The Gulf War Rudely Interrupted my TV Shows when I was a Kid
An image of a tank from the Golf War.
Note: My newsletter this month welcomes a guest contributor, Nichole Higgins, and I wanted to stay out of the way of her writing, so I’ll be making Nat’s Letter free for this month to all. I’ll be sending out Nichole’s piece next week. Keep your eye out for that.
I have very little memories about the Gulf War that took place from 1990 to 1991, as I was only seven years old. I remember two things that my child’s brain thought of during that time — one was that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and the other was how annoying it was when the news cut into my TV shows to talk about new developments in the war. I have a very visual mind, and as I write this I can still see some of that war footage on our TV in the living room.
I had developed this routine at the time of getting up early, I think before my other siblings woke, and watching a few TV shows in the living room alone before others got up. I can recall regularly watching reruns of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, Highway to Heaven, and In the Heat of the Night. All bangers in my book. Needless to say, at seven years old, my mind was not prepared to contemplate what Hussein was up to in Kuwait or why America was now fighting Iraq. And so every time a newscast would cut into one of my shows with breaking news from the frontlines, I would sit impatiently, hoping it would end quick enough that I wouldn’t lose track of the plot. I learned that if the news lasted ten minutes, I couldn’t figure out what was happening in my show after that, and so would often give up when it hit the ten minute mark and go do something else.
All that to say that my memory of the Gulf War has always been pretty foggy. But recently, I’ve been digging my heels in and researching it as I do prep work for the next Mercedes Masterson story, which is a short work that I’ll probably release next year. It follows a new character to the series named Jude Masterson, which is an uncle to Mercedes. John (Mercedes’ dad) and Jude are twin brothers and both served during the Gulf War, and while it isn’t the central idea of the story, it is an important component as is their experience in Kuwait.
I’m also reminded of Mr. Rogers. During the Vietnam War, Mr. Rogers took time on his show to address the parents. He pleaded with them to not let the kids watch the war footage that was airing on the nightly news. No one was with me when I was having the Gulf War news flashed at me in the early mornings, but thankfully I was more annoyed than intrigued, I guess. But now I’m learning about the intricacies of the conflict, what led up to it, key players, and other factors. Details I probably heard discussed at the time, but my brain couldn’t comprehend yet. It’s a sort of surreal experience to be learning about something I lived through, but couldn’t make sense of at the time. So, while I have these visuals in my head of the war, I’ve always had no concept of what they represented or how the world got to that point.
Be good to each other,
Nat ✌️
