The Adventures of Rich and GC: Stories from the Journey Home

When GC and I returned to the states there where many adjustments we had to make. Namely we had to adjust to ourselves. Much of our original personalities where still inside us but there was this alteration that had been made to us that for me at least made me feel, very jumpy. It’s a hard feeling to explain unless you have been through what we had been through. But as I had unfortunately, experienced a very traumatic event some ten years prior to this, I was probably a little more jumpy than the rest of my fellow returnees. But after six months serving in the Persian Gulf area we were finally sent home.



We had arrived in Philadelphia and took a bus to Ft. Meade where we would out process. Those of us that had family come up to welcome us home, got to go off with them, GC was in that group. But many of us had to wait for our families, and I was in that category. So I spent the remainder of the day in the barracks resting, listening to the radio, and attempting to relax and overcome the jet lag. Night finally came and I fell asleep.

During Desert Storm, when the Iraqi’s fired off a Scud missile at us, the Saudi’s would use their air raid sirens to alert everyone to an incoming attack. We had spent many a night getting woken up to the alarms and having to run in to a bunker wearing our NBC gear and then waiting for the all clear before we could go back to our tents and sleep. Now, U.S. Army bases back then would also use their air raid sirens to alert the fire department that they had to scramble and respond to an emergency on base. The barracks we were in at Fort Meade was about one block away from the siren, and so that first morning at about 07:00 the fire department got a call to respond to an emergency. As I lay in my bunk half asleep, the air raid siren went off, I jumped to my feet in a state of hyper-awareness, looking for my NBC gear, machine gun and ammo as I pulled on my uniform.
Well just as I was about to go running down the hall yelling Scud to alert the others, I caught a glimpse of the leaves of a hardwood tree just outside my window, this was the first time since I had returned that I had really looked at a hard wood tree this close-up. The realization slowly sunk in that I was back in the states. I half fell, half sat on the floor as the adrenaline slowly dissipated from my bloodstream, and my heart rate began the slow process of returning to normal. I had to verbally repeat to myself “It’s OK; you’re in the states and your safe”. I must have sat there just starring at the tree for about an hour. It was so green and beautiful. After I got back to a relatively normal state I finished getting dressed and went out to get breakfast. Later that morning when I was back at the barracks all the other guys were each talking about how the siren had made them jump. I told them of my reaction and they all said that if I had gone running down the hallway yelling "Scud" they would have been right behind me looking for the bunker that wasn’t there.
A few months later when I was back at my normal unit, we had a similar incident. We were up at Ft. A.P. Hill for weapons qualification. To wake us up in the morning the NBC NCO walked out to a truck and started honking the horn just like he would if we were under a chemical attack. I woke up in an Army tent on a cot wearing a partial uniform; I flashed back to the desert and started frantically looking for my gas mask. After about 30 seconds of desperately looking for it I yelled out “Fuck-it! You didn’t issue me a mask so I’ll just stay here and die!”. But then I ran out the tent only to discover I was not in the desert. As I walked back in to the tent re-adjusting to reality, the rest of the platoon, which had not been deployed for Desert Storm, stared at me worriedly but said nothing. After I calmed down, one of my team members asked if I was OK, and everyone was still staring at me. So I smiled and explained I had just had a flash back but I would be OK. They all relaxed shook their heads and went about their business getting ready for the day. The other Gulf War Veterans in the unit all said they had had a similar experience that morning. Our NBC NCO, himself a Gulf War Veteran, was not a well liked man from that point on.

Acronyms:
NBC Nuclear Biological Chemical
NCO Non Commissioned Officer
Copyright William T. Richards 2010

The Adventures of Rich and GC: Lima Bravo Sierra

At one point just before the start of the ground war in Desert Storm my team had been ordered to recon the local area. The idea was that we should follow the road back west from where we were and familiarize ourselves with the terrain. Mind you this part of the Saudi desert was flat and featureless. The road is about the only land mark there is. Now just before we deployed to Saudi Arabia our supply sergeant turned down an opportunity to order GPS’s for each of the teams as he figured we wouldn’t get them anyway, but the one he did order we got and they kept it in the Command Post. This left us to use our military map and dead reckoning to figure out where we were. Again as I said, the part of the Saudi desert we were in was flat and featureless.
We pulled off the road about 20 miles away from our camp and traveled south for about 5 miles or so and then turned back east. After a while some sand berms and some odd shapes on the ground came into view. As we pulled up to the shapes we realized that these were the spent first stages of rockets from an MRLS. Seeing as we were to report any thing out of the ordinary we called it in. Our command post asked us to give our position so we guesstimated 20 miles out, five miles south, and two miles back. Not happy with our location report the CP told us to give proper grid coordinates. Well obviously without a GPS we couldn’t, everywhere we looked was flat horizon, and we told them that. They continued to demand that we fix our location. At this point even Sgt Keefer was getting annoyed with the CP and regretted calling in the report. The request for us to report our position was so ludicrous that I finally suggested we call our grid coordinate as Lima, Bravo, Sierra, which in military speak means Lost Bigger than S***. Three times we had to repeat our position and twice the radio operator did not understand what we were saying. He kept trying to tell us that we were not sending a proper military grid coordinate. Finally after the third repeat the First Sergeant grabbed the mike at the CP and said "OK guys I understand, buy the way you may be between the launchers and the boarder so you should turn off your radio so that you don’t get targeted by the missiles do you understand?"
To which we replied “Rodger, Out" and then turned our radio off, and proceeded home.
I'm told that they continued to try and raise us for a good 15 minutes after we were told to turn off our radio.

Copyright William T. Richards 2009

The Adventures of Rich and GC: A Slight Flight Delay

At O-Dark thirty on the morning of our departure from Ft. Meade Maryland to Saudi Arabia, Joe and I got in to our hummer, started up the engine and waited for the rest of the convoy to start moving. After a while the convoy started to pull away, Joe let loose the break and gave it some gas. As we started to make our first turn, Joe suddenly starts a frantic dance in his seat as the hummer continued to move straight. "Oh shit I forgot to unlock it!" he exclaimed. After a brief pause, he gets his keys out of his pocket and unlocks the cable holding the steering wheel in place. We have a good laugh as he starts us moving again, but I had to sit there and wonder... was that a good omen or a bad one?
In the end I think it was a bit of both, nothing went as smoothly as it could have, but we did seem to manage a decent sense of humor through out operations Desert Shield/Storm. Whenever things went a bit astray, I would see the humor in it, no mater how bizarre.


Copyright 2009 William T. Richards

The Adventures of Rich and GC: Pissing Contest!

At one point during our deployment while we were patrolling the perimeter of KKMC, GC relayed a story he had read in a book. The book was about the French foreign legion and one man’s adventures there in. Anyhow, the guy in the book spent about a chapter explaining what the biggest time wasters were, while out on a mission. The number one waster of time was apparently, taking a piss. The guy said if you went to take a piss and if the process took you less than two minutes, you were wasting your time, and you were better off trying to hold your piss for as long as possible so you could spend your time doing something else.
So what does a soldier with “lots” of newly freed up time on his hands do while out on patrol? Well if he is anything like the platoon I was in, he and his buds start a pissing contest. And anything as "fun" as this was, requires an agreed upon set of rules, just like the ones we created. Now hopefully after 18 years, I can remember the rules we operated under:

The 1991 first ever 372 Mp CO, 4th platoon’s pissing contest rules.
:1. Contestants must produce a steady continuous stream.
:2. The stream must be witnessed by someone who is timing the stream.
:3. The individual who can produce the longest timed interval of an unbroken stream has bragging rights.

Well, I am proud to say that I did manage a time of about three minutes, GC got 3 and a half, but Rat (Ronald A. Thrasher) managed an astounding time of 4 minutes and 35 seconds. Rat managed this feat by drinking water all night long and holding it until he could stand it no more. However, several of us still thought we could break the record and most of us in the platoon were obsessed with timing ourselves.
Then, one day in the town of Khafji, near the Kuwaiti border, Joe and I witnessed an event that had us absolutely stunned. As we stopped to eat launch and monitor vehicle traffic passing through the town a family of camels also stopped at a nearby median to eat some grass. Then the baby of the family, this little camel that was not much bigger than Joe or myself, started to pee.

And pee…

And pee…

After about a minute Joe and I stopped talking and just sat there mesmerized as this little camel continued to pee…

Two minuets…

Four minuets…

Six minutes…

I can’t remember the exact amount of time that that little camel managed to produce a continuous stream, but I believe the time exceeded 8 minutes and was approaching 9 minutes before he broke his stream. And after breaking his stream he continued on for a long time after that. Stunned, Joe and I looked at each other, amazed at how long that little camel managed. We passed the word on to the others in the platoon and well, several months of collective obsession and pass time had come to an end.

Copyright 2009 William T. Richards

The Adventures of Rich and GC: Time Warp

During operation Desert Shield/ Storm our unit’s operational tempo was very heavy. Our platoon was split in to two groups, one working night shift and one working the day shift. We would go out on patrol right after the 6:00 meal drive out to the patrol area for about half an hour to an hour, and meet up with the other crew we were replacing. We would then discuss whatever the squad leaders needed to discuss, and then patrol the area for 12 hours. This went on and on for a couple of months without a break as we waited for our orders to move up closer to the front. After each patrol period we would then do the reverse of our morning’s trade off and then if we were on night shift we would also take care of the shit detail. Clean up and then get something to eat and go to sleep. The odd thing was that because of the latitude of our location, sunrise and sunset always happened at about 6:30, AM or PM and thus meal time was always in the same amount of light.

When the shooting started we would frequently get woken up by SCUD alerts and have to run to the bunkers. This had the effect of causing us to lose even more sleep. At that point that on any given day during the first month of Desert Storm, we were awake ~18 hours a day and slept whenever we could manage it.

It was during this grind, without a day off for several months that GC had an odd experience. One night at the end of our shift we walked into our tent to drop our gear, and then went to the mess tent for some food. When he was in our tent GC undid his web gear, and laid back on his bunk only meaning to take a quick cat nap. When we came back from the mess tent we noticed GC was fast asleep on his cot with his legs hanging off the edge and his feet still in his boots, on the floor. We tried half heartedly to roust him so he could get some food but to no avail. That night we did not have a scud alert and all of us got a good six hours or so of rest. When we got up, GC’s driver, Sgt Durham kicked GC and said “Hey you better go over to the mess tent and get some food.” So GC got up and walked down to the mess tent. He Got his tray and stared at it for a while with this odd look on his face.

He told me a few years later, that to him he had only laid down for a few seconds. Thus he was wondering why we were having scrambled eggs for dinner. However, as we had always been given such odd meals, he really didn’t think too much of it. It was not until he started to take off his boots and uniform to go to bed that Sgt Durham broke the spell by yelling at him for not being ready to go out on patrol. It was then he realized he was the victim of a sleep induced time warp.

(c) 2009 William T. Richards

The Adventures of Rich and GC: Meeting the Mujahideen at the Pelennor Fields

Just after the Kuwait had been liberated we moved up to the border of Kuwait near the town of Kafjii, a battle had occurred there and the debris of combat was everywhere. The smoke from the oil fires was the thickest we had seen yet, and as we approached the border I had an eerie feeling of dejavu. We stopped to get our bearings and as I looked out upon the desert, a dark tower faded in and out of the smoke. I was immediately reminded of the scene just before the battle of Pelennor Fields in the Lord of the Rings.

Did I mention it was eerie?

Well as we were waiting for our leaders to figure out where we were, a group of Muslim militia came up and attempted to communicate with us. I think they were just curious about us and wanted to see some Americans for themselves.
So we attempted to talk and of course nothing could be communicated as neither of our groups had a translator. However, we did manage to get two things out of them. They were Mujahideen from Afghanistan, and they hated Russians.

Now it is easy to assume that they hated Russians, but they let us know it in no uncertain terms. Their leader said the word "Russians" as he made a slicing motion with his finger across his neck. We laughed and smiled at this to which they knew we also did not like the Russians(Soviets at the time), and I simply said to them "Insha Allah" which I believe means "God willing" and they smiled even bigger and waved as we parted ways.

copyright 2009 William T. Richards

The Adventures of Rich and GC: Stick to the Road and Beware the Oil Fires at Night

So one evening after the shooting had stopped,we had started to calm down and settle in at the Kuwait International Airport (KIA), I had noticed that I was feeling kind of angst ridden. I could feel every part of my body as though it was all tingling, except for my brain. It was an odd sensation; I had full awareness of my body except for my brain. Anyhow, when I told GC about this he said I needed to go take a walk. It took some convincing but he managed to get me to go for a walk with him.
We told our squad leaders what we were doing. We grabbed a pistol and wandered off to follow the hard top away from the camp towards the oil fires that were only a mile or two away from the camp, but still very loud and bright. We were talking about nothing in particular and started joking about the unexploded ordinance that was likely on the ground where we were. At one point one of us picked up a rock and threw it out in to the desert, not knowing if we were next to a mine field or not. We were so stressed out that we kind of didn’t care if we would set off a land mine or not. However, as we waited for the rock to hit the ground we started to laugh, a maniacal insane sort of laugh. We enjoyed that so much they we continued to do it from time to time as we walked and talked about the things we had seen, done and expected to happen.

At one point we noticed some tracer rounds snaking up through the sky, headed towards us. It was a long ways off, but it was hard to tell just how far off it was due to the nature of the desert. So not being in the right frame of mind we just stood there watching the rounds come closer, fizzle out and... Well it was at about that point that GC said “If one of those rounds hits me I’m going to be pissed”.

“Me too” I replied, and we watched as more rounds snaked up into the air, headed our way. I grabbed up another rock and threw it in to the dirt near us hoping to hit a mine. GC started laughing as we turned our backs on the tracers, and continued our walk. It started to get very dark but our way was lit by the fires in the distance, and we continued to talk about whatever was on our minds. The scene was like something out of a movie. In fact the move that closely resembled that night was American Werewolf in London, where the main character and his friend are walking away from a small town out on the Moors. Those two friends had been given the advise to stick to the road and beware the full moon. I was relaying the movie to GC when I got to the part about sticking to the road. For us the road meant safety from land mines, unexploded ordinance and the fastest way back to the camp. Astonishingly, just as I told him this part of the movie we noticed that the oil fires had gotten very bright and had blinded us somewhat, when we looked down we realized we had wandered off the road and out in to the dirt, and just like in the movie, we could not see the road.

Standing still we turned away from the fires and waited a few minutes as our eyes readjusted to the light. With luck GC was able to spot our foot prints and then the road. Shielding, our eyes and laughing as we walked, we made it back on to the hard top, and walked back to the camp without incident. Whenever, I see American Werewolf in London I think back on that night, and how far over the edge the two of us had been and the return to sanity that we each had made.

copyright 2009 William T. Richards

The Adventures of Rich and GC: The Lost Boys

My Army buddy, GC and I got stuck in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia after desert storm had ended. We were left behind by our unit to drive our vehicles into storage when a spot opened up. For two weeks we "Languished" waiting for time to pass with nothing to do and nowhere to go. I must have stared at the ceiling of that convention center we were put in, for about 80% of the time I was awake.
That level of boredom plays severe tricks on the mind. Anyhow, one day I realized that I needed to do something to break the spell, so I got up and started to go for a jog.

I felt better.

Two days later GC was still where I had been, on his cot staring at the ceiling. I'm not sure why but I dragged him out of his cot and made him go jogging with me. After a few days he started feeling better as well. His sense of humor had returned and he referred to us as the lost boys. Specifically: “Rich and GC the Lost boys! You may not like us but your daughters will!” Once he said that, I knew he and I were out of the dark woods that our lives had become.

Although it seemed like an eternity, just a few days later we moved our vehicles to the last place we would ever see them, and then prepared to go home. Now our return was not uneventful either, but I’ll save those stories for another time.

copyright 2009 William T. Richards