AFTER THE STORM

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 here 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.

The guardsman 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 while to come. 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 until civil authorities deem our mission accomplished.”

There was a murmur among the troops which seemed to build to a crescendo. Most of us were thinking, “But I only packed for five days.”

Thousands converged upon the city. 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 military members been called to assist civilians in need.

The sight was overwhelming. Miles from the scene the devastation was apparent. Pines and mangroves were broken like proverbial toothpicks. Sugarcane fields lay smashed against the mulch of mother Earth. And yet, this was just the faint outskirts of Ground Zero.

Tears flowed freely down the guardsman’s face. This was nothing less than America’s own Hiroshima. Utter devastation on a full arc. Where ever 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 glanced up into the surreal and advancing blackness of the midnight sky. What he saw there was like nothing he ever beheld. A lone meteor imposed itself against the barrenness of all else in the city. He understood the message. Even in the complete annihilation surrounding him, 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.

The guardsman was new at all this, as were the unfortunate inhabitants of the city. Everything was experienced on a grand scale. Eight days without a shower, 40 days in a tent; rain flowing easily across the dirt floor. Up at 5am, to bed at 9pm, arms and face burned by an unrelenting sun; lips cracked and bleeding.

Devastation greeted him as he attended his daily mission. Giant splinters where mansions once elegantly graced the landscape, staircases leading to nowhere but to an open sky. Small ships tossed unto 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 ogre’s giant hand. Concrete buildings knocked over like so many dominoes.

The stories were the sort you only dream about. Families saved by a single garage wall. A couple whispering their last goodbyes as they lay together in their bathtub. The 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 subdivisions. He cleaned the littered yards of the storm’s hapless victims. His rifle over his back. He staunched 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 entire life before,” she said. The guardsman spoke kind words. “Then you are the one who most deserves it.”

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 needed you here, and how we appreciate your having answered the call.” 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 plenty for countless volunteers in the months which lie ahead.

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. The tour was done, but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

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

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

And what of those we 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.

SSG William R. McDonald was a member of HQ, 2^nd Bn, 116^th Field Artillery, Lakeland, Florida, and a resident of Winter Haven, Florida.

This article appeared in The Lakeland Ledger and The Winter Haven News Chief shortly after his mission to south Florida concluded.

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