STOP-LOSS

I saw Stop-Loss tonight with Melissa. I honestly had no idea what it was about before going, I just knew that it was something about the war and that it was based in Texas......oh, and that my future hubby, Tatum Channing (back off ladies, he will be mine) was one of the main characters. Besides him looking very hot and yummy in the movie, it was extremely disturbing, and from my perception, it seemed "real". A little too real, in that it seemed to really portray what kinds of things happen, or could happen, over in Iraq, and it was really scary. The whole time I was thinking of the people that I know, the people that I went to college with, the people that are my age, or younger than me, that have, or are currently, experiencing the war, and it scared the crap out of me. I have no idea how anyone can handle that. I don't understand why anyone would volunteer for that, and it made me scared to have children that are boys one day.

Then on the way home, I was remembering when it seemed that all of this started. It was the summer after finishing my 8th grade, and I'd been living in Saudi Arabia with my parents and 2 younger sisters, for the past year. It was August of 1991. My dad and his coworker, Charlie, were in Kuwait, for work. My dad came home to Dhahran, Charlie stayed to get some more work done. Six hours later, Iraq attacked Kuwait. Charlie was stuck in Kuwait at the US Embassy for six months.

We lived in an Ex Pat compound at the time, Al Rushaid I, with some American military families and other families whose dads were in the oil business. After all of the initial commotion, I remember all of the military kids and moms being shipped home immediately. First it was the Jennifers, and then Ashleigh and her siblings, Merritt and Kirsten took off, the British families left too. My mom, sisters and I waited, and were glued to the TV watching the updates, seeing what was going to happen. After a few days, most of the families had vacated, and then it was decided that it was time for us to leave as well. So, my mom, Erika, Taylor and I packed up our stuff, and headed back to NJ on August 10, 1991. I remember the date so well because it was also Erika's 13th birthday (her 2nd one to spend on an airplane).

The house that we'd lived in from 4th-7th grade was being occupied by our former piano teacher, Susie, because my parents thought that we might move back at one point, and didn't want to sell the house. So, we got back to Voorhees, and moved right back into the house. We re-enrolled in school, and I showed up for the 1st day of school a few weeks later for 9th grade at Eastern High School. The friends that I'd said goodbye to a year before were shocked to see me, they asked "Hey! What are you doing here??". I reminded them that there was a war going on where I was living, so we came back for a while.

My dad had to stay in Saudi Arabia for work. He wasn't able to come back as he was running the operations for the company that he worked for at the time there in KSA. Anyways, we went to school in NJ, my dad worked. He was there by himself on the weekends with the other guys that had to stay, so they took adventures out to the deserts in their trucks, and made friends with the soldiers. While he was hanging out with the soldiers on the weekends, he started up something that was so cool. He realized that it was taking the soldiers a few weeks to get letters to their families due to the postal service having to get them across the ocean to get back home. So, he started "Desert Fax". He would take blank sheets out to the troops, have them write their letters, and in the top corner, put the US address to where it was to be sent. After he spent all day out there with them, he'd come back to his office, and then fax them to my mom in NJ, as well as a few other friends across the US. We'd get them, and then send them to the US address, to where it would only take a few days versus a few weeks to get to their loved ones. We also took the soldiers names to our classes in school, and wrote them letters, and had long distanced soldier penpals. My dad did that for every weekend that he was there, and made some life long friends out of it too.

So, winter break came, and the 4 of us headed back over to Saudi to visit my dad for Christmas. Thinking about it now, going back to a country that was at war.....and voluntarily, probably wasn't the smartest idea, but hey....we went. So, we packed up and went to visit. The coolest thing about this trip was that we got to go out and visit the soldiers that my dad had made friends with, and that we'd been sending their letters for the last few months. It was so neat to be able to see it all first hand. I don't think that I was that shocked by it when I was there, not sure why, but I think it's more alarming to me now.....thinking back at how old some of them were when we visited. I mean, some of them weren't but 3 years older than me, and they were AT WAR. Living in the middle of the desert, eating MREs (which are totally disgusting by the way....they pawned as many of them off on us to take home as we could for "show and tell"), and spending their Christmas with a tree in 110+ degree sand stormy weather.

I did get to drive a real Hum-V when I was there, we saw the toilets, and the living conditions. I remember that I had an Air Supply tape with me, and one of the soldiers said that he liked the band, and so I gave him my tape. I figured that he could use it a little bit more than I did at the time. Yeah, go ahead and make fun of me....I listened to Air Supply in HS, so what of it???

I have pictures that I'll find and post later of the time there.....you'll want to make more fun of me when you see how cool my hair was, and the 3 pairs of stacked, different color, socks that I was wearing, but that's not the point.

I guess I was just remembering all of that, tonight on the ride home, and cannot believe that all of that was almost 17 years ago. I still remember it like it was yesterday, and that just really is kind of crazy. I remember being scared that my friends that were seniors when I was a freshman were going to be drafted to war. I hope that the time comes, in my lifetime, where I can say that I remember when it was all over, and it has finally come to an end.

I also hope that my friends that are home now, finishing out the rest of their service in the military, are able to call it quits when their time of serving is over, and that they are not stop-lossed.