A Soldier's Mission

A tale from the USO lounge

"I'm sorry son, but your mother died."

What?

WHAT!?!

The young soldier, at first, didn’t understand what his commanding officer was saying to him.

His mother died?!? When?!?

How?!?!? While he was over HERE?!?!

The CO’s voice faded into the background. An unintelligible noise. Sort of like Charlie Brown’s teacher ... only not as funny.

His mother died?

He has to get home! HE HAS TO GET HOME!!!!

The young soldier jerks his head back up, looking at his CO. "...... 're doing everything we can to get you back in time for her funeral. It’s going to be close. Pack your kit and report back to Gunny. I’m working on your transport now"

The young soldier, packed and dazed, catches the Blackhawk taxi to the desert airport, the first step in the long march home. Over the ocean the thought occurs to him that the last hug his mother gave him was supposed to last a year, not a lifetime.

The longer into the flight, the longer it took to get back to the States.

The young soldier lands at BWI airport, late at night. Exhausted, with no money and needing transportation from Baltimore to his home in New Jersey. He turns to the USO, as so many before him have done for so many years through too many wars. He enters the lounge and introduces himself to the volunteer on duty. Home on emergency leave, mother passed away, need to get to New Jersey tonight for the funeral tomorrow. No money. What can we do?

That USO volunteer.

An incredible person. I don’t know the name of the volunteer. I don’t even know the gender. All I do know is that this volunteer is way smarter than I.

Way smarter.

No money, late at night. What can be done?

This smart USO volunteer tells the young soldier to sit down and have some bottled water. The volunteer is working on an idea and will be right back.

The volunteer walks over to the office for the Maryland State Police. The State Police provide security for the airport. Most of these humorless boys are veterans of the military. Maybe they can help.

And they do.

Once the story is told, probably retold and finally understood the State boys go into action. Phone calls are made, plans are formed.

The State Police, and I mean the State Police from Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey all understand the mission. They run shuttles from state line to state line. Like a great car chase, only at legal speeds and with quiet determination. An introduction to the new chauffer, a firm handshake to the departing chauffer, and on up the road.

State by state by state by state.

Everyone understands the mission initiated by this smart USO volunteer.

The young soldier completes his mission, arriving home in the early morning hour. In time to hug his mother’s casket before they put her in the ground.

This march was not about war, but rather remembrance.

With the help of a smart USO volunteer the soldier completed his mission.

Now it’s time for you to complete yours. The next time you are walking through an airport and spot a USO lounge, forgo that expensive pre-flight airport beer. Skip that fancy cup of coffee. Just walk into that lounge and drop five bucks into the kitty.

Five bucks for the troop who would rather be waxing his car, or courting his girlfriend, or hugging her baby, or going on a date with her husband or playing with his grandkids instead of protecting them.

Five bucks.

Make it your mission.

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The Road Trip from Hell

Frances can blow me.

I survived the Road Trip From Hell a few years back, all due to Hurricane Frances.

Here's the story:

I was in Ft Lauderdale, Florida for an Army conference, staying at a luxurious Marriott hotel in a room with a balcony overlooking a private marina. Like I told my friends, it's a dirty job but someone has to do it.

So, the conference was going very well with lots of people stopping by our booth to see what it was we were selling (and to pick up one of our spiffy baseball hats. I don't know why, but the hats were a big hit.).

Anyway, Hurricane Frances is on her way into town, but not due to stop by until Saturday morning sometime. I'm due to fly out Friday morning, leaving plenty of leeway. No sweat.

Sweat.

The conference managers decide to cancel the last day of the conference, Thursday. I'm thinking that they are over reacting just a little bit. I still do. No prob, I can work out of my hotel room on Thursday and still catch my flight out Friday morning. No sweat.

Sweat some more.

Thursday morning the hotel staff quietly slips a note under my door telling me that I'm being thrown out of the hotel no later than 2:00 p.m. THAT DAY.

Living easy, living free

Then the radio says that I'm being thrown out of the whole town!

Now, I've been thrown out of a few places in my life, but none better than the Marriott in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Okay, not to worry, I have a rental car and I can drive to somewhere safe (north) and catch a flight home. The car is a spiffy Chevy Venture minivan, perfect for a road trip.

Season ticket on a one way ride.

So, the kind travel agent at work calls Avis to make sure that it's okay with them that I don't return their car to the Ft. Lauderdale airport.

Asking nothing, leave me be.

Avis gets pissy.

It seems that their precious car had only 5 miles on the clock when they handed me the keys. Avis doesn't want me to drive their supple, vivacious car north and risk having Venture marry down. They want me to keep the car in the state. Heck, so do I but I didn't start the hurricane season.

I try to make a break for Jacksonville to catch a late flight home, leaving Venture at that airport. Okay with Avis.

There were 2,500,000 (as in millions) people told to evacuate Florida. 850,000 head for Georgia, and I'm following all of them.

I am not making this up.

Northbound I-95 is a parking lot.

The Northbound Florida Turnpike is a parking lot.

(North)Eastbound I-4 is a parking lot and

Northbound I-75 is a parking lot.

Northbound Florida is a parking lot.

There are no longer any airline seats out of Dodge. I'm going to have to drive home.

Taking everything in my stride.

Okay, so the kind young lady at the travel agency works a deal with Avis that I'll swap the Venture at the Gainesville airport for another car that I CAN take out of state. Since Gainesville is off of I-75, I figure I'll just drive up to Cleveland for a family visit that was planned for the holiday weekend anyway.

I have until 10:00 that night to get to Gainesville. No sweat.

I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!

Northbound Florida is a gridlock. Nothing is moving. I bail off of I-95 to look for secondary roads. THEY are gridlocked. Finally, I called my parents who live an hour north of Tampa.

I call them because (pick one):

a) I love them

b) I'm concerned about their well being in the face of an approaching hurricane

c) They have a LOT better Florida map than my cheesy Avis map

I make sure they're okay ("Hi, it's Don") and then get into the small talk ("Get out your map, I need help getting out of Florida").

Sure enough, their map shows a little known road, Route 33, that parallels the big northbound roads. Listening to talk radio, I start making my way over to the little known road to bypass everyone. The talk radio is cool. Many people are calling in telling us where we can find gas (the gas stations were running out of fuel and the tanker trucks couldn't get through to refill the gas stations); where to get water and where to get plywood (for the 3 people who decided to stay in Florida to not miss the hurricane party).

I'm sneaking up on the little known Route 33 when all of a sudden some bozo calls into the radio station and says "Hey everyone! Go on over to Route 33 and take it North. There's NO ONE on it and I was hitting fifty miles an hour the whole way!". I'm in my little minivan screaming "SHUT UP! SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!!!!".

Rats.

It doesn't matter. I got lost trying to find Route 33 and ended up on the main secondary roads, facing a seven mile backup to the next town.

By now it's evident that I'm not getting to the Gainesville airport by 10:00 to swap horses, so I personally call Avis. As nicely as I can I try to help them understand that we have two choices:

1) Work with me on making this a one way drop off someplace north of the Mason-Dixon Line, or

2) Let's play Grand Theft Auto

Avis blinks and I keep the car.

According to MapQuest, Ft. Lauderdale to Gainesville is 315 miles and will take five hours to drive.

I leave Ft. Lauderdale at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday and arrive at Gainesville 14.5 hours later at 12:30 Friday morning.

I'm still surrounded by Frightened Floridians heading north, and I am determined to break free of the crowd and keep on truckin' North. I know I can do this. I've ridden a motorcycle over 1,000 miles in a single day many, many times. I rode my motorcycle for 24 hours straight just to see if I could do it. I once rode my motorcycle from Conway, AK to Ashburn, VA in the middle of winter. That's 1,018 miles and it was 22 degrees! And that's AFTER wrecking the bike in Amarillo!!! I sure as heck can drive a cushy minivan long distance and outlast some Frightened Floridians!

According to MapQuest, Ft. Lauderdale to Valdosta, GA is 415 miles and will take seven hours to drive.

I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!
.
I'm on the highway to hell!

I arrive in Valdosta, GA at 3:30 Friday morning. I've been on the road for 17.5 hours and am starting to see double. Literally. I HAVE to pull off to get some sleep, and I-75 is STILL gridlocked with Frightened Floridians.

They have won.

Bastards!

So, I pull off and look for a place to sleep. The radio says that there ARE hotel rooms available in Chattanooga, TN(!) so I know I'm not going to get a room in Valdosta that night.

Now, I much prefer to sleep in the parking lot of say a Marriott or even a Hilton. My favorite parking lot is a Hyatt Regency because of the quality of service. However, beggars can't be choosers so I crash in the parking lot of a Hampton Inn. For the first 1/2 hour of shut eye I'm still driving. The stable car feels like it is still rocking like it's on the road and even with my eyes shut my muscles are still steering, braking and flipping the bird. I finally doze off at around 4:00 a.m, only to be awakened by the trash truck emptying the trash bins up the hill from my cozy parking space.

BEEP, BEEP BEEP, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR: BEEP, BEEP BEEP, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR:BEEP, BEEP BEEP, CRASH, CRASH, CRASH, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR, ENGINE ROAR.

There was a LOT of trash to haul that morning.

I finally give up at 7:00 a.m. and hit the road by 7:30 (To those who really know me, the answer is no, I did NOT avail myself of the Hampton Inn's free breakfast.).

I jump onto I-75 and right into gridlock. I swear that I recognized some of the cars from just a few hours before. These people NEVER give up.

Many of the Frightened Floridians peel off at Chattanooga TN. (hotel rooms available!!). I make good time after that until I run into the Labor Day Weekend crowd.

Whatever.

I stop in Cincinnati for the night and finally make it to Cleveland by noon on Saturday to start my holiday weekend.

Good grief.

My compliments to AC/DC for their inspirational song.

The Fighter Pilot's Prayer

A few years ago I had an interesting Halloween.

I'm at the fire station Sunday morning for a quick, one hour meeting with the head of our membership committee discussing membership issues. After the meeting I get to run up to my son and his wife's home to see everyone, including the little grandkids and their costumes. As an added bonus I also get to participate as an actor in my son's fantastic Halloween Celebratory Garage especially designed to scare kids of all ages. Their garage is so popular that local organizers made the garage a stop on the hay wagon ride.

So, anyway, near the end of the meeting the other party and I are looking to wrap things up when an alarm comes in for a bad two vehicle crash. The house clears out, but one ambulance is still in the garage. Hmmm. I'm a driver and she's an EMT. She looks at me and says "Let's go!". We hop in the last remaining ambulance and are on our way to the accident site.

Turns out it was a head on collision between a small compact car and a large SUV. The SUV won. There were seven people in the SUV and six in the compact car. SUV folks/kids were all belted in. Car occupants apparently were not. SUV occupants are not badly hurt, car occupants are. When we arrived on scene people were laying on the shoulder of the road like cord wood. The driver of the car was DOA and a nice looking young lady in the back seat was unconscious with a compound fracture of the arm. We had to cut the car out from around her. When I say "we" I mean the folks who were doing the work and me, standing there with the back board upon which to load her. The car had bent due to the impact, trapping the young lady's legs between the back of the front seat and the front of the back seat. Finally had to take a hydraulic ram to bend the car away from her so her legs were freed from the back of the front seat.

What a mess.

We ended up with about 8 ambulances and TWO medivac helicopters. The hospital went on Mass Casualty Incident Alert and we started shipping wounded to the hospital. I drove two wounded to the hospital, came back to the scene and then drove three more to the hospital. Quite an experience. THEN we had to restock the ambulances and retrieve missing equipment. There was so much equipment spread around that it was all taken back to our station where we hosted a sorting party. By the time all was said and done I no longer had time to visit the Infamous Halloween Celebratory Garage.

Rats.

Big rats.

I go home, shower up, have a bite to eat, and head on back to the station. I'm on duty at the fire station at 6:00 p.m. We had one call early in the evening for a little kid, allergic reaction to peanuts. A neighbor gave the kid a caramel coated apple as a treat, forgetting that he was allergic to peanuts, a component of the caramel covered apple. The call went well. The young guy reacts much less negatively to peanuts than in the past. He's in good shape. I take his blood pressure and it was 120/80. I look at him and to make him feel better say "Man! I wish MY blood pressure was like that!". The father looks at me and says "ME TOO!". We threw an oxygen mask on the kid just to help his breathing. Later on during the call the kid sneezes into the mask, blowing snot all over the inside of the mask. I look at the kid and say "That mask is ALL YOURS now, buddy!. The kid grins and the father laughs. That's me ... "Don, the Stand Up Fire & Rescue Comedian". Truth be told, it's good medicine. The medics took the kid to the hospital, non-emergency, for a check up. I suspect he's fine, except for missing Halloween. He and I should have a beer sometime and whine to each other about that.

Late that night, about 11:00 we get another call. Elderly gentleman, classy guy with a nice wife. Reminded me of my folks. He had a skin graft site start to bleed. Nothing big. We put a fresh bandage on the site and told him to stop whining, at least he didn't miss Halloween.

Went to bed about midnight.

4:30, we get an alarm. Elderly woman, cardiac arrest at a retirement home. Not a good sign. We get on scene, along with the more experienced medics. It's evident that she has passed away but because she is still slightly warm to the touch we need to work on her. When I say "we" you should reference previous related comment. It was amazing to see the pros at work. If she had a chance of living this would have done it. The EMT for whom I drive is performing the chest compressions while the lady is on the floor of her apartment. The EMT runs out of steam and I'm up to bat. I start chest compressions. It's time to transport so we place her on a cot (with wheels). I'm still up to bat so I hop up on the lower support bar of the cot, grab onto the other side with my right hand and continue chest compressions with my left. Just like in the movies. We are wheeled down the hall, into the elevator, through the lobby and out into the parking lot. All the time I'm performing chest compressions. We get to the ambulance and things go a little awry. As the cot is stopped at the ambulance everyone (except me, 'cause I'm still working) let's go of the cot, a wheel decides to lock up (stone?) twisting the direction of the cot, stability is lost and .... over we go.

Time slows down.

My adrenal glands, still asleep at that time of the morning, are awakened by the silent scream in my mind. Suddenly I am keenly aware of the fighter pilot's prayer ("Please God, don't let me f**k up"). Adrenalin shoots through my body, replacing approximately 50% of my blood.

What happens next is viewed like a slow motion movie.

This unfortunate lady is NOT going to hit the pavement.

My left hand catches one of the straps holding her upper torso onto the cot. My right hand grabs the upper hand rail. There is NO thought process to this. It just happens very, very fast. I stop the fall of the cot at about a 45 degree angle and block her body roll with my body. She is securely belted in, but she is shifting due to the angle. The other guys are still half way through the fighter pilot's prayer when I'm already righting the cot. I hop back on and continue the chests compressions.

GOOD GRIEF!!!!

We load her up into the medic's unit and send them on their way.

I'm ready for a beer. Where's that kid that missed Halloween? It's 5:00 p.m. SOMEWHERE in the world.

We finally get back to the station at 6:45 a.m.

My little phone alarm has been singing it's heart out in the bunk room since 6:00. I had it set to "Funky Town". When I get to the bunk room my poor little phone is going "BOOP BOOP Da BOOP da BOOP BOOP DA BOOP" pant ... pant ... pant ... "BOOP BOOP Da BOOP da BOOP BOOP DA BOOP" pant ... pant ... pant ... . Over and OVER and OVER for 45 minutes. Luckily there was no one trying to sleep. Otherwise I'd be looking for a new phone.

Quite a day.

I LOVE volunteering with fire and rescue.

Tale from the USO

Actually entry in the USO diary.