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Drop those nose hair clippers, soldier!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Airline flight attendants wouldn’t be ignored during their pre-flight safety briefings if they could perform like Lt. Col. John King — or at least use his stage props.
Speaking to 280 fellow soldiers before they boarded a chartered DC-10 at the start of their marathon flight from Savannah to Kuwait City earlier this week, King was thunderous, blunt and well armed with an M-16 rifle slung over his shoulder.
“Interfering with a flight crew is a serious crime,” he told them. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t be a moron. Don’t even joke about going to Havana. That’s not where we’re headed today.”
King, who in civilian life is the Doraville police chief, rolled his eyes at the FAA regulation that requires soldiers — all of whom were armed with an arsenal of assault rifles, shotguns and pistols — to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters.
“If you have any of those things,” he said, almost apologetically, “put them in this box now.”
Nearly every seat on the all-coach Omni Air International plane was full.
The few seats that weren’t were crammed with backpacks, helmets and other bulky equipment that wouldn’t fit in the already jam-packed overhead bins.
A few dozen mostly low-ranking soldiers were promised first-class accommodations for volunteering to load the belly of the plane with a couple of truckloads of heavy equipment.
When they got onboard, they saw they had been hoodwinked.
There was no first class.
If anything, their 10-abreast seats were even more confining because they were packed into an even narrower space.
“I can’t believe I volunteered for baggage detail,” one sweaty soldier said.
“You didn’t volunteer,” another told him.
“Good.”
Timely tips to combat the heat and sand
Combat veterans talk about the war some.
But with newcomers, they mostly talk about personal hygiene.
Baby wipes and anti-fungal powder are essential to surviving the war.
A few other helpful hints:
Wear face covers like the locals to protect the head and neck from wind-driven dust bombardments. Even the good guys wear masks around here.
Drink warm drinks, not cold ones.
The cold ones fool your body into thinking it’s cool. It’s not. There’s a reason the Arabs drink hot tea year-around.
Wear long sleeves to protect from wind and sun burn.
Helmets and body armor even in Kuwait
Once plane began its descent into Kuwait, the mood aboard turned somber.
There was no cheering, only silence, as the plane swept over the hazy gulf and past the skyline of beachfront hotels and towering minarets that mark the oil-rich gulf state.
The ramp resembled a U.S. military base with hulking C-5 Galaxy transports, bulbous C-17 Globemasters and numerous prop-driven C-130 Hercules aircraft.
There was no official greeting from Kuwait. An American contractor instructed the soldiers to wear their helmets and body armor, get into the waiting buses and keep the shades drawn.
The war in Iraq is quite controversial here, and the unarmored buses were vulnerable to attack — even in a country some of these same soldiers helped rescue from an Iraqi takeover 14 years ago.
Poor accommodations standard for Guard
National Guard soldiers say they’re accustomed to second-class treatment, and that’s good, because they’re getting it.
Unlike the relatively plush accommodations at Camp Doha or the larger American facilities here, the 48th Brigade took up residence in Camp Buehring. It’s a sprawling tent city of about 10,000. But it seems smaller due to the vastness of the desert that surrounds it.
It’s a moonscape of rocks, sand, and a ubiquitous chalky dirt that clogs noses and eyes and paints everyone and everything in a filthy tan film.
That doesn’t mean there are no luxuries. The soldiers can take showers (hot water is easy to get due to the constant heat but cold water is harder to come by), the cafeteria serves four meals a day (the last one at midnight), and there’s a Burger King, Subway, Pizza Inn, doughnut shop, laundry and a post office, although the Georgia soldiers expect to be gone by the time a letter mailed today would arrive.
Soldiers exercise at night because running in the heat of the day would be suicidal.
The temperature this time of the year commonly reaches 110, and yes, it’s a dry heat. But the number doesn’t tell the story of how miserable it is to be a mammal in this environment. Blowing sand stings any exposed skin. Dust fills eyes with tears and penetrates through collars and sleeves. Skin dries and cracks. It’s oppressive — and it’s only May. June, July and August are much worse.
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Comments
By Andrea H.
June 1, 2005 09:56 AM | Link to this
“pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters.”
Maybe we’ve been looking for the wrong REAL weapons of mass destruction all this time.