Desert dust and duty

Reflections on war and waiting

Gym. Tan. Fly. Laundry. This was my life on Al-Udeid air base, Qatar back in 2013. The “symbolic” Iranian strike on that same base on June 23^rd has stirred up its dust and memories. The news cycle’s already moved on, but I can’t shake images of one of my best Navy chapters, now hanging on the edge of a fragile ceasefire.

Nostalgia and dread have been my companions lately, stirred no doubt by my husband’s extended deployment and my own three years left in the Navy – plenty of time to be sent back to the Middle East. The war I’ve always suspected even before I even knew it was planned by Israel and our government has begun. It is the one war I always hoped wouldn’t occur. I knew enough from my career to know that Persians are not Arabs, and that this was not a war we should be embroiled in.

But there’s a cease fire, so there’s no more concern, right? Only that’s all I have when I choose to focus on this. Restlessness, unease, trepidation. I think altogether I have spent three years and some change physically in the Middle East. I spent the 15 years prior to becoming a nurse working directly on that region. Any deep thoughts of what could happen I arrest with a quick prayer: “Into your hands Lord, I commend my spirit.” Otherwise I am all too aware of the dangers at hand.

My first time to the region was Afghanistan. I worked alongside humble Afghans from San Francisco capitalizing on the war machine to fund their kids’ soccer goals. The camp senior enlisted leader, a charismatic Army First Sergeant nearly sold me on our mission with his eloquence and passion, but I knew the culture too well to buy it. Young Army Rangers, buzzing on their first pump, griped about training locals instead of chasing missions. May the one who told me to stop saying “I’m going to take a piss” and instead say “I’m going to powder my nose,” know how much I love him for reminding me what it meant to be a woman on that camp in a sea of men. I hope they’re out now, unscathed, though I fear many carry unseen wounds.

Then came the white desert sand of Qatar. Laughing along the dusty rocks on the concrete path through the Alaska tents and boarded barracks with some of the best friends I’ve made in the Navy. The flight line shimmered at midnight as we ran pre-flight checks, sweat-soaked in the heat. Finishing a 36-hour day to groggily make our way to the BRA (base recreation area) for our 3-drink rations and several more hours of cutthroat spades games. I always caught so much shit for changing out of my flight suit and boots before the games. I couldn’t stand being in my boots one second longer than was necessary. This crunchy bitch had to let her feet breathe, even if it dirtied other clothes.

Flying for the Navy remains one of my greatest joys and gifts. I’ve experienced so many different “types” of the Navy at this point. Aviation, intelligence, medicine, operational. Each community with its own culture, its own mores, its own faults and advantages. The only Navy I haven’t truly experienced is “fleet” Navy. I’ve never been on a ship (and I pray I never will), but aviation retains something inherently “cool” to it, and I am grateful I got to play a small part on a tight crew keeping an old bird full of piss in the air.

My last Middle East stint was at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, just before the 2016 election. Shrewder to the futility of our foreign policy, I was still oblivious to political shifts at home. Selected for a special program in the Navy, I was indifferent to upheavals in our government and focused instead on the immediacy of my job on the ground. One moment I will never forget is when the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq made an aside to the table with all the important people representing all the important American interests: “they know Iraq is a failed state, right?” My respect for the man that would say that in country amid the diplomatic charade is immense.

My focus in Baghdad instead shrank to training and preparing myself physically for that special program. I remember the shortness of the walls of the Embassy in Baghdad, doing my loops around the perimeter with a rucksack on. I was more familiar with that small prison style PT yard than with world events. I was honed into the best shape of my life by a few grizzled and scarred security team members, and I wonder if they are still playing the rotation game, putting their lives at risk for this newest dust up. May they be finished with that life and home, healing.

My Middle East friends are long out of the military. I don’t know anyone in Iraq, on the streets of Bahrain, or flying out of the ‘Deid. I don’t have a personal connection to a warm, human soul currently in the line of fire (save my husband of course). Yet they’re all vivid - contractors wearing their 5.11 pants, the Syrian cook that made me the best eggs, the thousands of third country nationals grinding for their families like migrants do here. The 19-year-olds whose daily lives were full of flying and crew rest, laughing their way to the BRA are now looking at the bunkers along the way differently. Their “”bunker baby” jokes replaced by real threats. Overwatch flights in the Gulf, once serious but routine, feel heavier. Bahrain’s bars are off limits as Iran’s shadow looms. Even Baghdad’s absurd Embassy grassy lawn must be wilting under neglect.

Even if most personnel have been evacuated in the midst of the threat from Iran, we all know American kids are still out there. They’re playing video games, waking up for watch, making jokes with their friends, going to places of duty. Everything shrinks to the necessary. Maybe we didn’t all sign up for the current foreign policy, but we all did sign up to serve, so that’s what we do. I said my prayers, and then I made plans. My son has a good support system, which is more than many service members. If have to go, I’ll go.