The Soldiers Wore Green. The City Did Not

The call was not totally unexpected, and yet it took him back a little. The voice on the unseen end of the line said, “Prepare to be there about five days.” In a bit of a daze the guardsman began to pack his duffle bag, first rather slowly, and then with increasing speed as the import of the message slapped him squarely in the face. He reached out for the last time to take his wife in his arms, and to reassure her of his affection. The last kiss would be remembered for a long time. He knew in his heart that the separation would be long and difficult.

     “Gentlemen” the captain shouted above the noise of the ceiling fans, “We’re going to be there until power is restored and ‘til civil authorities deem our mission accomplished.” There was a murmur among the troops that seemed to build to a crescendo, Most of us were thinking, “But I only came prepared to stay five days.”

     Thousands converged on the city of Miami. Men from every military service, and civilians from a myriad of state and federal agencies. This was the biggest of the big. Never before in our history had so many been called to assist citizens in need. The sights were overwhelming. Miles from the scene the devastation began to be apparent. Pine trees and Mangroves were broken like proverbial toothpicks. Sugarcane fields lay smashed against the muck of mother earth. But this was only the faint outskirts of ground zero.

     Tears flowed freely down the guardsman’s face. This was America’s own Hiroshima. Utter devastation was in evidence in a full arc. Wherever his gaze fell, destruction greeted his anguished spirit. For long minutes only darkness spoke. All other voices were shut off, as if by a common valve.

     The guardsman happened to glance up into the surreal and advancing blackness of the midnight sky. What he saw there was like nothing he had ever beheld. A lone meteor imposed itself against the barrenness of everything else in the city. He understood the message. Even in the midst of complete annihilation, his was a mission of hope, of mercy and of future reconstruction.

     The days were innumerable and duplicates of themselves, and yet subtle differences made each day, its own day. He was new at all of this, as were the unfortunate inhabitants of the city.

     Everything was experienced on a grand scale. Eight days without a shower, forty days in a tent, (rain flowing easily across the dirt floor), up at five A.M., to bed at nine P.M., arms and face burned by an unrelenting sun, lips cracked and bleeding.

    Devastation greeted him as he attended to his daily mission – giant splinters where mansions once elegantly graced the landscape, staircases leading to nowhere, but to an open sky. Ships tossed high on beaches, thousands of stray animals wondering what might have happened to their Johnny or Susie. Acre after acre of avocados, lemons, limes and nursery stock flattened, as if by some unseen hand. Concrete buildings knocked over like so many dominos.

    The stories were the sort you only read or dream about – families saved by a single garage wall, a couple whispering their last good byes, as they lay together in their bathtub; their house shaking as if on the back of a runaway locomotive. Fathers searching for grown children days after the storm. The guardsman experienced a magnification of reality in a microcosm of existence. He guarded darkened streets. He distributed food stuffs. He drove the little lanes of once elegant sub-divisions. He cleaned the littered yards of the storm’s hapless victims. His rifle over his back, he stanched the flow of gangs and looters.

     He met those who now called an automobile their home. There was the lady who apologized for accepting emergency food stamps. “I’ve never needed these in my whole life,” she said. The guardsman spoke kind words, “Then you are the one who deserves them most.” 

     There was the woman who shook his hand, and then, unexpectedly embraced him, and kissed him on the cheek. “You don’t know how much we appreciate you being here with us.” She walked away in tears, unable to say more.

     The last day arrived, and we were all ready to bid adieu to the city. Our task was complete, and yet there were tasks and missions aplenty for volunteers in the months and years to come.

     As we walked across the parking lot chatting and reminiscing, a bald eagle drifted over our heads, flew the length of our compound, and disappeared on the horizon. Tears again filled our eyes. Our tour was done, but would never be forgotten – Never.

     We were back, but we would never be the same. We were only better for that which we had seen, that which we had experienced, and for those brave people we had met and helped.

     We had returned to our natural environments. The air was fresher, the flowers more colorful, the sky bluer. Oh, how thankful we were on the other side of the storm.

     And what of those we had left behind. Their lives were budding again, just as surely as the trees of their city began to bud anew, after being so rudely stripped of their leaves.

By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 10