goal was going to force Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and prevent him from invading other countries. Our MC Reserve Unit was on standby and we knew that it was possible that we could be activated for active duty and sent to Saudi Arabia.

The call came the Sunday after Thanksgiving. They reached me at my parents’ house and told me that our unit was being activated and that I had to show up Monday night at our reserve unit for a briefing. My first question after I got off the phone was, “How do you tell your mom that you’re going to war?” It wasn’t easy but I did it and since it was a public meeting, my parents came with me on Monday night.

I found out that I had one week to get my affairs in order and the following Monday, Dec. 3rd, I reported for duty. For the next couple days we showed up at our reserve unit to process from reserve duty to active duty. On Thursday, Dec. 6th, we headed off to MC base Camp Pendleton, CA. My parents came to the send off as we loaded six buses and put all our gear on board. It’s the first time I remember my dad telling me that he was proud of me. I’m not saying he never said it to me but even though this happened over 20 years ago the memory of him saying that to me is very vivid and I remember thinking how proud I was that my dad was proud of me and that I couldn’t remember him ever saying it to me before.

We arrived in CA where we stayed in barracks for the next two weeks doing physicals, getting shots, running, hiking, gas chamber, weapons range, and other various and assorted activities. Overall, we were pretty excited to go. This is what we trained for and now we were on our way. We did get a four day leave during Christmas and my grandparents, who lived in Yucca Valley, CA came to San Diego and picked up me and a friend to spend the holiday with them. They also spent a day or two with me and a friend around New Year’s because we were not allowed to travel anywhere.

January 7, 1991 was the day our unit headed to an AFB and climbed on to a civilian 747 aircraft and headed toward Saudi Arabia. It took us about 24 hours. We made our first stop in New York but we were not allowed to go around the terminal because we had our weapons with us. We got back on the plane and a few hours later at about 2am we landed in Germany where we spent about 2 hours in the USO tent getting refreshments and stretching our legs. We then headed for our final destination, Saudi Arabia. I was awake as we flew over the Swiss Alps at about 7am and the sun barely visible and snow covering everything and small groups of houses alone in the valleys. It was an awesome sight.

We landed at the major airport in El Jabar, Saudi Arabia where most of the military landed and we headed over to the Port of Jabail. We were there for a couple days where our unit was divided up all over the country. I was sent with one group to help run a fuel farm at the end of the runway.

Thus began my tour of duty during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in January 1991.