How did I do that?

Looking back on a tough day

07.01.2024

Written for Writing Your Memoir, Memory by Memory

Osher Lifelong Learning Class, through UTEP

Looking Back and Wondering How did I do That?

My baby daughter Lauren had been sick with stomach issues for several months.  Her diarrhea and stomach cramps stumped the pediatricians at Gorgas Army Hospital in the Panama Canal Zone until finally one of the many stool samples produced a positive result for salmonella.  We finally had a diagnosis.  The doctor felt certain it would run its course and my pudgy year-old baby would be back to normal within a few days, another week, maybe, without medication.  When her condition did not improve, the doctor asked me to collect more stool samples and one of those tested positive for the freshwater parasite, giardia.

The doctor asked me if I let Lauren sit in puddles to play.  My answer was a definitive NO.  But we did travel to the interior of Panama to visit my then-husband’s family.  Electricity and running water had just become available to the community of La Mata in the Veraguas Province.  I was afraid Lauren had contracted giardia there while visiting family.  My baby was given antibiotics for her issues and I was hopeful that she would finally begin to feel better.

By early fall, Lauren was better but not yet normal.  I asked the girls’ father to let us travel home where I could take Lauren to my own childhood pediatrician.  He agreed. And so began the process of getting my paperwork in order for a military space-available flight from Panama back to the U.S. 

Military flights going out of country would often be advertised on the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, the only English language programming available.  A number of flights scheduled for Ft. Jackson/Charleston, South Carolina were advertised to be departing from Howard Air Force Base in the next few days.  I decided to try to get on one of them with the girls.

Military hops at the time were very affordable – we paid something like $10 a piece for a flight home but they were always space available so there was never a guarantee as to how quickly you would be able to fly out.

The first day we tried, the girls and I sat at the air base in Panama for much of the morning, hoping for a place on one of several planes leaving but with no luck.  The second morning, we got up earlier, arriving at the air base around sunrise.  Our efforts were rewarded, and we were put on a C130 flying to Ft. Jackson.  My parents had offered to pay for the girls and I to fly a commercial airline from Ft. Jackson to their home in Memphis so they scrambled to get those reservations in place once they knew we had confirmed seats on a hop to South Carolina.  I think Daniel had to call them to let them know to go ahead and purchase the tickets once the girls and I were on our way.

Flying on a C130 was unlike any flight I had taken before.  And it was made more difficult because I was traveling with my 3-year-old daughter Brennyn and 14-month-old daughter Lauren. 

The seats of a C130 were made of plastic webbing like old fashioned lawn furniture and were backless apart from a woven plastic net that provided little support.  They were more like bench seats than individual seats. They lined both sides of the plane and cargo was packed up and down the middle of the aircraft making walking or movement about the plane almost impossible.  The girls were so small that they slipped through the netting and their little backs rested on the metal sides of the interior of the plane.

The plane was noisy.  So noisy that I had to agree to keep ear plugs in both girls’ ears the whole flight.  No easy feat.  Their ears were popping with the pressure as we adjusted altitude, and they were constantly pulling at their ears and removing the ear plugs.  Talking over the noisy plane was difficult, too.  I scolded, pleaded, begged the girls to keep their ear plugs in but finally gave up that battle.

The C130 was cold.  There was no real temperature regulation in the cabin.  So, we were bundled up as best we could be.  We had no winter clothes – they weren’t needed in Panama.  I wrapped up the girls in layers of sweaters and hoodies and I think we may have been given scratchy wool military blankets to bundle up under.

But we were on our way HOME.  We had purchased the box meals for a couple of dollars each and had those to distract us for a time early on.  Then something happened to the plane an hour or two into our flight and the pilot was instructed to land at Roosevelt Roads naval air station in Puerto Rico to have the issue addressed.

The pilot instructed us to deboard the plane and leave all our belongings behind.  He informed us that we would be on our way again in less than an hour and we could sit in the small airport waiting area.  It was sometime around noon. 

Several hours passed and we had still not reboarded the plane.  Lauren’s diaper was very full.  The girls were tired and hungry, and the waiting area air conditioning was very cold.  I didn’t have my purse to purchase something from the vending machines…not that there would have been 2 cents to rub together in it if I’d had it with me!!  I didn’t have my diaper bag to change Lauren’s diaper.  I begged the people working at the air station to allow me to get the diaper bag from the plane but was not permitted to do so and no one offered to fetch it for me.

Several hours turned into 8 hours of waiting when we finally reboarded.  While sitting in the waiting area, I had begun speaking with a couple of the other dependents and soldiers who were ‘passengers’ on my flight.  They tried to help me pacify the girls.  Someone bought them a package of peanut butter crackers from the vending machine and a soda.  We all tried to distract them with games or the small TV in the waiting room.

The rest of the flight to Ft. Jackson was uneventful.  We arrived at the airport late at night.  Because of all the issues with our flight, the people checking us in offered to give us lockers where we could store our suitcases until time for us to fly out the next morning.  However, the girls and I were flying commercial to Memphis and had to get to the Charleston International Airport with all our belongings before our early morning flight to Tennessee.  One of the other passengers was also flying commercial out of Charleston and was in the same boat as I.  She was a grandmother-aged woman with a warm smile, one of the people who had tried to help me with the girls all day.  She offered to get a taxi for all of us to the billeting facility on Ft. Jackson, where we could share a room for a few hours, shower, change clothes, then take a taxi together to the international airport for our commercial flights.  I felt so blessed. 

It was after 2:00 am when we unlocked the door to our hotel room.  The woman settled quickly into the bed on the far side of the room.  I rinsed both girls off in the bathtub and changed them into the clothes they would wear for our flight to Memphis, then tucked them into our full-sized bed.  I showered and dressed into the clothes I had planned to wear the next day and crawled under the covers with my daughters for about 3 hours of sleep.

Before sunrise, we were all up to share a taxi or shuttle to the commercial airport where the kind woman and I parted ways.  I have never forgotten her kindness and help.

The flight from Charleston to Memphis was relatively quick, especially compared to our escapade from the day before.  Less than 2 hours.  In this time long before 911, families were permitted to wait for loved ones at the airline’s gate, so I knew my parents would be at the gate when we deboarded.  Sure enough, they were there, with ear-to-ear grins on their faces.  They hadn’t seen us in many months, and I believe they had only seen Lauren once since her birth.  I was an emotional wreck and I handed off Lauren to my mom and Brennyn to my dad then dissolved into a puddle of tears.  Home had never looked so sweet.