Would an IPod be the apple of my eye?

The song was from an album called "War."

I hadn't heard it in about 16 years, but suddenly it was playing again. It takes a second to say goodbye. Say goodbye, oh, oh, oh.

The kid behind the counter called it "classic rock" and mused on then-and-now differences in the world as he tried to get me to buy an iPod to accompany my new laptop computer.

"It's got room for every song you'll ever want to hear," he said, "like this one, 'Seconds.'"

It takes a second to say goodbye.

I declined as gracefully as possible over his much-rehearsed, enthusiastic up-sale pitch.

"Why?" he asked.

They make me nervous.

Eleven days after I landed in Saudi Arabia in August, 1990, I turned 22. I didn't yet know that the half-way point in my Army career was destined to make me part of history. I was with the second U.S. military unit to arrive in the Persian Gulf. Operation Desert Shield had started.

They packed us into a windowless garage at an unused military base near a town called Safjwa. Miniscule villages dotted the countryside, but Safjwa was the only city of stature within about 50 miles. Desert stretched out around us, the curvature of the world showing plainly wherever heat waves and blowing sand permitted.

We spent the first weeks anticipating a fight. Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard sat at the Kuwaiti-Saudi boarder, waiting to cross. Even if they didn't, we still had to deal with the ever-present threat of chemical warfare.

We clung to any news that suggested more troops had arrived, especially ones with tanks. In early September, the worst-case scenario had a company of about 150 airborne light infantrymen facing 55 tanks, should Hussein have decided to move.

Push the button and pull the plug.
Say goodbye, oh, oh, oh.

We had heard that media coverage brought the build-up right into America's living rooms, people watching every minute of it. President Bush's campaign for support resulted in mail by the truckload. Soldiers traded books and played cards. This was all the entertainment we had for a while. A girl from Ohio sent me a Sony Walkman and some tapes.

By mid-October, Saudi Arabia's American population had grown by hundreds of thousands. Crum's parents sent his guitar; our first sergeant had a harmonica. Some nights, we sat outside and sang horribly off-key songs to relax.

Inside, our cots were lined up in rows with just enough room for someone to pass between, about six inches of personal space. We kept everything we owned beneath them. We weren't allowed to have more than a few items out at any time because, if we had to leave, it would be in a hurry.

We piled our chemical protective suits in corners. We kept our weapons at the edge of our cots or slept with them. Most of our personal stuff, pens and paper, tape players and the like, stayed in the pockets of our uniforms. It saved the hassle of trying to find space.

By December, we had as much comfort as we could ask for, given the situation. We exercised two or three times a day, rolled dice, read books aloud to each other. Someone figured out a way to play VHS movies on a projector, so we had movie screenings some nights.

The locals were permitted to open a shop in a storage space near our building, where we could buy snacks, cigarettes, tape players, and eventually, Nintendo Gameboys. Donations came pouring in so we had all the shampoo, writing paper, cheap disposable razors and shaving cream we'd ever use.

Five times a day, a loudspeaker just down the hill from our section would broadcast a Muslim praying. To my juvenile sense of humor, it sounded like he was saying "Alah, that's all I want, a Walkman." I heckled it, and others joined. It wasn't long before everyday at prayer time, we'd face the locals' shop and pray for a Walkman.

Then, Capt. Schweitzer caught us. Marty P. had a good sense of humor. The problem was that he wasn't at all tolerant of racial insensitivity.

That got us weeks of extra duty hanging out in front of Battalion headquarters at the position of attention, checking IDs on anyone who looked like they didn't belong and saluting or otherwise greeting everyone who looked like they did.

On one of those nights, I returned to my cot, lay down and put on my walkman. I was listening to a pirate combination of U2's "War" and "October" that I'd found in the trash. I had it loud enough to drown out minor noise, but not loud enough to disturb anyone around me. I was lying there with my eyes closed, letting my mind wander. The drums thumped away, when one thumped out of rhythm.

Lightning flashes across the sky
East to west, do or die
Like a thief in the night
See the world by candlelight

I heard it, but it didn't register until the lights came on. Everyone sat up at once to a siren in the distance. One of the platoon sergeants jumped up and swung his chemical protective mask up to his face. Stunned, it took most of us about a second to realize what was up. Before he was finished, everyone in the building had done the same. Troops jumped to their feet, running to the corners to start passing out the charcoal-lined chemical suits.

The owner's name on the bag, we waited frantically to hear the names on our shirts. In the meantime, we shuttled them down the rows of cots to their proper owners.

We dressed, waiting to rip the suits from their bags. Chemical alarms spread hundreds of meters out into the desert were wired to control panels in the nearest billet. One sat 20 feet away. If one of the detectors connected to it sensed a chemical weapon, the panel would light up like a Christmas display.

We sat for 45 minutes, staring fish-eyed at the speaker and waiting for the alarm that never sounded. We dared not go outside because if their were any chemicals present, it could quickly permeate the room. Experts from our regiment's chemical units were out there, they told us, checking the area. Brigade would also have people on site. So I sat, sweating beneath the curtain of the mask, sticky in the humidity of my own breath.

No one spoke much during that hour or more. Every so often, someone would come from the offices, other end of the building, and talk to the platoon sergeants. They'd then talk to the squad leaders, and eventually, word would come down to us. Mostly, we just wanted to know how the litmus tests outside were going.

No one had any idea what had happened. Finally, someone decided that the sulfur-rich Saudi air was breathable and they told us it was all clear. A few of us sat outside for a while, too wound up to sleep and telling our individual stories about how tight our asses had become when the air-raid siren went off.

When I went back to bed, I put my walkman on, but the ghost explosions wouldn't stop.

Next morning, I gave it away.

Say goodbye.

It took a while for word to get around about what happened: Hussein had been sending scud missiles toward Israel, trying to get them involved; this would serve him by turning Muslim countries against the U.N. The U.S. had Patriot missiles that shot down other missiles. This time, one had impacted on the ground, dragging us into a tense hour of waiting for the end.

"Why don't you want the iPod?" the kid behind the counter asked again.

"Because a dollar a song is way too expensive," I said.