At first we did some missions bringing supplies further north along the Euphrates river. For the first time, we’d landed someplace where Iraqi civilians approached us. They were very happy to see us too. I don’t know if they were looking for food (That was the main cargo we flew after the war) or they were just glad that is wasn’t the other side (From what we could understand, Saddam’s forces were not nice to the locals.) Communication was all gestures and mime as they spoke no English and we no Arabic. We gave away a couple MREs anyway and some other random food (Ramen, etc) and the locals trotted off happily.
I think the main thing I did for the first week or so after hostilities ceased was write letters to family. I was letting them know that I’d been pretty lucky. The 101st for once, had been in a war and had not sustained major casualties. (More people were lost during Desert Shield/Desert Storm in accidents than anything else. Sixteen deaths in combat operations, and more than thirty died in accidents before the war started.) We were very lucky in where we were used in the battle plan. There was a precipitous lack of enemy engagement for the majority of the 101st Airborne was due to our rapid mobility had been used to move past the Iraqi western flank. Our anticipated enemy engagement was south of Baghdad and combat operations ceased before the Division had moved far enough north to make enemy contact. (Yay!)
Sometime in mid-March we started to recover back toward our forward operating base in Saudi Arabia. Around April Fool's Day, we moved further back to King Fahd International Airport (KFIA) in preparation for our return to the United States. (We were seriously concerned that the order to move to KFIA was in fact a prank.) Getting out of Saudi was a lot harder than getting in as we had to abide a lot of regulations leaving Saudi that we didn’t have to worry about during the rush to arrive. The Saudis had not worried that we’d bring some native US pestilence with us when we came to stop the Iraqis, but getting our equipment cleared to come back to the USA required that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) needed to deem our equipment was free of anything that might be detrimental to US Agriculture.
For trucks and helicopters, this meant hour upon hours on the wash racks. Mainly because I had little to do and partly because I helped get all that sand and dirt in the aircraft. I spent a lot of time with hoses and screwdrivers and scrub brushes helping clean the aircraft, the tents, the cots and anything else we had that we could clean. It was a group effort to get things clean so the inspectors would let us ship stuff home. There was a lot of self-interest in this effort as we couldn't leave until everything was clean. This meant that for once, I wasn't the only line pilot out on the flight line helping the enlisted crew do "crew duties".
When we recovered back to KFIA our mail caught up with us, especially package mail. Once we’d moved forward, everything but letters was held in storage until the dust had settled from the war. This meant that we started getting some items that had been on hold for weeks, some maybe a month. I can only recall getting letters and a couple of small packages after we left KFIA so now they were catching up to us where we were deployed up north. Mail call was always an exciting time.
On the second of April, I can remember getting a most amusing package. It was a Christmas package sent to me by my Step-Mother and Step-Sisters. my assignment before arriving at Fort Campbell in June of 1990, had been Korea. My mailing address there had been an Army Post Office (APO) San Francisco mailing address.
My Name
SSAN
B-2-501 AVN
APO SF 96271
During the Gulf War, the 101st had an APO New York Mailing address
My Name
SSAN
A-7-101 AVN
APO NY 09309
and when my step-sister addressed the box she’d gotten my old APO SF address from my Step-Mother’s address book. This caused my package to be routed “The long way.”
The box was shipped from Louisville, KY to San Francisco, CA in November of 1990, where it was transferred to the Army Post Office (APO). The army then routed it to Korea and to my old unit at camp Humphreys. The Post Locator (They track down soldiers, usually due to recent reassignment) at Humphreys, determined that I had been re-assigned to Fort Campbell, KY, so the package was forwarded to the 101st Airborne Division Post Locator sometime in December 1990. Once the box arrived at Fort Campbell, it was forwarded to the rear detachment 7th Battalion, 101st Aviation mailroom in January 1991. The mailroom determined that I was deployed to APO NY 09309, and again the package was forwarded (This was roughly mid-February by now as best I could make out on the postmarks.). I received the package on April 2, 1991. It had been in transit nearly six months.
The most amazing thing was that the package had arrived at all. I knew from letter mail that a package had been sent but never received, and we just figured it was in a pile somewhere and it would never arrive. I was sitting on my cot reading a book when the battalion mail clerk came down our row dropping of packages. Since I wasn’t expecting anything (I’d already sent word to STOP sending anything but letters because we knew we were coming home, we just didn’t know when. The condition of the package was why I’m even bothering to mention it.
The package was wrapped with several feet of plastic wrap. It was like a mummy, bandaged completely in plastic. It was oval and really had no corners remaining and was leaving a trail of crumbs every time it was moved. We were all laughing as it looked like something from a comedy sketch. I then started the unwrapping of the “box” like a forensic examiner in the TV show CSI. I peeled back layer upon layer of plastic, separating the labels so I could figure out what happened. When I finally got to the customs label is when I discerned it was the missing Christmas package I’d long gave up upon receiving.
Now to see what was inside. The crumbs were the remains of three cans of Pringles. By themselves, they might have weathered the postal system fairly intact. I’d put reading material on my list of things I wanted. There were a dozen or so paperback books and they had pretty much ensured that anything fragile was toast before I got the package. The Pringles went straight into the garbage.
I also found a 6-inch-tall plastic Christmas tree with red, white and blue ribbons for decorations. I still have that tree, sans the ribbons, and it is part of our annual Christmas décor to this very day. There were the paperback books, all of which are still in my library (Books go in, they never leave my library.) Beef jerky was edible and quickly consumed. I believe there were also several packages of assorted cookies and crackers, a few fared well, but alas most were in similar condition as the Pringles and again into the trash they went.
I’m pretty sure that was the last mail I received in Saudi as we departed on April 6th, 1991 and I was back home at Fort Campbell about 18 hours later. I was surprised that I wasn’t met when the plane arrived (I’d been able to call my wife during a stop at Kennedy International in NY.) and gave a general head’s up on our estimated arrival) when our flight of units from the 101st would return. (Usually one 747 full daily) Our unit was herded into the 8-101 AVN hangar near Campbell Army Airfield Operations where we were welcomed by the Command and their families. My family was conspicuously absent. It wasn’t until about an hour after we landed that I met up with the entire family.
.A 16-passenger van arrived with the wife and kids, my father and step-mother, grandmother (92, so this was a big deal), aunt, brother and sister-in-law and nieces. They had been delayed because my father had managed to book a hotel over an hour away in Dickson, TN. (I never knew why it was so far out). That delay kept them meeting me at the flight line on time as he was the one with the rented van.This was especially disconcerting because all the unit and their families had left and I was left standing in an empty parking lot outside the locked hanger wondering where everyone was at. Regardless of the delay and the confusion (not to mention jet lag), it was nice to me home again.
I was greeted with another surprise when we managed to get the entire family back to my quarters. We had Christmas in April. My wife and family had put all the Christmas decorations up again and all my presents were under the tree waiting for me. It was a great way to return from a war. I was home and surrounded by my family.
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