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Chad Creutz Mr. Harrell English Composition I 16 Sept 2013 Happy Birthday, Baby 1630, Thursday September 8, 2011: Just one hour before Delta Flight will be coming around to relieve us from post bringing an end to another brutally long work day. I grow anxious in anticipation for the exciting evening I had spent weeks planning. Then I look to the south where a solid wall of sand is heading straight for us. This cant be good. Within seconds the entire backside of the flight line is completely engulfed in a cloud of sand and rocks. I cant see more than five feet in front of me and the roar of the wind, combined with the sound of small rocks pelting the truck, is deafening. Through the chaos I am barely able to hear a voice come though the radio, Control, 4-4, the revetments just uh fell over. What? Say again 4-4? The top of the revetments just fell over. Thats definitely not good. 4-4, was there any other damage? Personnel just informed me a planes fuel tank was punctured and munitions were damaged. Shit. I instinctively pull out my phone to text Laura: Gonna be late. Sorry.

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0300 that morning: The alarm on my phone sounds out in the darkness and no matter how many times I wake up at such an ungodly hour, it always feels much too soon. After silencing the shriek of the alarm, I roll over to kiss Laura, my wife of only 8 months, on the forehead and whisper, Happy birthday, Baby. She smiles ever so sweetly and falls right back into a deep sleep. Then I roll out of bed and stumble into shower hoping that it will help me to wake up which it never does. The rest of the process has become pure muscle memory and before I know it, I am sitting in my car ready to head out. As I drive along the 215 Beltway with the pitch black desert on my left and the city of Las Vegas, Nevada shining brightly on my right, I see the other cars and cant help but wonder who else would be out this early in the morning. It is probably some drunken idiot driving home after a wild night of partying. As I swerve back into my lane I wonder which one of us is the bigger hazard? I arrive at the security forces armory of Nellis Air Force Base at 0355. Im five minutes early but according to my supervisor thats ten minutes late. So of course, I get to spend the next five minutes getting briefed on how Im making him look bad by only being a little early. I then go over to check the roll sheet to see where Im posted. A1C Creutz: Eagle 43, finally some good news: the backside of the flight line was the perfect place to relax and slack off as you could see people coming for miles. Arming up was business as usual: more muscle memory. Once armed, I fall into formation and prepare for guardmount. Today was a special day as it was approaching the ten year anniversary of 9/11 and vague threats of another potential attack had been coming in. For this reason, we had been elevated to a higher alert status: FPCON Bravo which meant that we had to create more posts, more random patrols, more random checks, and all around more crap that we had to put up with. In this particular situation, we also had two F-15s that had been fully

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loaded with munitions ready to deploy at a moments notice parked in the revetments located on the backside of the flight line (revetments being large, steel and concrete barriers with a sunshade overhead). After all the other typical briefings, and our daily dose of being told how much we fail at life, it was time to head out to post. The fifteen minute bus ride out to post was quiet as everyone was far too tired to waste what little energy they had on talking. Upon arrival we got to play the game of change-over. The rules of the game were simple: the off-going shift would try to screw over the on-coming shift by hiding what new things went wrong with the vehicle and the on-coming shift would try to discover these things so that they wouldnt be held responsible. Once the game had ended and my partner of the day, Lopez, and I accepted the vehicle, we settled in for what we hoped was another routine twelve hour shift. Most of the day was just business as usual: we spent a large portion of the day trying to avoid the harsh sunlight and find any way to make the time go by a little bit faster. Despite our best efforts though, time had seemed to almost stop. What made it worse was the anticipation I had for the plans I had made for that evening and the coming three day weekend. It was Lauras first birthday since we had been married and her first birthday that we were able to celebrate together. I had made plans to go to her favorite restaurant and even bought tickets to go see The Lion King. The excitement was driving me crazy. Sadly as the end of the shift approached, all of my excitement was destroyed. The sand rolled in and all hell broke loose. Personnel just informed me a planes fuel tank was punctured and munitions were damaged. With this sentence I knew that all the plans I had made were just cancelled. However with the apparent danger of having damaged munitions around a jet fuel spill, there was no time

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to dwell on this and we sprang into action. We began driving straight into the sand storm towards the revetments to assist with evacuating everyone from the area. As we approached the scene, the windshield of our truck shatters forcing us to bail out. The sand passed just moments later allowing us to see the full extent of the damage that the storm had caused. We managed to get the area cleared and no one was injured. With our own situation handled, we took the time to listen to our radios to see what was happening everywhere else. The entire base was in complete chaos. We quickly learned that Delta Flight had already been dispersed thought the base to help get everything back under control. We had no one to relieve us. We were stuck out there. Hours passed until we finally heard the news we had been waiting for: relief was on their way. The sun had already come and gone and we were all once again exhausted from the hectic day. We watched as the bus came down the long road to the backside, thankful to finally begin the process of heading home. 2330, twenty hours since leaving home, I pull up to my apartment, barely able to keep my eyes open but thankful to be home. I walk through the door and find the lights all turned off. Laura is already in bed. I gently kiss her forehead to let her know Im finally home, Happy birthday, Baby. I walk over to my bedside table and pull out the tickets for the show that had ended hours ago. I scan the ticket only to see in bold print, Non-refundable, non-transferable. Just another sacrifice I have to make for signing that paper.