Finally Home - after Desert Storm

We finally arrived home, the U.S., but we still had to process from active duty to reserve duty. We were allowed to come back to our homes in AZ for a few days but then had to go back to Camp Pendleton for a couple of weeks. There wasn’t much for us to do and so most days we’d do whatever the MC needed us to do and then we’d be off for the day. There were some days when we’d be heading off-base by 9 or 10 am. We’d make different trips throughout CA. Some brought cars back from AZ to drive and others rented a car. I’d usually go off with a friend or two. One day, my friend and I decided to go to Magic Mountain. What we didn’t know is that they were only open on the weekends. On the way back got off at the Hollywood exit and drove through Chinatown and then parked on Hollywood Boulevard and walked on the “stars.” I bought a black soft leather jacket that I wore for almost 15 years. While walking around we were invited to go to one of the Hollywood studios to be part of a test pilot group to evaluate a possible new show. It was a love reality show. I’m not sure if it ever made it on the air.

Later that week we did make it to Magic Mountain. While in CA, we also went to Disneyland, downtown LA, and a few other places. We had a great time before we finally headed back home to AZ. Now that I was home, I lived with my parents for about six weeks until I found an apartment a couple miles away on Mill Rd & the US60 in Tempe and I lived there for the next five years. Thus ended another chapter in my life and the beginning of another.

My Tour of Duty

One thing that I learned about war is that it’s not all Hamburger Hill, Saving Private Ryan, We Were Soldiers, or any other numerous war movies that you’ve seen. There are a lot of behind the scene kind of people that help those out in front do their job. It’s still dangerous because you’re in a war zone and it takes a lot for those on the front lines to do their jobs.

My unit’s job was fuel supply. We basically thought of ourselves as glorified gas attendants. We unloaded fuel off the fuel trucks into our “fuel farm” and pumped it up about a mile to the Air Force who was running the flight line. We moved about 500,000 to 750,000 gallons of fuel a day. We had C-130 cargo plans flying in all day and those planes have a 50,000 gallon fuel capacity. We also had fighter planes come in and one time one was on fire and flew over the fuel farm on its way into the runway. That was pretty cool, well, maybe not for the pilot.

I was in a fox hole with an MP with a 50 cal machine gun aimed at the rear gate when we declared war on Iraq. On the radio we listened live to President George Bush’s address. We didn’t know what was going to happen. We expected suicide bombers, trucks driving through the gate to attempt sabotage, or any other form of retaliation. It didn’t happen.

I was at that fuel farm a few weeks and they asked for volunteers to head about 100 miles north, about 30 miles south of the Iraq border and start a new fuel farm at the end of a small runway. Me and about 5 others loaded up our gear and headed to our new “home.” We didn’t see a shower or hot food for about a month. Later on we did hook up with another small unit of about 15. We did a lot of sitting around waiting for things to happen. We supplied fuel to the Air Force and we had fuel trucks coming in and out throughout the day either picking up or dropping off fuel.

A few weeks after being there we heard about a “camp” about 3 miles away that had hot food and showers. Four of us decided to walk there, with permission from our Sgt, of course. As we’re walking across the desert in the middle of nowhere to get over to the camp we have to cross a road. As we’re about to cross a station wagon comes by, stops, asks us where we were going and offers us a ride. He then tells us that he’s from England and he works on the underwater oil rigs for the Saudi Arabians and lives in a compound with some other men right behind the camp. He then offers to take us there for food, shower, and a phone call home. We get there, and to be honest, it was hard to choose to shower first or eat. We all chose shower. We then went to eat. They had a buffet set up (this was normal for the men who lived there) and the cook, who was from the Philippines, had prepared a lot of food. I had some of the best curry that I’ve ever had in my life. I then called home but had to leave a message (answering machine, cell phones weren’t around). Then they took us back to our “home” and offered our small unit to keep coming over, which we did but created a schedule of when we would go over.

The biggest scare we had happened at about 2am when we heard a huge explosion. It turned out to be a scud missile that landed about 5 miles away. It was basically a missile that was pointed in the desired direction and when it ran out of fuel, it fell, hopefully injuring the enemy. We had not built a bunker yet and since we were worried about chemical agents, we put on our gas masks and went back to sleep. I had a short scare because I went to reach for mine next to my bunk and couldn’t find it quickly and had a moment of panic.

At night we could hear a low rumble that sounded like thunder. It turned out to be us bombing the Iraqi’s getting ready to cross the border to kick the Iraqi’s out of Kuwait.

The ground war lasted three days and they surrendered. In March, we packed up our gear. We pumped the fuel that was left into the middle of the desert. We were told that the Saudi’s told us to do it because that’s where it came from in the first place. We headed back south to gather our unit together from all over the country and to prepare to come home by cleaning our gear.

Our group was the first to get to the staging area and one night the captain comes in and asks one of the guys if he had his driver’s license. He said, “no, sir.” He then asked me and I said, “Yes, sir” and he goes, “You’re my new driver.” For the next two weeks I drove the captain wherever he had to go. I’d be up at 7am checking the Humvee and back around 7 or 8pm after stopping at “Camp 5” to get a shower. The other guys had to walk a mile to get a shower.

When it was time, we loaded a 777 civilian transport plane and headed home. We stopped in Belgium and then in Bangor, ME where we had an awesome military welcome home party in the terminal. I got back an hour early to the plane because I wanted to sit up in the cockpit during take-off, which I did. It was awesome and the plane felt like it went straight up in the air and within seconds we were above the clouds. We arrived back in CA and spent the next couple weeks at Camp Pendleton processing out of the military to go back to our reserve unit. All total, I was in Saudi Arabia about three and a half months.

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.

My Misperceptions About MC Boot Camp

From February, when I joined the Marine Corps, until end of June, when I went to boot camp at Camp Pendleton, CA, I had some misperceptions or misunderstandings about boot camp, among other things. After I joined the MC, I would show up at the recruiting station once a week, where I and other recruits would get ready for boot camp. We’d run a couple miles, do some exercises, get yelled at, & basically try to prepare us for boot camp. There's nothing that can prepare you. You can only understand if you've experienced it.

We were told that during boot camp the drill instructors would build us up to running three miles. It turns out the building up from one mile to three miles happened during the first week and we never ran less than three miles during boot camp and sometimes it was interspersed with obstacles. I thought that once I could run three miles that I could always run three miles and I had this idea that I would become a runner. I was extremely wrong about this. 

I went into boot camp about 20 lbs overweight. I knew that I would lose my fat but I thought that I would gain it back in muscle. Well, I did lose about 30 lbs in boot camp and become stronger but what I didn’t understand was that the MC goal is physical fitness and endurance, not muscle. We had recruits come to boot camp who were body builders but gained weight and lost muscle mass because the focus was on cardio and not weight training.

My dad thought I’d come out saying “sir” to him. Drill sergeants really drill it in to you to say “sir” but I wasn’t going to start calling my dad that. I had never called him that while I was growing up and I was not going to start at 20 years of age.

I came out with a new confidence but I don’t think my personality changed too much. I’ve seen men and women come out of boot camp all “gung ho” and high strung but I tried to avoid this. I tried to stay somewhat normal but military boot camp will have an affect on people who go through it. For me, it was a good thing.

MARINE CORPS - The Beginning

 

At the end of June 1987, I headed off to San Diego, CA for Marine Corps boot camp, otherwise known as MCRD. Later on I was to learn that we were considered “Hollywood Marines” because we didn’t do our boot camp at Parris Island, SC with the sand fleas and alligators. Instead we had to deal with being right next to the San Diego airport with airplanes taking off every 30 seconds. That’s not too bad except that for three months every time I saw one take off I wished I was on it and I didn’t care where it was going.

I got picked up at the airport, put on a bus, and then the yelling began. Remember the scene from Forest Gump? A lot like that. Anyway, we got off the bus and were told to find some footprints painted on the sidewalk and line up. It was night and they ushered us into barracks where we went to sleep. A couple hours later they came banging things to wake us up. They shaved our heads and divided us into platoons and took us to our new home.

My first weekend there was July 4^th and I saw one firework from my bunk that night. It was early to bed and early to rise every single day. Our days consisted of running, exercise, marching, , training, and a multitude of other events. We had three meals a day but not leasurely. I heard a lot of yelling, obscenities, chants, orders, and other verbal ques. I almost forgot about talking because that was not allowed unless spoken to or at specific times of the day, usually at night during our short free time.

I lost 25-30 pounds during boot camp. I went from at 36” to a 30” waist. I became an expert rifleman during weapons training. In our final physical fitness test, I ran three miles in 20min & 50 seconds. That was the first and last time I ever did it that fast. I’ve never been in better shape in my life and I looked pretty good in uniform.

After graduation in September, I was on “leave” (military term for vacation) for about ten days and then I headed to Camp Lejeune in NC. This is where I did my MOS (military occupational specialty) training for combat engineer. I was there for about seven weeks learning about bridges and explosives. It was quite cool. 

When I was done, I headed back to Arizona, with a stop in IL for a couple days to see my grandparents. I reported to duty at my Marine Corps Reserve Unit in Phoenix. For the next five years, except during Desert Storm,  I would show up at my unit once a month and two weeks out of the year for training.