I’m A Nazi, You’re A Nazi

Allrighty folks, I offer to your discriminating readership another portion from my Desert Diary.

Since this part of the forum is open, in the interest of maintaining decorum, I've sanitized the essay by replacing certain words with their symbolic counterparts. Hopefully this will be good enough for the Staff; if not, moderators please move to the protected forum or delete post as you determine is required.

"It occurs to me that there are many games being played out here. Of multitudes compressed in both space (literal) and (in this political context) time, come forth a variety of methods in dealing with the tedium.

The more obvious, of course, are the group games. Those 'organized' activities' which label us even from a great distance unequivocally American: Football. Running. Volleyball.

Brits do not Volleyball, they Rug.

We also have those military games: the organized pompposity of battalion formations; the hurry-up-and-wait games and the junk-on-the-bunk games. Yes, even out here we are not exempt from the inevitable layout inspection. The administrative juggernaut must press on.

However, beneath these diversions run an undercurrent of cooler, darker waters. Within these rivers lay The Mindgames. Whether from psycophant lieutenants or bitter sergeants eager to play tit-for-tat, those games convolute the days into surreal horror.

THIS IS NOT SUPPLY boldly states the Battalion S-4's sign. SEE YOUR UNIT SUPPLY SERGEANT. (S-4 is the Army designator for...supply).

The supply sergeant has none. "Go see S-4" he  declares.

"We are not the Engineer's" the water purification/storage team is proud to announce, surrounded by stacks of plywood, heavy equipment, tools, wire, hoses, and water pumps. They defiantly add "and we don't fill the shower tanks. Bring your own work-detail".

It's a trying thing to roust four others so one can shower.

As well, one of our own was blown up, and five others injured yesterday when a 66mm rocket he was dismantling went off. Apparently the idiot brought it back from a live-fire exercise planning to make it into an ashtray. While attempting removal of the base and fins it exploded, traumatically amputating his hand and part of his leg. Five bystanders miraculously also survived with minor injuries, although our Battalions Transportation Officer's tent is no longer.

This of course, is a clear reminder that soldiering is a very, very dangerous game.

Desert Journal Entry- 1990.

For nearly four months now, we- The Falcon's (2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division)- have waited.  Being the first unit on Arabian soil, dispatched by the President to hold "the line in the sand", we endure heat, flies, sand and uncertainty; everything except the enemy we expected and are trained to meet. Without a doubt, we all would've rather met the enemy instead of the unknown, the indeterminate waiting and the vague reports on potential chemical attacks coming from higher headquarters. Yet no sign of an Iraqi attack, not even mobilization for that purpose, simply perplexing quiet, a stillness that's more maddening and potentially frightful than the horrors of all out warfare.

The warfare we look forward to is the worst kind- trench-clearing. And the only approach to those deathtraps is wide open desert, a situation best suited to the defender. By this time, we realized the Iraqi's would probably not attack, it's far too late for that. It will be the Allies who do the attacking, but when?

If there had been an opportunity for the Iraqi's it would have been in the first few weeks of our arrival, ill-prepared for the environment and precariously short on supplies. Paratroopers are shock troops, by virtue of our method of travel (whatever you can carry on your back and jump out of a plane with) and design, we are woefully limited, suited only for short, violent surprise action lasting no more than a week at best. Although highly mobile, our desert mission in the opening gambit is a good example of how not to employ us. Lightly armed flesh and blood cannot withstand an armoured attack for long, yet there is no doubt we'd have held ground to the last man. That is simply how all paratroopers are. It was only our ability to project American power to the area on no-notice that won us the thankless task of first line deployment in the Gulf.

No, the task now, it is becoming clear as the rhetoric increases, will be to remove Iraq from Kuwait. The days in this inferno drag on endlessly, one blurring into the other with the incessant mindless drudgery of an encamped army gnawing, driving us to extremes in an effort to pass the time.

In the beginning we played basketball and touch football on the concrete-like desert floor, but that had degenerated into full-contact bloodsports, eagerly hurting each other to avenge perceived injustices on or off the field, or to simply vent frustration. Carried to the point of jeopardizing mission readiness with the manpower drain due to injury, those sports are now prohibited. Only running and volleyball are the "authorized physical activities" and volleyball is being scrutinized for the amounts of mysterious accidental contacts that result in bleeding.

Cardgames and chess continue their rise in popularity, with informal championships held throughout the companies, but they still can't erase the undercurrent of fear and anger. All this is clear to our officers and the growing number of units entering the theatre, so much so that the Army dispatched a team of psychoanalysts to ascertain the depths of our situation. Our entire 4th Airborne Infantry Battalion endured a week of scrutiny. Afterwards, we learned their findings were twofold; when we go to war send these guys first, and until then keep them separate from the rest of the Army.

We're beginning to feel ugly.

I'm acutely aware of the situation, but powerless to change it. Certainly I can force myself to greater interaction, attempting to occupy my mind with details rather than the situation, but that is much easier said than done, when surrounded by literally nothing and faced with soldiers just as surly as I am. It's only a matter of enduring it as best as one can. And endure we will, each in our own way enveloped in our private misery, hoping the world will send us forward into battle or back to America, which is becoming only a memory, buried under the mounting drifts of hot sand.

Yesterday, on another hot, still afternoon the everpresent wind strangely quiet and portending another thick sandstorm, our Battalion Commander held another one of his bi-monthly addresses. Gathered by the volleyball pits, the battalion stood in formation, sweating under the sinking sun to listen to the latest word on the situation, once again hoping for a thread to hang on to, anything which would give us an inkling to the future. Again, it was in vain, for he had nothing to give, battalion commanders being a dime a dozen in combat theatres, arenas for the virtual cosmos of General-Officers stars and their infinite arrogance. Able to provide only guidance and example, he could motivate as best he could, although on this day that commander lost a few good troops. 

Exhorting his soldiers towards patience and reticence, he spoke of a long tradition of warriors the 4th Battalion, 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment carried on, of the fortitude that they all displayed, as we Gold Falcons were not the first to campaign in the desert. Tracing our lineage to the such examples of the Afrika Corps, the Italian Army in Ethiopia and Alexander's Macedonians, the commander urged us to emulate them.

"Hey, weren't all those invaders and conquerers?" I caustically whispered to "Auggie Dog", my fellow squad leader and roommate back at Fort Bragg. He stood muttering to my right.

"Hey, your right, Riv"  he whispered hoarsly back, sweat running down the side of his cheek. "Who's macedonia? Is he talking about Alexander the Great?"

"Sure is" I hissed back. "And get this- all those b@$&*^%@$ were thieves, plunderers and rapists. I sure as h=?! don't consider myself part of that group...."

"F~^>!*#@ Nazi's even!" Auggie cut me off. "Well, we are now. He just said so." We started snickering and laughing under our breath.

"You two just shut the F%$# up. Now" a voice growled behind us. It was our Platoon Sergeant:  that man was everywhere. He paused, beads of sweat flew past our faces as he exhaled and them made his way back to the end of the platoon, silently slipping the same way he'd come.

As the Battalion Commander continued his address, smoothly playing on patriotism and naivety, I grew bitter on the tack that had been taken for the continuance of this uncertain venture. Later on when recalling these events, I pinpoint that moment as the one I became a civilian again.


 

Well thank you Bear. I appreciate that. The only writing I do for my profession (Food manufacturing industry- Quality Assurance & Food Safety) is for technical reports, investigations, periodic quality reporting and such, including daily emails.

I've always had a passion for the written language and love to write. It's a real joy to read well-constructed sentences that carry a power all of their own.