Wednesday, January 9, 1991 - "... they should have called this Operation Hotel California .... you can check-in but you can't check out." - CPL Dean Mobley, 3d Armored Division
from my desert Journal ...
I'm sitting out in the middle of the desert. We had been traveling for nearly two days and I'm covered in red dust. It's like colored talcum powder. It was in my mouth, up my nose and just all over me.
I guess we're going to war. We grabbed our rucksacks, M-16s, flak vests and gas masks and left Dhahran and the MGM far behind.
The smell of diesel was everywhere -- you just couldn't get away from it. The convoy stretched for miles on a four-lane highway headed toward Kuwait. It was getting dark.
About thirty minutes after leaving the city, the hood of the truck I was riding in suddenly popped up and smashed loudly into the windshield.
"Oh shit!" Mobley yelled.
"What the hell was that?" I yelled back.
The front hood banged and rattled against the window. We couldn't see a thing. Mobley slowed the vehicle down as I jumped out the door to the running board.
"Pull right, slow down, right, right, slow," I yelled as I guided him off the side of the road. The other vehicles in the convoy zoomed passed us.
"Damn hood!" Mobley said. He had been a corporal when we were back in Germany and somehow managed to get busted in two different units by the same major. Vern followed Mobley everywhere. Major Vern and Mobley hated each other.
We got the hood down and I checked for my rifle. It was still there lying on the seat. It was close enough for comfort even if I didn't have ammo. Ammo was not issued yet. Maybe I won't need to be issued ammo.
"We've got to catch up with the convoy Mobley," I said. I didn't like sitting in the desert by ourselves. We caught up with the convoy and drove all night listening to the news on BBC and music from AFN. Mobley had me take pictures of camels the next day to send to his mom back in Missouri.
We made one stop that night. A unit from the Alabama National Guard set up a 'soup kitchen of sorts.' It was really hard to see the chem lights. It was pitch black outside. Army green was the perfect color for the desert at night. It was stupid looking during the day. The chow wasn't bad. Lunch buckets, coffee, milk and bread. Fresh fruit, too.
Mobley was fixing another vehicle, so I got his chow for him. "On the Road Again."
I don't know where the hell we are. There's nothing out here. Secretary of State Baker was on the radio. He said the peace talks did not go well and he made the last effort for peace, but the door is still open for the 15 th Deadline.
Damn, damn, damn! I'll either be here forever or I'll die in the war with a pen in my hand. God, I just wanna go home and start life, let the Arabs fight their own war!
"You know, they shouldn't have called this Operation Desert Shield," Mobley said. "They should have called this Operation Hotel California .... you can check-in but you can't check out."
Isn't that the truth.
Postscript: Dean Mobley was killed two months later, just a few days after the ceasefire went into effect. Land mine.
