Key to understanding what life was like in the US Army is the realization that, for the average GI, going off to war is a relief and a welcome diversion from the monotony and regimented busywork of garrison life. Perhaps someday I'll write up a lengthy listing of what life was like for me in Germany pre-Jan 2003, before we shipped out to Kuwait. If you want to see a video of us doing Engineer training in Grafenwoehr, click here. For now I'll focus on the "Highlights" from the war.

I broke up with my 18-month German girlfriend in September 02. The US was in Afghanistan & the rumors were flying about Iraq. Everyone wanted to go, but we were scheduled to go to Bosnia instead. October we were given the official green light. We packed all of our vehicles like mad dogs in the snow in less than two weeks, railed them all up to Antwerp for cargo ship to Kuwait.
We(Charlie Co) were the only ones activated, based on our stellar record in training at Grafenwoehr so we were given carte blanche by our colonel to "appropriate" anything needed from any other vehicles. We "appropriated" damn near everything, nailed down or not. I vividly recall Bravo Co's A&O(Assault & Obstacle) Platoon Sergeant snarling at me for removing the U-bolts holding his 15,000lb MIKLIC rocket box to the trailer. "Sorry Sergeant," I said, "just see the Colonel". Ah, the good old days.
The rest of the battalion was activated a week later, then we helped them load their(stripped) vehicles for a further two weeks.
Then we lounged around for another month of false alarms before finally getting the go-ahead to fly. We kept busy, getting all our checkups, wills, shots, loading our cars in storage, trading schlampes, trying to drink Bamberg dry, etc. I remember feeling extremely satisfied to hear 82nd Engineers(the "competing" Engineer Bttn on our base) grumbling about having to guard the base during the German winter without us.

We arrived late at night and took a bus into the middle of the desert to Camp Virginia, our new home for the next month or so. Here we prepped for the possibility of war. There was still no confirmation whether there would be one. Even though it was January, I was only comfortable outside at night, when the heat subsided to mere oven-like intensity. During the day we sweated our balls off.

We spent the first few weeks getting used to "Desert Life". Disheartening experiences were routine, like waiting two hours for food in the heat of the day, only to find that the AC in the chow hall was only half functioning. Have you ever tried to eat at temperatures over 130?
Not that the food was much to get excited about anyway.
We never exercised but all started losing a lot of weight anyway.

After two weeks of enjoying the company of 100 other sweaty, pissed-off men in one big tent, I was overjoyed to finally greet my dear "Battle Buddy" George Peterson, Perpetual Specialist(tho I hear he finally "got his 5" recently). I gave him the grand tour; "This is the two-hour chow hall line, this is the the two-hour PX line, these tubs are where we do our own laundry, your company's shower time is 0400-0600, these portapoties will be your new friend. You didn't bring any TP, you say? Tsk tsk". I wore a mark into my left side BDU thigh pocket from the roll of portable TP I carried everywhere. Here's a picture our German buddy Kim put together to show George on vacation in Kuwait:
Shortly after George arrived a company-sized(100 men) contingent was assembled from the four companies in the battalion and sent down south to "the Port" to unload vehicles. Most of the crew was from C Co, as we had been "in country" most and therefore could spare the time, it was figured. The soldiers who were picked from each company were those deemed least useful so of course George and I went. We were initially dismayed at the prospect of actual work, but it turned out to be an absolutely fantastic experience, one I look back on with vast pride and accomplishment. Once the boat was ready the system worked like this: We would catch a ride in or on top of anything going to the port. The boat(It was a huge commercial freighter) crew would unchain the vehicles, then drive them down to the staging area. Upon our arrival, we would leap out of the still-moving transport vehicle and race each other to the most interesting-looking vehicle and then further race each other along a remote Kuwaiti highway until we got to the Motor Pool Yard. Tracked vehicles had to wait to be loaded up on HETTs, big flatbeds, then they were dropped off at the yard. Once in the Yard, our route went a few miles back behind the massed vehicles across a hugely rutted sand track that we naturally hurtled our poor charges across at top speed. I recall catching "serious air" in an M113 over one slight rise. If the vehicle belonged to an evil-headed SOB in another company we might take certain liberties with the paint, or stored tools, or we might just play Bumper Tanks. Come to think of it, they were all SOBs.

There was a lot of "mixed company" at the Port. Marines, Air Force(God I loved their latrine trailers!), British and other Coalition soldiers. I talked to one older British fellow, to direct him to where he could get a cup of tea. Since he had a big crown on his rank-strap I gave him a salute, and he returned it, in the humorous British fashion. When I started calling him "Sir" though, he had to correct me. "The big crown's for a Sergeant Major, the little crown means a Major. Shows the relative importance." I told him that, while we were on the subject, he probably shouldn't call me "Sir" either and he said "I thought you were a touch young for a Colonel" pointing out the eagle on my Specialist "Teardrop". "So why did we salute each other?" I asked with a smile. "That's OK lad, I was just keepin the sun out of me eyes."

Re-acquaintance with the rest of the battalion up North was very anti-climactic. We downloaded our vehicles,
worked on our vehicles(conveniently painted German Green for the desert environment), held classes on techniques for desert warfare, turned more wrenches, practiced tactical driving and fixed our vehicles some more. To get a good idea of what life in the kind of situation is like, read this essay on How to Deploy.
ACE squad Tactical Driving practice
It's difficult to convey with pictures the otherworldly-ness of the Kuwaiti landscape.
Look over Busch's shaved head at the horizon.
Camp Virginia(and the identical nearby camps that we later moved to) was a square patch of desert about 5 miles by 5 miles, surrounded by a man-high dirt berm. There was no running water or paved roads or solid buildings. Everything was in a tent with a generator the volume of a screaming jet engine parked immediately outside. The dust got everywhere and, if you walked a ways away from the "company AO" (Area of Operations), you could look around and see damn near nothing. The berms were so far away, the mirages so strong, the ground so barren, it really reminded me of what I figured the moon would look like. To walk from our AO to the chow hall took 30 minutes, the PX was a hour away. I thought that the movie Jarhead(about Gulf War I) did a good job of showing the barren landscape of Kuwait.

The sandstorms were horrendous. At times it became almost dangerous to go out at night. Even with a flashlight you couldn't see more than a few feet. The wind would carry plywood into the air.

We had gas attack drills every few hours. A sentry would run from tent to tent and yell "gas!" We'd have to throw on our gas masks and wait in our tents until the all clear came. Lying in a pool of sweat with a gas mask on for a half hour was not much fun at all.

As an ACE Operator, I was issued an M9 Baretta 9mm pistol, three magazines and 45 rounds. This was very convenient while training back in Germany or while in Kuwait, as everyone else had to carry their unwieldy weapons everywhere. The big guys had to carry a huge, 30lb, 4-feet-long "240-Bravo" machinegun, as well as their own pistol and whatever else gear(You learned to get out of these guys' way when passing them in the tent). Unfortunately, as the possibility for war loomed ever more likely, the six of us in ACE squad started to wonder if we wouldn't rather have a bit more firepower in our hands.

I worked hard to prep my ACE so that no bags or gear obstructed my 360-degree view from the hatch. Two other newbies didn't, then after we were ambushed in As Samawah they threw their bags into their ACEs' bowls(the open area in front that was used to scoop up dirt) so they could have a clear view. One then blew a hydraulic line and drowned his personal gear in oil. Another slung his ruck alongside his ACE & had all his clothes ventilated by the Hadjis. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to keep anyone from easily climbing up on my ACE's rear deck, and we all tried to figure out what to do if stranded in the desert. Before we left, odds were that only 50% of the ACEs would make it, that's how unreliable they were. Turned out that five of the six persevered.

Now here are a few examples of what bored soldiers do. Stupid things. Just in our camp we had numbers of pre-war casualties. There was a guy who decided to hit a .50 caliber round with a hammer. He lost his hand. One of our own guys stabbed himself in the head while trying to open his food. Standing in line for chow, we'd hear a bang when someone's weapon went off accidentally. A tank ran someone over in the middle of the night. Stupid stuff. This was in contrast to the "normal" shit that went down, like SPC Coster threatening his squadmate with a loaded weapon resulting in all of us having to turn in our rounds for a week before we were deemed adult enough to play with our toys. I was (now Private) Coster's Squad Leader at the time and, for my sin of not reading the little turd's mind, had to accompany him in directing traffic in the motorpool for a week while wearing a sign saying "Please run me over".

We were also each issued a wooden crate filled with Claymores, C4, flares, Det-cord and other fun stuff. Only problem was that we were required to store this crate on our back deck, where a casually-tossed grenade would roll right up against it.

As the probability of war neared, we staged further and further north along the Iraq border. We must have shifted camp five times. The first three spots were camps identical to Camp Virginia. Halfway through February though, we shifted to "Ready Positions" near the border, with only tents for OPS (Operations) and the PX a distant 5 miles away. I remember driving my ACE(Armored Combat Earthmover, basically a fast, armored bulldozer that constantly hemorrhaged hydraulic fluid) with three squadmembers bouncing around in the "bowl" in front for miles through the desert and being utterly amazed to come across AAFES(Army Air Force Exchange Service) civilian employees staffing an air-conditioned trailer full of stuff for sale at ridiculously low prices. I remember thinking that the US Army has too much money and bought a case of Mountain Dew, which definitely came in handy later. The first four times we moved, we did it in huge convoys...in the middle of a sandstorm. Here's a pic, but as it was taken at the beginning of the storm it doesn't do the experience justice. Imagine driving a 20-ton car in convoy through sand that hides anything more than 50 feet away.
(Note the snappy thigh-holster. Everyone else with a 9mm had the shitty issue-holster. At one point my 1st Sergeant tried to buy my holster for $100 but I wouldn't have sold it for $1000.)

The second dust-storm was so bad that I couldn't see the ground in front of my track and so just stopped, buttoned up and waited it out. Turned out half of the convoy had done the same. How do the Beduins survive?

The last time we moved there apparently wasn't a handy sandstorm available to cover our movements from Iraqi spies, what a pity. This time we spread way out in our final, "Attack Postions", which meant no trailer stores, apparently. We lived on our vehicles, and as there were no latrines, we learned to be very careful when stepping around another's track. Looking back, I was pretty lucky to have my own ride. The Line Platoons were 8 grunts to an M113. I honestly can not imagine it.

Considering the wonderful Kuwaiti Spring weather, we tried to do as little as possible. On a typical day, we would move our seats around the vehicle to get any possible sun, except at noon when we could do nothing but curse our recruiter. I had brought my laptop and an inverter but after we left the last of the camps I steadfastly refused my squadmate's pleas to watch a movie. I sent illicit text messages to a girl I had met right before leaving, back in the Land of the Deutscheys, and re-read my little library. We bet non-existent beers on fights between Kuwaiti wildlife.
About March 12th, we each got two pairs of desert-camo DCU uniforms. We all frantically blew the dust off our sewing kits and commenced to rip up our BDUs for their name tapes, rank & unit markings, which we sewed onto the new DCUs, extremely inexpertly. Nattily attired, we were chagrined to find out that we had to wear our heavy, almost-impermeable and very much "Woodland-camo" MOPP suits over our new uniforms that we had slaved over so much. The MOPP suits had the effect of raising our body temperatures approx 10 degrees. They were so impermeable that I couldn't smell my squadmates when I passed by them. After two shower-less weeks, that means something! This explains the heavy, green suit that we all seem to be wearing during the first phase of the war, as well as our pissed-off expressions. I will say that the uniforms were very useful and I really loved the boots. I wore these same boots three years later when my buddy & I rode our motorcycles through Mexico. See Baja and Back.

Just as we were finishing up the sewing, our company Commander, Captain Wilson showed up and took pictures of each man and woman next to their vehicles. He told us he was going to put something on the web when all this was done, but we found out later it was to help identify any unrecognizable corpses.

SPC Mathews with friend
Look Out--women in combat! SGT Nixon in her track, wearing MOPP suit.

1st PLT, 2nd Squad shows their colors. (The last word was originally "Pussy!")

The author, smiling all gay-n-shit with his shovel and mighty M9 on his valiant steed
Cpt Wilson was a great commander--A hell of an inspirational, competent leader--I've nothing but respect for him and our First Sergeant, 1st Sarge Chepinik.

I wish my squad leader and platoon sergeant had been as good. I probably wouldn't have been tempted to unload a clip in them every time they turned their backs. But I'm not bitter.

Here's 1st Platoon discussing The Plan.

Containers of powdered gatorade to flavor the otherwise repugnant bottled water were going for $10 or 3x what they cost at the PX. During this time I was still able to occasionally use the internet & send an email or two. At night I would walk the two miles to the OPS tent belonging to 3/7 Cav, the tanker/Bradley unit we were supporting to plug in my laptop. At night it was really quite pleasant.

Finally, on the evening of March 18th(I believe), we listened to the general in charge of the Cav tell us we were at war. Click here to see what happened next.


Note: I realize that some of the date stamps of these photos are incorrect. The guy who took some of them(my 1st Sergeant), didn't set his camera right part of the time. Also I used pix to show the scene, even if the actual picture was taken later.