May 11 - So it's been a while. May 11 I headed back to Carwile. A little early then what I was hoping. ( I was hoping for a few more days of rest ) But I think it'll be good to get back to the COP. ( Combat Outpost) My convoy left around 10pm. One of our platoons came to the main FOB ( Forward Operating Base ) to pick me up on their way back to the COP. Since I was riding in the back I decided to take a nap. What else was I to do? Now where are certain words that are embedded into a combat vet such as myself, and "gun shots" is one of them. Our gunner thought he heard gunshots, and that's exactly what he said. So .. I woke up from my dead sleep, a little mad cause I was enjoying said nap. Our convoy stopped so they could check out the wood line to our West. All of a sudden our gunner yelled that he had eyes on them. Them of course being the Taliban. At this moment in time the enemy decides to pop off a few shots. Five max. That's when the might of the US Army got unleashed. In a show of over whelming fire superiority our gunner, along with another gunner manning a .50cal machine gun, put around 400 rounds down range. Not only was there no return fire at this point, but they also missed .. horribly. I think they need more range time. Now don't get me wrong .. it sounded bad ass. Any grunt would have gotten a hard on during that. It was a great welcoming back party, seeing as how that was my first official day back on the job. Afterward we headed back to our COP where managed to finally get back with my platoon and my cot. Ahh .. my sweet beloved cot. The platoon that escorted me back was of course all talk about their TIC, ( Troops In Contact ) but I've seen and felt more excitement in a Call of Duty game. Meh. It is good to just be back. Already told before bed to pack my assault pack for a mission tomorrow. I'm told it'll be somewhat exciting. Yippie.
May 12- The day is spent packing our shit, and getting our trucks ready. We're going to be leaving at night for a new district center that's began to be targeted by the Taliban. Get some. Night time rolls around and we leave. It's a long ass drive and since I'm a gunner I just get bounced around constantly. I'm getting too old for this.
May 13- Now this was a hot day. Clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. The dust was extra dustier. Man it sucked just sitting up in that turret all damn day. At least I got to start my tan. My farmer's tan. Around mid day was when the excitement kicked off. We started taking indirect rounds. A combination of mortar and recoiless rifle rounds. The rifle rounds were inaccurate and mostly sailed over head, a few landed close. The mortar rounds how ever were being walked into our position. It's kinda strange to just watch puff after black puff of deadly shrapnel move towards a cluster of vehicles. About this time was when I got eyes on the POO ( Point Of Origin ) site through my optical sight. I was manning an anti-tank missile weapon system. When I saw them shoot a round I got excited, they were within my range. When I peeked my head from around the sight, I spotted to my dismay a vehicle that was danger close to the flight path of the missile. There went that awesome attack out the window. Shortly after that I noticed through my sight that the mortar team was fleeing in a vehicle. So of course I called it up, we fired a few mortar rounds at them, missed, and we called it a day. Talk about one hell of a first day on our mission.
May 14- I didn't think it was possible after yesterday, but today was even hotter. I know right? That was the high light of the day. No attacks. No reports. No nothing. Just us guys working on our farmer's tans and trying to not be bored.
May 15- Jesus this was the day of days. After the May 13th attack my platoon had planned some forward fighting positions for our trucks to try and get better eyes on the target, and a clear firing slot. It was around 5pm with it happened. These sons of bitches were now shooting mortars at my truck. How do I know this you're asking? Oh I dunno .. the black cloud of an explosion that suddenly appeared fifty meters in front of my truck. That was like the starting shot at a race. Our HMMWV turned over, and we took off like a bat outta hell for our first spot. Now on the back of my truck's turret is a piece of bullet proof steel that swivels down to enable me to safely shoot the missile, I had this down just so I could shoot. At our first spot we stopped so I could start scanning. That's about when another round landed thirty meters behind us. Now again we moved, but I'm going to pause for a moment. From this moment until the action stops, some where in between I suffered a slice to my left wrist. Be it shrapnel from that near miss or something else not even I know, my adrenaline was rushing. So after the mortar lands I quickly find out that I can't see where it's coming from, so again we move further on down. At this spot again I couldn't see anything, but by this point there's been no more mortar rounds landing so we rolled back to our patrol base. I get my wrist treated, and we hunker down for the night. This was a bad day, and not because of my injury. Today is the day that I lost two good friends of mine. It was a hard hit to our company, but more specifically to us who not only knew them but also served with them on our last deployment. I had the honor of actually working side by side one of them since he was in my platoon. That one hurt the most, but also because he was my neighbor for a few months before our deployment. Hell, my wife got to know him pretty good. It was rough. Part of me actually refused to believe it. Out of anyone it had to be those two? These guys had personality. It was tough. Sure I've lost friends last deployment, but they weren't as close to me as these two were. God I miss them, and always will.
May 16- Boring day. A day that still say us sad over the loss of our good friends. Our CO ( Commanding Officer ) kept us busy to try and keep our minds off of what happened. What was he, retarded? That's all we could think about. It was fuckin' rough man. Today we just did a few patrols around the district center. Didn't see anything at all.
May 17- It was another one of those days. We got word that we were to be relieved by another platoon, and get a chance to come back to base for a little rest. Man did we need it. How ever the Taliban had other plans for us in the name of an IED. It wasn't just any IED, this mother fucker was huge. Should have done a lot more damage the what it did, but thank God they blew it just a second too early. I didn't think it was possible for a 12 ton vehicle to jump over a seven foot gap in the road just by riding the force of the blast. Yeah, that's how big it was. Thankfully no one was injured. A little shaken up, but good. I had a good view of the blast because I was the truck next in line. Better them then me .. My HMMWV wouldn't have made it through that. It took a few hours to get a wrecker down to us, and an hour after we got back to base, it got attacked with indirect. Oh no don't send out a platoon that's been on the base for a while, send out the platoon that's just getting back from five days out and hitting a big fucking IED. Yup, they sent us back out. Horse shit. The plan was to be back by midnight, but that got nixed. Another night spent living in a truck.
Episode 8
( I figure I'll do one week posts until I'm caught back up. The majority of this is word for word as is written down in my journal, but a few spots I added to when I remember another detail. Mind you, names of people and places have been removed on purpose. I do not wish to discuss these things on a blog at this moment in time. You know .. ComSec and shit. I did choose to explain what certain acronyms mean. It wouldn't be nice if you didn't understand at least what it meant. )
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