Once Upon a War Ch. 07

Nick returned to the clinic, about 05:00, to continue to sort through the minor wounds, and assist in follow-up care.

Nick and Lisa would remember June 25, 1996 for the rest of their lives.

After 24 hours, Nick and Lisa were finally relieved to go get some rest. It had been a medic's worst nightmare, only there wasn't any waking up from it. It had all been too real. Nick's sutured laceration was beginning to ache. What Nick didn't realize was that the laceration he got from flying, shattered glass had cut him down to the bone over his left shoulder blade. Initially, he was given over 20 sutures to close it up, and it could probably have taken another 10 to close it properly. Thanks to the emergency room doctor, Nick wasn't going to have an ugly scar when his wound healed. Nick's uniform blouse was a total loss.

Lisa and Nick spent over an hour cleaning up glass from a shattered window in his room. This included having to shake out his sheets and blankets before the couple could finally crash on Nick's bed. By June, it was extremely hot during the day in Saudi Arabia, so even as tired as they were, Nick and Lisa had a hard time sleeping in the heat.

Nick was amazed on how quickly the base pulled together to get things fixed. Within 3 days, they were sending out missions as F-16s started flying cover in Operation Southern Watch. The Civil Engineering squadron and a whole host of Saudi contractors were replacing windows at a fevered pace. Within a week, Nick had glass back in his window and the Air Conditioning was cooling his room down to a livable temperature. He was luckily to be one of the first ones in his building to have his window re-glazed.

Over the week following the catastrophe, the clinic was quickly resupplied, and the clinic personnel were heavily involved with arranging medical evacuation for many of the wounded to be sent to Europe, and eventually back to the United States for care. The attack had taken the lives of 19 airmen, most of which had been from 71st Rescue Squadron out of Patrick AFB, Florida, and the 58th Fighter Squadron out of Eglin AFB, Florida.

Lisa's unit was delayed in rotating home due to recovery efforts, but a week later than normal, Lisa was loaded with the rest of the folks from Shaw onto a 747, and they were taken home.

Just before Lisa boarded her aircraft, Nick took out a 22kt gold ring he bought downtown. He dropped to his knee, and asked, "Lisa Marie Sneed, would you do me the honor of marrying me?

Lisa was speechless for a several long seconds. Finally she replied in a shaky voice, "We'll see. I need to think this through. Okay?" Nick was crestfallen that she didn't accept right away, but his spirits were lifted when a teary eyed Lisa took the ring and slipped it on her third finger of her right hand. She gave Nick a quick kiss, totally taboo in Uniform, and climbed the stairs to get on the aircraft.

Nick was acting on his own, up until now Terri had chosen his new wives, but in this case, he was taking the initiative. Theresa, Samantha, and Antonia, Toni's real first name, would just have to accept Lisa. From what Terri had told him earlier, they expected her to join the family anyway.

There was discussion about moving the 4404ths base of operation to a base outside of Al-Kharj a city near Riyadh. As replacement units came in, they were directed to report to Prince Sultan Air Base at Al-Kharj. Two weeks after Lisa headed home, Nick and his squadron mates were jetting home to Virginia.

Nick was overjoyed that after his 30 hour flight home, that his family was waiting for him as he climbed down the portable stairway butting up against the side of the large airliner he flew home on. The nicest surprise was that he got to meet his newest son for the first time. Toni had given birth to her second child, Brandon, whom had been born on the 4th of July.

The second surprise that delighted him was Lisa and 3 year old Rachel where also there to greet him. One look and Nick fell hopelessly in love with his adorable little daughter that he was meeting for the very first time.

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NOTE: Nick and Lisa's units being deployed to Saudi at that time is fictitious, as far as I know. I don't know what F-15E or F-16C squadrons were there at the time of the Khobar Towers attack. Other unit's mentioned in the attack are accurate, as well as the description of the medics actions.

At the time there was no night shift at the clinic. That was added to put Nick in the thick of things. When I was there in earlier years, there was a night shift so I decided to keep it that way for the story.