The Desert

I first fell in love with the desert at the ripe old age of 18. The only thing I had know about the desert prior to this time was from Merlin Perkins, Ali Baba, or some Sunday afternoon black and white movie. Until then it was just a place I dreamed of visiting. I was 18 years old fresh out of training in Huntsville, AL and had landed in California to my new unit.

We flew into the Ontario Airport were it was 85 degrees ( I was thrilled), rented a car and proceeded to drive out across the desert through Barstow, our destination Ft. Irwin, CA. The middle of nowhere:Ft. Irwin

I specifically remember going through the front gate which was around 8 miles from the actual beginning of the base. (This was done on purpose I later found out. It was 8 miles because that allowed the government to not have to pay all the soldiers stationed there remote locality duty pay (anywhere more than 40 miles from the nearest city/town requires an amount on top of regular pay, so they pushed the front gate out 8 more miles. So technically you just fall under the 40 mile mark. Back then the government was trying to figure out ways to cut military spending (aren’t they always). I digress...It was approximately 115F that day I arrived, it was the kind of dry heat that when you inhale through your nostrils you feel as though your nose hairs are burning. It was beautiful to me. I learned what swamp coolers were and had lunch at the mess hall with ½ of the troops dressed in Russian uniforms and the other ½ U.S. uniforms. At that time “the cold war” and “kill a commie for your mommy” was the battle rhythm of the day.

Cacti and Snakes
We went to do a range clearance with the team in Ft. Irwin. The guys were fabulous, they showed me how to throw a boulder at a cactus and have it bounce right off. They teased me endlessly. “Private Benjamin” one afternoon opened her truck door to drive back toward where the shot had been and inside was a fully coiled rattle snake right under the brake peddle! I almost jumped but then I took a deep breath and looked more closely at the truck invader….no movement, no tongue darting in and out. He was dead. I screamed just to let the guys think I was actually scared, then picked up the dead snake by the neck (just like on TV) and threw it at them! I made them all jump…it was hilarious. The snake had been killed by incoming shrapnel from the previous shot  I did get them back, I found a rattler stuck in a fox hole out in the middle of China Lake (it is a dry lake) and put it in back of the truck with all of the gear. 

Stars, Goldstone, and quietness.
On one of these evenings we ventured out in the desert to drink beer and star watch. As we all lay on the hoods of the car and stared up at the brilliant sky, my breath was taken away and the noise from the chattering guys disappeared. I had never seen such a magnificent display of what was beyond the earth as I did on that evening in the desert. The stars were so clear and with no light pollution I finally was able to see just how many stars there are out there. It was an amazing display of fireworks; it seemed as if you could see a shooting star every 2 minutes. It was at that time that I had decided that I believed in the possibility of other life forms on other planets. I decided that the probability with all of the amazing things I was now viewing was that there was much more than the eye can see and that when I was filled up with knowledge and information from this world I would definitely have to check out the rest of the universe. Hence why I have been following the X Project and Virgin Galactic since its inception. This is when I learned driving out in the middle of the desert that there was a space viewing facility called “goldstone” in the desert. Smart men…Smart placement for a space viewing facility.

We also went to the high desert outside of Reno quite often. I absolutely loved it! Beautifully surrounded by Desert Mountains, I have been there in 120 Fahrenheit and -10 Fahrenheit. The desert spring is spectacularly brilliant, while most people don’t think that anything grows in the desert I say look closer and quieter, there is so much to be seen. I saw my first scorpion while laying on my stomach during a FTX exercise with the Monterey guys up there. It was 120 some degrees out and I was lying on my belly in the prone position with my weapon at my shoulder being shot at by the enemy (pretend) and returning fire and out of the corner of my eye I watched this really nasty looking thing crawling towards me. It wasn’t like I could get up scream and stomp on it, in the real world if I did that I would get shot…and I didn’t want to let down my team. Instead I unsheathed my knife from my side and took the butt off my “Buckmaster” and smashed the scorpion in half. Those of you who know me know that I can’t even smash a bee or ant. However it was him or me and it wasn’t going to be bitten by a scorpion (just like I had seen on Emergency 9-11 (a really bad 70’s TV show) where a guy brings back something from a trip and a scorpion came out of it (ewe avocado green refrigerator come to mind) and bit a guy in the calf. The EMT ambulance comes and the two guys are trying to figure out what bit him) blah blah blah you know the rest. Typical EMT sitcom)…. So I then knew that the scorpions were not just an 80’s rock band but something far worse found in the desert in nature. I can’t say I wasn’t scared out of my wits, because I was. So even though I knew that I wouldn’t actually be killed by incoming fire, I couldn’t let the team down. I also would have heard the usual…(Of which my Sgt Maj reminded me of on almost a daily basis): “I told you that girls don’t belong in the U.S. Army let alone EOD”. I didn’t know at that time that according to some people as long as I was a female I would NEVER be good enough. It really isn’t a chip on my shoulder, I believe it is all good as long as you learn something from everything you do, good, bad or indifferent. The point is as long as you are cognizant of what is going on around you and continue to learn and adjust based upon situational awareness you are still doing something productive. Learning. I hope to be sound enough in mind to continue this till the day my last breath is entered into my nostrils.

I made many more trips to many different deserts during my time in the Army and each time it was spectacular.

I find the desert and its culture very interesting and certainly this new desert will completely be unchartered territory for me.



All the best,

~Susan