More Kansas Wind

Image by lwa519 via FlickrActually, when I entitled the last entry as "A Kansas Wind" I was going to talk about something that happened later that night. This was the day the main body came in and occupied the tent. There was so much confusion and settling in that I decided to sleep next to our trucks in the parking lot of our corner of the "Dust Bowl."

Accordingly, I took my cot, duffel bag and a poncho liner down into the area, set everything up and lay down to get some well deserved sleep. I had removed my BDU blouse (BDU's were the old green, tan and brown camouflage uniforms named "Battle Dress Uniforms") and then I noticed the wind. The temperature that day had been over 100 degrees and what I felt was a cool, 72 degree wind blowing over me. It felt great. I draped the poncho liner over my boots and drifted off to sleep.

I awoke several hours later to a noise that I couldn't identify. The 10 mph cool wind had become a 30 mph arctic blast and the temperature seemed to be below freezing. I felt around and couldn't find my cover - it had been picked up by the wind and blown to parts unknown. I could still hear the noise and as I rounded up my belongings I suddenly realized that it was my teeth chattering. Using the keys from my "fag bag", I unlocked the Node Center Door and jumped inside out of the wind. I emptied my duffel bag, put on a long sleeved shirt and stuffed my feet into the bag. Later when I had shivered myself warm the noise stopped. Next morning it was in the 80's at sunrise and the heat of the day was "on."

Kansas was like that - tempting you with something attractive and then attempting to make you miserable. A prairie sunflower approached too closely was embedded in a skin shredding tumbleweed. Cooler weather was quickly followed by high winds, thunderstorms and tornadoes. Nice green grass harbored the Kansas variety of "chiggers" that infested your lower legs leaving itchy, weeping sores. Three weeks later we climbed on the chartered 727 to fly home; and I realized that this would be the happiest day of my life in 2002.

My poncho liner was found tangled in the trees, halfway across the camp.

A Kansas Wind

Image via Wikipedia You may have heard me say that the best thing about Kansas is crossing the state line into Colorado, Texas or Missouri. My experiences with the "Sunflower State" go back to us coming home from California to live in South Carolina, extend through the harrowing ride that Susie and I had from state border to state border in a blizzard and into a couple of trips to Fort Riley. You might say that Kansas is very cold in winter, very warm in summer and pretty ragged in between. However I have one memory of the place that I'd like to relate.

We (an advance team) arrived at Fort Riley in July and started work in the dust bowl immediately. The Dust Bowl was an area near the railroad tracks where the Cav troops used to marshal for troop movements to war. It was really a grassy area surrounded by Elm trees and looked fairly nice at that point. Our team was assigned to quarters in a "circus tent" pitched in the middle of the field. The tent was large enough to house us plus the main body of 150+ troops when they arrived the next week. We got our cots out of the Milvan and set up our sleeping area and then reported for work in extremely hot temperatures.

The day the main body arrived, I had been working inside armored vehicles all day - setting up their radio telephones and showing them how to use them to talk and/or send data bursts to the maintenance teams in the rear. I probably drank 10 liters of water that day and still hadn't gone to the porta potty when dusk arrived. At about that time, things started cooling off and I suddenly had the urge "to go." There were two portapotties nearby and I walked over, tried one door and then the next to find out both were occupied. Meanwhile several other soldiers had started forming a line outside the little blue houses and most of us were dancing from foot to foot. A couple of medics came up with an ambulatory soldier who had needles in both arms and "juice bags" or bags of Ringer's Solution dripping into his bloodstream - obviously a heat casualty. Having been in a similar state at one time, I knew he HAD to go, so I announced to the occupants of the privies that we had a needy heat casualty outside and one of them should open up and let the man in. The portalet on the left shook back and forth and the door opened and out walked a Two Star General - the commander of the North Carolina Heavy Support Brigade. I looked him in the eye and said, "General, I'm your man. I apologize for being disrespectful."

He looked back and me, smiled and said, "That's OK, Sarge. But now you have a hell of a war story to tell for the rest of your life!"