After 9/11, before OIF I, II, III, there was a brief space in between times, when for one night in the Egyptian Desert we danced.
It wasn’t rowdy.
It wasn’t a mating dance.
We weren’t drunk.
It was just to be.
For a night we weren’t Marines, we didn’t wonder about what tomorrow might bring. Were we were going to go to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban? Iraq hadn’t even been mentioned yet. How our families were doing, when were we going to go home… How some of the natives had thrown rocks and other things at our convoys.
We danced to Latin music under the the moon and stars in Egypt. There was no arguing no, petty bickering. For one night we were free, and no one could ever take that from us.