Notes on the Ride Back to the Sandbox

Sometimes I think half of my time on this earth has been spent pondering life while staring out an airplane window.  My two weeks of R&R leave have evaporated and I'm now on the first leg of the long journey back to Bagram.  The sun is setting out the opposite windows and I feel the tinge of the presence of an old companion. The shadowy figures of homesickness and depression, demons from my past who I thought I had long since banished are wafting up and down the aisle, slipping between the seats amongst the hundreds of soldiers on board, now and then finding time to touch me briefly with a heaviness of heart.

 

Like a certain smell that evokes memories of childhood, the touches of sadness bring to mind with crystalline clarity the waves of depression and homesickness that used to sweep over me like clockwork in the late afternoons twenty years ago as I struggled through the catharsis that is Basic Training.

 

I know that the sadness will not overwhelm me tonight as those onslaughts did years ago, leaving me to repress sobs while a shower before bed hid my tears; today I gratefully fear that I am much too callous for such emotions.  It serves to remind me though of the youth that surrounds me, and the obligations that I hold.  It reminds me of the pain that Pam must feel without benefit of the years of emotional conditioning.  I know it is incumbent of me to ease the suffering around me and push forward to those better days that are now just around the corner.

 

Just as clearly as I remember those cruel afternoons of depression, I recall the giddiness of impending success and freedom that followed as I approached graduation from Basic Training, and I know that this happiness will follow just as surely as the sand continues to fall through the hourglass.

 

A beautifully clear full moon has now appeared through the pink stratus clouds out my window and as I look at it, I can hear the amazement in Max's voice as we peered at it 2 nights ago through the telescope in the back yard.  Scientists have been wrong all this time.  There is a man in the moon after all.  Well, at least a boy.

 

It's 0430Z and we are continuing our trek across the Atlantic after a refueling stop in Gander, Newfoundland.  As I gaze at the fluffy white carpet of clouds spread out thousands of feet beneath us, I realize it is 9 A.M. on Sunday the 18th of September in Afghanistan.  I know that beneath those clouds, the ocean, as Melville closed Moby Dick, rolls on as it did 10,000 years before, but the polls are open in Kabul and today the world beneath me is changing.

 

After a 3 hour layover in Shannon, Ireland, we are called to board.  200 soldiers begin making their way out of the small terminal towards the gate.  Several of the American tourists in the terminal position themselves near the door and shake hands with soldiers or clap them on the back wishing them good luck as the exit.  I remember visiting Dublin last year and having our host go out of her way to show me some anti-Bush posters on lamp posts and billing them as a general indictment by Ireland against the war.  Today though, as I near the terminal exit, I hear the clapping start sporadically then rapidly spread throughout the terminal.  Looking over my shoulder I saw every person in the terminal on their feet applauding.  My eyes misted over as our contingent made our way out of the terminal and back towards harms way, thankful for the hospitality of the Emerald Isle.

 

An hour layover in Budapest followed by another 4 hour flight brings us to Kuwait City.  The plane hits the runway at midnight local time, 27 hours after I left Pam at the gate in Colorado Springs.  Another hour bus ride to Ali Al Saleem, another briefing and billeting assignments.  I get to a tent at 4:00 A.M.  Not much sense in sleep now.  Roll call at 9:00 A.M. and we are told to be prepared to leave at 1330.  Another roll call followed by another manifest and another bus ride back to Kuwait City.  Flight canceled tonight, get something to eat and get back on the bus.  Another hour back to Saleem with the air conditioner set somewhere between “Meat Locker” and “Cryogenic”.  Another billeting assignment, another 9:00 A.M. roll call. 1230 departure time and we’re back on the bus to KCIA.  This time, the air conditioner is pitifully low on Freon and struggles in vain to counteract the 120 degree outside temperature.  We are all bathed in sweat as we reach the airport.

 

At 6:00 P.M. we leave the terminal and the dust in the air obscures the setting sun, serving instead to cause the entire western sky to blaze a deep orange as though by some distant inferno as we walk across the ramp to the C-17.  3 ½ hours later as the engines slow, we are directed by the load master to secure our seatbelts.  The cabin is illuminated only by pale green lights.  The plane takes a decidedly nose down attitude, then banks sharply to the left, straightens, banks sharply to the right and straightens again.  Air brakes are applied and we are pulled sideways in our seats towards the front to the cabin.  I hear the hydraulics whine as flaps extend fully then the nose levels.  Only now do landing lights appear through the cabin window and we bang heavily onto the runway.  The engines reverse, we are pulled sideways in our seats again and the two 5-ton trucks in the center of the cabin strain at their tie-down chains as this mammoth airplane tries desperately to rid itself of the momentum it carried onto the ground.

 

R&R is over.