1st Lt Prifogle’s Blog

The First Sand Storm

Living in this dessert is something that most American’s will never experience. Personally, I wouldn’t mind going without the experience myself, but life had other plans for me.

We had our first sandstorm yesterday.

A cold front had crept in over the last couple days. It had been getting warm enough to go running with only a t-shirt, but the temperature started to drop and the wind picked up momentum. About midmorning the wind started howling with more force then I have ever heard wind howl. Over here there is nothing to stop it – no skyscrapers, no forest, nothing. Just barren land. Out here the wind is completely free, unlike the human inhabitants (or at least those of us restricted to base).

I like to think the wind is a spirit. It travels the world. It is a prisoner to gravity, weather patterns and obstacles. The wind has a very particular role or mission it must accomplish. In the desert this spirit is free. Here there are no chains. It can dance under the stars or just lie under the sun. It is not restricted by its duty or its obstacles. In my 13 mile prison cell there are many days when I daydream about becoming the wind – dissolving into the air and leaving everything in a magical whirl.

By noon I could look straight at the sun. It felt more like a sci-fi movie than real life. I looked straight into the sun and it didn’t hurt my eyes. I looked at it, just like I stare at the moon – transfixed. The fine layer of sand that normally coats everything was picked up by the wind – the perfect dance partner. I think the sun was trying to shine harder to get through the debris in the air causing the whole sky to turn an eerie shade of orange. Before a weekly Staff Meeting our Doc described it as “tangerine,” but our Communications Officer called it “peach.” Apparently they were both hungry. I walked outside and it felt like the children’s book, “James and the Giant Peach.” It was no longer an endless horizon – it was a dome closing in on us. It felt like we were trapped in a snow-globe and wrapped in orange wrapping paper.

After our weekly staff meeting I needed to get away from work for a few minutes. I decided to take a drive. This is what I do when I can’t run – I drive. Either way I have to be moving (even if it is within the confines of a snow-globe). I drove to the ridge that protects base. It is a wall of dirt 50 ft tall. From the top of it base looks like it sits in a bowl. The wall would be a perfect sledding hill if there was ever enough snow. To get to the road you have to drive to the edge of base. If you go any further there is a guarded gate, but if you turn you can continue up an empty road to the top of the world. This is my thinking spot. There are ranges and Marines along the road, but most of the time and especially during a sandstorm it’s empty. I like to drive along the road and look outside of base – nothing. Nothing but space and desert. The other side dips down into the earth and base emerges from it.
Driving through a sandstorm feels like driving through a snowstorm. The air is dry and you can only see 20 – 30 ft ahead. The wind takes its partners, the sand and sun, and together they do a jig across the desert horizon.

I drove down the empty road looking from one side to the other. Desert. Base. Desert. Base. When the road ended I drove back to my shop. Some of my Marines were standing outside looking at the sky and trying to breathe the coarse air. For most of them it was their first sandstorm too. I joined them for a few minutes as the wind screamed past us. As it dodged the warehouse buildings in our compound, the wind shrieked like Sirens. For a few moments I closed my eyes and joined the wind and the sand. I dissolved into the air and flew far away into the setting sun.

I wait for the next sandstorm, so I can run away with the wind again.

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