Children’s Story
Dateline: Somalia - Late 1992 and 1993
U.S. Marine and Ranger units, at the urging of the United Nations, establish a presence at the Mogadishu airport. From there they struggle to maintain civil order and deliver food supplies to a starving population. Along with the famine, all semblances of local civil government and authority had long before evaporated. Chaos rules and lawlessness is the weapon of choice.
My sister and I took my mother to a local hospital earlier today for a routine ultra-sound test. My mother had recently suffered from a very nasty stomach virus, and her doctor wanted to peek at her kidneys to make sure they looked sound after the illness.
I escorted my mother into the first waiting room while my sister parked the car. The receptionist didn’t really say anything to us other than, “Have a seat over there.” So we sat down beside a beautifully decorated artificial Christmas tree near the front of the room. Above us in the corner of the waiting room was a television that was showing the last few minutes of the CBS Morning Show and then Regis and Kelly. Kelly was showing off her fitness routine and flashing her tight work-out outfit which accented her tight abs as well as her muscular shoulders and biceps. She was sort of loud, and I had no volume control to make her get quiet.
Across from us was a gray-haired lady sitting in a wheelchair quietly reading a newspaper and beside her was her daughter who seemed to be looking toward the corner of the waiting room off to my right. Sitting to my right a couple of seats down was a trim lady who was probably in her thirties. She was involved in an intense conversation with a man to her right sitting in the corner. He was obviously the object of attention for the lady across from me as well.
After my mother settled in, my attention was drawn to the conversation that the man in the corner and the lady next to him were having. It was most amazing.
The man was obviously a soldier. He was a rather short but very stocky guy with military tattoos on his thick biceps. He wore desert camouflage shorts and an Army Ranger camouflage hat. What made him stand out, besides the animated style in which he was telling his story to that stranger in the waiting room, was the large white neck brace he wore. How he came to wear that brace and other details from his life revealed in the fifteen minutes I audited (with their tacit approval) their conversation comprises an amazing tale.
The man, who I’m calling Waldron, is/was an Army Ranger. He was injured severely when he “fell out of a plane” not too long ago. I took that to mean that he was doing parachute jump training and had a mishap. He survived the fall but sustained a broken neck and had his back fractured in three places. He said that he had over thirty rods and many pins holding him together. At one point in the conversation, he removed his neck collar and showed us a vertical surgical scar that ran all the way down his back.
It was at that point that I stood up and interrupted the conversation to let them know that I was listening and asked him where he was stationed when he was injured. He said that it was a training exercise at Fort Belvoir. U.S. Army Reserve units routinely train there.
Waldron continued with his story. He seemed so upbeat and positive despite obviously dealing with injuries that cause him constant pain. The pain that he suffers is nothing, he told us, compared to his experiences in Somalia back in 1993. He was part of an Army Reserve force (most likely MP’s as I think that was the group that deployed from Virginia) that took part in the 28,000 troop humanitarian mission to restore order and feed the starving millions in Somalia.
Waldron told us that the Marines had established a beachhead at the airport in Mogadishu and then secured the whole compound with razor wire fencing. A few days after the initial thrust, his group landed at the airport and began their mission. Waldron said that on the first day they were there, they were immediately struck by the horrible physical condition of the people that stood outside the airport compound fence. These soldiers from Virginia had never seen the full effects of famine. On one side of the fence, the soldiers had all the food and supplies that they needed and much, much more. Yet on the other side of the fence, children were starving to death right before their eyes.
The airport facility was very secure with regular patrols coupled with a tall razor wire fence surrounding the compound. However, Waldron told us that he and his friends noticed a section of fence which had a very small hole at the base. This wasn’t a large hole by any stretch of the imagination, but it was large enough to pass items to the other side. So he and his buds gathered up all the extra food from their rations along with any other food stuff they could find and began sliding it all through the hole to a few starving children on the other side.
The next day, more children showed up at the hole, and they repeated the same ritual. This went on for a couple of days. Each day, more children would show up, and the soldiers would do the best they could to send them food through the hole. After a few days, Waldron said he noticed that some of the boys who had been coming back day after day had obviously been beaten. They had cuts all over their faces and black eyes. Concerned, Waldron found a boy who spoke some broken English and asked the kid what had happened to him. The child told him that their parents had found out that they had been eating and not bringing the food home to share. The parents took their displeasure out on them.
Waldron didn’t leave Mogadishu the way he intended. Based on what he told us, what happened to end his Somali tour might have occurred on that fateful October day in 1993 that has since been immortalized in the movie “Black Hawk Down” or it may have happened during a regular city patrol. I wasn’t sure which. He said it was his own stupid fault. He simply froze.
On that day, Waldron was on an urban patrol in the streets of Mogadishu. Every movement on the streets and in the shadows was important to note. He said you have to see everything and be prepared to react instantly to danger or perceived danger. As he turned one corner, he came face-to-face with a young boy, no more than ten years-old. The kid was smiling at him and holding an automatic weapon. For a second, he thought of his own boy back home in Virginia who was about the same age, and in that instant, that smiling child shot Waldron in the stomach. “It was my own stupid fault.” I noticed tears forming in his eyes as he told us that he managed to raise his weapon and shoot the kid before the kid could finish him off.
I looked away from Waldron at that moment, to give him a moment with his quiet thoughts. The lady next to him was shaking her head and crying. She reached her hand across the empty chair between them and placed her hand on his. The lady across the room was shaking her head sadly from side-to-side. The image he painted of that ten year-old boy smiling at him will stay with me forever.
Moments after Waldron told us his tale, he was called by the receptionist and taken for his MRI. I stopped him as he was leaving and wished him well thanking him for the story. He looked back and said with an upbeat voice, “Thanks man. You take care.”
U.S. Marine and Ranger units, at the urging of the United Nations, establish a presence at the Mogadishu airport. From there they struggle to maintain civil order and deliver food supplies to a starving population. Along with the famine, all semblances of local civil government and authority had long before evaporated. Chaos rules and lawlessness is the weapon of choice.
My sister and I took my mother to a local hospital earlier today for a routine ultra-sound test. My mother had recently suffered from a very nasty stomach virus, and her doctor wanted to peek at her kidneys to make sure they looked sound after the illness.
I escorted my mother into the first waiting room while my sister parked the car. The receptionist didn’t really say anything to us other than, “Have a seat over there.” So we sat down beside a beautifully decorated artificial Christmas tree near the front of the room. Above us in the corner of the waiting room was a television that was showing the last few minutes of the CBS Morning Show and then Regis and Kelly. Kelly was showing off her fitness routine and flashing her tight work-out outfit which accented her tight abs as well as her muscular shoulders and biceps. She was sort of loud, and I had no volume control to make her get quiet.
Across from us was a gray-haired lady sitting in a wheelchair quietly reading a newspaper and beside her was her daughter who seemed to be looking toward the corner of the waiting room off to my right. Sitting to my right a couple of seats down was a trim lady who was probably in her thirties. She was involved in an intense conversation with a man to her right sitting in the corner. He was obviously the object of attention for the lady across from me as well.
After my mother settled in, my attention was drawn to the conversation that the man in the corner and the lady next to him were having. It was most amazing.
The man was obviously a soldier. He was a rather short but very stocky guy with military tattoos on his thick biceps. He wore desert camouflage shorts and an Army Ranger camouflage hat. What made him stand out, besides the animated style in which he was telling his story to that stranger in the waiting room, was the large white neck brace he wore. How he came to wear that brace and other details from his life revealed in the fifteen minutes I audited (with their tacit approval) their conversation comprises an amazing tale.
The man, who I’m calling Waldron, is/was an Army Ranger. He was injured severely when he “fell out of a plane” not too long ago. I took that to mean that he was doing parachute jump training and had a mishap. He survived the fall but sustained a broken neck and had his back fractured in three places. He said that he had over thirty rods and many pins holding him together. At one point in the conversation, he removed his neck collar and showed us a vertical surgical scar that ran all the way down his back.
It was at that point that I stood up and interrupted the conversation to let them know that I was listening and asked him where he was stationed when he was injured. He said that it was a training exercise at Fort Belvoir. U.S. Army Reserve units routinely train there.
Waldron continued with his story. He seemed so upbeat and positive despite obviously dealing with injuries that cause him constant pain. The pain that he suffers is nothing, he told us, compared to his experiences in Somalia back in 1993. He was part of an Army Reserve force (most likely MP’s as I think that was the group that deployed from Virginia) that took part in the 28,000 troop humanitarian mission to restore order and feed the starving millions in Somalia.
Waldron told us that the Marines had established a beachhead at the airport in Mogadishu and then secured the whole compound with razor wire fencing. A few days after the initial thrust, his group landed at the airport and began their mission. Waldron said that on the first day they were there, they were immediately struck by the horrible physical condition of the people that stood outside the airport compound fence. These soldiers from Virginia had never seen the full effects of famine. On one side of the fence, the soldiers had all the food and supplies that they needed and much, much more. Yet on the other side of the fence, children were starving to death right before their eyes.
The airport facility was very secure with regular patrols coupled with a tall razor wire fence surrounding the compound. However, Waldron told us that he and his friends noticed a section of fence which had a very small hole at the base. This wasn’t a large hole by any stretch of the imagination, but it was large enough to pass items to the other side. So he and his buds gathered up all the extra food from their rations along with any other food stuff they could find and began sliding it all through the hole to a few starving children on the other side.
The next day, more children showed up at the hole, and they repeated the same ritual. This went on for a couple of days. Each day, more children would show up, and the soldiers would do the best they could to send them food through the hole. After a few days, Waldron said he noticed that some of the boys who had been coming back day after day had obviously been beaten. They had cuts all over their faces and black eyes. Concerned, Waldron found a boy who spoke some broken English and asked the kid what had happened to him. The child told him that their parents had found out that they had been eating and not bringing the food home to share. The parents took their displeasure out on them.
Waldron didn’t leave Mogadishu the way he intended. Based on what he told us, what happened to end his Somali tour might have occurred on that fateful October day in 1993 that has since been immortalized in the movie “Black Hawk Down” or it may have happened during a regular city patrol. I wasn’t sure which. He said it was his own stupid fault. He simply froze.
On that day, Waldron was on an urban patrol in the streets of Mogadishu. Every movement on the streets and in the shadows was important to note. He said you have to see everything and be prepared to react instantly to danger or perceived danger. As he turned one corner, he came face-to-face with a young boy, no more than ten years-old. The kid was smiling at him and holding an automatic weapon. For a second, he thought of his own boy back home in Virginia who was about the same age, and in that instant, that smiling child shot Waldron in the stomach. “It was my own stupid fault.” I noticed tears forming in his eyes as he told us that he managed to raise his weapon and shoot the kid before the kid could finish him off.
I looked away from Waldron at that moment, to give him a moment with his quiet thoughts. The lady next to him was shaking her head and crying. She reached her hand across the empty chair between them and placed her hand on his. The lady across the room was shaking her head sadly from side-to-side. The image he painted of that ten year-old boy smiling at him will stay with me forever.
Moments after Waldron told us his tale, he was called by the receptionist and taken for his MRI. I stopped him as he was leaving and wished him well thanking him for the story. He looked back and said with an upbeat voice, “Thanks man. You take care.”
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