Earned.
Thirty years ago tonight, I almost didn’t make it home.
The area of responsibility or the AOR was what the US military called the area of deployment to the Middle East. The housing complex we were staying at consisted of buildings that served as our living quarters, we had a chow hall, our commissary, and a small area that served as an exchange center.
I’ve never written about it, however, I’ve told the story time and time again. I think today is the time I write it, three decades later.
A few months earlier, I had received my transfer to the 34th Fighter Squadron of the 388th Fighter Wing. I was now peering into the hangar where these fighter jets I had only seen on television, walking up, close to each aircraft. You could say I stood at awe looking and watching these aircrafts come in and out of our hangar, and I felt it — a sense of importance, a sense of pride.
The office I stepped into had its skeletal crew as the rest of the staff were in Saudi Arabia as part of their deployment. It was the squadron’s turn to take its rotation to the Middle East. I looked forward and excited to be a part of a deployment. I was raring for an adventure.
If I remember correctly each rotation took ninety days. What piqued my interest was the stopover. Whether it was a day or two or even a few hours, the chance to see another part of the world seemed like a good tradeoff.
While I was there, I had the opportunity to meet several Filipinos serving with the different squadrons and other units of the military also temporarily deployed at the AOR. I also met the Filipino OFWs — kababayans far from home, building lives in the desert. They worked within the different parts of the housing complex or nearby communities. In the few days that I was there, I had spent several evenings having dinner gatherings with the local Filipino community.
On the evening of June 25, 1996, we had just finished dinner with our kababayans. The kind of dinner that Filipinos anywhere in the world seem to conjure out of thin air — rice, simple dishes reminding you of the Philippines, laughter louder than the food warranted. There is something about finding your people ten thousand kilometers from home that makes everything feel warmer, safer, more like an evening that could go on forever.
We were walking back. The night air was warm the way desert nights are warm — not humid, just present, like the heat hadn’t quite decided to leave yet. Someone was still telling a story. I remember the easy pace of it, the way none of us were in a hurry.
Then I saw it.
A small mushroom cloud rising against the dark sky. My first thought — and I am almost embarrassed to admit this now — was that it was too early for fireworks. The fourth of July was just around the corner.
Then the light hit us.
Then the sound.
The shockwave came like a wall I hadn’t seen coming, and suddenly the world had no edges. Glass. Voices. The specific silence that exists for half a second after something enormous happens, before the chaos remembers to begin.
I ran.
I found myself at the basketball courts. I glanced toward the mess hall. It was already becoming an infirmary. As the residents of the housing complex started converging into the courts, there was a commotion in the distance and before I could make sense of what was happening, a stampede was taking place.
A human wave of people barreling toward my direction. I look back and remember how we also react to events in a movie or at a television episode instructing the hero to do that or question why he or she did that. At that time, I realized that there is a certain part of your brain that reacts and your body simply follows. As I ran with the stampede, I heard heads hitting the pavement, grunts, and then someone or something shoved me sideways, out of the current. I pressed against the wall and watched person after person thunder past.
The shock didn’t leave us quickly. We were jittery for days. Between the before and after the explosion, I had been up for more than seventy two hours. I remember taking point in being the first to stand guard in our building’s entrance. It took me a week to get a good night’s rest.
At one point, I remember watching the news in one of our holding areas and hoping my mom back in California was not dying of worry. But she’s a tough cookie and I knew she believed in my scrounging abilities. Some guys in my squadron jokingly reminded me that if something like that there was a second attack, they’d be right behind me.
As I look back, with all the accomplishments, the failures, the trials that I have endured, I can say without any doubt and hesitation that I am glad that I lived through that experience. We lost nineteen lives that day with hundreds injured. I believed someone was watching over me and I thank God for my nth chance at life.
I still cannot believe that thirty years have passed, it still feels like it happened yesterday. No treasure in this world can replace what I earned that day, life.
This is a personal essay by our founder, written on the thirtieth anniversary of the Khobar Towers bombing, June 25, 1996.
The article is also published on Asturias Infinitive Media’s blog section.