Calling Home
By Jeffrey Wilson

It wasn’t the heat this time; it was the friggin’ sand. Those first couple of weeks the heat bothered him the most- no question. This place felt less than a mile from the sun.

Dry heat my ass!

On that first day only eleven weeks ago, John had stepped through the door of the C-17 transport plane and sucked in his first breath of desert air.

Sweet mother of god! My throat is going to burst into flames.

But he had adapted since then: now he barely even noticed the constant film of sweat that painted his body, trickling from his head to between his toes inside damp boots. Now it was the sand- everywhere, all the time. Nothing escaped the fine layer of grit, not even the lining of his lungs. Brushing his teeth had a disgustingly grainy feel and no amount of swishing with sandy water made it better. At meals, an audible crunch! crunch! accompanied every bite.  At night a fine layer of sand invaded his rack and sheets, sticking to his skin. Yeah, definitely what sucked was the sand.

John worked at the far end of the tent city compound in the Fleet surgical hospital. The work came in spurts- long dull days when his surgical team received no wounded Marines, punctuated by the hysteria of hours and hours of mass casualties. It was nothing like medical school or surgery residency. They hadn’t prepared him for this place. But he felt proud of his team. Here, he made a difference.

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