Gulf War Memories
Twelve years ago today, I sat in a darkened
Combat Information Center onboard the aircraft
carrier U.S.S. Ranger, staring intently at a radar
screen. It was the middle of the night, but the
place was buzzing. Nerves were strung taut. We'd
been drilling for weeks. Standing orders required
us to carry our gas masks with us at all times, and
we didn't know what to expect. But we'd come here
with a purpose, to liberate Kuwait, and we wanted
to get busy.
 Then:
the strident horns of the William Tell
Overture—the theme from the Lone Ranger TV
show—blasted from the ship's PA system. On the
TV monitors, flames from our jets' afterburners lit
up the flight deck. Laden with bombs, the planes
were bound for Baghdad. This fanfare played out
over and over again, at all hours of the day and
night, for the next 44 days. In the end, the
Ranger's air wing flew over 10,500 flight hours,
more than any other air detachment during the Gulf
War, and dropped over four million pounds of
ordnance.
Despite being right there in the thick of it,
though, at times it seemed unreal. We were in fact
250 miles from Iraq. My shipmates and I kept more
up to date on the war's progress via CNN than from
the intel in our own CIC. And the Ranger was such a
gigantic ship (over 5,000 men) that the air wing's
activities up on the flight deck seemed far removed
from my daily routine.
In a guest editorial for the University of San
Diego's school newspaper, I wrote at the time that
"it has largely been a War Against Boredom."
Looking back, I find my words somewhat naïve
(even if true), considering the horrors that men
and women—military and civilian—on both
sides went through. My shipmates and I were damn
lucky to be where we were. The closest I ever came
to combat was walking on the flight deck and
looking at all the bombs waiting to be loaded,
messages like "This one's for you, Saddam" scrawled
on them with Magic Markers.
Now, as our country prepares for another
possible war in Iraq, I find myself contemplating
the same questions I did then. Are we doing this
for the right reasons? Is it worth it? Have we done
everything else we can do short of armed conflict
to resolve the crisis? While I was in the Gulf, my
brother Denny wrote me, saying "the debate of war
to achieve peace will go on to the end of the
world." I agree with him now more than ever. Let's
just hope that a war to achieve peace doesn't bring
about the end of the world.
©2003 Michael
Strickland ALL RIGHTS
RESERVED
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