Keep Calm And Carry On

Have you ever noticed that some people are "unflappable?" When the sky is falling so many people run around as if they are suffering from a frontal lobotomy...all but a few at any rate. I had a theory about that when I was growing up. Every serious event in life is mitigated by experience and the perspective it sometimes grants.

Winston Churchill, former Prime Minister of the UK, once said there is no more exhilarating feeling than being shot at...and missed. Having been shot at tends to make many crises less substantial. Winston Churchill was shot at in World War I. He was an inspirational leader for the crisis of World War II. Its because he had perspective (among other things).

While the title of this post is not credited to Churchill, it was from the Ministry of Information in his government. Its the perfect condition that I strive to emulate during any particular crisis. I never thought that my theory would take a dose of horror before it cemented itself as a personal philosophy.
I was 22. Aside from being a nerd in high school I turned out just like any other 22 year old male. Because I was bored in College I joined the Air Force. I found myself stationed in Frankfurt Germany at a base called Rhein Main. It was the hub for all military air travel in Europe. I was far away from any conflicts. I was a base cop just learning the tricks of the job. Just fast enough to be exciting but just slow enough where I didn't feel my life was in danger every time I went on duty. As life altering assignments went...this wasn't one of them.

That kinda changed on October 23, 1983. The Islamic Jihad exploded two bombs equivalent to 12,000 pounds of dynamite outside the American Marine barracks in Beirut. It instantly killed 220 US Marines and twenty US Navy and Army personnel. It also killed 58 French paratroopers and the wife and four children of the Lebanese janitor at the building. All these people were asleep during the attack.

After the Explosion

Generally speaking I am a stoic observer of the brutality that man perpetrates upon humanity. I can't say that I would argue this trait is something to be emulated. It simply is because I have seen too much of it. Still, at 22 it was shocking but half a world away from me. Distance has a way of inoculating you against this sudden shock and it allows you to categorize and assimilate without too much trauma.

But few survivors

That didn't last. While I was on shift one night I was informed that Rhein Main would be a hub in the repatriation of the bodies. This meant honor guards, tighter security, aircraft escort, and crowd control as the planes landed and preped for flights back to the US. We all groaned but realized at the same time that this duty was a substantial effort and we were constantly reminded of the grieving familes back home. This was the first time "closure" entered my vocabulary. There were thousands of people waiting for that and none of us were going to be the cause of its delay.

Before a single plane arrived something changed. My seniors became more somber. Commanding officers lost the pep in their step and everyone in the know stopped answering questions or speaking about repatriation. The cloud of doubt lifted quickly or at least some of the confusion anyway. But most people at my level were still bemused right up to the first aircraft arriving.  And the first tent went up in the back of the base.

There would be no "hub" in the conventional sense: planes coming to Rhein Main then going to the US. Instead they stopped there. They began to unload flag draped caskets (the ones we are all so familiar with today). The incoming planes became so numerous that they asked for volunteers or volunteered people to lift and carry. Some caskets could be lifted by six people and others by just two. I was all pretty much numbed up by then as casket after casket came to the base, was carried off the planes and then placed on trucks for continued transport.

There were hundreds. US flags everywhere. If it hadn't sunk in how serious it was before then It had by the time the aircraft were empty and departed. It took almost a whole day to unload (that's 24 hours). Chaplains everywhere. Honor guards at continual attention around the clock. Distinguished Visitors. Some families who cashed in a few favors to meet the plane in Germany and transport back with the body. Tears. Crying. I saw allot of women in uniform, on-duty...never seen so much running mascara in all my young days. No one talked. If this was as hard as such things got then there were stronger people there than me.



It had only begun. The trucks with the caskets never left the base. I later found out that there was a veritable tent city in the back of the base. That's where the trucks went. It was all extremely odd. No one had actually informed the police squadron the reason for the change of plans. All we knew was that a new secure area was to be manned and guarded.
Then another call for volunteers. But by now there were tell-tale signs that gave it all away before they could explain it to us. Formaldehyde. Because of the sickly sweet pall that descended on the base, the population finally got it. Rhein Main was a morgue.

Somewhere the decision had been made that we were the perfect location to conduct a function that had to be done before repatriation: identification. The volunteers were needed to help identify the dead. I can't think of one person who didn't raise their hand. But I can think of a few who wonder if it was one of the wisest decision ever made.

There was no way-no way-anyone can prepare themselves for such a task. No matter who you are you can't help being changed, altered by seeing what we do to each other. This was now ground zero for all to see. My safe harbor away from the immediate ugliness was overcome by obvious and immediate tragedy.

Oddly my initial thought when I saw the first victim was that he was just like me and too young to be lying there dead. Most were under 25 years old. Some were 18 or 19. I learned so many things that day about how we destroy people. There were some bodies there that had only few scratches on them but were just as dead. They were killed by concussion. The many attending doctors were required to account for the exact nature of death for each Marine. One doctor turned the Marine's head to the left and his eyes went right. Nothing inside the skull was connected. It went on like that one after the other for a month.

The volunteers like me were used to identify individuals through dog tags and finger prints. And I suppose that is the root of my nightmares (which thankfully I no longer have on a regular basis). If they still had their dog tags I would record those. Most, however,  had the dog tags blown clean from their bodies. In that case I would take their finger prints. This is when I learned why some caskets were carried by only two people. Some of the caskets had a strip of masking tape across the top. It said simply "Parts." I can't begin to describe opening one of those caskets so I wont try. I would find the limb and take prints from it. Eventually we were able to determine which part went with which Marine. On and on day after day. So many kids dead. So many of us sick to our stomachs. A month of formaldehyde cloaking the base. A month where people whispered, where there was precious little laughter, and much too much quiet trauma.

I know this post is grim. But I became a stronger person for this experience. In time after this event I would be shot at, I would respond to murders, rapes, robberies, beatings and the list goes on. But nothing ever shook me like that day in October. It made me a stronger person but I suppose it also caused cracks in my youthful ignorance. For me it validated my philosophy of experience over crisis. But it certainly took its toll at great cost.

We were all offered counseling after the departure of the dead. I didnt take it. I didn't understand what changes it would create. Today they call it post traumatic stress disorder. I laugh when people tell me I have PTSD, especially when I think of all those shattered families. But when the nightmares revisit its a crazy frightening memory. I have met others who have gone through the ordeal or had close friends and family who died there. I see myself in their eyes and realize we were all casualties. We learn from our ordeals or they destroy us. Keep calm and carry on.