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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
Pat really didn’t care much for Saudi Arabia, not that he got to see very much that wasn’t barren desert. There was a brief flurry of excitement when they first flew into the country and got off the plane at an airport that didn’t seem to have much around it. Even that degree of civilization didn’t last long; his unit spent the next two months in a dirty, sandy, featureless tent camp at a place most often referred to as “Middle of Fucking Nowhere.” Things like showers were a relative rarity; the place was decidedly lacking in creature comforts.
It wasn’t like they had nothing to do, because they had plenty to do. They had to maintain security and be ready to react if things got busy at the border far to the north of them, and they had to try to live halfway comfortably in the middle of the heat – even in the winter – and the dust and the emptiness. On top of that there was training; Pat had thought they were pretty well trained when they shipped out, but now it was more intense than ever. But with the training came the feeling that they were going to be ready for whatever happened to them.
The only good thing Pat could say about the place – and it was the only good thing – was that if a war broke out there wasn’t going to be much collateral damage to civilians, because there was nothing out there but sand. Even camels, which they’d joked about back in the States, were a rarity.
At least Pat was so busy most of the time that he had little chance to brood about anything. This was, after all, part of the deal with being a soldier. One of the guys in his squad made the comment one night that the Army had hardly ever chosen to fight in a place that was comfortable. Even if they did, it was at a time of the year when it was too hot, too wet, too dry, or too cold to be comfortable. Pat thought he had a point.
However, Pat was comfortable with what he was doing, even though he didn’t give a healthy shit for Saudi Arabia. This was what he’d signed up to do, and he enjoyed the training, the getting ready, the being ready. Very simply, Pat liked the Army, liked the feeling of purpose, liked the training and preparations. He couldn’t say that he would enjoy being in battle, but at least he knew he was going to be ready for it. If it did come to war, at least he’d have a chance to evaluate just how ready he really was.
By the time Christmas had rolled around Pat had pretty well made up his mind that he was going to re-enlist, to stay in the Army. Actually, he’d more or less long since made up his mind to do it, but what he saw in the middle of nowhere, Saudi Arabia just confirmed his choice. This was interesting, maybe even a little exciting at times, and he felt like he was accomplishing something, little though it was. He doubted he’d feel that way if he’d stayed in Bradford.
It would be unfair to say that Cindy never crossed his mind, because she did, although not as often as some might have thought. The night he’d spent with her in the old motel out on the edge of Bradford had been pretty close to a miracle as far as he was concerned. Things like that just didn’t happen to him, but this one time, it had. Still, it wasn’t as if he was eating his heart out about the girl he’d left behind, because he wasn’t. They had, after all, agreed that whatever happened that night ended the next morning, and as far as he was concerned, it had. Still, they’d had a nice kiss before he’d gotten onto the bus over at the truck stop, and they’d promised to write each other once in a while, but there it ended.
It was probably just as well. Maybe it was the history he’d had in Bradford, but Cindy had been several cuts above him back there, and he couldn’t see how anything could possibly be worked out with her in the long run. There was just too much baggage there, even if it was only in his own mind.
Someday, sooner or later, he figured he’d come across a girl he could be comfortable with. At least the night he’d spent with Cindy had settled several other issues in his mind, things like what it would be like to be with a girl. Now, he knew what he was looking forward to in the future, at least in that respect.
But really, once the decision had been made to stay in the Army – although it wasn’t quite final yet – he’d made up his mind that he needed to concentrate on getting good at the job he was supposed to be doing. There was plenty of talk going around that there would probably be quite a bit of downsizing of the Army in the coming years, and the prospects for promotion might not be as good as they had been at one time. He was still a corporal, after all; with re-enlistment, he most likely would make it to sergeant sooner or later, and maybe even further. But with the size of the Army likely to be reduced, he decided that it was important for him to concentrate on making himself as valuable to the service as he could be.
One of the things that impressed him was the inordinate amount of bitching and whining he heard from his fellow troopers about having to be away from their girlfriends, wives, and kids. At least that was a problem that Pat knew didn’t concern him. After all, it wasn’t like he had to do anything in the near future. He couldn’t help but imagine that not having a family to drag around might make him more useful to the Army, and thus allow him a better chance of staying in long enough to retire.
At his age retirement seemed to be a long ways away. He would need twenty years to retire at the lowest level, and he already had three of them in – long years, but enjoyable in their way; so maybe another seventeen didn’t seem quite so impossible. If he got out after twenty years, he’d only be thirty-eight, young enough to have a family, maybe, but he’d still probably have to get a job somewhere to support one. But thirty years – well, there was such a thing that he might actually be able to really retire. Still, that was a hell of a long way off and there was no telling what would happen between now and then.
He was aware that his record in school was crappy, and that he could have done better if he hadn’t been so caught up in the shit from his mother. To make up for it, he thought that maybe he could take some extension college classes, something that would be useful to the Army, not specifically to a civilian life afterwards. That couldn’t hurt his career any.
He knew he needed to talk to someone about all of this, but this was not the time or the place. Maybe after things settled down; it seemed pretty clear that things were going to start up any day now, and everyone was getting on edge about it. Whatever happened, it could change a lot of things. It was a lot to think about, especially since everyone was getting more anxious over the fact that it was obvious the war was getting closer.
Pat was thinking about that in the chow line one day and wondering if the war might change his mind. He’d eaten more MREs than he’d wanted to, but accepted that they came with the territory. At least it looked like they were going to be serving real food tonight; that was something to enjoy.
“Hey, McDonald,” he heard Sergeant Roddy speak up. Roddy was his squad leader, and Pat knew that he planned on staying in, too. Maybe he should talk to him about it some time. “I didn’t see you at mail call.”
“I don’t get mail,” he told Roddy. “At least, I don’t get any mail that I want.”
“Well, you did this time,” Roddy told him, holding out an envelope. “From the handwriting, it looks like some girl.”
“Could be,” Pat said, taking the envelope. “There is one girl who writes to me once in a while.”
“I didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
“I don’t. She’s just a kid I went to school with,” Pat explained with a little bit of a white lie. “I guess she got caught up in one of those ‘write to a soldier’ things.”
“That’s nice, and it’s even nicer if you actually know the person,” Roddy agreed.
Pat took the envelope – yes, it was from Cindy – and stuck it in his pocket; he was getting close to the servers now. He took a tray and got served: meat loaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans. It was not the best meal he’d seen in the Army but several steps up from MREs. The mess facility was small, and they urged you to keep moving, but it wasn’t any problem. The food was all right, and he suspected he’d be seeing enough MREs to suit him before he made it back to the States.
It wasn’t until after he was done eating that he thought of the letter again. He pulled it out, fumbled to get it open, and found a nice handwritten note from Cindy:
Pat,
I hope things are going well for you. From what I can see on TV it could get worse before it gets better, and I hope you’ll come through it all right. I thought I better let you know that Russ and I decided to get back together. There’s a long story on that and I don’t want to bore you with it, but we both decided it was for the best. We wound up having to elope down to Indiana, mostly because we didn’t have a lot of time and everyone would have wanted to make a big deal out of it. We’ll be moving down to Dayton, where Russ has a pretty good job lined up. I don’t know our new address yet, but I will send it when I do. You can write to my old address for now. Just because I’m married now doesn’t mean we have to quit being friends. Russ joins me in sending you our best wishes, and we both really hope you’ll come home all right. Keep in touch, and we’ll try to keep in touch with you.
-- Cindy
Pat really wasn’t sorry to hear the news. He’d been expecting something like that, sooner or later, and had privately hoped she’d get back together with Russ, anyway. They’d been just about the perfect couple back in high school, and it hadn’t seemed right for them to be broken up. Good for them.
He went back to his tent with a little while to kill before sack time. There were a couple guys there shooting the shit, guys who would most likely have been soaking up the beer at an Enlisted Men’s club if they were back at Stewart – they really seemed lost to be in a place where beer was just not to be found. “Anybody got a pen and paper?” he asked. “I need to write a letter.”
“Yeah, let me get something for you,” Ballou, one of the more serious drinkers said. “Problems?”
“No, an old friend of mine got married and I just wanted to write and wish her good luck.”
“A girlfriend?” Ballou asked. “You didn’t get a Dear John, did you?”
“No, just a friend. I really am happy for her, and I hope it works out well.”
The military really tried to do well with mail between the Persian Gulf and the US, mostly because they knew from bitter experience of decades that it was an important morale booster. But still there were inefficiencies, things didn’t always work out as well as hoped, and the letter had to be forwarded from Bradford to Dayton. Thus it was a couple weeks before Cindy received Pat’s reply to her letter announcing her marriage to Russ. It didn’t get there before the air war had started, and they spent time each evening trying to keep up with the news on TV.
Of course, she showed her new husband the letter. “He seems to be taking it well,” Russ remarked.
“I think so,” Cindy agreed. “Better than I expected. I didn’t think he was exactly carrying any hopes for me, but well, it could have been in the back of his mind to come back and try to get something going.”
“I don’t suppose I’d have blamed him, but this cuts that off,” Russ replied thoughtfully. “I have the feeling the hammer is going to drop in the next few days and he’s going to be up to his ass in it.”
“I do, too,” she agreed. “Jesus, I’m glad I’m not married to him. Then I’d really be worried. But Russ, somehow it still seems like I’m not being totally fair to you or to him.”
“We agreed it was for the best,” he said. This was not the first time the subject had come up. “Like I said, Cindy, the kid is mine as far as anyone is concerned. You’ll be having it in a few months, and then we can get started on one that’s all the way ours.”
“Yeah, I won’t feel quite as guilty about that,” she agreed. “But I suppose it’s for the best this way.”
“I think it is, all the way around,” Russ smiled. “I’ll admit, this isn’t the greatest apartment and we went through some real hassles with the folks the way we did our wedding, but I think it’ll work out in the end.”
“It’ll do for a while,” she agreed. “But I don’t think we want to try to live here with a baby very long.”
“I don’t think so either, but we couldn’t do everything at once with the time we had to work with,” he pointed out. “Especially with our folks breathing fire, but I think they’ve gotten used to it now. We knew this place was going to be temporary, but we shouldn’t have any problem sticking it out here for a year, like we agreed. By then, we should be able to get a better place, maybe a small house or something.”
“That’ll be nice,” she agreed. “At least I’m starting to feel like I’m able to find my way around this town. I think in a few more months I’ll actually start to like it.”
“Me, too,” he agreed. “It’s not Bradford, that’s for sure. There are things I miss about living there, but there are things I’m glad to have left behind me.”
“Like all the gossip,” she agreed. “Especially all the gossip. I’m almost as glad that we don’t know anyone here.”
“Definitely that,” he agreed. “We’re going to build ourselves a good life here, Cindy. I’m just as happy that Bradford is far away.”
Russ and Cindy’s friendly, wordy reply to Pat took a long time getting to him. Again, the inefficiencies of the mail service played a part, but a bigger part came from the fact that they were no longer at their camp in “Middle of Fucking Nowhere.” They’d thought it was that indeed, but not long after the air war started they loaded up for a tactical movement and set out through a vast, barren desert that that made their camp look interesting. There was really nothing out there except for an incredible cloud of dust kicked up by thousands of tactical vehicles making a trek to the west.
Fortunately or not, Pat didn’t get to see much of it – for him the whole trip was being made inside the squad’s Bradley, and there was nothing much to see but Sergeant Roddy’s fat ass as he stood in the hatch. Once in a while Roddy took a breather and let one or another of the guys in the squad take a turn, and it turned out that there wasn’t anything to see outside either. Nothing at all could be seen in any direction, except for perhaps the nearest of the neighboring vehicles. What the force was doing was getting set for a huge flanking attack, a left hook that was later known as the “Hail Mary.” Rather than go into Kuwait from the south, like most people had expected, they were going to go into it from the west and hope no one saw them coming.
Things were really primitive in the holding area far out in the Saudi Arabian desert. MREs were the only things they had to eat, along with the bottled water that, under the circumstances, was even more of a necessity than food. People were starting to build up a pretty good set of nerves; it was clear that the hammer was going to drop soon.
And it did, even sooner than they expected.
In a way, Pat was a little disappointed over the whole thing. Most of what he saw of the war was Sergeant Roddy’s fat ass; now, except for the gunner and the driver, he wasn’t letting the rest of the squad get even a glance outside. They were pushing hard, and rarely got a chance to get out and take a break except when they made a brief fuel stop. Units to the north and south got into some real combat action, and Roddy even reported that there might have been a shot or two fired in their direction. But Pat and the rest of the guys in his squad were inside the Bradley, and there was no way of proving Roddy’s claim as true or not.
They did get out of the Bradley a couple times, only to herd Iraqi prisoners together, but that wasn’t exactly the combat action they had been expecting. It was, as far as Pat was concerned, pretty anticlimactic, if not downright dull.
It was all over within four days, a fact that astounded everybody. They’d thought they were heading into a battle, and at least as far as they were concerned it really wasn’t the case. The force may have been smaller than the Iraqi Army, but it was so vastly better trained, equipped, and led that it was just about incredible. Pat thought that as far as his involvement was concerned, it hadn’t been much of a war.
After that, they moved to set up a different camp, at least inside Kuwait this time, which meant that they were outside Saudi Arabia, a huge improvement to almost everybody, no matter that the place had been torn up pretty badly. The new camp wasn’t quite as bad as their camp at Middle of Fucking Nowhere, but it was still pretty desolate. For the most part, they settled down, ran a few patrols, and waited to go home.
Because of the mail situation Pat only got to exchange a couple letters with Cindy and Russ, and really there wasn’t much news on their end, only that they were starting to get settled in Dayton and were looking at houses. From what Pat could figure out Russ was working in an insurance agency, and Cindy wasn’t doing much of anything. He wondered what had happened with her dental technician program; it seemed likely that it had been given up because of the marriage and the move. He hoped things would work out for them.
He didn’t think about Cindy and Russ very much. The four months they spent mostly bored in the camp in Kuwait, Pat was working on his future. He talked with several people about various options, and made good on his plan to re-enlist – six years, this time, with a pretty good re-enlistment bonus. He decided he’d put it into savings for now, although in time he thought he might use a little of it to buy a car – not some monster hot rod, but maybe something like Cindy’s little VW Rabbit, something to get around in when he wanted to go somewhere. After some thought of trying to get into a specialty, he decided to stay right where he was – the infantry, the bottom line of what the Army was all about.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t use the leverage of the re-enlistment to improve his career. The way he was able to work it out, he’d be attending an NCO academy when he got back to the States. If he did well with it, that plus his re-enlistment would make him a sergeant and improve his life more than a little. If he made sergeant, there was also a chance to attend a tactical reconnaissance school, which would make him a little more valuable to the Army. And finally, to help fill the time in Kuwait, he signed up for a college course, taught by correspondence.
It was June before Pat made it back to Ft. Stewart. He finally had the world-class shower he’d been dreaming of for months, had a couple beers while Ballou and others got world-class shitfaced, had a few days off during which he did nothing in particular, and then went to the NCO academy.
They worked him hard, but Roddy and others had warned him that he’d be worked hard, so he expected it and was ready for it. He did well – even better than he expected – and when he was done his two stripes had been replaced with three. He was shifted to a different squad in a different platoon to replace someone who had been transferred, and he now had a Bradley and crew to deal with. It was a new challenge and a new responsibility.
It was early in September before he got a letter from Cindy telling him that she and Russ had had a little girl they’d named Caitlynn. Pat couldn’t remember any mention of her being pregnant in her earlier letters, which he hadn’t kept, but he supposed he could have missed it or she just hadn’t mentioned it.
In any case, that answered the question he’d had in the back of his mind about why she and Russ had gotten married so quickly, and what had happened to her dental technician schooling. It happened sometimes, after all.
Still, it was something Cindy deserved to be congratulated for. He thought about it for a while, then went down to the PX, bought a Teddy Bear wearing chocolate chip fatigues, packed it up, and sent it off, telling Cindy and Russ it was a present for their little girl, along with his congratulations.
He didn’t think about Cindy and Russ very often after that; he had plenty else on his mind, running his squad and trying to be the best he could be. He was satisfied with his life, and it beat the hell out of what he’d had in Bradford.
