by Edward Wagner

497th IG

Bolling Air Force Base, D.C.

Looking back at my deployment to Saudi Arabia for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, I'm filled with many emotions. The memories are indelible; the dates are memorized. I deployed Sept. 15, 1990 and redeployed April 11, 1991.

I am extremely proud of my service, but my experience is far different from what can be imagined from the news video clips.

I was a field artillery lieutenant in the 101st Airborne Division. My role was a company fire support officer for an infantry company. I lived, ate and walked with an infantry company the entire time I was in Saudi Arabia.

The moments that stand out are emotional ones. Telling my family I would be part of the deployment was just the beginning of a roller coaster ride of emotions. I remember talking to my twin sister and the chilling silence on the other end of the phone as I told her I was deploying.

Putting my affairs in order before I left gave me real perspective on life. Life with the infantry is Spartan and difficult.

Unlike many other deployments during my time in the Army, there was no end date. No day that we could look forward to when we knew we would be going home.

The mental challenge was equal to the physical one. During the entire time I was there, I never sat in a chair as comfortable as my office chair. The first two nights I slept in a cement parking garage. The vast majority of the time we slept in our canvas shelter halves on the desert floor.

On occasion, we found visitors in our tents. For me it was the friendly kangaroo rat. For my sergeant, it was the not-so-friendly scorpion.

Shortly before the beginning of the war, our battalion commander played the movie "Glory" as part of officer professional development. As a combat veteran from the Vietnam War, he spoke to us about how people react in combat.

He told us that there was a fine line between courage and cowardice. Nobody knows how he or she will react under extreme combat conditions, but I do know each of us asked ourselves how we would react.

When I called home two days before the beginning of the air campaign, there was more anticipation than dread. I knew I would not return home until after the war, but this was really the beginning of the end. The high quickly turned into dread when I learned Jan. 15 that the air war was to begin that night.

I knew many people would be losing their lives and I was part of that endeavor. My emotions were raised to unadulterated glee when I got up and began to hear the first reports of the successful air mission. We were all like kids on Christmas morning as we watched the planes flying over us on their way to targets in Kuwait and Iraq.

As the air campaign dragged on, tension in my unit increased to its highest level of intensity. Living and working with the same group of people became quite tedious. We also knew the time for our direct involvement was coming soon. The comforts of our base camp were now very far away. We conducted night patrols along the Iraqi border and could actually hear and feel the bombs dropping on our enemy. Just as before, the tension was broken with an event. This time it was the beginning of the ground war.

When the helicopters arrived at our position on the evening of Feb. 23, there was only a few final preparations to make before our mission the next day.

The moon was full and bright. I remember reading Psalm 91 over and over again by the silhouette of a Blackhawk helicopter. At that moment God was as real as the reality of the mission we were waiting to go on. I felt the "peace that passes all understanding" for the next four days.

When morning came, we climbed on the helicopters as part of the first lift into Iraq; the largest air assault ever attempted. When the helicopter lifted off, the exhilaration felt was the result of six months worth of anxiety, waiting and anticipation.

I remember feeling great after the war was over. I had survived! We were going to be heroes when we returned home. Then I found out my classmate from Virginia Military Institute, Terry Plunk, had died during the war.

All wars come at a price. Even though our forces suffered very few casualties, it is meaningless to the families who lost loved ones. Our glory had come at the price of his blood. It was then that I understood the real meaning of the Gulf War.

May Spokesman On-Line