Events In The Night Sky
Remarked upon. April 2, 2003:
Around midnight, a longer stop, again in the desert. We got out, pissed at the side of the track. We decided to do some housecleaning and threw some empty MRE boxes off to one side of the road. Baxter, Smitty and I shared a couple of butts by the track. We heard some gruff noise as Sgt. Maj. Oggs came walking down the column and found our trash. He did what sergeant majors do, which was to get pissed off that anyone would dare throw trash in his desert. This was the first time since the start of the war we’d seen Oggs, the battalion sergeant major, who was wall-eyed and freaked everyone out because they were never sure who he was bitching out. This time, he was bitching out everyone. The stuff was picked up, to be ditched again later when Oggs wasn’t around.
And so we were hanging by the track, smoking, when we saw a bright light arc up from the rear, miles back. The Multiple-Launch Rocket Systems always launched four at a time, four streaks that would burn out partway up the sky, the rockets sailing silently several thousand feet over our heads, until they lit up the opposite horizon, a big whitish-yellow glow to be followed a few moments later by distant booms, way over there where men theoretically were dying.
But this was just one streak, burning steadily as it rose way up to the top of the sky. There, it flared briefly and abruptly changed direction. Now it was streaking back in the direction from which it had come, gradually descending, becoming faint. Then it was gone, swallowed up by the vast and utter darkness of a dusty desert night. The dull noise of a distant explosion followed some time after.
“What the fuck?” said Smitty.
“That was different,” Baxter said.
Whole thing. Yeah, it’s another trip down memory lane.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 1:15 pm Comments (2) on Thursday, April 2, 2009
2 Responses to “Events In The Night Sky”
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April 2nd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
This is particularly poignant for me, because Lt. White was from the town where I was born and spent some of my childhood (although those years were long before Lt. White was born). And AW1Tim, your reply was very moving. I hope you shared your friend’s name with someone younger, so that he will continue to live even after you are gone.
April 2nd, 2009 at 11:39 pm
RebeccaH,
Thank you, you are much too kind. I have, and even if both he and I are lost to time, we’ll see each other again, and have plenty of time to talk the talk old men do when they remember their “other” lives. The hair goes grey, the jowls thicken and it takes a little longer to get around, but there is a fire in the eyes when those times are remembered. Shakespeare himself knew how strong those feelings were, how hard and tempered were the bonds forged between young men who shared those experiences. His words from Henry V’s speech at Agincourt are as true today as when they were written 5 centuries ago:
…..
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remember’d;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
———————————-
God bless all those young men and women we lost. We may never be able to repay the debt we owe them, but they can rest assured that there will always be those who remember them.