eXecute!: An Unorthodox Memoir of a Gen-X Soldier in the Gulf War

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Introduction

March 8, 1991

This might have been a scenic desert highway at one time. I closed my eyes for a minute and tried to imagine some normality as our truck convoy moved slowly south avoiding both bomb craters and debris. The jarring ride in the back of a deuce-and-a-half with 12 other soldiers from my unit seemed unending. My daydreams were constantly interrupted by the sudden bumps and the high-pitched squeal of the turbo-charged diesel motor.

After a while, our truck reached a hardball road and we started heading south towards Kuwait City. The truck picked up speed and we were now traveling faster towards our destination: the Kuwait International airport.

Basra highway 8, renamed the highway of death by the media, was wall-to-wall devastation. All types of vehicles were piled atop each other for two to three miles along both sides of the road. Some buses, trucks, and a few Russian built T-55 tanks. But most shocking of all was a rather sterile looking child car seat amongst the carnage and lying next to charred carcass of a Chevrolet Caprice station wagon.

The sky was filled with black oily clouds creating a false dusk. On the horizon surrounding Kuwait City, hundreds of oil wells burned day after day. A few Iraqi corpses lay scattered about. Their rotting, bloated bodies just lying exposed to flies and insects. It was just so surreal.

As our convoy continued toward Kuwait City, we saw numerous locals wearing traditional garb. The Kuwaiti men looked like sissies. When we drove by, they would wave to us and cheer happily. A couple of black soldiers from my unit kept yelling hi ladies to every group of Kuwaiti men we passed.

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Somewhere along the way, our convoy paused just long enough to take a piss break. The sergeant in charge reminded us that it wasn’t a good idea to touch anything or pick up souvenirs. Of course nobody listened to his orders, and we all fanned out to look for Iraqi army war-booty that we could stash in our pockets.

Charred Iraqi corpse, partially buried. Note the revolver by his left hand.

A soldier in my unit was jabbing an Iraqi corpse in the back of his head with a pole. A small crowd of soldiers formed for the macabre puppet show, which included some ventriloquism by the guy moving the pole. The body was badly charred and had a terrible stench. When the sergeant ordered everyone back on the truck, a few soldiers frantically searched their cargo pockets for a camera to take a few memorable photos.

Total destruction along the highway of death. 3AD's calling card.

As the first day of our two-day trip came to an end, we arrived at the nearly besieged Kuwait City International Airport. I saw aircraft hangars that lay demolished by retreating Iraqis, civilian vehicles stripped of useful parts and private offices pillaged and ransacked. A lone Kuwaiti Airlines 747 jumbo jet was lying in ashes on the tarmac- only the engines and tail section were recognizable. When the truck stopped we all dismounted and walked into an abandoned office building that would serve as our home for the night. Some soldier with a sense of humor hung a cardboard sign outside the office reading, Bates Motel. After three long hard months in the desert, I was halfway to my well-deserved four days of R & R in Bahrain. It was a time to relax, rest, and reflect.....

A lieutenant at the airport called a quick formation and told us that we could sleep anywhere we found space, but we were not allowed into his unit’s dining facilities, showers or latrine areas. He was a first-class jackass who flaunted his authority. It was painfully obvious that he spent the entire war in the rear and his ego was getting a good stroking by bossing us around. The guys in my unit were very filthy and exhausted. The combat cease-fire was called just 6 days earlier. We suffered a couple months without a hot shower or a warm meal. We had just come off 45 days of round the clock combat operations and the last thing we wanted to hear was some pansy-assed LT dictate how we should behave at his fucking airport.

Someone coughed while the LT continued his briefing, belting out the word R.E.M.F, just as it sounds. R.E.M.F. was a Rear Echelon Mother Fucker as it is known in the military. The LT stopped talking for a moment in disbelief and glared in the direction of the comment. It was an awkward moment of silence, broken only by someone else mumbling in ranks how they wanted to kill the LT. If you guys don’t show me respect as an officer, I’ll send you back to your units right now! he threatened us. That comment, coming from this little pencil-dick struck a nerve in everyone, and simultaneously, the entire formation broke out in spontaneous laughter.

The LT dismissed us and shrunk back inside his clean quarters. I picked up our gear and wandered through the ransacked offices with the others. We found what appeared to be an executive boardroom on the fourth floor. Papers covered the floors and hallways. A couple other soldiers from an infantry company were already spread out and invited us to share their space for the evening. We sat back, smoked a few cigarettes, and swapped stories about the past six weeks of war.

In the morning, we woke up and looked for running water, but there wasn’t any. It was the first morning that we didn’t have stand-to, so we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves. Some other R.E.M.F. who was stationed at the airport told us that we needed to leave the building and fall into another formation outside for a head count. Our C-130 had just arrived and we were going to be leaving very soon. Everyone rushed outside except a few of us who took our time rolling our sleeping bags and stowing our gear.

We soon caught up with the other guys from our unit as they began to march onto the tarmac and board a waiting C-130 transport. The flight on the C-130 was about an hour and was rather noisy; it was the first time I had been on one of these aircraft. We then landed in Dammam and waited for the busses right on the tarmac next to the plane. The group going to R&R in Bahrain was growing as more planes arrived. There were some Marines that had been dropped off prior to our arrival. They insisted that they get seats on the first bus. Expletives flew. The shouting match between Army and Marines continued when the first bus arrived, and it was obvious there was no way in hell we could all fit on it. Moreover, since we were left to our own devices, and there wasn’t anyone higher than the rank of Sergeant amongst us, there wasn’t any order to whom got on the bus first. It was an absolute anarchy as young soldiers and Marines pushed and shoved each other for a seat on the only bus.

Just before the anger erupted into a total brawl, two more busses arrived. I climbed into the oldest of the three busses that I thought would take us directly to the party ship docked in Bahrain. Such was not the case. The old Arab driver passed the exit to our island get-a-way and drove instead to Al Khobar, a housing development and military post in Saudi Arabia. His feebleness and slow driving already had us boiling mad. We were screaming at the top of our lungs, Bahrain! Take us to Bahrain!

As we entered the large housing complex at Al Khobar, the bus driver made too wide of a turn and ran the bus onto a curb. Then the engine stalled. The old driver tried in vain to restart the engine, but the carburetor was hopelessly flooded. We started throwing our plastic water bottles at the back of his head, yet the bus driver never turned around or showed any anger. He just kept trying to start the engine and mumbled or quietly prayed to himself in Arabic. After a couple of minutes of utter frustration, we all bailed out emergency exits and windows. A couple soldiers climbed on top of the roof to throw our duffel bags down to the rest of us. We headed down the street on foot like an angry mob looking to lynch someone. We had no fucking clue where we were going.

It wasn’t long before we spotted the other busses and what appeared to be a staging area. Yep, another staging area. Another head count and another hurry-up and wait.

After a couple hours, we boarded yet another bus and we were finally on the way to Bahrain. By nightfall, I boarded the Cunard Princess, which was docked at an American naval center for the pure enjoyment of U.S. soldiers and Marines on R&R. I was assigned to a room with two other guys, but they were nowhere to be found. I unpacked my only set of