Have Fun at the Pool

"Have fun at the pool," the pilot says with a rueful smile after I inform him I am headed to Balad.

I met him in Oklahoma, on my first Blackhawk flight. It is like that in the military, people constantly run into old friends from flight school and old acquaintances from past deployments and so on. As a civilian I never run into familiar faces so I was excited when the pilot walked into the chow hall.

He is headed to a snaller base without the luxury of two Olympic sized pools.

"See you later," I say as he walks away because you really never know.


After breakfast , I haul my armored vest and helmet from under my cot, drag my bags outside and wait for the bus. "Hurry and wait," is the motto around here. After sunning my red cheeks in the morning light, a group of soldiers and I file into a bus destined for another compound in Kuwait. We wait there for a few hours, eating melted ice cream. Then we take another bus to the airfield. The desert, outside the window, is littered with barbwire and scraps of metal laid out like carcasses. Plastic and paper trash drift in the breeze. A few gray-green bushes stand heroically amidst the remnants of an older war.

Perhaps I should feel some grand emotions as I board the fixed-wing destined for Iraq, but after spending two weeks in Kuwait I only expect more concrete, more sand, maybe a few mortars and a room to myself. Perhaps emotions are contagious and since I am surrounded by soldier popping chewing gum or chatting or sleeping I feel like this is just another day. So I fold my hands over my lap, lean back against my seat and close my eyes.