On this, the 30th Anniversary of this story, I decided it was finally time to write it down. Forgive the brain dump. Maybe I'll revisit in another 30 years to clean it up.
I joined Charlie Battery, 5/62 ADA in Saudi Arabia in January, 1991. Most of the unit had been there for months, in response to the invasion of Kuwait in the Fall of the previous year. By the time I got there, the setup was pretty nice: concrete slab floor in the Mess Hall tent, TVs, etc. Much more luxurious than I had imagined. Having arrived so late in the game, I wasn't assigned to a Vulcan Air Defense vehicle, which is what I had trained to do: I was to become a truck driver...specifically, a Deuce and a Half loaded down with ammo (and faulty brakes).
I was hanging out under a cammo net that hid a Vulcan from aerial view, when a familiar face walked by. At least I thought it was a familiar face: Greg was a buddy that went to Vulcan School (AIT) with me. I was 1 of 2 people that got sent to Korea and he was one of many who were sent to Germany. Normally, Korea is a 1 year tour and Germany is 4, so I didn't think I'd see any of those guys again. But apparently, they were shrinking the number of troops in Europe at that time and a lot of guys got sent back Stateside early. He really did look like Greg, so I shouted "Haug!!" and he turned and saw me. It was totally him. We caught up and our friendship picked up where it had left off 16 months before.
He told me people in the unit didn't trust him b/c he showed up not long after someone shot himself in the leg with his M-16. The guy said it was an accident, but it was believed he did it intentionally to get the hell out of there. Greg was suspected of being an undercover Criminal Investigation Division (CID) agent, but it wasn't long before they realized he definitely was not. They even called him "Sid" for a while.
Desert Shield became Desert Storm and it wasn't long before thousands upon thousands of troops were returning to their bases in the States. Fort Bliss was so overrun, they told us E-3's and above (with cars) could live off-base. Me, Greg and another dude who had just bought a car, went and found an apartment ASAP. It was kind of a dump, but it was OUR dump and we loved the freedom of having our own place. It was a 2 bedroom, so I happily slept on a pull-out couch in the living room.
We took on a 4th roommate when one of Greg's buddies from Germany showed up. Conrad and his wife had split up: she wanted to go "home" to Missouri, so that's exactly what she did. He was a pretty good guy and stayed on the floor of Greg's room. Conrad was understandably bummed and didn't do a whole lot with us, namely going to Juarez on the weekends.
Another friend showed up one day, also from AIT. Vasquez was passing through and came by to see us. He had a bad ass motorcycle and was a fencer (like, a sword fighter)..those are the 2 things I remember about him.
One weekend, we all went to Juarez like normal, while Conrad stayed behind. At the end of the night, as we got closer to our apartment, we saw flashing lights. Police or ambulance, we couldn't tell, but we knew something was up. We got closer still and saw there were both Police AND ambulances. Then we saw Vasquez's motorcycle in pieces on the road. We all knew what had happened, but we weren't sure how serious it was. We got the name of the hospital and were off. I can't remember exactly how long we were there, but I know it was morning and the sun was already up when they told us Conrad had died in the accident.
That whole day was a miserable blur: our apartment was searched while we sat there, half awake, trying to get a few minutes of rest when possible. Eventually we were left alone and we all just passed out and went to sleep.
I could be wrong, but I think the very next day was Monday. We drove onto base early for PT. It felt weird being the guys whose roommate had been killed in a motorcycle accident. People weren't really talking to us about it, but we knew they knew. This particular day, they focused on running. We were all told to choose 1 of 3 groups: Fast, Medium and Slow. As was usually the case, I chose the safe "Medium" group. What I didn't know is that some hot-shot Officer from another unit had decided to run with us that day...with the Mediums.
Up to that point, I had never fallen out of a run. It was a point of pride. Once in Korea, I had gone on a several mile-long run, severely dehydrated and hung over. The very first step of the run, I had the most painful cramps and I ran the whole time holding onto my side. But I didn't fall out.
This guy leading the run was a straight up jerk. People were dropping like flies. He was just running so fast and for so long. I thought I was going to pass out, start puking, or both. Thankfully, after feeling as though he had made his point, he ended the run. Greg and I were both among the survivors. As reward for completing the run, he gave us all a 3 day pass! That was an amazing turn of events for us and almost made the grueling run worthwhile. Almost.
Life went on. When we weren't in Juarez, we hosted parties at our apartment. We loved music and going to concerts. Off the top of my head, I can remember 2 big shows we saw in that era: The Clash of the Titans (Megadeth, Slayer, Alice in Chains, Anthrax) and Queensryche with Special Guests Suicidal Tendencies. All of those guys were in heavy rotation at parties we hosted, as well as Danzig, Sepultura, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Divinyls, Jane's Addiction, R.E.M....
Jane's Addiction was at the top of my list. Ritual de lo Habitual had come out that year, but what I really loved was Nothing's Shocking. What a great album. Imagine my surprise when I heard they were touring that Summer! Being that this was pre-Internet, we actually had to do leg work to find out anything about it. That led me to learning about something called "Nine Inch Nails", who were going to be touring with them.
There were no tickets to any El Paso shows because they weren't coming to El Paso. I was close to giving up when I heard an ad on the radio: they were going to be giving away tickets to "Lollapalooza". I didn't know wtf that was, but if Jane's Addiction was playing, I wanted them! I sat by the radio with our shared apartment phone, waiting for the cue to call. When it finally came, I was on it. My fingers flew over the numbered squares and I want to say I was like the 5th caller but they were looking for the 10th. I was crushed! I had never gotten anything but a busy signal when I called a radio station trying to win something and the 1 time I get through, I'm too early.
"Congratulations to Cammie Bauer, our winner of a pair of Lollapalooza tickets in Dallas on August 23rd".
I don't have really good ideas often. In fact, I would say most of my ideas are bad. It's fine, it just makes my good ideas that much more special. Like the time, right after they said "Cammie Bauer", I grabbed the gigantic El Paso phone book, flipped to the B's and started calling all the Bauers, top to bottom, asking "Is Cammie there? OK, sorry". Over and over. But it wasn't long before I hit the jackpot:
"This is Cammie".
"Did you just win tickets on the radio?"
"Yeah, why? Do you want to buy them?"
"Yes! How many other people called before me?"
"Uhhh, none"
So that was it: I found the woman who won my tickets, in a city of 630,000, in about 10 minutes and she agreed to sell them to me at cost: ~$30 each.
Greg and I were pumped, but it was 650 miles away! Were we really going to fly to Dallas to see a concert? Hell yes we were. And normally that would've been problematic, as we were in the Army and you can't just take off like that, but we had those passes from the Death Run and were able to use them.
The day of the show, we got to Dallas pretty early and took a cab to the Starplex Amphitheater. I was there for 1 thing and 1 thing only: to see Jane's Addiction. Everything else was extra. Henry Rollins? Awesome. The Violent Femmes (who were there in place of NiN)? Neat, if not a little out of place. Ice-T and Body Count was cool. Seeing Eric from Jane's Addiction playing bass for Siouxsie and the Banshees on "Kiss Them For Me" and everyone throwing their plastic cups in the air, making it look like something out of Hitchcock's "The Birds"? One of my most vivid memories. But nothing compared to seeing Jane's Addiction, live at Lollapaloozas I.
Every August 23rd, for the past 30 years, I have thought about that story. I think about Greg and me, sleeping on the floor of the airport, waiting for our return flight to El Paso. I think about Conrad and Vasquez and that night. I think about all the things that happened which resulted in us being able to pull it off. It was a one in a million.
I'll never forget 0823.
