Living in the military is not a glamorous life. Most soldiers at a certain rank do not make much money. So was the case with us.
1993 I had just had my son Ben, and we wanted to go home for Christmas but we could not afford to fly, or take the train. Therefore, we decided to go home by bus no big deal 36-hours on bus with a 6-week-old baby and a 5 year old was worth the inconvenience to be home.
The bus station was in St Louis and the morning of our journey, a friend drove us to the station. Everything was going well, we boarded our bus no problem. We were sitting in our seats waiting to depart when disaster struck again. The entire bus station swarmed with police, swat teams, fire trucks. We began to notice that the station was void of any other human life except the people on our bus. Which made me a little nervous because we had no idea what was happening. I thought there was a sniper at the station.
The police boarded our bus and started checking passenger’s tickets. Then the police left and came back and checked tickets and identification. Then the police got back on the bus and asked us to remain in our seats and not get off the bus. I said jokingly to the officer standing in front of us, “what is there a bomb on the bus” he replied, “I didn’t say that”.
Why was our bus the only bus left in the station? In addition, why were we sitting there for hours? About 3 hours into this ordeal, the police came back on the bus and said, “Your bus can go on down the road now”. I thought for sure, we going a safe distance away to blow up.
It turns out when they were loading the luggage on the bus; a hand grenade fell out of someone’s bag. It was not a detonated hand grenade obviously but it was still an explosive. The person that belonged to the bag was not on the bus. The luggage that was on the bus was removed. Therefore, off we went with nothing but the small carry bag I was holding. A 6-week-old baby and a 5 year old.
What a trip that was. The bus ride itself was worse than a detonated grenade