Picture on The Wall

My draft number, the most important number in an 18 year old boys life in the ’60s and early 70’s, had been 165. The call for troops had stopped well below that. I had no job. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Enlisting seemed like the thing to do. So, I had paid a visit to a recruiter I knew well.

I remembered the Army recruiter saying to me “look, Kevin, this mans war will be over in another year. We are getting out of ‘Nam, DC is already thinking troop withdrawals. It will be a fight to the last minute but, the truth is everybody wants out.” He rose from his chair, put out his cigarette  came around his desk, and leaned against it. He looked down as he exhaled “ there is no good reason to get your butt shot dead for a lost cause.” He held a stack of documents in front of me, “ I’ll keep your paper work for 30 days. If you still want to do this in a month...well it’s crazy, but I’ll process you. Come back then.” Not exactly what I expected to hear from the Army during wartime. But not much about the Vietnam war in 1971 was what one would expect. I shook hands with the Sergeant, then stepped outside the office into the humid Kentucky summer. Come back in a month? Well, okay.

I never went back. I got a call from an uncle in Georgia offering construction work at a great wage. I was young, just out of high school, and full of wanderlust, so I headed for Atlanta. The Vietnam war ended in a year, and I didn’t think about military service again. Until this year, 1990, when I had joined the U S Navy.

One wall near my den is dedicated to military photos of some of our family members who served. My family has fought in every American war since the war of 1812. My wife Patty’s father had served in Korea. All through the years I couldn’t shake the feeling that I hadn’t done my part. And I knew time was running out. I was getting old.

At 36 years, I was an old man by military standards. Some branches considered me too old. I talked to my cousin Mike, an Army recruiter, and since I was in construction, he felt the Navy Seabees would be the thing for me. I called a Naval Reserve Recruiter, took a series of tests and, because of my experience, I was enlisted at an advanced rank. In May of 1990 I had become a Navy Seabee.

All of this went through my mind in a flash when I took the phone call from Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

“Mr. Dennie ? This is Lieutenant JG B---- from Navy Mobile Construction Battalion 23 at Fort Belvoir. It is my duty to inform you that you have been recalled to Active Duty in support of Operation Desert Shield (later Desert Storm). Make sure that your affairs are in order. Your first destination will be Port Hueneme, California for indoctrination and field training. Probably within the next 2 weeks. Your orders will be forthcoming. Welcome to the war effort.” I turned to my wife, Patty, who sat at the kitchen table staring at a glass of iced tea. She looked like a woman looks when she is unhappy, fearful, or a little of both. I hung the phone back on its base.The Summer breeze disturbed the curtain in the window . Its flapping was all that broke the silence. After a few seconds,
“ I’m going to be gone a while” was the only thing I could think to say.

Patty was near tears. “You don’t have to do this” she began “you have two kids and a wife to support. A business to run. You could apply for a ‘Hardship’.” I listened to her arguments and knew she was right about a lot she said. I felt grieved, but found myself saying “ My family has served honorably for over a hundred years. I can’t be the one who takes the easy way out.” “But you could be killed over there” she went on. “I’ll be fine, but if something does happen, then at least I’ll die with some honor” I reasoned. “ If I stay home, I’ll feel like a coward for the rest of my life”. The same conversation or some variation of it took place over the next weeks. And then one night, before we turned out the lights, Patty said the words every soldier needs to here before he leaves his home and family. “We hate to see you go, but we are proud of you.”

Over the next few weeks I made the transition from Citizen Soldier to full blown ownership by Uncle Sam. I left in civilian attire and came home in uniform. Sudam Hussein had not heeded President George Bush’s warnings to leave Kuwait, and I had been told my orders would land me next door to the invasion. In Saudi Arabia, in just a few weeks.

I won’t say I was “gung-ho”, but I was ready for whatever I had to do. My family had served in wartime as recently as World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Some had far away assignments during the Cold War. I wasn’t being asked to do any more than they had so honorably done. And even now, I had cousins in other military branches that were going to be wrapped up in this particular war too. Some of my good friends were facing the same things I was. All of us were as ready as you can be, to kiss your wife and kids goodbye for what could be the last time, and then blindly follow wherever destiny takes you. So, when it was time, we all did what soldiers do. We turned our backs to the comforts of home and set out for the unknown. As my plane left the small airport runway I could see my wife, kids, and nephew standing along the fence, waving goodbye. I wept silently. “Oh Lord,” I prayed, “watch over them. Don’t let this be a stupid mistake.”

After I arrived at the Seabee base in Port Hueneme California, I found that my battalion was shifted from it’s original mission. We were deploying to the Marianas island of Guam. We were ordered to fill in for another Seabee battalion who had already deployed to Saudi Arabia. We were also tasked with converting giant fruit hauling ships that had been requisitioned by the U S Coast Guard, into military transports. (These ships, once refitted, were loaded with 30,000 bombs a week to be dropped on Iraqi troops). We were only supposed to be on that tropical island a short time, but one thing led to another. One thing was that North Korea was making some suspicious moves. There was concern that this communist country would take advantage of a light Naval presence in the Pacific and cause some trouble for our ally, South Korea. In light of that the Marine Amphibious Force we were attached to stayed put. And so did I.

I was part of an advanced Air Detachment and twice we were hustled out to the steamy hot concrete of a Naval Air Station tarmac, to fly out on some undisclosed detail. Twice we waited for hours, only to be turned around and sent back to base because the mission was scrubbed at the last minute. I wound up spending all of Operation Desert Storm in Guam. The ground war, thankfully, was over faster than anyone could have imagined and our military’s mission to run Sadam Hussien out of Kuwait was highly successful. In seven months time I was back home, a citizen soldier again. After missing all the family birthdays, and Thanksgiving and Christmas at home, it was great to make it home just two days before my wedding anniversary.

So, while there is more to tell about my duty during the First Gulf War than I’ll go into now, the fact remains that I was able to answer the call when my country needed me. It was not my lot to experience combat like others did. Some of our military brothers and sisters didn’t make it home. Fate had led me in another direction. But, I did what was asked of me and contributed what I could. I served seven years after Desert Shield/Storm in the Navy Reserve before leaving “the Bees”.

It was hard to be away from my wife and daughters during the war. Very hard at times. And it was hard on them while I was gone. But, it had been something that I felt deep within me that I had to do. When I look now on the wall of photos where the pictures of my grandfather, uncles and others in military service hang, mine is among them. Would I do it again? I guess I can only answer with another question. What if my if my picture had never made it up there beside them?

Well, to me, the wall just never would have looked complete.