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December 2, 2008
Fort Leonard Wood
There's a screaming baby in the seat immediately behind me and I brought my ear plugs, but somehow I forgot to bring my Bose acoustic noise canceling headphones. So that puts a damper on the flight.
We land in St Louis at about 11:30 p.m. and it's cold outside. Colder than Colorado. I think the river pulls the heat out of the city. But then again, I'm not standing around outside at eleven at night surrounded by a concrete maze, either. So there's that.
But we're just standing here, a few of us, waiting for the shuttle to come. Chewing the fat.
They don't come and they don't come and finally I call them and ask them where the hell they are and a few minutes later, the shuttle rolls up and we all climb on board and we're all sitting down...glad to be inside the shuttle bus and we.
And as we're leaving the airport, a call comes over the radio to the driver from the base..."Is Kiser and Peterson on there?"
He calls back "Is Kiser and Peterson on here" and I say "Yeah!". Meaning, I'm here. I've never heard of the Peterson fellow. But lets just go to the rental car agency and get me a car and forget about Peterson.
But we're halfway back to the rental car place when he clarifies. "Is Peterson here?" and I'm silent this time. I'm not talking but please let's just get to the rental car place. To hell with Peterson and the plane he flew in on.
But now, now we're turning around and there is much mumbling and dissension among the ranks. We're all mad as hell at Peterson as turn around in the middle of the night and head back to the airport.
He parks the shuttle bus and opens the door and what little warm air had accrued in our vehicle rushed out to find the river and we're all sitting there thinking....if Ihad a knife I'd kill Peterson and his family but then Peterson climbs on and about four other fresh faced young kids. They've got their army-issued backpacks with that uber-cool new urban camo scheme that always makes me think I should go out on Ebay and try to find one of those backpacks because I despise my backpack. I hate it so much that I made Jennifer swear to remind me to burn my backpack with great ceremony as soon as we returned to the United States. Predictably, I forgot about it, and she dutifully reminded me this past weekend of my oath.
And now, here are these young men with fine backpacks and at first, I figure that they're back fresh of the front lines, but no. They're too young. Much too young for that. And innocent. They look like graduated from high school this year, probably. Very young. Clean cut. But tough. Like, believe you me, I wouldn't have started anything with any one of them. They were all in great shape. That much was obvious.
They'd been jammed up in some airport on the other side of the country since "oh four hundred" yesterday morning. They were supposed to be in Waynseville, Missouri to start Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood first thing Monday morning, but that didn't happen obviously.
Somehow, all the ill will disappears and everyone else on the shuttle bus claims to have served in the military at some point for their own variegated and sundry reasons, save me of course. I just keep quiet while they all talk about their days in the military.
"Waynesville is the armpit of the country," an old man offers. "We went there in the summer and there were cracks in the ground this wide" and in the dark belly of the rumbling bus, he holds his hands about four inches apart.
I wonder when he would have gone through there. He's not old enough to have been in WWII, I figure.
"I went through Waynesville back in the 50's," he offers, as if answering my unspoken question.
"I was in the Navy for four years. I did my time. Then I got out." Another one offers. And then, he turns to the one closest to him...the youngest...freshest face of the four soldiers and asks "Are you scared?"
"Yeah. A little. Sure. Anxious. Worried. Nervous. Excited. But we're going to be all right." He says. "We're going to be OK...." He says and his voice trails off into uncertainty.
And I think about that. I think about where these guys are headed. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they're going to be in Afghanistan or Iraq in less than six months and I don't know if these guys will be OK. I don't know if they'll make it or not. I mean, Lord God...don't get me wrong. I hope they're going to be fine. And I respect what they're doing. But deep down, in the darkness of the shuttle bus, as we race through the squalor surrounding Lambert Field, I wonder if they will be OK.
Posted by Rob Kiser on December 2, 2008 at 10:58 PM
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