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It’s impossible to describe the feeling as our World Airways contract flight lifted off from Dhahran Airport. Two hundred fifty soldiers and one civilian (me) breathed a collective sigh of relief as we turned westward towards our homes. We’d all be up for over 24 hours and most of us fell asleep as soon as we were airborne. For me as usual, there were mixed emotions. I was finally "outta here," leaving forever this most despised of places, but there was also the concern over my mother's condition and, believe it or not, the concern over leaving my project. The system was completed and operational, but there were many improvements that could have been made. Well, my replacement was already being prepped for the trip and would depart for Saudi as soon as I briefed him.
The flight was a far cry from the C-141 cargo flight coming over, real seats, real food – trust me, even airline food was a tremendous improvement over "Chez Concrete." Under my feet were four M16 rifles and the aircraft was loaded with small arms of every type – I never felt so safe on an airplane before or since.
We landed in Rome but security concerns kept us aboard the DC-10 while they fueled and recatered the aircraft. I heard an Italian ground agent speaking to one of the flight attendants in the beautiful Italian accent that so many of my neighbors had in the Brooklyn neighborhood I grew up in and suddenly I felt a warmth that I hadn't known for months. I was getting close to home.
The most memorable experience of the flight home occurred two hours later on our approach to Shannon Airport in Ireland. There was a solid undercast so we didn't see the ground until we were on short final. Then we broke out of the clouds and I couldn’t believe my eyes – before me was a verdant splendor that was beyond anything I ever experienced. Deeply green grass, beautiful trees, lakes and streams - I was overwhelmed. After a month of filth and rocks and dust the contrast was powerful, I never dreamed a country could be so beautiful. I'm a movie buff and I probably had seen The Quiet Man a dozen times before. I always assumed that the rich greenery of the landscape was faked in the movie, but it wasn't - Ireland was that beautiful. Like the Stars of David in the Saudi windows, the beauty of the Irish countryside also bore religious significance because at that moment I began to lose that feeling of abandonment I suffered from for weeks. I felt the need to thank H-shem for delivering me from a dangerous situation. The other passengers were feeling an entirely different need.
Two hundred and fifty soldiers and one civilian deplaned and most made a mad dash for the "gin mill." Some of them had been there for over a year and nobody had a "taste" in all that time. That bartender wished he had four hands, I never saw so much liquor being poured at one time. What the heck, they won the Gulf War and deserved a "belt." True to my heritage, (you know us Jews, at a party we go around looking for a "Designated Drinker") I just wandered around looking out the windows and reveling in Ireland.
There will always be a special place in my heart for Ireland. I’ll never forget the lush greenery and the feeling I got as we landed in Shannon. Every year since, I celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in my own way, watching The Quiet Man and praying for peace and prosperity in that most beautiful of countries. H-shem works in strange ways and now I have a new reason to celebrate – March 17 is the birthday of my fiancée, Rachel.
It was a mellow group of heroes that crossed the Atlantic Ocean to our next stop in Gander Newfoundland. After landing, our aircraft had to stop rolling for a while to let a moose cross the taxiway. It was fifteen degrees Fahrenheit that day and we were in our shirtsleeves, but nothing was going to keep us inside that aircraft. The flight attendants told us about how good the ice cream was in the Gander terminal, but ice cream wasn’t on anybody’s mind that day. Both the aircraft and the soldiers "tanked up" in Gander and we were off on our final leg to Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina.
The stops along the way were fun, but the feeling of finally touching American soil was phenomenal. I really have little desire to travel abroad these days for the simple reason that I still haven’t gotten over the joy of being back home after that forcible separation. Yes Dorothy, there's no place like home.
Some of the first people I spoke to in Charleston were MTMC employees of a small unit called a MATCU (sorry, I’ve forgotten the meaning of the acronym) who service military airplane passengers. They smiled when they heard that I was a fellow MTMC employee, and proceeded to give me the exemplary service they offer all Military travelers. I'd missed the last flight to Newark that day so they got me a ticket on the first flight out in the morning, then they made a reservation for me at a motel for the night.
As I left the airport a group of local people met us at the door and clapped and waved little American flags. I realized then that I had just gotten more of a welcome than most of the troops returning from Vietnam had experienced– here’s to you guys, at least one member of my generation appreciates your sacrifice.
I got into the motel room in Charleston and dropped my duffel bag on the floor. I was still dusty from Saudi Arabia and for the first time in weeks it started to bother me again. I felt dirty, incredibly dirty – deeper than just the physical sensation, I felt unclean in my soul. I needed to cleanse myself of Saudi Arabia as best as I could - first I'd start with my body. I went right for the shower and scrubbed for a half-hour. It was a pleasure I had almost forgotten about – Saudi water was incredibly hard and soap barely worked there, oh did it feel good to scrub with good old American soap and water. Emerging from the shower, I felt human again and I called home to let everyone know I was "back in town."
That done, I turned on the TV and experienced a completely new form of culture shock. We had no TV in Saudi, no billboards showing pictures of women – all the women there were in Desert Camo Uniforms, which aren’t exactly form-fitting. Sure it was just regular broadcast TV, but after nothing at all for weeks, I was, er, rather turned-on looking at all those images of women in normal clothing where you can see a little of this and a little of that. This was anything but a religious experience and I called my then girlfriend again and let her know what was happening. She understood and told me she’d be ready when I got there - she missed me plenty too. She had been complaining about having some kind of pain in her back for a while, but it didn’t concern me at that point, I was more worried about my mother.
As the cab pulled up to my block the next morning, I was I was delighted to see a whole lot of yellow ribbons on the trees. I knew that they weren’t there just for me - but some were – all my neighbors knew where I was. I got into my house and dropped my stuff in the garage. I immediately stripped and threw everything in the washer, I didn’t want to bring one speck of Saudi dust upstairs. Nobody was home, I changed my clothes, jumped into my car and set out for the hospital. Dad was there and my family reunion took place in my mother’s hospital room. My mother's condition was bad. I brought her a piece of MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) bread, the field-rations we ate for lunch, she tried it but was too sick to swallow it. Her illness would consume me for the next two months. My reunion with my sweetheart went a little better although her back still hurt.
The next morning I returned to Bayonne and hugged all my co-workers and passed out the MRE's I brought back as souvenirs. It’s an unwritten rule that Government supervisors aren’t supposed to get along with their employees, but I loved all those people and couldn’t wait to get back among them. I have to mention two more names here, those of my dear friends Erma Garland and Joe Bongiorno. All through the Saudi trip and the European trips before that, they maintained contact with my parents and kept me up on what was happening home. I never will forget what they did for me, Erma and Joe's kindness helped me survive the experience.
My boss gave me that afternoon off and I left for the hospital, deeply concerned about my mother. Moments later I saw one of the base cops with his light bar flashing and realized he was after me. "You didn’t signal a left turn." Less than 24 hours after my return to "the world," I’m getting a ticket for the most insignificant offense imaginable. I asked him to give me a break, I’d just gotten back from the Gulf War, and deeply regretted my terrible offense. He said, "I did give you a break, your driver’s license expired, I’m not writing you up for that." …And you wonder why I was always angry in those days?
Steve and I had gotten a bunch of coupons for freebies when we were in Saudi. When we tried to cash them in we began to understand the distinction between military and civilian deployees to the Gulf. You couldn’t avail yourself of any of those premiums without a military ID. " …But I was there…" - "Sorry, civilians don’t count." It was the same story all over. It's clear now that I really needed help when I got back. Military Gulf War vets have a whole network of official and unofficial assistance available to them, for us there was and remains nothing. The Gulf War Syndrome is real, thank H-shem I didn’t suffer from it personally, but I know civilians who did. The Military hasn’t exactly shined in the way they approached the problem of GWS for soldiers, but we civilians were completely forgotten. We’ve received nothing in the way of assistance for the stress and illnesses we suffered as a result of our deployment.
The final insult occurred on June 10, 1991. The Commanding General of MTMCEA said that any Military personnel who had been to the Gulf could have the day off to march in the parade in Manhattan. We called him and asked him if civilian deployees could also have the day off to march because we knew that there was a civilian contingent in the parade. His answer was the usual – "Sorry, civilians don’t count." I watched the civilian contingent march on the news that night – the next day I was off anyway – early in the morning my mother passed away.
Things were falling apart rapidly in my life. I hadn’t even begun to come to grips with the whole Gulf War business when I lost my mother, who happened also to be my best friend. A week later I got up from Shiva (the week of mourning in Jewish practice) and went to see my girlfriend. She was still complaining about the pain in her back which was getting worse and had been to see the doctor. A few short days after my mother’s death I learned that my lover also had terminal cancer.
I lost my other best friend fourteen months later in November of 1992. The day of her funeral was the lowest point of my life, I had nowhere to go, nobody to turn to. I was always close with my father, but he took my mother’s death hard. He was in a deep depression that continues to this day and I couldn't confide in him, nor could I give him the support he needed. I was alone now, with only one thing on my mind – hatred.
Cancer killed my mother and my lover, but you couldn’t have convinced me of that. No, it was those lousy rag-head, Arab SOB’s that had to start a war that took me away from home just when everybody needed me most. Amazingly enough, I actually knew that my bigotry was wrong, I even wrote and publicly spoke about it at the time, but my hatred intensified none-the-less. My hatred wasn’t confined to Arabs either, I got into fights with everybody, even friends. I was lucky though, because my friends understood what was happening to me and stood by me until I came to realize that I needed to get a grip on myself.
A month after my lover’s death, I needed to get away and spent a long weekend with another close friend Paul Samuels in Falls Church Virginia. Paul and I used to work together in Bayonne and he moved down to Virginia to accept a job in Headquarters. I was in fragile condition at that point and needed both to be with someone and yet, have to time alone. Paul knew exactly what to do, and more important, when to leave. We didn’t plan to see anything in particular, but somehow wound up going to visit the five museums in DC that are devoted to Jewish interests. One of the places we visited was the National Museum of American Jewish Military History. The Museum is affiliated with the Jewish War Veterans and preserves the history of Jewish participation in the United States Armed Forces. I was captivated by the place, I knew about it through my father who is a member of the JWV, but couldn’t grasp its impact until I saw it that day.
Some weeks before, I received a thousand-dollar award for my Gulf War activities. I couldn't bring myself to keep the money and started looking for the most anti-Arab organization I could find to donate it to. It was lucky, or maybe prophetic, that I hesitated because I resolved that day to donate the thousand dollars to the NMAJMH and took out life membership as soon as I got home. It was the first positive thing I’d done since returning from the Gulf and I continue to support the Museum to the maximum extent I can. It’s important to me to see the stories of sacrifice and service of American Jews preserved, I only wish I could live closer so that I could visit there more often and volunteer some time. My life membership plaque hangs proudly in my office, along with the Jewish War Veterans calendar and all the certificates I got for the Gulf War. I mounted my life membership pin in the same display case that holds the two medals I was awarded for the Gulf War, for me, these symbols must be forever linked.
My visit to the NMAJMH was the beginning of my recovery, there I transformed an act of hate to an act of charity. New forces were at work now which were drawing me into what would become an entirely new life. Now identity was becoming an issue, I began feeling the need to develop a more up front identity as a Jew. I began to join secular Jewish organizations like Chaverim, an organization of Jewish amateur radio operators. I was being led somewhere, but I didn't know where yet.
My fiancée asked me just recently about why I have to be "in your face" about my Judaism. The Saudi's taught me that, Rachel. Ironically, they led me back to my religion - and that caused me to lose my virulent hatred of them. There was no need to be "in your face" in Brooklyn or Staten Island, I never experienced the sting of anti-Semitism and never had to give my Jewishness a thought. Kosher food was plentiful, Synagogues are all over, and there were many Jewish activities and opportunities to learn and socialize. There is an old Yiddish saying about the difficulty of keeping all the tenets of the Judaism, "It’s hard to be a Jew." Well, in New York, it’s easy to be a Jew.
Things were different in Saudi and it wasn't only the Arabs who were making it difficult. A non-Jewish officer told me a story about a promise made by one of the top staff members of the Third Army. As the story went, the General promised that all American soldiers of the Moslem faith would be given the opportunity to make the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. Upon hearing this, a group of Jews asked that same General if they could make arrangements to go to Israel to pray at the Western Wall – many of them felt that this was the closest they would get to Israel in their lifetimes. The request was denied, citing "security concerns," and the lack of direct flights between Saudi and Israel. I can’t verify the story, but I do believe it. Prior to the Gulf War, Jewish soldiers had never been able to obtain permission to wear yamulkes, (skullcaps) the uniform regulations were always cited as being sacrosanct. Now we were in Saudi Arabia, with its strict restrictions on women, and suddenly we were able to bend the regulations to permit women soldiers to wear kerchiefs to cover their hair. What a classic double standard.
Thus, in Saudi, for the first time in my life, I experienced the pain of Diaspora. It was there, not in the comfort of Brooklyn or Staten Island, that I finally came to understand true essence of Jewish tradition and Jewish aspirations. Saudi Arabia made me understand why we mourn the loss of the Temple, why our people were scattered and why we pray for the coming of the Messiah. All the previous Passovers I spent with my family, eating good food and reciting the story of the Exodus, could not teach what one dismal, lonely Passover in Saudi taught me. As I sat in Khobar, munching the potato chips that Steve Stoner somehow got to keep me from starving, I learned the essence of freedom.
There were other forces that helped with my recovery. Flying has also helped, in a big way. After my mother died, one of my neighbors presented me with the opportunity to join Richmond Pilots, a flying club on Staten Island. I earned a Private Rotorcraft-Helicopter rating two years before the Gulf War and through Richmond Pilots, earned an airplane rating. I used to love getting up there alone, viewing the terrain from up high and wondering at the works of H-shem. Nothing has ever relaxed me and calmed me down like the "stress" of flying an airplane. No more "Lone Eagle" stuff for me these days though, I’ve got a copilot now, my fiancee Rachel, and I haven't truly enjoyed flying alone since we met. I can't fly as much as I used to, I don’t have to time to get out there for a day because of the responsibilities I have as care-giver for my father but I’ll be back. I owe a lot to Richmond Pilots.
The Gulf War was losing its grip on me. My new association with Judaism now was leading me toward learning more about practicing religion. Being "in your face" about secular Judaism was satisfying for a time, but now I needed to get to the core of my religion. I began to read a commentary on the Torah that was written in Turkey during the eighteenth century. Each of the twenty volumes of the Meam Loez had great impact on me and I found myself leaning toward Orthodox observance. Most important though, was the change in attitude it brought about. I read many teachings about hate, how it destroyed the Second Temple and how it keeps a person from fully realizing their potential in both the religious and secular areas. My experience in Saudi Arabia made me yearn for the coming of the Moshiach (Messiah) and now I began realize that my hatred of Arabs was anything but hastening the day of deliverance. I began to lighten up.
As I delve deeper into Jewish practice, I find less and less need to hate, I harbor less capacity to dislike others. The great Chasidic master, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov said, "If you spend your time doing good, the bad falls away." The cleansing process I began with that half-hour shower in Charleston is nearly complete now, becoming a Sabbath Observer and keeping the Jewish Dietary laws have had a purifying effect on my soul, I can’t pollute it any longer with hatred. I believe in the End of Time, the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael will live together in peace, until then the conflict which began with these two brothers will continue – but I don’t personally have to participate in it. I’m still politically aware and I still get angry at events happening between Arabs and Jews, but I fight every day not to backslide into hatred. I like the feeling of cleanliness I have now, I no longer feel the dust of Saudi Arabia on me. May H-shem give me the strength to expunge all vestiges of hatred that I may still harbor.
I suffered one more setback since the Gulf war. The BRAC, the Congressional Base Closure and Realignment Commission recommended the Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne for closure. My job would still be there, but I'd have to move to either Fort Eustis, or Falls Church, Virginia. I had a third option, to avail myself of the Priority Placement Program and hope to get another job here in the New York Area. I had no choice, I had to accept PPP and remain here because of my father’s deteriorating condition. Thorough PPP, was able to secure a position in Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, although I began there with a great deal of bitterness, the feeling was short lived.
Despite the fact that I lived with my father and spent lots of time caring for him, loneliness was still a part of my life. I needed a new best friend. I had a personal ad on a web page for Jewish Singles called The Jewish Singles Connection. I met many quality women there but never hit it off with anyone. When I left Bayonne, I canceled the ad, because I didn’t have a home email address at the time or access to the Internet. After I got a new email account at Picatinny I checked into the sight again to put up a new ad. Before I began, I reviewed the female ads and saw a new one that caught my eye – it was from a lady in Bayonne NJ. I answered the ad and we exchanged emails for a month before meeting. It was magic from the first date, not a mindless sexual attraction, but a true meeting of two souls each yearning for a new focus in life. Rachel is the best thing that ever happened to me, the answer to all my prayers. Through our relationship I finally was able to get over the loss of my mother and my lover and move on. I was wallowing in the past before Rachel, she’s given me a future.
Now, with this document, I am finally getting the Gulf War entirely out of my system. It’s the last thing I have to do before we marry, Rachel deserves all the love and attention I can give her and I can’t have the ghost of the Gulf War come between us. Writing this paper has worked, it’s been about two months in the making and I’ve been able to relive my experiences and shed the tears I should have years ago. As I look back now I realize that everything I endured did turn out for the best. I can never return to the world I knew before that time, but I'm comfortable in the new one I built. The Gulf War led me on a torturous, but rewarding road to spiritual and physical happiness by bringing me back to my religion. Losing my job in Bayonne was not the end of the world. True, my job in Picatinny frightens me, I have responsibilities in areas I am not familiar with or trained for. It’s difficult, very difficult to learn new things at this point in my life, but I want to excel in the same way I did in Bayonne and will keep trying. There is one thing better in Picatinny, there are more opportunities for religious observance there than in Bayonne. Among them is a Torah lesson given by a local Rabbi given each Wednesday. Mid way between each Sabbath and in the midst of a workday, it is the perfect time to refresh my spirit and learn a little. Funny how I find faith and optimism in everything I do these days.
The Gulf War will always be with me, I can live with that now because it doesn't control me any more. Now, every year at Passover I eat some potato chips to remember that somewhere in the world, Jewish members of the Armed Forces are on duty, alone and missing their families as I did in 1991 - and each day I revel in the sheer pleasure of just being home again.
Completed, with the help of H-shem, December 6, 1998.
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