I don't talk about it much, but I am a veteran of the first Gulf War. The reason I don't talk about it much is that most people want to know details. They are usually fairly discreet, except teenaged boys who generally want to know if I "capped" anyone, whatever that means.
In any case, it's embarrassing to admit what little action I actually saw. I spent the entire war picking up cigarette butts in Germany and the only casualty I was responsible for was a cat.
I had just gotten out of the Army and was back in school in New England when the war broke out. I was looking for a place to live and managed to sublet a small cabin outside of town from a professor at the college who was spending a semester overseas. As she showed me around the cabin, she told me that she didn't know her neighbors very well, but that they seemed pretty nice.
"I just lost one a few weeks ago, as a matter of fact," she told me. "There's a little apartment in the house next door and they took away the little old lady who lived there last month. She turned out to have about 17 cats in there with her. They're probably still trying to get rid of the smell. Anyway, I think they missed one, because I've been hearing a cat at night sometimes lately. I hope it'll be OK if the weather gets colder."
I nodded and tried to look concerned too, but at the moment, I was more concerned with finding shelter for myself. I was glad when we made arrangements for me to move in the next afternoon. I was even happier to have a place of my own later that night when the temperature dropped below zero. In fact, as I lay in bed, with the blankets warming up around me, I congratulated myself on being inside.
Then I heard the cat outside.
"Mew."
I ignored it.
"Mewmewmew."
I handled the situation with as much compassion as I could muster.
"Go away!" I yelled, "You're not my problem!"
"Mewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmewmew…"
To make a long story short, I ended up letting the cat in. "You're just staying until the weather gets warmer," I told it.
The weather stayed below zero for a week and a half, by which time I'd named the cat Sheila and gotten it its shots. It was just as the cold broke and I was considering buying Sheila a collar that the U.S. Army entered Kuwait and I got a telegram informing me that I wasn't out of the Army as much as I'd hoped.
I made arrangements to put most of my stuff in storage, but my biggest concern was finding a home for Sheila. I ended up giving her to a lady I worked with who had a small daughter. I left my key for the landlady and caught a plane for Oklahoma and later Germany.
Six weeks later, the Army finally decided that far from being the secret weapon they'd hoped I'd be, I was probably prolonging their war effort. They released me from my important cigarette-picking-up duty in Germany and sent me home.
My first stop in New Hampshire was at my old office to make sure I still had a job. I had barely walked through the door when I was cornered by the lady I'd given the cat to.
"Are you OK?" she asked me.
I assured her that I was.
"Are you positive?" she asked.
I reassured her that I was all in one piece.
"Good," she said. "I didn't want anyone else to beat me to killing you."
Further investigation revealed that Sheila the Cat had: 1) testicles, 2) a bad spraying habit, 3) bad teeth. In fact, my friend told me, "Sheila's" teeth were so bad that they had required $300 worth of veterinary dentistry.
"Good move, bonehead," she said as I slinked out the door.
I didn't have a car at the time, so I hitchhiked out to the cabin to check it out and make sure that I could still stay there. After looking the place over, I went next door to borrow a phone to call the landlady and get my key back.
I didn't know my neighbor very well, but we had said hi to each other a few times before I'd been called up. She let me into her house to use the telephone and we made small talk as I looked up the landlady's number.
"Oh, by the way," she said as I dialed, "it's the weirdest thing, but my cat disappeared around the same time you went away. You don't happen to know what happened to him, do you?"
I don't know if you've ever had to face an angry pet owner and tell her that you've found a new home for her cat, but I can assure you that it is an experience that will haunt you for the rest of your life.
