(It was on this date, October 2, 1992, that my National Guard unit and I returned from Homestead, Florida; having served there 40 days after Hurricane Andrew)
It was August of 1992, and our local National Guard unit had been mobilized to assist the citizens of Dade County. As a result of Andrew, a Category five level hurricane, thousands of dwellings and businesses were savagely demolished.
In a newspaper article I wrote later, I refer to the utter lack of color which met my eye wherever I turned. Every building, and I mean every building, for twenty miles in any direction displayed some degree of damage, and a majority were reduced to little more than rubble. And oddly enough, something that is foreign to us in Florida, every tree and every bush was completely stripped of their leaves and flowers.
During the forty days I served in Miami, I began to experience an unusual amount of fatigue, and after our unit was deactivated, three weeks elapsed before I felt like my old self.
It was only later that it occurred to me that much of the apparent tiredness and lack of energy was the result of sensory deprivation, since during those dawn to dusk days in Homestead, Florida my vision was limited to white, black and gray, and an almost total lack of the color green.
As human beings, we are meant to see in color. Having ever viewed the world in color, our brains are not equipped to experience life in black and white.
by William McDonald, PhD
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