My name is Alejandro García, and I was born in 1980 in a tiny, forgotten village in the lush hills of Asturias, Spain. San Pedro del Monte, my home, was a place as beautiful as it was isolating. Nestled between towering mountains and rolling green valleys, the village was a world unto itself. Life moved slowly there, dictated by the changing seasons and the rhythms of nature. We had no luxury, no convenience—only what we could make with our hands and what the land offered us.

I was born into a family of ten children—six brothers and three sisters. My father, Eusebio, was a man trapped by his demons. A miner by trade, he became consumed by gambling and alcohol, vices that eroded not just our finances but the very foundation of our family. My mother, María, was the heart and soul of our home. She was a strong, resourceful woman, but in those times, societal norms were unforgiving. Women like her were expected to stay home, no matter how dire the circumstances.

My earliest memories are of cold winters where my siblings and I huddled together for warmth, and summers spent helping my mother collect wild herbs to sell at the market. As the eldest son, I felt an unspoken responsibility to shield my siblings from the harsher realities of our life. At the age of eight, I began taking odd jobs around the village—herding sheep, harvesting crops, and even chopping wood for our neighbors. These early experiences taught me resilience and discipline, qualities that would define my life in ways I could never have imagined at the time.

By the time I turned 18, I was desperate for a way out. The military offered me an escape, a purpose, and a chance to support my family. In 1998, I enlisted in the Spanish Army and was assigned to the Brigada de Infantería Ligera “Galicia” VII. Leaving San Pedro del Monte was bittersweet. I remember my mother standing at the edge of our dirt road, waving as the bus carried me away. It was the first time I had ever left Asturias.

My first posting was to Kosovo, part of the NATO-led KFOR mission. Kosovo was a land scarred by war, its people caught in the aftermath of ethnic conflict. My initial days there were a baptism by fire. I quickly learned that the textbooks and training exercises could never prepare you for the reality of war. The air was thick with tension, and every day brought new challenges.

One memory stands out vividly. It was January, and the bitter cold cut through even our thickest gear. Our patrol stumbled upon a family—parents and two young children—sheltering in the ruins of a bombed-out church. They were starving and had no warm clothing. We gave them our rations, blankets, and whatever else we could spare. Seeing their gratitude was a humbling reminder of why we were there.

In 2003, I was deployed to Iraq as part of the Brigada Plus Ultra, Spain’s contribution to the coalition forces. The desert was a world apart from the green mountains of Asturias. The heat was relentless, and the threat of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) loomed over every mission.

One of the most harrowing experiences of my life occurred during a convoy operation near Diwaniya. Our vehicles were ambushed by insurgents who had planted IEDs along the road. The explosion was deafening, and the chaos that followed was like nothing I had ever experienced. One of my closest comrades, Corporal López, was severely injured. Despite the danger, we managed to secure the area and evacuate him. He survived, but the incident left an indelible mark on all of us.

Our mission in Iraq wasn’t just about combat. We were tasked with rebuilding infrastructure and fostering stability. I took part in the protection of a hospital under construction. Insurgents repeatedly attempted to sabotage the project, but we stood our ground. When the hospital finally opened its doors, the sight of doctors treating patients made every sleepless night worthwhile.

In 2005, I was sent to Afghanistan, where I was promoted to sergeant. Afghanistan was unlike any other place I had served. The terrain was unforgiving, and the enemy was elusive. Our base was situated in a remote area, surrounded by towering mountains that reminded me of home.

During a reconnaissance mission in a narrow canyon, my unit was ambushed. We were pinned down for hours, with no immediate support available. It was a test of leadership I hadn’t anticipated. I had to keep my men calm and coordinate our defense while waiting for air support. When the helicopters finally arrived, the sense of relief was overwhelming.

Afghanistan wasn’t just about firefights. We also worked on winning the hearts and minds of the local population. I’ll never forget the day we delivered school supplies to a village. The children’s smiles were a stark contrast to the hardship that surrounded them.

In 2011, I was deployed to Lebanon as part of the United Nations Interim Force. This mission was less about combat and more about peacekeeping. Our job was to monitor ceasefires and mediate disputes between local communities.

One particularly tense situation involved two villages fighting over access to a water source. After weeks of negotiations, we brokered an agreement that allowed both communities to share the resource. Watching former adversaries work together was one of the most rewarding moments of my career.

In 2020, after 24 years of service, I retired with the rank of subteniente. The decision wasn’t easy, but I knew it was time to focus on my family and my own dreams.

Today, I work as a talent scout in the private security sector. My role is to help veterans transition to civilian careers, drawing on my own experiences to guide them. It’s deeply fulfilling to see former soldiers thrive in new environments.

I’ve also rekindled my passion for precision shooting. While I no longer compete professionally, I still spend hours at the range, honing my skills. Shooting has become a form of meditation for me—a way to channel focus and discipline.

Recently, I achieved a lifelong dream: I paid off the mortgage on a small ranch near Oviedo. The property is modest but perfect. I’m now saving up to buy a horse and a few piglets to raise. There’s something deeply satisfying about returning to the land, reconnecting with nature, and building something with your own hands.

As I look back on my life, I see a journey shaped by struggle, sacrifice, and resilience. From the humble beginnings in San Pedro del Monte to the battlefields of Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan, every step has taught me something valuable.

I’ve learned that leadership isn’t about giving orders; it’s about earning trust. I’ve learned that true strength lies in perseverance, and that even in the darkest moments, there’s always a glimmer of hope.

My story is far from over. Whether I’m mentoring young veterans, perfecting my aim at the shooting range, or tending to my ranch, I know that life still has many lessons to offer. And for that, I am grateful.

For this we go all the way back to my childhood. My grandfather was a WWII veteran. He lived about 3 hours away from where I grew up and we visited 2-3 times a year. It was the highlight of my childhood. He was a goofy guy but intelligent and self assured. He was a bit of an entertainer. We would sit in his porch for hours playing card games. Just him and me. When I was about 8 or 9 he would tell brief stories about his service. Normally the same ones over and over but adding detail over time. I knew he was in the Battle of the Bulge and my naive ignorance I asked him about it. I’ve never seen another man, let alone himself completely change moods and look defeated. He couldn’t get a word out and just started tearing up and had to walk out of the room. He never had issues talking about the 2 times he was wounded with me. Over the next few days I just formed this question, “how could someone be proud of something that also brought them so much pain?” And I was 9 or 10 at the time. Over the next couple years he started giving me his unit history books and I would read them over and over. I was just so fascinated by the military because of him. But I still didn’t understand and I knew it. I knew the only way to understand was to experience something like that for myself. He passed away when I was 13 which I took very hard. Fast forward to my junior year of high school I start looking into ROTC colleges. I wanted to be an officer like my grandpa. He was the top of his HS JROTC and when he enlisted he went to OCS shortly after. Unfortunately I bombed my junior year and my grades and SAT scores were trash. I’m fairly intelligent but I’m just not a natural test taker and school was just uninteresting to me. Plus I was consumed by HS drama at 16. Regardless I still just decided to regularly enlist at 17 with my parent’s signature. I was DEP’d in for about 5 months with a 19D contract. I got to MEPs in my ship day and I was 1 lb underweight and was told I have to go home and chose a new MOS. I chose EOD- mainly because it was shipping out in 2 weeks. After basic I got to AIT and again I was confronted with tests. At that time the preliminary portion of EOD school had a 93% fail out rate. I failed a test (because I changed 10 answers i originally answered correctly) and was kicked out of the program and stayed for 6 weeks as a hold over. I was then sent to Ft Eustis to go through 15R Apache Helicopter Repairman school. I graduated with a 97%. I went on to my first dusty station in Germany and 10 months later I deployed to FOB Shank Afghanistan. At that time I was serving as a Crew Chief (can’t wait for the Tangos to give me shit for saying that, I know I’m just a runner upper dude 😂) 3 days into country and one of our aircraft was shot up and at to PL at FOB Chapman. Pilots survived thank god. A month later my aircraft crashed on the FOB after returning from a mission. There I was 19 years old 1 month into deployment, holding a huge responsibility as a maintainer of Apache helicopters, we lost 2 aircraft, and we are going through the daily motions of Rocket City Afghanistan. 2 months in and one of my pilots gets shot in the wrist and gets sent home because of nerve damage. I’m 30 now and looking back on it, that’s just a lot to deal with at 19 years old. I know there’s a lot of dudes that experience worse and I’m not trying to hype my experience up but man I was just a kid. We had a lot of twists and turns during that deployment but luckily we all made it home. I think our company was accredited with 350 kills (which was a lot for that time when Obama was enacting is Hearts and minds ROE) The hardest part of my deployment was leaving. Half of my company including myself was sent home at the 7 month mark and the rest stayed for 2 more months. I felt extremely selfish and I felt lost. I was praying for that C17 to not take off so I could stay. The other hard part was that I stupidly studied the casualties in country at that time. Our pilots were questioned about a mission they were on when a SFC was killed during an ambush. His convoy was receiving our support. My pilots were called off from them to support some dismounted troops and right after the convoy was ambushed. For some reason that just stayed with me. I felt a lot of guilt for that. (This is the part where it gets a bit heavy for me) And fuck I wasn’t even there. I didn’t know him. I was safe on the FOB. I still think about him. Been 10 years and some of those experiences just stay consciously on my mind every single day. But you know I got that answer to the question 9 year old me asked. Fuck man I didn’t experience anything close to what my grandpa experienced but oh do I understand him. I’m very proud of my service but I do have things that haunt me. I wish he was still around. What I wouldn’t give to have a chance to play card games and talk. And you know it was his influence that got me through my darkest days after I got out. I knew that if he could experience what he did and still live a successful life and stay in good spirits, so could I. Sorry if I started rambling with this and started talking all heavy.

Bird Dogs Watchful Gaze

One afternoon, I urgently needed to expel about a quart of Rip It’s from by bladder while I was on tower four. I peered down towards the smoking cage for someone to relieve me for a moment, but no one was there. I called out in case someone was in earshot, but I got no response. I start looking around the tower for an empty Gatorade bottle, which was always plan B, but could not find a container rated for such a use. I get up and step outside of the cement guard tower to take a better look around the area. From the open rooftop, I can see the see that the whole platoon was in a huddle near the gun pits. I figured they were training; we had been training a lot more often; I presume to keep everyone’s mind busy.

I did not have a Gatorade bottle, and I cannot leave my post. This is a conundrum. At night, we pissed off the roof without a second thought, but doing so during the day was just an invitation for some Hajji sniper to shoot your dick off— or so the prophecy foretold.

At this point in the deployment, things were safe, and I was feeling nihilistic. My keen self-preservation instincts were not what they once were, so I said fuck it and decided to roll the dice one time. “If anyone can hit a target this small, they deserve to have this Private on their resume.”

I took a couple steps forward and started pissing off the edge of the roof, looking in the direction of Camp Ranger next door.

After a couple seconds I hear something fly by my head. I did not know what it was, something buzzed my ear, and I thought it was an insect— I grew up in a woodsy town in New England, I am not stranger to flying bugs. It came from behind me, so I did not think twice about it; but then a small rock hits the ground behind me, bounces and then ricochets off my boot then off the roof. I hear a Joe say, “got him that time.”

I yell out an obligatory “go fuck yourself” to my unknown assailant, but I was undeterred. Another rock comes flying by me as I am buttoning up my pants. And then two more. Now I am getting annoyed, so I pick up a rock and I spin around, ready to return fire, only to find that the platoon gaggle has parted, and Bird Dog is in the middle of the group winging rocks at me.

“GET BACK INSIDE COVER, DIPSHIT” He yells while throwing another rock.

“Roger, Sergeant Major” I went scurrying back to my post.

Bird Dog was here to check on the Joes and I had impeccable timing as always. He must have been keeping a closer eye on us after what happened, because I suddenly started bumping into him a lot more often towards the end of the deployment. One morning, shortly after we closed COP, I had breakfast at the chow hall on Corregidor. I remember the news was talking about demand for the new iPhone, the first generation coincidentally had come out on my birthday that year. I remember kind of scoffing at it, not realizing those things were about to take over our lives.

I get up, throw my trash away, turn around and head for the exit. As I am walking, I feel a disturbance in the force. A cold chill shoots down my spine and I nervously glance around the room in search of the danger. I notice Bird Dog; his eyes locked on me. I stop, frozen like a deer in the headlights, and a small grin creeps across his face.

I am wrong, that much is clear, but how?

I start doing a mental checklist of all the possible things that could be visibly wrong with me. It is an extensive list. Uniform violations, grooming standards, both official and unofficial regulations I could be in violation of.

One example of an unofficial rule, at least at that time, in an Infantry unit, you could not wear snivel gear (any cold weather gear) while in garrison. It was not an official Army rule, but if you were an infantryman, it was a rule. Snivel gear isn’t Ranger-ific

I start spot checking my uniform and trying to deduce what has drawn his attention. After a moment, it dawns on me— I am as naked as the day the infantry gods made me! I turn around, go back to my chair, and scoop my M4 off the floor. Nothing pisses off a Sergeant Major more than seeing unarmed infantryman on the move.

An infantryman that is moving is attacking. An infantryman that isn’t moving, is preparing to attack. How are you going to do that without your weapon, dumbass?

I turned back around with a smile and say good morning to Bird Dog as I pass him. He nods his approval and sets me free. I had done a respectable job of blending into the pack for most of my Army career, but Bird Dog definitely knew who I was by this point. I was getting too comfortable.

We had to deal with the garbage pile outside tower four. There was four years of trash that had to be police called by the unfortunates who were last to leave— us.

The pile had mostly piss bottles thrown by the Joes on guard. Now, someone needed to scale the wall, and police call that rancid mess. We were cleaning up piss bottles left here in 2004 by the 2/4 Marines when the battle of Ramadi first started. It was an outrage, frankly.

Speaking of the “Magnificent Bastards” and outrages. The Marines from 2/4 passed thru the COP again on their way back out of country. One afternoon, I overheard one of them in the MWR complaining about how their 9-month deployment was “way too long”. I really wanted to walk up and butt stroke him with my M4 for that insolence, but it was me— and like fifty Marines in the room.

There is no law, no justice in this cruel world. The fact that they were in our MWR at all annoyed us, the lonely Joes were scrambling trying to set up dates with women on Hot or Not before they got home. Hot or Not allowed you to see people from a certain geographic area and had a DM feature. It was a spiritual predecessor to tinder. To get my head off my ex, my fellow Joes had coaxed me into joining their crusade. I did not send a lot of messages, but one Air Force hottie posing for a photo in a Japanese garden did catch my eye.

I sent her a DM, but because she is, in many ways, a female version of me— she will not get around to responding for six months. The first night I meet her in person, I abandon my plans to be a playboy and end up spending the next sixteen years and counting with her. She is an Afghanistan veteran and while experiences vary, she could relate to me in a way that so few could on that front.

Ironically, less than a month after that peeing off the roof incident where I was “wrong” for exposing myself to sniper fire, the Army ordered us on top of these same damn buildings in nothing but PT gear to remove all the sandbags. We got on top of the hanger that had the Aid Station and swept the roof clean of sand— because we obviously cannot return a sandy roof after we destroyed eighty percent of city— that would be rude.

We closed the COP shortly after Veterans Day and moved to Corregidor for the last couple of weeks to help close that down. The battalion did one last air assault mission in Taji on November 19, which ended tragically when a weapon cache they were moving exploded, killing Sergeant Daniel Shaw from Dog Company and gravely wounding several others, including the Battalions PA, Doc Schu.

I did know Sergeant Shaw very well, but I remembered him from Dog Company back when I was with them. If I recall correctly, he had been stop lost before the deployment, and then he died while extended. That is the real-life version of the ‘cop being shot two days before retirement’ trope. Unfortunately, a trope becomes a trope for a reason, and it did happen to a lot of Joes. It was hard not to ruminate on all the what ifs— everything that could have been if one small thing happened differently. All the various injustices, real or perceived. All the “if it had been me, it would have happened differently” rationalizations you can dream up.

How sweet it would have been to have a six-month deployment like most of the other branches of service. I still loved the Army six months into this deployment. I was a wretch 14 months into it. If we had gone home at the six-month mark, I would have wanted to re-enlist. Life is not fair, and that is a much easier concept to accept as an abstract, it is a harder thing to accept after you have lost something.

Thanksgiving 2007

I spent the week of Thanksgiving guarding Iraqi civilians as they cleaned out buildings on Corregidor for us. There were several different work details, I was guarding a group cleaning out the building that EOD lived in— so it was a homecoming in a way. I had already spent a decent amount of time loitering in this parking lot waiting to start missions. We were paying the locals, feeding them lunch, and we allow them to salvage scrap and other useful materials. NCO’s split up the Joes and assigned a couple to each group to escort them around and make sure they did not do anything shady. It was easy money. It required nothing more from me than to stand around with a weapon in one hand and a Marlboro in the other— my forte.

They were dismantling Camp Corregidor. They were tearing down the hescos, the guard towers, gutting all the buildings of the additions we made that would not work when it goes back to being an educational institution. I know we must assume some risk occasionally, but it felt like every single person in the city being aware that all our security measures were down was not great OPSEC.

We got both welcome and unwelcome news around this time. The good news was that we were going home earlier than we thought and would make it in time to take leave for Christmas. The bad news was that, the day before Thanksgiving, AQI managed to get a VBIED past several checkpoints and detonate it next to the courthouse in Cental Ramadi, breaking a long streak of peace in the city. If they knew how vulnerable we were at Corregidor right now, we would be a great target for a VBIED attack.

A lot of the workers I was guarding were teenagers, and they tried to engage me in broken English. I was trying to be magnanimous and not insult our new friends, so I tried to talk to them with limited success. When meeting Iraqis on equal terms, they are friendly and hospitable. Although, the adults with us were more reserved. One of the older males in the work detail had a serious case of the ‘murder eyes’— he looked really mean.

He was just staring off into nothingness when I noticed him with this intense look of hatred on his face. I remember thinking that this guy had seen or done something horrific. Likely, was fighting against us in years prior, even killed Americans. I was not thinking it in an accusatory way, even then, I understood the practical fact that you make peace with your enemies, not your friends.

He noticed me looking at him and his facial expression completely changed. His eyebrows unfurled, his squinty unfocused eyes came back to reality, and the lines in his face softened. He smiled sheepishly. He looked really embarrassed that I had noticed him— he was the ghost of Christmas future.

At another point, a short mustachioed man with the red sheik headdress came around and started talking to my group of laborers. One of the Dog Company guys that was close by told us that he was Sheik Jassim— he said it like he was a celebrity.

“Cool.” I said sarcastically.

I did not know the story at the time, I only knew what I saw. You would be surprised at how little we knew about what the other companies were doing. We heard vague details occasionally, but if it did not happen in my line of sight, odds are I was not privy to it. Necessity had the Battalion stretched thin over a large AO and I do not strike up conversations with strange men, so even when we traveled, I did not hear gossip.

Each day on this detail, someone would bring out lunch plates for everyone on the detail and the Iraqis would take a break to eat with us. It was during these lunch breaks that most of the interaction took place. On Thanksgiving, when they brought our plates at lunch time, it was a Turkey dinner. I mentioned to one of the Iraqi teenagers that was chatting me up that this was a special meal for the holiday, and he asked for me to elaborate.

I found myself trying to think of a way to explain the concept of our Thanksgiving holiday to someone with a tenuous grasp of English and American history or culture. It dawns on me, even as a dumb 21-year-old Joe, how tone deaf it would be to explain this holiday to bunch of brown people that I am currently armed guarding on their own land. As this young man sat there smiling politely at me, waiting for my answer, I decided this was a job best left for the Public Affair types.

“It’s about honoring your friends and family with a feast.” I said. Swish.

The guy looked confused, and I just shook my head and smiled, “don’t worry about it.”

The last couple of days in Ramadi were anxious ones. As the defensive perimeter went down, we slowly consolidated down to just the HHC building. The pucker factor became higher as we became more vulnerable to attack. The maneuver companies closed their COP’s or handed them over and left Ramadi prior to us. HHC were the last ones to leave. While the roads to Corregidor were still blocked off, AQI already proved they could defeat the Jundi’s security measures. Our last night in Ramadi was just the Mortar platoon, Hotel 6, and a few stragglers from HHC and battalion staff.

We were last ones out the door of Camp Corregidor. We had to take the very last of our equipment to TQ, so we had a bunch of Five-ton trucks in the convoy with us. Cazinha called me over to one and told me to get in and drive. It had an equally large trailer hitched to the back, making it even harder to control.

“I have never driven one of these before.” I warned him.

“You know how drive, right?” Cazinha asked rhetorically.

“Yea, but I don’t even have a civilian drivers license.”

“Maybe not, but you have an Army drivers license, so get in and drive.” Cazinha said. He hoisted himself up into the TC position.

“It’s your funeral, Papa Bear.”

My last mission in Iraq was basically the same as all the ones that had come before it. I was doing something I was dangerously unqualified for, under the watchful eye of an NCO who had way more faith in my abilities than I did— and somehow it all worked out in the end

———————————————————————————————-

Here is a picture of us sweeping the hanger like assholes.

Left to right

Hank Hill, Sleepy Garcia, my dumb face, Glaubitz, Cazinha with SSG Cizl and looks like Esau sticking their heads up in the back.

https://imgur.com/a/Zz1hHUv

A man's best friend is his dog, no matter what breed. They're always happy to see you, for better or worse. I had a Border Collie mix named Bandit, who sadly passed away in 2023. He was everything to me, but he was old, and it was his time.

When we arrived at the long forgotten village in the eye of the rocky landscape, we were met with uncomfortable looks and glares from the locals. Men watched us closely, and we watched them closer. The women scurried away into their homes and shooed their children away. It was typical behavior when they saw us walking through. If only they knew we weren't there to start any fights.

I was there to help the villagers with any medical needs they had. After some coaxing, an old man (his beard almost as long as he was, walking with a large branch as a makeshift cane) explained to me through the interpreter that he had some sort of rash on his leg. I explained that I would physically touch him to examine him, to which he nodded. I lifted his robe, and beneath it was pretty gnarly; some sort of infection. I told him he'd need antibiotics, and pulled a bottle of Amoxicillin out of my bag. It wasn't exactly measured by weight, but it would do in a pinch. I had made sure to bring a wide variety of supplies.

“Why do we have to help these people? They hate us,” a soldier said to me as I walked over afterwards. “Look, I'm just doing my job. These people need help, and I'm going to help them. I don't really give a shit,” I explained. He scoffed and walked away.

A young man, maybe mid-twenties, limped over. He had sprained his ankle somehow, and it was swollen pretty badly. I pulled an ankle brace from my bag, one that I'd actually had to use before, but today it would be his. I handed him an instant cold pack and showed him how to ice it down for now, and then instructed him to put the brace on and to try and stay off of his feet for the day, at least. He gave me a suspicious look before taking the items and walking back to his home.

As the day wore on, the guys were loosening up. They were joking around with each other, and some were kicking a ball around with some kids and laughing. It was a good sight, far removed from the hell we've been through. Today, there were no bullets flying, no bombs going off, no loss of life. I smiled to myself–it was nice for a change.

A young woman, about my age at the time, walked over holding her dog in her arms. The dog, whose breed I can't remember, was panting heavily. His fur was frayed at every end, and he was covered in dirt and grime. She thought her dog was sick and needed help. I tried to explain that I am not a “dog doctor,” but a “people doctor” the best that I could given the language barrier. She grew irate with me and pressed the dog into my chest. I sighed. She wouldn't give up without a fight, would she? I set the dog down, and he refused to stand on one of his hind legs. He also had some sort of gash on his back end. My heart wrenched at the sight of an injured animal. I patted the dog gently, and he began wagging his frayed tail. Working quickly, before he changed his mind, I applied some antibiotic cream to the wound after rinsing it off with a bottle of water I had on hand, and then softly wrapping his torso in gauze. As for the leg, there wasn't much I could do. I hoped it was just pain from the wound that was keeping him off of it. I explained all this to the young woman via translator and she smiled at me. She picked up her dog, its rancid breath assailing me as he licked me happily. But showed them I didn't mind, and sent them on their way.

“Got a girlfriend now?” someone remarked as the day drew to a close. “Fuck off, I just care about the dog, man,” I explained, probably blushing. “Alright guys, let's mount up,” came the order from our leader. I finished handing out various over-the-counter drugs, bandages, and odds-and-ends, and made sure the translator told them we would be back soon. I also asked him to let them know that I would like to check my patients again when we do. I noticed more of the villagers were softening to our presence. Less people were hiding from us, and they were now going about their day and evening nonchalantly. Naively, I thought that was a good sign, that maybe they finally saw us (or just myself) as something of a “friend” rather than a “foe”.

As I climbed into the Humvee, a middle aged man ran over to us, flagging us down. Roughly translated, he said that the Taliban did not want them to talk to us, or to receive any help from “the Infidels”. He said they had been threatened with death if they were caught, and he told us to never come back. We sort of shrugged it off, we had killed plenty of Taliban and insurgents, and if it came down to it, we'd kill more. It was the cold truth of war that always bothered me. War is hell.

A few weeks later, we returned to the village. This time, the villagers greeted us happily, and began lining up for aid. I sort of smiled to myself; it was nice to take a break from deep gunshot wounds and dismembered soldiers. To engage in help versus salvation. I set up shop in a small brick house that a local man ushered me into. A couple of my guys stood guard outside, much to my protest. “You're going to scare them, put your fucking weapons down,” I said quietly. “Fuck that, Doc. These motherfuckers are eyeing us, they're planning something,” came the reply. I stared in disbelief for a moment. “These people? The ones with aches and pains and shit? Yeah, they're totally going to suicide bomb us today, dipshit,” I said angrily. The soldier just shrugged. “Just do your job, and we'll do ours,” the other one retorted. I walked into the building, relatively upset.

After a line of people were dealt with, mostly minor things that some ibuprofen or Tylenol could fix in a jiffy, the same young woman with the dog walked in. Her dog was on all fours and began barking excitedly. My heart melted at the sight. Keep in mind this conversation is roughly translated through an interpreter: “Hey! He's okay!” I said as she smiled at me. “Yes, you did very good, Mister People Doctor,” she joked and laughed. “Everything alright with you?” I asked. She sort of shuffled uncomfortably, then pointed to her abdomen. Pregnant? Menstrual pains? “Time of the month?” I asked kind of awkwardly. Total ladies’ man, I thought to myself. She nodded. “Here, take this, it's medicine that helps with pain. Just take two every so often,” I explained as I handed her ibuprofen and Tylenol. I had no Motrin, unfortunately, deciding that the other two would suffice. She took the small bottle and rattled them. “You are very nice to us. Taliban hate you, but you help us,” she said, shuffling around with her dog. “I'm just doing my job,” I tried to explain. “My name is Mina, what is yours?” she asked. Her smile warmed my already desert-heated heart. I told her my name. “What a weird name! I'll call you Doctor instead, I think!” she said as she laughed at my expense. Yet, I laughed with her. “When will you come back? Will you stay for dinner?” she asked. Maybe she blushed, I can't totally remember. “Uh… We will be back eventually, not sure when. As for dinner, let me check with the others.”

I walked out and met with the platoon leader. “Hey, LT. A local invited us for dinner. Can we hang out a bit longer?” I was answered with a look of utter disbelief that said, “What in the actual fuck did this guy just ask me?” He stared at me for a bit. “No, Doc, we aren't staying here for dinner. Are you fucking crazy?” he finally responded. “Come on, sir. These people are fine, they don't actually hate us for the most part,” I tried to reason. “No, soldier. Now go pack up, wheels up in thirty.” I sighed and returned to Mina.

“We will not stay for dinner, I am sorry,” I said. She frowned and shrugged. “Okay, take this then,” she said, pulling a wrapped load of something from her satchel she had been wearing. “What is it?” I asked. “Roht!” she said happily, pressing it into my hands. “I like to bake. It's yours!” I beamed at her. “Wow! Thank you so much, Mina! I wish I had something for you!” She shook her head. “You do so much already, Mister Doctor. Just promise to always be good.” I smiled and extended my hand. She grasped it and shook, smiling back at me as she left.

Mina was a beautiful girl, for all intents and purposes. My height, so around 5’7”. She had her long black hair in a tight braid down her back, and she always wore a colorful dress, with a long red hijab covering most of her upper body. Her sandals covered her feet loosely, and her upbeat attitude was infectious. I watched her leave, holding the roht bread in my hands. I placed it into my bag on top of the other gear, as to not smash it. I exited the house, and the two soldiers scoffed yet again. “Doc’s got a babe,” one said. “Man, fuck off,” is all I said as we walked back to the Humvees. They laughed at their own inside jokes.

That night, in my bunk, I unwrapped the bread. I had no clue what this was or if it was even fresh enough to eat. “Probably poisoned,” a soldier said as he sat next to me. “You're gonna shit yourself to death if you eat that, Doc.” I shrugged. “Well, if that happens, I know where you sleep,” I joked. I pulled a piece of the bread apart; it was surprisingly moist given the environment. I handed it to him, and he accepted it. “Fuck it,” was all he said, and popped it into his mouth. I followed suit with my own piece. I can distinctly remember the flavors of cardamom and a distinct sweetness. It was fucking delicious! “Holy shit, hey, come see!” the soldier shouted to the others. About five or six guys came over. “The fuck is this?” someone asked as I handed it to him. “I don't know. Some local girl gave it to me. She called it ‘root’? It's fucking good though,” I explained. They each took their bite and complimented the flavor. I think one may have had something negative to say but you can't please them all. “Fuck, Doc. Next time we head out there, tell her to make a whole ass pan of this shit,” one of them said. We laughed and joked as we finished it off. It was a nice treat, complimented by the fact I had a new somewhat-friend.

The next time we rolled through, Mina was waiting. “Mister Doctor!” she said as she walked over. I noticed the line of people. I understood the name “Mister Doctor” in her language at this point, at least. “Mina! How are you today? Everything okay?” I asked as I began to make my way to the same house as before, with the same guard dogs tagging along, muttering inappropriate things under their breaths. “I am good, yes. These people ask me, they say when is Doctor coming back? I tell them I do not know. They love you, Mister Doctor, we do not get much in medicines,” she explained as we walked in together. I nodded. That made sense; this was a pretty remote area after all.

I performed my duties with Mina beside me, telling me who each patient was. I learned their names, and a few words in their language. I must have sounded ridiculous because she laughed every time I tried to say them. “Hey, that ‘root’ bread was great,” I said after several patients came and went. She beamed at me. “You Americans have nothing like we do, correct?” she asked, chuckling. I shook my head. “We have burgers and fries, that's it,” I joked, and she looked at me. “What is this? Burger? Fries?” she asked, genuinely curious. I tried to explain that a burger is a piece of cooked meat between two bread pieces, to which she cocked an eyebrow and replied, “So a sandwich, yes?” I laughed. Yes. A sandwich. I told her “fries” were potatoes that were deep fried in oil and then salted. “You Americans are so weird,” she finally said. I shrugged. “Yeah, we're pretty weird.”

I finally had the courage to ask a question I had wanted to ask for a while as the day drew on. “Mina, the Taliban, do they come around often?” She became quiet and shuffled her feet as she sat next to me. “Yes,” she said quietly. “They come, and kill my uncle when you left. He was a traitor, they said. Because he took medicine from Americans. It goes against the religion,” she explained sullenly. I knew this would happen and yet my heart still sank. “Mina, I'm sorry. I just want to help you all.” She shrugged. “It is the way of our life here, Mister Doctor. We sometimes need help, but taking the help always comes with bad things, too.” I thought about that for a moment. “Mina, do you know where the Taliban are coming from?” She nodded. “They are from the town not far from here. Have you been?” I sighed. We had been there, and it was a fierce fight that killed several good men. I nodded. “Yes, we have been. I am sorry we could not stop them from coming and doing you harm.” She smiled at me. “Mister Doctor, you are special, yes? You only come to help, not to kill. You are sometimes better than the Taliban. But this is our way of life. We can not give it up. But promise you will never stop helping people, okay?” I nodded and smiled. “I promise, Mina. That's why I signed up.” She threw an arm around me and hugged me softly. “Okay, Mister Doctor! Here is another roht, for you!” She said as she pulled a loaf out once more. I grew excited at the sight of it. Hell yeah! More delicious Afghan dessert bread that I couldn't pronounce properly! I thanked her profusely to which she cackled with laughter. Her dog talked to me in its own language, and I patted his head.

We rolled back to base that evening, and the guys immediately gathered around. “Hey! Doc’s got that good shit!” someone shouted. Soon it felt like the whole company was begging for a piece. I hadn't even had my own piece yet! I fought them off. “Hey! Fuck off man!” I said angrily, trying to pull it away from the hoard. But it was futile. I laughed as I shared it with the guys. Even the LT and the commander showed up, mostly out of curiosity. “Damn Doc, you know how to treat a man,” someone laughed. We all laughed that night, not knowing what would come of our visits to that village.

On a particularly hot day, we rolled back through. But Mina wasn't waiting for us. No villagers were lined up either. “The fuck is going on?” I asked a soldier near me. “Smells like shit,” he replied. I knew that smell. It was death rot. When a body has been dead long enough and decomposition set in, that was the smell. It was everywhere. My heart raced and broke into pieces as I searched each house. Families lay slain on the floor, pools of dried blood beneath them. Women, children, men, it was everyone. Some had hands or feet hacked off. Some looked as if they'd been raped, by evidence of torn clothing. I was furious.

“Those fucking inbred Haji motherfuckers,” I said to someone. “Hey! Doc!” someone shouted. I hurried over to a familiar house. “I'm sorry, Doc…” he said as I walked in. Mina lay there, slain like the rest, next to her dog. I didn't know how to react. Should I cry? Scream? Throw myself to the ground? No. I remained stone faced. “Fuck this. Fuck those goddamn motherfuckers. I swear to God I'll kill every last one of them,” I said as I walked back out. “LT, we're done here,” I said simply as I returned to the Humvee. “You okay, Doc?” he asked, noticing my demeanor (probably). “NO. I’m not OKAY.” I said. A soldier walked over. “Hey, man. Let's give her a proper burial. Come on,” he said as he handed me his entrenching tool. Why he had this on him, I didn't question. I nodded and we made our way outside of the village borders and began digging. Several more guys showed up, pooling their packs and rifles to help. Then several more. Everyone wanted to help. I was silent, furiously digging. My heart was shattered, and it's a sight I'll never forget to this day.

We buried Mina and her dog in a reasonably deep grave. “Wanna say a few words or something?” the LT said. He had helped wrap the body respectfully in a sheet from another house and carried it with me to the grave. “No, sir. I still just wanna kill those motherfuckers,” I replied. The sentiment was shared amongst us all that day. We had already seen so much death, and seeing the guys as heart broken as I was, it made me realize something. These were infantry guys, the hardest of the hard, aside from Special Forces. These guys balk at death, and when the shit goes down, they know what to do. But today, maybe it was their medic whose demeanor wasn't cheerful or upbeat but broken down and sullen, maybe it changed them. Their morale booster was fucked up. It was obvious today.

We rode back in silence. I laid in my bunk the rest of the day, emotionally distraught. I didn't love her, let's be real for a moment. She was from a world I've never thought I'd experience until I enlisted. But what she was, was proof that not every Afghani was trying to kill us. She was proof that amongst the evil, the blood, the darkness, there was always light. I remember her laugh, her smile, her cutely ugly dog, and that fucking bread. I miss her, and I wish things happened differently. But that's the truth of the world, isn't it? That the good die, while the bad continue living. But what is bad? Bad is taking out the good without even batting an eye, like those guys did. Seeing her dead in the cold stone floor of that shit hole of a house, it steeled me. It hardened me, more than being shot at, more than being covered in other people's gore, more than holding a dying soldier. It hardened me in a way I can't really explain. It drove me to do my job better. It drove me to dive through the hailstorm of machine gun fire to pull a soldier to safety. It made me swear even harder to never let one of my guys die, even if it seemed impossible. It made me realize that, as dark as the world is, I need to continue to thrive and help others.

When I'm alone these days, so far in my own head and lost to the abyss, I hear her. “Mister Doctor, promise that you will never stop helping others.”

I promise, Mina.

(This is how I remember my experience happening. I have filled in some gaps, the dialogue is most likely not verbatim, but it was almost 15 years ago. I wrote this in a way so it was easily digestible. Thank you for reading.)

In AIT during a field exercise I walked back to my fox hole to find a trip flare. So I nuetralized it.......

Then I got in big trouble, because "Remember that paper you signed saying you would not handle any explosives etc. unsupervised!

Well after a whole cluster fuck of drills sending me through the ringer I got to speak with the Captain. He asked me what the hell I was thinking. I answered honestly, "Should I have just knowingly walked into the damn thing? We are training to be infantry in the Army correct, sir?"

He kinda smirked, but had to do something, "because technically" and also the cadre would have been F'd if someone got hurt; but I had a point!

So before graduation, he gave me like an extra half day of duty when everyone else was on a pass; I think he got my point and my family had come down with my girlfriend, so he had some heart!

There is a bit more to the story, but this is the one we get!

I posted this in R/maliciouscompliance and was told about this group in the comments. So here is my post.

So there I was as an AMMO troop E-5 working an Operational Readiness Inspection (ORI). I was setting up an argon gas cylinder for some of our equipment in a "remote" location. We had never used this space before and it wasn't properly set up for our equipment. No anchors on the walls and no gas cylinder storage racks. The main feature of the room was a long steel table that was bolted to the cement floor. To secure the argon cylinder, I used 2 - 5000lb munitions straps to a table leg. I figured, problem solved.

During the inspection, this inspector comes up to me and says that he is going to have to hit me with a major finding....but he was willing to drop it to a minor if I could fix it before he left the area. The finding...the Technical Order for our equipment stated that the cylinder needed to be in a gas storage rack or securely CHAINED to a fixed object. As my load straps were not chains, I had violated the TO instructions.

I was able to borrow some stantion chain, used for airshow crowd control, and a tiny bolt and nut. I seriously doubted the chain would hold 20lbs, certainly not a full gas cylinder. The inspector said that was "great" and dropped the finding to a minor. He also told me that the straps were an unauthorized item and needed to be removed.

I reported all of this up my chain of command with varying degrees of WTF responses. That minor finding never made it into the final report.

Lots of military service is maintenance. The exceedingly detailed maintenance card says:

Disconnect the unit from all external power supplies and if the time to loss of battery is less than an hour, replace the battery.

I was NOT trained on this piece of equipment or it's system. This item is a time keeping device based on the atomic vibrations of an element. This clock is used for the quarter hourly broadcast to fleet submarines.

Anywhere this unit is deployed, there are TWO of them so should one stop functioning, it has the other one to synch from to UTC.

Given the above paragraphs, a normal and attentive technician might note that only one of these units should be tested at any time. Yes? Do we see why? If you don't see why, please re-read the above and pay attention to "two units", "sync", and "battery discharges until unit powers off".

So I'm working with this technician and asked why he stopped his test at one hour and he explained it says the battery needs to last an hour. I'm not one to confront a subject matter expert on the equipment they went to school for.

Eventually, I had dead time with the Work Center Supervisor and asked about the semantics on the maintenance card and the PMCS (preventative maintenance, checks, and service) I'd witnessed and the verbiage on the PMCS card. I was inquisitive, not accusatory. I was genuinely curious about the intent and the observed implementation. Like for real, I didn't understand.

WorkSup was "huh, that's a good question, I'll look into it". I got it out of my brain and forgot about it.

We worked a two-two-96 rotation. 4 watch sections rotating two day shifts (7a to 7p), 24 hours off, two night shifts (7p to 7a), and 96 hours off until next day shift. It can be a month before people catch up.

At some point, I come in to a weekday day shift and there's drama around that aforementioned technician. Well turns out BOTH of the atomic time clocks ended up discharged and dead at the same time! 😭

Turned out a flight "got instantly made" and another technician trained on that equipment flew from Germany to Naples Italy ASAP with a unit they knew could survive the trip and that tech got both of our units back online.

So there were a number of quarter hourly broadcasts from COMSUBGRU 8 that were missed because someone didn't pay attention in their class. 🥺🙄

I didn't dig for the dirt. I know there was discipline. Oh... The next story of the same guy has to do with generators. 💀

Another fun story about my *favorite* LPO from when I was in the Navy.

A little bit of backstory to help explain some of the later facts. In the military, every piece of equipment gets preventative maintenance done on it to maintain it in "good, working condition". In the Navy, we have a very well-laid out maintenance system with step-by-step instructions on how to do every bit of maintenance, with instructions so simple a monkey could do it. Part of these maintenance procedures lists required tools, parts, materials, and test equipment, and they are also extremely specific. Detailing the length requirement of your screw drivers, the brand of your gauges, etc. The management of this system the Navy uses is called the Maintenance & Material Management System, 3M; or Planned Maintenance System, PMS.

As an electrician, we owned all electrical distribution equipment onboard, and for jobs without an electrical training background, we also "owned" the actual equipment. So the Electronics Technicians, with electrical training, could maintain their own electrical equipment. But the Cooks (Culinary Specialists), without an electrical background, relied on us to maintain their equipment for them. Now, if you've ever used a commercial flat-top grill/griddle before, you know you set it to a specific temperature you want the cooktop heated to, and not a "0-9" dial like your stove at home. Part of maintaining the griddle was checking the calibration of this temperature setting once every year or two (I forget how often this check was, but it wasn't a frequent check).

Relatively early on when I got onboard the ship, young EMFN GwenBD94 was assigned to do this maintenance check, so I gathered all of my tools parts materials etc. In doing so I couldn't find the proper temperature sensor for our calibrated temperature gauge. We had the round-tip ambient temperature probe for use in the ovens, but not the flat-tip surface temperature probe for use on a griddle. I asked my workcenter supervisor for help, and he couldn't find it either, so we ordered a new one, and he said he'd take care of the paperwork for the maintenance check. Being new and unfamiliar with the system I let it go and never questioned when the maintenance check disappeared from the maintenance list the next week (meaning someone "accomplished" it hint hint nudge nudge) and all was good.

The next time this maintenance check came up due, we were on deployment, and it was again assigned to me. By this time, we had a new workcenter supervisor, and I was now EM3 GwenBD94! A bit more knowledgeable. I looked where we kept all our calibrated equipment and couldn't find the flattop temperature probe I knew it needed so I asked my LPO. He found we had one on order but didn't know that we had one in the shop, and told me to "figure it out". Knowing that was an unlawful order and would amount to lying about the check and could bite me in the ass later, I said I wouldn't do the maintenance without the right equipment, and since he couldn't lawfully order me to, we started putting a note on the check that the tools were on order, and delaying it.

This went on for about 2-3 months until the check was about to "go red" (move out of periodicity and cause negative numbers on out maintenance reports), and I was again ordered to figure it out or I'd be written up. I refused, and raised the same issue to my boss's boss and we tore the shop apart trying to find the right equipment but couldn't find it, so he told me not to worry about it. Later that week, while I was on watch as a roving watchstander after dinner one evening I saw a newer more junior electrician, lets call him EMFA Timmy in the galley working on the griddle! I took a step into the galley and asked him what he was doing and low and behold, he was doing the maintenance check! I asked him what temperature probe he was using and he showed me the one for the oven. I explained to him the issue and told him if he signed the maintenance check it would be "gun-decking" (lying on official paperwork) and he could get in trouble, but let him make his own decisions as an adult. He decided to continue doing the check. I giggled and continued on with my watch.

After my watch, it was nearly 10PM so I went to bed for the night. About an hour later I got woken up, being told my LPO needed me in the galley. I signed, figuring it was about the check, and I was going to get that earlier threatened write-up. After getting dressed and making it to the galley, the entire electrical shop was in the galley troubleshooting the griddle. You see, EMFA Timmy got to the step in the PMS where it said to use a screwdriver to adjust a dial until the thermometer read the same temperature indicated by the set temperature. When he measured it, it was off by about 150 degrees, so he kept turning up the heat. Eventually, it was hot enough to melt the griddle's built-in over-temp protection device, instantly shutting the stovetop off. Turns out, he *did* need that temperature probe! I was tasked with helping come up with a solution to fix it, because the griddle was a critical piece of equipment for the cooks, and we had no replacement parts to fix it. I asked EMFA Timmy if he ever finished the last steps of the maintenance card (turning the grill off, putting it back together, reporting completion of the PMS). He told me he hadn't. I turned to my boss and said since the maintenance check i explicitly advised against doing without the proper tools was still ongoing, and I was informed I could do the maintenance or be written up, I'd stick with my original decision and refuse to do the maintenance. He could write me up in the morning during working hours, but in the mean time, I was going back to bed. Have a nice night.

In the morning, I did indeed get written up, but for the insubordination (not for refusing the maintenance check), while my LCPO looked on with the biggest shit eating grin at me for holding my ground, and my LPO was pissed at me. Turns out, I was right and we *couldn't* do that maintenance check without the right equipment!

This remains one of my write ups I am least ashamed to have ever gotten, and I'd take it again in a heartbeat to give a giant "I told you so" middle finger to idiot LPOs. I later found an electronic record of the counseling chit my supervisor got for tasking people with doing maintenance without the proper equipment, because I laid out that this was a known issue we didn't have the right probe for years and threw his ass deep under the bus (hated the guy).

TL;DR:
i got told to do a job i couldn't do or get written up, i refused, someone dumber got roped into doing it, stuff broke, i got told to help fix it, I said I already accepted being written up for opting out of this experience, and took the write up.

This isn't quite malicious compliance, more like reluctant compliance.

About 2 years into my stint in the Signal Corps, our unit did a rotation to the National Training Center to train up for our sandbox deployment. Our team (our NCO, and 3 SPCs including myself) were split off from our battalion and sent, along with our satellite trailer and data boxes , to provide internet/phone capability for a team of officers (COL, LTC, 2 MAJ, and a CPT) tasked with "training" Iraqi Army roleplayers, as well as an infantry company, who was there as their security detail.

Our setup in the field went smoothly, at least by army standards. We set up our data stacks in the infantry company CP a stones throw from the building where the "Iraqi Division HQ" and officer team worked. In the courtyard between the tent and building were my satellite trailer, a towed generator that powered the tent, and my fuel point with 4 jerry cans for fueling the generator and satellite trailer's generator.

Once we were all set up and the excercise went live, we settled into our battle rhythm, my NCO and one squad member would work midnight to noon and myself and our other team member would work noon to midnight. Every afternoon a supply convoy would drop off warm(ish) chow and we would take our fuel cans down to their fuel truck and refill them. At this time the infantry company started doing their own training missions in addition to pulling base security.

One evening the infantry XO (1LT) comes up to our desk and informs me that the infantry company is low on fuel and needs 1 of my fuel cans for a night op. I (respectfully of course) decline and reiterate to him the need to keep the satellite connection up for their mission and the officer training team's mission. 15 minutes later one of the infantry company's platoon sergeants (complete with ex drill sergeant badge sewn on his ACUs) comes into the cp and requests one of my fuel cans. I once again refuse and restate the importance of the fuel cans to our mission. He puts his hand on my shoulder and says "let me explain to you how this works" and after some usual army team first blah blah i begrudgingly agree they can take one of my precious fuel cans.

Near the end of my shift when i go out to top off the generator, i find that they have taken not one, but two, of my fuel cans, and i empty the dregs of the last 2 into our trusty generator and immediately begin panicking. See, in training, it was drilled into us that the communication link was mission critical, and our responsibility to keep it up no matter what. I had heard several stories of people getting non judicial punishment for letting generators run out of gas, and as a wet behind the ears, newly promoted specialist, all i could see was an Article 15 in my future. I brought up my concerns to the XO who did his best to reassure me it would be fine. I also voiced my concerns to the CPT from the Officer training team, who as the lowest ranking was the liaison with us lower ranking types. I went off shift after explaining the situation to my nco and hoping for the fuelers to get there early the next day.

When i came on shift, it was apparent that no one besides me had thought anymore about the fuel issue, so i once again mentioned to the XO that we were going to be in trouble without fuel. At this point he also began to panic and scrounged around and found the very tail end of another fuel can for me. I also told the CPT my concerns again and he said he was sure it would be fine. As my anxiety grew i counted the minutes waiting for the fuel convoy to arrive.

Suddenly, in as dramatic a moment as i could have hoped for, all the lights in the company cp went out and the whole tent fell silent except for the beeping of our UPS, indicating we had about 10 minutes of battery life to restore power to our data stacks before they died completely. I ran out of the tent to a silent generator with a red undervoltage fault light glaring at me. I strode purposefully into the "Iraqi Army" HQ and bluntly said to the LTC "Sir, your network is hard down. They let my generator tun out of fuel" then turned and walked back out.

What followed, i can only describe as a flurry of officers swarming between the generator, the CP and the "Iraqi" building. The Infantry XO watched the training team "strike a deal" with the "Iraqi Army" for a couple cans of fuel from the other side of the base to restore power and comms to the CP.

Later that day, As I sat at our desk in the corner of the CP stewing about the inescapable shitstorm i was sure would be descending on me, the XO approached. "Hey, the fueler is here with the convoy, I'm going to have my guys guide them up here if you can just show them what needs fueled." I walked outside to see the fuel tanker lumbering up the path next to the CP and, somehow, as if by magic, 12 jerry cans sitting at my fuel point.

My fears of punishment never materialized, and for the rest of the excercise, the fueler came and topped off my generator and my dozen fuel cans every day.

Ever since I started reading this sub things I had forgotten have started to come back to me. I count this as one of more positive one and now funny ones.

The first Platoon Sgt I had when I got to Germany was HQ Platoon SFC (Insert any very British name) who was a large pear shaped mean bulldog/frog looking BLACK, black man. He was only around for about three months before he PCSed.

He pulled the four noobs aside and told us the following.

Listen up troops and pay attention because I bet you a MF FAT man you will fuck it up here in this new place.

He pointed a gnarled finger at each one of us in turn.

One of you dumb F's will get a taste for drugs and I will do the paper work to send you to the brig or worse you'll OD.

One of you will get drunk and get a piece of ass from a local and end up married or buy some 'P' and get lead around by your dick as they drain every dollar you have.

And one of you dumb fucks will do something really stupid, walk in front of a deuce and half, try road racing a jeep or get so drunk you pass out on your back and drown in your own vomit.

Yeah he painted a very fun picture of permanent party soldering in the F.R.G.

Oh for context this was the 1977.

He then told us that he would do his best to help us not F UP and gave us a fairly long list of other F ups and surprisingly the best way around them.

There had been a guy I knew in another platoon in AIT that almost died from alcohol poisoning so the SFC's advice stayed with me.

Drink with buddies, let someone know where you are going. If you're shit faced and the room is spinning DON'T use the foot on floor method as it keeps you on your back, go to the latrine, grab a bucket, a trash can or use the floor. Stick your finger down your throat and puck it out till empty. I have had to do the this a time or two and I have no doubt that is kept me from further harm.

Here's of the other suggestions I remember, Document it, Document it, Document it. Don't P Off the mail clerk, the supply Sgt or the Mess Sgt, condoms are to be used not only to keep dust out of your barrel...Get a paternity blood test and so on.

What singular advice did a NCO - SGT or above give you that you took to heart that keep you from putting your foot in the fire?

The Grenade Incident

Every convoy, EOD mission, or guard shift inched us a little bit closer to home. The reality of going home is that it was just as big of a pain in the ass to redeploy as it is to deploy. We must inventory equipment and repack conex boxes. No one was coming to relieve us at COP or Corregidor, we were departing Ramadi and leaving only a company of Marines to run this— formerly battalion plus sized– AO. We would hand COP back to the Jundi’s and Corregidor back to the city, so it could be an agricultural college again.

One morning, SSG Carter came around looking for a couple of Joes to help him inventory and pack up the explosives bunker. We were going to close Combat Outpost first and consolidate everyone on Corregidor until we left. We were starting our house cleaning on this side earlier because of that.

SSG Carter grabbed Knight and Ruiz and headed out to get to work. The rest of us were preparing for a convoy to Camp Ramadi.

The explosives bunker was on the other side of the HESCO barriers that protected the shower/smoking pit. We had grenades of various types in a small sandbag bunker, and our Mortar rounds in cans stacked up against the wall next to it. I had never looked in the bunker. I never threw the frags I was carrying all year, and my grenade launcher ended up being one use, so I did not resupply the M203 grenades I used.

I was on the other side of the hesco barriers about 10 to 15 feet feet away from the bunker when the now familiar sensation of an explosion bludgeoning of my ear drums. I cannot remember who I was talking to, but I can picture a smile slowly turning into a look of horror, and everything is quiet for a moment. Time dilation, adrenaline spike, senses both dulled and going into overdrive at the same time— then my hearing returns enough to make out SSG Carter calling for help.

As we start heading around the HESCOs, Cazinha comes stumbling out of a porto-potty to my 11 o’clock with his pants around his ankles like he was running in a sack race. He managed to run faster with his pants around his ankles than he normally can under the best circumstances.

I turn the corner and find a horrific scene. SSG Carter suffered a double amputation, there is a bloody stump where one of his arms and one of his legs on the opposite side should be. There is bright red blood everywhere. Knight took shrapnel to his eye and groin. Ruiz caught shrapnel to his knee and stumbled back into the concrete wall. He had a TBI I assume, but he was relatively lucky. Unfortunately, we were going to need to test those combat lifesaver skills after all.

Alaniz was already there applying a tourniquet on SSG Carter. Knight stumbled away from us towards the LZ with his hands covering his face and collapses to the ground; a couple Joes follow him. Ruiz is lying against the wall. I am momentarily unsure who to aid, but then I hear Cazinha’s voice yelling for skedcoes and I take off back towards the CP to grab one. As I am running, I can see medics pouring out of the aid station and sprinting towards us. I had been bitching about living next to the landing zone all year, but in this moment, I would not have traded our proximity to the aid station for anything.

Davila, one of my buddies from the other section, is running towards me asking what happened. I yell skedcoe’s without bothering to explain. By the time we get back, the medics are on scene and preparing to move the casualties to the aid station. The whole platoon helped carry them, and then we waited solemnly outside the doors while the medics worked. No one said a word. When the medevac chopper arrived, we were there to help carry them to the LZ.

Fuck the dust. Every morsel of dust I had inhaled, swallowed, or had caked my eyelids would be worth it if this medevac crew did their jobs well today. We sprinted to the LZ as fast as we could and then stood around stunned watching the helicopter whisk them away. I had seen so many heartbroken Joe’s standing here after loading their wounded, and now here we were. I had been living here over a year; this was the first time I stood in this cursed spot even though it is about 100 yards from where we sleep.

I looked back at Thunder Base, and realized how much it sucked to be feeling like this, and then to turn around and see our dumb asses gawking at you from over there like some car accident on the side of the highway.

What the fuck just happened? Seriously. What. The. Fuck.

Fuck.

This was the worst day, worst hour, of my life. It was so bad that my mind wiped it from my hard drive that very afternoon. My memory of the events quickly became very hazy, and I was aware of it. I could not picture what I saw in my head afterward, not that I wanted to necessarily, but it is a weird feeling to be aware of memory loss when you are so young.

I remember something Bird Dog had said one time addressing the battalion. I am paraphrasing, but he compared being a soldier to fighting a superior grappler. You hang on for as long as you can, but eventually we all end up tapping out, and there is no shame in it— this is where I tapped out. I decided to walk away from the Army that day. I am not cut out for this type of suffering— and I am far too pretty for the Infantry.

I knew my father growing up, sorta. My father was very distant. We did not have much in common and we never clicked. We did not really bond or spend much time together. We are too similar in all the wrong ways, I suppose. I had a father, but not a father figure growing up.

SSG Carter guided us and took care of us in the worst possible circumstances. He trained us and led by his personal example. He was a solid role model and having his confidence meant a lot to me and I am at a loss for words to describe how devastating a loss this was. He had been providing something that I did not know I had been missing until it was gone. This was one too many ouchies for me.

Within an hour of the medevac chopper leaving, SFC Boots arrived to take over the platoon. SFC Boots was my first platoon Sergeant in Dog Company, and although he never treated me differently than anyone else, I always had a vague sense that he did not particularly care for me. I think his patience for my sarcasm and Tom foolery was low. This is one of the rare instances where I would have preferred to start fresh with a stranger. It was also weird to have a Platoon Sergeant and Platoon Leader that had zero training on the Mortar system— not that the E-5’s and E-6’s did not have it under control.

SFC Boots first order of business was to have us gear up and go on the mission we had been preparing to do that morning. No time to wallow, the mission stops for nothing. Not even if the mission is a pointless milk run to Camp Ramadi.

Young soldiers need to stay busy, or morale plummets when the reality of their shit lives sink in. We know this. It was the correct thing to do, we know this… but at the time, I was just waiting for someone to kick off a full-scale mutiny, I was going to loot the Hajji mart and put the cattle skull back on our humvee.

I wanted to drop Willy P on that stupid fucking gas station and burn it to the ground. Fuck this city, fuck this country, fuck the Army. Fuck all of it.

Instead, we sullenly put on our gear and drove across the city wordlessly. I went to the PX and bought cartons of cigarettes. I was going to need them. They sent both sections on this mission, which may have been the only time we left the wire as an intact platoon the entire deployment. When we arrived back at the CP a couple of hours later, the aftermath of the accident had been cleaned up. It was then I realized the real reason they sent us to Camp Ramadi. It seemed obvious after the fact.

SSG Carter and Knight went through a series of hospitals and surgeries before ending up in Walter Reed together. They were both maimed for life, but they survived. I was worried SSG Carter was going to die from shock on the helicopter, like Buford had, but the tough old bastard survived. Ruiz came back to us from the hospital on Al Assad Air Base a few days later. Thankfully, not too much worse for wear.

I was in a state of constant shell shock after this. I would not call this depression; at least not like before. It is hard to articulate, but I was just a walking shell of a person— we all were. My ADHD came raging back like it never left, I could not focus enough to read anymore. It felt like I was having an out of body experience like I had on OP South, but it was perpetual for weeks. I was on autopilot going through the motions, but mentally, I was not even on COP anymore. Any moment that did not require my full attention, I would just let mind drift to whatever safe and comforting thoughts I could find to distract me.

Before we carried him to the AID station, SSG Carter asked Williams to find his wedding band. It had been on the hand obliterated by the grenade. We combed the area around ground zero and then started moving further out towards the LZ looking. Eventually, a couple of the guys decided to hop the fence and try to see if it landed in the field on the other side of the wall. While searching, Williams got stuck his boot stuck in the lake of piss where our urinal drained— we also learned where the urinal was draining during this excursion. Watching a Joe get his boot stuck in a lake of four-year-old piss should have been a highlight of the deployment, but no one even talked about it afterward. That is how sad it was at Thunder Base. Joes were not even reveling in each others misery anymore— and we never found the ring.

Foreword: I've repressed the trauma of my experience in Afghanistan as a combat medic for well over a decade. I've recently opened up these bloody floodgates in therapy, so as these traumatic memories are coming back, I'm writing them down as best I can. I tried to fill in the gaps, so some things may not make sense, I can clarify if needed. If these are welcome then I could write more on reddit.

Americans were here in Afghanistan to promote peace amongst the locals, less shooting, more hand shaking and thumbs upping. We wished someone had told the locals that. A school had been built, a meager four room simple structure of wood and brick. It was the least we could do.

I was with first platoon as we wandered around the large village, while our leadership were having a meeting with the local elders. Money in, less insurgents, everyone's happy. The beige and grey stone houses were like the most depressing background you could imagine.

“How'd it go?” a soldier asked as our platoon leader came out of the meeting and met with us. “Not good. They don't want us here. They mostly stared at us and said mean shit. I have a bad feeling about it.” That was never good to hear from your leader.

We made our way to the school. It had been used a bit since it's creation, but today it was quiet. No kids running around, no adults trying to teach inside. I leaned against a wall. “It's too fucking hot” I said, taking a sip of life giving water. The soldier, a Specialist, laughed. “You say that too fucking much, man. It's the desert. It's gonna be hot.” I rolled my eyes behind my shaded protective eyewear. “Yeah well Louisiana is a different type of hot.” He shook his head. “Doc, you're a crazy motherfucker. A lil heat won't hurt.”

The LT came back around to us shortly after we stacked up near the school. “How much longer?” someone asked. We all were hoping that he'd give just a thumbs up to head back. Not today.

“One of the elders is sympathetic to the american dream. He said the schools being used as a staging point for attacks and IEDs. All while the kids are there, if you can believe it.” We could. Easily. “So what then?” another one asked. “Battalion wants us to hunker down until morning. We leave at first light. If anyone comes around, we yell really mean shit, and if they keep coming, we light them up. Our search didn't turn up any weapons in there, but there's something they're hiding from us. Battalion is curious, so that means we are too. Second platoon will rendezvous in the morning." Everyone groaned. We had packed for a day or two. A few MREs, extra ammo, the usual load. We didn't know it was a trap, but we felt it.

First platoon had been in some confrontations before, they were battle hardened. I always enjoyed spending time with these guys. Macho men and thinkers, they called themselves. We headed into the school. A simple couple of windows gave us sight to the front, and there was no back entrance. One way in, one way out. I set my pack down in one class room after we cleared it. This was the designated bunk for the night: a cold slab floor and four bland beige walls, two windows to a room.

The men swapped guard duty just as the sun set. I walked over to the window where a Sergeant was stationed along with two others, rifles at the ready. “Anything?” I asked casually trying to reign in my ADHD boredom. “That motherfucker passed us on the street at least five times. Always on the phone. He's fucking with us. He's talking to the goddamn fucks.” When in times of stress, eloquence left us, apparently. “You think we're gonna get hit?” I asked, hiding my worry. I didn't want to go through it tonight. I wanted to sleep, damn it. The sarge looked at me, in the fading light I could see his stone expression. “Go tell the LT. Shits going to hit the fan tonight. Be ready, Doc.” I nodded and slapped his shoulder. “When it starts, I'll be right there with you, brother.”

“Fuck.” was all the LT said. We started positioning ourselves strategically throughout the school. Two rooms on either side of a central hall. Simple. Deadly. Twenty men. I would hang out with the squad in the hall. I made a mental map of who was where. I always did. If they needed me, I needed to take the least amount of steps possible to get to them. I called it “Medic Mentality” amongst our group.

“Doc, take a break,” sarge said as he looked over his shoulder. But I couldn't. I checked and triple checked my supply bags. I made sure what I needed was there when I needed it the most. I walked around and joked with the guys. “Crazy fucking cajun,” someone called me after I made a stupid joke about something I've long forgotten. It was these times I felt like I knew these guys. Like I belonged here amongst the Macho and Thinkers. Then someone made a misogynistic joke.

I laughed with them. I ate an MRE with the squad in room four. A soldier from New York was talking about how his grandmother made the best Italian dish in the world, while one from Arizona claimed his made the best Mexican dish. “You can't fucking compare the two. Apples and oranges, dumbass.” I said as I took a bite of my meal. Delicious brown block of "bread" and some "sauce". They laughed. “At least we don't eat gator and shit, fucker,” New York said. I laughed. “It ain't that bad,” I tried to explain. They laughed again.

“You guys ready for tonight?” I asked finally. I wanted to feel it out. Mostly to calm my own mind. “We're fucking ready, bro. You worry about putting a bandaid on us when we get shot,” Arizona joked. I knew it was a joke. We all did. But I felt like he either jixed us right then and there or he foreshadowed what was to come.

Deep into the night, the first gunshots broke the eerie silence. Pop! Pop! Pop! “Fuckers are feeling us out,” someone muttered as we ducked down just in case. Pop! Pop! “Anyone got eyes?! Anyone at all?” shouted the Sarge. No one yelled back. The tension was thicker than ever. We could hear our hearts beating in our ears. More shots. More chipped brick and mortar. “Contact!” screamed someone from room three, which was the one to the right of the hall at the end.

The guys began opening fire. I dashed over peeking my head in. “All good?” I screamed. Thumbs up. Good. Back to Sarge. “Contact right! Left! Fuck just shoot!” came the order from the LT. Soon, everyone had contact. Bullet casings reverberated off the stone floor. Night vision limited your field of vision, but the tracer rounds looked like wisps of ethereal light leaving us to find their way home. I was always scared. Scared of doing the wrong thing when I needed to do it right. Scared of dying. But most of all, I was scared for these men. I needed to get them home. I needed to. If I was a religious man, I'd pray.

“Medic!” My heart sank. I ran into the second room. “I'm hit!” Screamed a rifleman. I slid next to him. “You're fine, stop yelling, damn it,” I said as I assessed him. His shoulder was hit. Nothing fatal, nothing serious, no bullet. “You got grazed,” I explained as I helped bandage him. “Go,” I said as I helped him up. He nodded and thanked me.

“Medic!” that was the LT, in room one. I dashed into that room as a grenade soared through the window. Time seemed to stop. An enemy had darted, low, across the outside perimeter of the school and tossed a grenade in apparently. In the blink of an eye, I was tackled to the ground. Another soldier kicked the grenade into the corner of the room where the desks were piled up. It was deafening. My world was a haze of high pitch noise and smoke. I stood up trying to shake it off.

“Medic! Medic!” screamed someone in a muted tone. I stumbled forward, and fell over someone. Lying down holding his leg was a specialist, the machine gunner. He had taken the brunt of the shrapnel in his left leg and thigh. Blood leaked through the torn uniform pant leg. I quickly got to work. The guys checked themselves quickly and started to return fire, as more and more bullets poured in. I wrapped his leg as best I could. “Can you shoot?” I yelled. He nodded and struggled back up to his feet. He lifted his SAW with a look of utter pain and agony and set it back on the window. He unleashed vengeance. He would get his pound of flesh in return.

The LT pulled me into the hallway. “Goddamn it, stay the fuck right here! Stay out of the rooms until you're needed!” I nodded. If I went down, these guys were going to be in dire straights. I hated not being with all of them. I held my rifle close as I ran over to the sarge. “How many are there?! Sounds like all of the goddamn country,” I shouted to him. He stopped to reload. “No idea. Back up is coming. ETA an hour minimum.” Then he looked up at me. He had taken a graze across his cheek, it was bleeding pretty nastily. “Fuck, Sarge,” I said as I knelt beside him. Flesh wound. He pulled out his own kit and slapped a bandage on it. “Back to work,” he said as he returned fire.

Another explosion. A rocket soared through one window, through the open door, into the next room, and out that window, finally exploding outside. I saw the tail of smoke. Thank you for not aiming, I said to myself.

“MEDIC!” I sprinted into room two. I didn't see anyone hurt. Fuck. Wrong room. “MEDIC! DOC!” I ran into room four. I slid next to the injured PFC. “I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die,” he kept saying. “Shut up, soldier! I'm trying to work” I said angrily. He was shaking. Shock. Time was against me. He had a bullet lodged in his collar bone. There was barely any light, I couldn't dig it out for him. “I need a light! Get me a fucking light!” I screamed. Arizona shone his flashlight onto the wound. “I don't wanna die, doc,” the bleeding private whimpered in a thick Texan drawl. “You're fine, you're fine,” I replied. “Hold the fucking light steady!” I shouted at the light bearer. The light was suddenly the steadiest it had ever been. I hastily began trying digging the bullet fragment out. He would need surgery. Might be lucky to use that arm again. The private screamed. Yeah, this hurts. “Okay, youre good, get the fuck back in the fight,” I said after packing and wrapping him up. “Thank you, Doc,” he said with a shaky voice. He could barely hold his rifle steady. I shook my head at Arizona. “Watch him,” I shouted as I ran back out.

One and a half hours later, the Humvees arrived with an armored vehicle for evac. The .50s laid the enemy positions out flat. Second platoon had arrived. A quick debrief with the LT, and we began boarding the injured.

“Doc, go” the LT said. “Fuck no, if there's guys here, I'm here,” I said walking back to the school. He grabbed me by the vest and flung me forward. “Get the fuck on that transport, Doc, you need to go with them.” I never felt so angry. My place wasn't back at base with the injured, at least to me. I wanted to be here. His expression softened as he clasped my shoulder. “Listen, Doc, it's over. We'll be right behind you. Just go.” I sighed, and probably cursed him out as I boarded. The sounds of heavy gun fire somewhat placates my worry. The enemy would either retreat or be obliterated. Now or never, I thought.

The PFC who had taken a hit in the collarbone sat beside me. He rested his head on my shoulder. “I thought I for sure was dead, Doc”, he kind of mumbled. “Well, you're not dead, but your time in the shit is probably over,” I said. I put my head on his. Exhaustion crept into my body. I had somehow survived again. The bumpy ride back gave me time to reflect. Was I too slow? Could I have been more efficient? Did I set up my gear the best way possible? I then realized, I hadn't even shot my rifle that whole time. I sighed and laughed. “What?” he asked. “I didn't even shoot back” I explained as I stroked the rifle in my lap with trembling hands. He grunted.

“You're a fucking doctor, not a killer, man. Don't seem like a big deal to me.” Those words stuck with me for a long time. A doctor, not a killer. If only that were true, soldier. If only.

Thanks for reading. And remember to thank a service member.

If you don't know, menthol cigarettes are a thing. Yes, the same menthol that is in your cough drops. It soothes the throat, making it easier to inhale the harshness of the tobacco. You also draw it deeper into your lungs and hold it longer, leading to more nicotine addiction. Again, because it isn't as harsh as non-menthol smokes. That's been shown in literally hundreds of studies and admitted to by the companies themselves in lawsuits, so I'm not going to link them here. But it is truth - Feel free to look it up. I'm here to entertain tonight, not instruct.

1990, Saudi Arabia: Operation Desert Shield

I'm a fucking idiot.

When I left the Korean DMZ and went back to Hell - sorry - I mean, Fort Bliss, TX, I knew I was ultimately headed to Saudi, because a few guys from my platoon had already forward deployed with Rangers from the 75th to protect airfields in Saudi. I also knew with almost 100% certainty that I was headed into Iraq at some point if Saddam didn't back down. The rest of Alpha 5/62 ADA was going, as well as the rest of our parent brigade, 11th ADA.

But Iraq? A third world nation that couldn't win a 10 year war with Iran? They posed no threat. Of course, that was hubris talking. Although my war resulted in "only" 147 casualties from enemy fire, Iraq inflicted almost 3,500 "official" deaths with asymmetric warfare in OIF. We beat Iraq the first time in four days because Saddam was a fucking idiot and we had at least two generations better tech than he did. But largely because laid his army out in a nice box in the desert for us to destroy.

"I've been on an FTX longer than this war will last!" - Some smart ass soldier, ten times a day, including me, until we left.

I was also in the midst of a nasty break-up with my soon to be (although not soon enough) ex-wife. So I wasn't thinking real straight about packing for this deployment. I honestly figured the mighty US Army would end this, and quickly. I figured combat would come swiftly, and I'd be home to divorce Linda and move on.

Être et durer.

Of course, it turned into a nearly sixth month deployment. So I didn't take enough of anything beyond what I was required to take - my TA-50. So I had very little of what I needed besides that, including smokes and entertainment. In other words, I packed like this might be a month long FTX, not an actual combat deployment. I actually packed for about six weeks of batteries, smokes, paperback books, and Nintendo Gameboy games and batteries. And as I have mentioned in previous stories, I had a Sony Walkman and I took: Pink Floyd - Animals and Faith No More - The Real Thing. I should have taken at least a dozen more cassettes.

But I didn't, because I'm a fucking idiot.

I think the action in Panama while I was still in Korea colored my perceptions a bit, so I thought it would be over quick. I knew Iraq had actual tanks and a real army and all, but still...I underestimated them and how long it would take the UN to allow violence to occur. In other words, I should have brought a LOT more entertainment.

And, more cigarettes.

But back to the point of the story: When I eventually ran out of smokes, I had to bum them from the guys in my platoon. I don't even remember what I was smoking before that, but I remember how smooth the menthols were the first time I had them. You might call it a stereotype, but combat arms MOSs like Air Defense seem to have a disproportionate number of Black Americans.

Just speaking as a teacher, maybe that is racism inherent in our educational system. (If you don't get that reference, ask.) But, what do I know after over 20 years of teaching in a deep red state is that a lot of the black kids join the military due to lack of options.

Most of the guys who had smokes were Black. River, my gunner on the Vulcan, smoked Marlboro lights. They were too harsh for me, and I could not smoke them, even in desperation. Call me a pussy I guess. Even the "Lights" were harsh as fuck.

Tobacco companies have historically marketed menthol cigarettes heavily in Black communities. So, the Black guys I served with smoked Newports and other Menthol brands. And most of the Black guys in my battery smoked. More by proportion than the White guys. As the stress of the ongoing situation developed, I was smoking more, and getting more addicted to this plant.

Just like the Black guys in my platoon that were being targeted with this shit. Of course, I knew none of this at the time. That's where the racism comes in. I guess I was a happy accident for the tobacco cartel. They didn't specifically target me, but their racism got me as a customer.

We could only draw $50 a month in cash on payday, but I always paid those guys back, and they kept me in smokes. At this point, I was only smoking three or so a day, but I was paying $1 a smoke, an outrageous amount, but a fair one, or I would not have paid it. After all, I'm hundreds of miles into the desert - there wasn't a 7/11 nearby. Once in a while my "dealers" would give me one for free.

We joked about that, too.

The funny part (and I've told this before) the squad to our right flank was all Black, and they had erected a sign that said "Welcome to The Ghetto" about 20 yards out from their position. So when I trudged over there to score tobacco, I joked about going to the ghetto to score drugs, and we laughed as I bought more nicotine. We all laughed. And to be clear, any one of these three guys could have mopped the floor with me at will. I firmly believe if any of our borderline joking was truly offensive, my jaw would have found out, quickly.

Still, today I cringe, but I really believe that at that this particular time and place that all the jokes about class and race were our way to cope with shit going down. I dunno. Humans are weird. What I know is that I hate no human except fascists. If River and Mac were in danger, then so was I. If the Ghetto Squad was in danger, I would go to help. We all wear the same uniform.

Then one day, maybe three months into Desert Shield, I'm back at the battery camp/TOC to refuel and resupply, and a 6x6 truck rolls up. Dude in the passenger seat is from another unit, but he has an ENTIRE FUCKING PALLET of smokes! He was selling them for wildly inflated prices, but I bought several cartons because it was payday. For reference, I could get a carton for $4 in the PX back in The World. He was asking $10, the prick. Still, I couldn't help but admire his hustle. That was some E4 Mafia shit, even if this cat was an E6. I dropped $40 on four cartons. And of course they were menthols. Later I supplemented my nicotine addiction with bidis, the local super harsh cigarettes, but I really liked the menthols. The bidis were always out of desperation when I was either super tired, or at the end, out of menthols. And even though they were so harsh, I tolerated them at times because they woke you the fuck up when you were tired.

This SSG had some off-brand menthol that I really grew to like and I was able to get a couple of times while there. I was also able to find it for about a year or so after I got back. I can't begin to remember the name, but one day, it just left the market. After that, I tried and got hooked on Benson & Hedges Menthol Lights.

All this to say: The racist policies of the tobacco companies got me, a White male, hooked on them for about 20 years. I was thankfully able to quit, and I don't miss it a bit. And I don't know why I'm writing about this, beyond a comment I made in /r/Teachers:

It happens with me and science. We were talking about the dangers of smoking, and I made an offhand remark about how menthols are marketed almost exclusively to Black Americans. The kids were shocked to find out tobacco companies are racist as hell, and it led to an interesting discussion.

Racism sucks. You are in a foxhole with me, I'm going to fight with you now, and when we get home. I love you all, brothers and sisters who have served, and those of you who support us, I don't care what gender or color you are. The racism built into the system is for ALL of us to fight.

I love you.

#OneLove 22ADay Slava Ukraini! Heróyam sláva!

So there I was, at a motor pool in Camp Casey, South Korea. I was a young PV2/PFC with the 1st Armored Division, and the joe's with me were near our tanks getting prepared for some field opp. One of the soldiers, named Briggs was going on about conspiracy theories and what not. Briggs was a very interesting individual to say the least. He was a self converted Mormon for starters, and the things this man has done, and even said makes Alex Jones look sane. He also talked with a Mike Tyson type of lisp mixed in with a little sprinkle of the tism if you know what I mean.

Well, today he is going on a rant about coffee. You see he saw me drinking Starbucks which caused him to go on about the health risks of coffee. There are legitimate concerns about consuming too much caffeine as well all should know. From heart issues, bowl issues, anxiety, and sleep cycle. However I've never known coffee to have the capability to turn your stomach into leather. He was absolutely adamant that caffeine especially coffee can and will cause your stomach to turn into leather. In fact he had proof! The Titanic!!! He said that at the bottom of the Titanic, you'll notice leather purses and shoes from where the people have died. However those leather purses aren't purses, in fact they are people's stomachs from all the coffee they drank.

I take a sip of my Star bucks and say: "Briggs, are you sure they aren't just leather shoes, belts, and shit?"

Briggs: "Nah baby ith true. You gotta underthand, that they juth don't talk about it."

Well, it came from an honest source. Coffe3 can turn your stomach into leather.

“In a world in which success was the only virtue, he had resigned himself to failure.”― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Wake me up when September Ends

Sept – Oct-ish 2007

The GWOT was notorious for its ill-defined missions and definitions of what victory would look like. The battle of Ramadi is as clear cut a victory as there was in that war. At this point, the city was unrecognizable from when we had arrived. The streets were clear of rubble and full of people. Schools and businesses had re-opened, and Iraqi police were increasingly patrolling the streets. The police were actual residents of the city, and to quote Col MacFarland “they knew who was who in the zoo.”

Things were so peaceful in Ramadi the battalion began conducting air assault missions to attack AQI targets outside of our sector. The Battalion conducted several operations around Lake Thar Thar and the city of Baji, both in Anbar province. The city of Ramadi, that was all but declared hopeless a year ago, was now a staging ground for us to strike AQI all over Anbar.

We should have felt like the conquering heroes, but I personally did not. Despite the impressive area beautification happening around me, the world still looked ugly to my eyes.

I did not go on any of the out of sector missions the Battalion did. Our section only went on one of them, but I stayed behind on COP with Williams and some of the other guys to hold down the fort. No one complained, it was like having a few days off. Other than tower guard, we did not have work. No missions or work details, we barely had the manpower to keep security so that is all we did.

We had our CIB’s and our sham shields, and we had had our fill of combat already. If I my skill and ability is best employed here on Combat Outpost, who am I to question command? They know what they are doing.

Even without an enemy to fight, this was a dangerous job, in a dangerous place, and everyone was exhausted. Accidents happens all the time in the Army. Most of the time they were harmless and funny, for example— one morning I saw a Joe fall down the last couple of stairs coming off tower four. I still laugh about it. Those moments of comic relief are everything in the Army; these are the anecdotes we retell over and over while we are huddled in a circle waiting for orders. I never felt bad laughing in those moments because I was often the one slipping on a banana peel to the delight of everyone around me.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Fuck me if I cannot take a joke.

Most of the time it is benign and humorous— but it could also be the worst day of your life. There is something particularly awful about having serious injuries or deaths in an accident. It is an unspoken reality of military life. People die in accidents in the military all the time— in war and in peace. In training or handling dangerous equipment. It happens, even with all the risk management in the world.

As much as it hurts to lose a friend in combat, we all accepted that risk going in and it is somehow easier to accept. There is comfort in a soldier dying a warrior's death. They live on in our memories and in the legacy of the unit. Their life was a gift they gave to the rest of us. An accident is an aberration. Dying in an accident serves no greater purpose. It is harder to reconcile something like that. I cannot speak for everyone, but it was not even part of the equation in my head when I jumped into this.

On September 19, 2007, Able company lost an NCO in a vehicle rollover, Sergeant Edmund Jeffers. I did not know him. He was twenty-three years old, and he authored an essay earlier in the year about his experiences in Iraq that circulated online after his death. I read it years later and I was impressed by his writing. His patriotism and youthful idealism was all of us— even if it becomes harder to remember as the years go by.

Sergeant Jeffers death was a reminder of where we were, and that military operations have risk, even under the best of circumstances. Vehicle rollovers were a known risk, these up-armored humvee’s were notoriously top heavy. Insurgents were always blowing up the roads or the pavement was ground into a fine power by Abrams tanks rolling on them. The roads often had steep embankments on either side that were a serious rolling hazard. We talked about all of the different risks before we left on a mission, but when it does unfortunately happen, it becomes much realer.

You cannot do this job without some degree of naïveté about your own mortality. The people who cannot turn that part of their brains off are the ones who cannot function in combat. There is a reason that war is a young man's game. I started grabbing the ‘oh shit’ handle a lot more and yelling at Garcia to slow down after Sergeant Jeffers death.

The closer we got to going home, the scarier this place seemed, despite it being objectively much, much safer. My tendency to overthink everything was my biggest weakness as a soldier. It often paralyzed me with indecision, or I tended to assume things are more complicated than they really are. If something comes naturally to me, I assume I must be doing something incorrectly— I expect everything to be a struggle.

As the temperature fell with the onset of fall, kennel cough tore through the ranks and even just a simple cold was insurmountable adversity at this point. I remember that being a particularly rough one, and I presume it was from the constant dust exposure. I was hacking up so much phlegm I could barely even smoke.

I coughed up phlegm as a dust cloud enveloped tower four one afternoon— I was trying to hold my breath until the dust cleared, which was standard operating procedure. This time however, holding my breath caused a violent coughing fit right as the sand overtook me. Dust in my mouth mixed with saliva and phlegm to create some unspeakable paste that would not leave my mouth no matter how much I spit.

So much easier on Call of Duty.

Garcia came crawling out of his dark hole one morning with his woobie draped over his head. He looked like the movie cliché of the shell-shocked trauma victim draped in an Army blanket.

“Jesus Christ, you need to man the fuck up, Garcia.” Cazinha said.

“No one has everrrrrr been this sick before.” Garcia said. His tone was a low nasally whine, reminiscent of a kid trying to convince his mother to let him stay home from school.

We were all rotating in and out of the pity party. Morale was through the floor, marriages were in the toilet, fathers had missed milestones in their kids lives, and we were all privately trying to process the events of the last year in our own way.

This may be a chicken or the egg situation, as far as my depression and the end of my marriage. It is hard to remember which came first. Either way, our cliché relationship is not complete until we come full circle with the Dear John letter.

Dear John “conversation over AOL instant messenger,” to be more exact. It was inevitable, I suppose. We were smarter than the decision we made— or at least she was.

At some point, communication broke down between us— my fault, obviously.

Kids do not know how to compromise or be supportive and even strong marriages died under these circumstances. We had built our marriage on the sturdy foundation of a six-month long-distance relationship. We made a very abrupt decision to get married and we made an equally abrupt decision to end it. We may have been old souls, but we were still twenty years old and twenty-year-olds are irrational idiots.

Just because something is a mistake does not mean you have to have regrets. She was an overwhelmingly positive influence in my life at a time when I needed someone. The biggest downside of the whole matter was simply that it cost me a valued friendship that would have survived less dramatic circumstances. If she deserves any blame in my mind, it is simply by virtue of having clearly been the brains of the operation from the start — the buck was supposed to stop with her.

Compared to the average Joe who rushed into marriage at 20 years old, walking away with only a broken heart was getting off light for such a reckless legal decision. A lot of Joes had their bank accounts cleaned out. Ilana invested my money for me, so I had more when I got home than I would have otherwise. The divorce was as simple and amicable as one could be— meaning she handled 100% of it. Even when we were breaking up, I cannot recall an unkind word she said — she is everything you could hope for an in ex-wife.

I did not always have such a measured and mature outlook on the situation. It is hard to remember the conversations, or rationalizations at the time. I just recall emotions and scattered thoughts. At first, I was very hurt, and I felt abandoned. She was not here with me, but she had been my confidant and emotional support for this entire ride. I carried a picture of her inside my body-armor, because of course I was that guy. I thought she was the co-star of this story.

That pain did not last long before it turned to anger. Not just anger at her; I was angry at the world. I was angry about the Army extending us here beyond a year. I was angry about the country’s seeming antipathy about the good we had done here. We sacrificed so much to turn around a losing war… did anyone even notice?

Regardless of how you feel about the decision to invade— where I grew up, if you break it, you bought it. Did people think we should just leave after we figured out there were no WMD’s? “Oops, sorry about toppling your government, see ya later.”

Just let the civilians around Baghdad devolve into a full-blown civil war and let the ones in Anbar live under the jackboot of Al Qeada? We owed it to them, and to our own sense of honor, to at least try to give them a fighting chance before we leave. It felt like people wanted us to succeed or fail based on their ideological preferences instead of what is good and right.

The America I saw back home was not the one I remembered. Had that always been a sham, too?

My mind would race a million miles an hour staring off at whatever calm scenery I was staring at that day. I was becoming bitter. I was starting to feel disconnected from the people and place I thought I was fighting for.

Most of all, I was angry at myself. As I sat alone, wallowing in my misery one evening it finally dawned on me that I was hurting. I was in emotional pain, unlike when Buford died, and I felt numb. The self loathing went into overdrive at this realization.

I was disgusted with myself for being so weak. I was coming unglued because I had my precious little feelings hurt by a girl when I was able to shrug off Bufords death like it was nothing earlier in the year. It felt like I dishonored his memory, and I was being a total bitch about this whole thing at the same time. I was a dishonorable bitch. I was a callous, self-centered piece of shit. I stared at my M4 and I did not know if I wanted to put one of the bullets into me or into someone else— but instead I put it down, and cried, finally.

I cried for Buford. I cried for Ilana. I cried for every awful thing that happened that year. I sat there, tears streaming down my cheeks, trying to not make any noise that someone might hear downstairs when the radio crackled to life.

“All towers, this is SOG, radio check, over.”

“Motherfucker!” I yelled. How do they always find the worst possible moment?

My sense of self was becoming distorted as my mood declined. I did not feel like a swaggering combat vet anymore— I felt more like the insecure kid who showed up to Fort Benning—ready to quit.

I could remember Buford walking out the door, unknowingly heading to his death, and that nagging thought in the back of my mind that quietly whispers “that could have been me” eventually turns into “it should have been me.”

I felt this enormous weight. This pressure that I had to do something great with my life since it felt like a gift, but I feared that I had nothing to offer. I felt that same existential dread that I had on the verge of graduating high school. I did not ask for this kind of responsibility.

I felt lost, scared, alone. I was putting on a brave face, but not brave enough, and my squad could see right through me. They tried to help in their own ways.

Glaubitz voluntarily pulled guard with me one night. He did not say anything about it, he just sat down in tower four with me and started talking— and he stayed until I was relieved. It may seem like a small gesture, its only four hours of his time— but in that place at that time, it was huge gesture of solidarity.

On the Marine Corps birthday, every Marine in country received two beers to celebrate. Since we, and every other unit in Anbar, was under the command of the 1st Marine Division, we received an allotment as well. We indulged this fine tradition in both 2006 and 2007. God Bless the United States Marine Corps.

In 2007, Williams somehow managed to acquire several extra beers. He did some wheeling and dealing with teetotalers and in a show of solidarity he shared the spoils with me. We had a hours long heart to heart down by the landing zone with a few cheap beers. It may not seem like much, just a couple of crappy bud-lights, but in Iraq a couple of beers are worth their weight in gold.

Garcia always made me laugh. He would meet my aviator mustache, American flag bandana outfit with a silly Sombrero and red bandana. He was willing to indulge my immature side and— except when he had a head cold— he was always smiling. He was always trying to make everyone else smile as well. He would not hesitate to make himself the butt of the joke if it would get a laugh. When he was around, he did not allow me to withdraw into myself, he kept me laughing.

Cazinha was the first one I talked to about it. With Ilana gone, he was the now my most trusted confidant. He was also still my squad leader, he needed to know where my head was at, and learning from his experience is what I was supposed to be doing, so he was the most logical person to open up to. This was a story that he knew all to well, and he knew exactly what I was going to say before I even said it.

“I know it does not feel like it now, but you will be over this before we even get home. When we do get home, we can get an apartment together until I PCS, and I will take you to the bars downtown and women will throw themselves at you. You will forget all about whatserface. Trust me.”

It was a rousing speech. It did not pull me out of my funk completely, but it was a step in the right direction.

When I did eventually mention what was going on to all my fellow Joe’s one evening in the smoking pit, it went as poorly as you would expect. Infantry types are not the most emotionally intelligent bunch, and it began a domino effect of young men in a semi-circle nervously looking at the floor and awkwardly mumbling “sorry” one after the other— it was brutal. Every condolence made it more awkward.

Finally, it fell silent when it was Hughes turn to speak— Hughes was a hillbilly from Kentucky with a thick accent. He did not say anything until I looked up and made eye contact with him. Once I did, he flashed a toothy smile at me.

“Fuck all that noise, congratulations brother, I am happy for you. We will go out drinking to celebrate when we get back.”

He put his cigarette in his mouth and gave me a vigorous two pump handshake. He said it so earnestly that it broke the tension and got me to laugh.

“You dodged another bullet, Fletcher” another Joe said.

It was perfect in the moment. It diffused the tension, and everyone lightened up. This is a bittersweet memory for me because Hughes ended up being a complete and utter monster. Such a huge piece of shit that his court martial made the front-page cover of the Army Times.

With time, the squad was lifting me back up and I knew it would be okay. For as vulnerable as I felt when I was alone in the dark, I still felt invincible when I geared up and went out with the boys. You cannot put into words the way you will feel about the guys you go into combat with. I remember watching Joes huddled together sharing their last cigarette that winter when we had to wait for cigarettes in the mail. That is how strong the bond between soldiers can be, not even addiction overpowers it.

In some ways, this was the worst possible place to deal with a broken heart. In other ways, it was the best possible place. The best friends I will ever have surrounded me. A lot of them preceded me down this road and could relate. Misery loves company, and every bit of damage we took on together only made that bond stronger. I had never had the intention of re-enlisting, but I had options now.

The only reason I wanted to return to my hometown was because she was there, why bother now? Sergeant Cazinha’s efforts to convince me to stay in the Army were starting to wear me down. His belief in my abilities did give me confidence.

I was still the same guy I was a few months ago, I just needed to get up and dust myself off.

In my time with Sergeant’s Cazinha and Ortega, I had come into my own and I enjoyed soldiering with them. It would have been an easy decision to make to re-enlist if I could have stayed with this squad for twenty years. Unfortunately, the Army does not work like that. I still had a year to think about it about before my contract ended, so I was not in a rush to make up my mind.

I began to see that the world was not ending, and that party time was right around the corner. I could go out and take part in all the debauchery the Joes were planning and make up for all the party time we had missed. I was 21 and I had a shitload of money burning a hole in my pocket when I got back to Colorado. I resolved to be a playboy and not let another woman tie me down— new year, new me.

We were around the one-year mark in country at this point and just needed to endure a little longer.

Next Part: The Grenade Incident

In 1981 I was doing my mandatory 16 months military duty (Western European country). I was in NCO training institute learning to become an infantry squadleader. After two weeks intro bivouac, raining most of the time, it was time for my first leave. I was looking forward to it. Then we were told travelling in uniform was obligatory. OK, not thrilled by that, but if that is really mandatory I'll do so. So I put on a clean uniform, got my travel voucher, boarded my train and found an empty train compartiment. Funny thing though, no other passengers entered my compartiment. When they saw me, in uniform, they did not enter. After a few dozen other passenger looked, and passed, I went for a walk and found the train was full; lots of people had to travel standing in the corridor. I said there were seats in my compartment. Everybody declined my offer. Then one man was kind enough to explain... The train was filled with Jehova Witnesses, going to a meeting, and they were not allowed to be near military folk, he said.

In 1981 I was doing my mandatory 16 months military duty (Western European country). I was in NCO training institute learning to become an infantry squadleader. After two weeks intro bivouac, raining most of the time, it was time for my first leave. I was looking forward to it. Then we were told travelling in uniform was obligatory. OK, not thrilled by that, but if that is really mandatory I'll do so. So I put on a clean uniform, got my travel voucher, boarded my train and found an empty train compartiment. Funny thing though, no other passengers entered my compartiment. When they saw me, in uniform, they did not enter. After a few dozen other passenger looked, and passed, I went for a walk and found the train was full; lots of people had to travel standing in the corridor. I said there were wears in my compartment. Everybody declined my offer. Then one man was kind enough to explain... The train was filled with Jehova Witnesses, going to a meeting, and they were not allowed to be near military folk, he said.

The conscripts in the Finnish Defence Forces going on leave are entitled to a certain number of two-way trips on public transport between their unit and home of record pre-paid by the government & as you may expect sometimes things don't work out as expected, back in 2009 when I was a conscript in the Finnish Army the procedure was to file a request for a prepaid bus card and/or paper travel vouchers for train travel (airline tickets were also available for those who lived far enough that flying made more sense-), as my home town didn't have a train station I always traveled by bus, so I always requested a bus card.

During my six month service my bus card request didn't get processed on time on two separate occasions, and being chronically broke I couldn't afford to buy a ticket with my own money & get reimbursed after returning from leave. On those two occasions I walked from the base to the highway & hitched a ride, both times I didn't have to wait for more than a couple minutes until someone pulled over to ask where I was going, on both occasions I had to hitchhike two or three times to get to my town, but every time I extended my thumb at the side of the road no more than two cars passed me without stopping, in fact I think that both times I got home earlier than I would have had I taken the bus.

I don't recall how I got back to my unit after the leave the first time around, but the second time I got a ride from someone I had helped during my leave.

I was confused when I learned that hitchhiking is illegal in some places, a decade and a half later I can sort of understand the reasoning, but back then I was oblivious to such concerns, and it looks like my countrymen trusted the uniform I was wearing more than they were concerned about picking up a total stranger.

Those were good times, I wish the World was still like that.

Yeah, Drill Sargent Grey was kinda an asshole, so he made a great Drill. We were on the M-209 range and for what ever reason we couldn't load. DS Grey told me not to get his fingers, but I kinda did and I made him bleed----- blah blah might be the only private to make a DS bleed...... and that was how I got to eat breakfast with DS Grey everyday. He loved greeting me in the morning and telling me how he was going to make me bleed everyday.

The grenade range came up and I was volunteered to do a demo before the our live throw. Again I was quite proud as I had great form and threw the dummy grenade all the way over the range and into the woods; even the DSs were impressed. Now I was to do it wrong, and remain standing after the throw, you know to demonstrate what not to do.

I kinda am surprised my neck did not break when this giant of a man hit me in the back of the head as hard as he could in the helmet and slammed me to the ground face first. I got up after being stunned a moment, recovered. The whole platoon was instructed that YOU NEVER WATCH YOUR GREANADE. Drill Sargent Grey then pointed out that I have a bloody nose; I felt, and I did!

November 2006

One day, about a month into the deployment, Ruiz came up to tower 4 to relieve me on guard halfway through the shift.

“Hey, Sergeant Ortega wants to see you.” Ruiz said as he entered.

“What, why? I’m only only halfway done.” I asked.

“I have no idea, but he is fucking pissed, dude.” Ruiz warned me.

“Why” I asked, but I didn’t wait for, or hear, a response before leaving. I had a feeling of dread and genuine confusion coming over me as I walked across the roof towards the stairs. Sergeant Ortega was waiting for me in the public square where the entire platoon was congregating. Sergeant Ortega orders me to stand at parade rest and starts berating me that Cain told him I would not wake up for guard duty at night. I was dumbfounded— because it was not true, but also because he was publicly scolding me in front of everyone where he would usually pull me aside and talk to me privately. The whole situation seemed off and I was starting to get upset and angry. He ordered me to get out of my gear and start doing push-ups. I tried to protest my innocence, but he would not hear it. As I loosened the Velcro and let my body armor slip to the ground, Ortega yells “GET HIM!”

The gaggle of Joe’s— who I was ignoring until that moment—descend on me and grab my arms and legs and start wrestling me to the ground. There is no point in resisting. I have already lost. I am confused and enraged; I have no idea what is happening. Why are my best friends attacking me for no god damned reason?

“I heard your birthday was over the summer and we missed it.” Sergeant Ortega says and then it dawns on me, I am about to get pink bellied.

In the mortar platoon, your birthday present is getting a pink belly. When you receive promotion, or receive an award, the latch that snaps into the sharp pins are thrown away and then everyone who outranks you takes a turn punching the rank into your collarbones. Or that is what happened prior to mid-2006 when the Army switched to the ACU’s that had your rank Velcro’d onto your uniform at sternum height— obviously leading to a new tradition of needing to endure 24 sternum punches just to be automatically promoted to Private First Class— thanks to the buddy fuckers over at Army R & D for a uniform design they were obviously trolling with when they submitted it— whoever signed off on that should live in infamy.

There is no such thing as a happy occasion in the infantry. There is no statute of limitations on the crime of being born. Every soldier, from the lowliest private to the LT himself had to pay the price for wasting the collective oxygen supply. Some perfidious swine had sold me out four months after my birthday. I wriggled a little bit, but it was useless, I took a beating that made my stomachs appear sunburned.

To add insult to injury, Sergeant Ortega had me go finish my guard shift after getting beat down. My body armor causing me to feel every slap for the rest of the shift— hooah.

Nap Time

One afternoon I dozed off while reading in my rack and when I woke up there was no one around. The platoon AO was a ghost town. No one in the CP, no one in the common areas, no one at the mortar pits. Everyone was gone. It would have been proper if a tumbleweed were to fly by, but Nelson Calderon appeared instead. He was a Puerto Rican Joe from the Bronx, and he was looking at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead as came running by me.

“What the fuck are you doing, bro?” Calderon asked me.

“I just woke up, where is everybody?”

“Are you serious? You slept through all that?”

“Slept through what?” I asked.

While I was sleeping, Insurgents had launched a massive attack on all our positions simultaneously. When I say all our positions, I mean the entire brigade spread out across the city. Battalion HQ had called FOB condition black into effect, which means everyone, even including the non-infantry types, must gun-up and go to the rooftop guard towers to defend the base.

They did not scrimp on this welcoming party, they sent VBIED’s, RPG’s, small arms, Indirect fire— the Muj version of combined arms. We obviously respond with every weapon we can bring to bear. There is hell on Earth unleashed into an Urban ares with 300-400K people living in it— it is pandemonium. Meanwhile, I am in my rack, book resting on my nose, sleeping like a baby Cherub. I am having visions of sugar plums while shrieking Jihadi’s try to storm the gates.

By the time I had woken up, the fight was over. No one had noticed me sleeping when they grabbed their gear and headed out. All the towers that faced towards the city had been in contact and I missed the whole thing. I was having conflicting feelings about it. On the one hand, I wanted to earn my Combat Infantryman Badge, but on the other, it is hard to not get a little superstitious and wonder if sleeping through that was fate that kept me alive.

The Battle of Sufiya: A Grunts History

Nov 25th - Nov 26th, 2006

The TF was set to begin clearing the Mula’ab neighborhood on the night of November 25th, 2006. That afternoon, a few hours prior to the start of the operation, those of us near Corregidor could hear a firefight break out to the North-East of our position. Gunfights were as common as the call to prayer in Ramadi, so no one batted an eye at Thunder base.

In the north-end of Sufiya, on the banks of the Euphrates River, lived a small sub-tribe known as the Albu-Souda. The Albu-Souda tribe had been flirting with the idea of joining Sheik Sattar’s Awakening movement and had cut a deal with Brigade HQ. He would put up roadblocks to keep AQI from using his neighborhood to launch mortars at Corregidor, and in return Brigade would stop firing Harassment and Interdiction fires into their tribal area.

Harassment and Interdiction fire (H & I) is an area denial tactic. In this case, AQI would go into fields a short distance from Jassim’s house and quickly hip fire a couple mortars at Camp Corregidor before running away. Since we could not hit back in time to kill them, or surveil the area indefinitely, what we could do, is just randomly lob artillery shells into those fields at unpredictable intervals so that the enemy thinks twice about continuing to use the area. At that point, it becomes more like gambling, and that is not what you want in a military operation— good ol’ H & I fires.

Jassim, naturally, would very much prefer we did not drop 155mm rounds near his house at all hours of the day and night, hence the roadblocks. AQI, already feeling the squeeze from all the tribes on the western side of the city, could not afford to lose their safe havens in the shark fins and retaliated swiftly.

First, they killed several of Jassim’s relatives and dumped their bodies in the river as an insult and intimidate him. Then they held a meeting to negotiate with Jassim, and issued an ultimatum with a 48-hour deadline to remove the roadblocks.

On November 25th, 2006, depending on the source, anywhere from a couple dozen to a hundred AQI fighters in pickup trucks entered the Albu Souda tribal area and began massacring Jassim’s tribe members. Jassim rallied the men in his tribe to defend the village and got on a satellite phone he had received from Brigade weeks earlier. He called Manchu 6’s interpreter begging for help. The only problem was that Manchu 6 had no idea who this guy was. All he knew was that some unknown was trying to coax him to come to an area that no Americans had been in for awhile. The Brigade started observing the area with surveillance drones and could see the fight happening, but to us, it just looks like a bunch of Arab guys shooting each other. We cannot tell who is friendly, so they told Jassim to have his men take off their shirts and start waving them in the air so they could distinguish his positions from the enemies.

Despite the risk of walking into an ambush, Manchu 6 made the decision to cancel the Battalion’s operation and pivot to go protect the civilians. He quickly organized Baker Company and a company of tanks to move into Sufiya. At the same time, Brigade HQ directed a pair of F-18’s, in orbit close by, to begin flying low sorties over the village in a show of force to intimidate the enemy fighters.

To fly over our AO, they would buzz COP. Those shows of force intimidated me as much as the enemy. The scream of a low flying F-18 is brutal on your ears. I was cussing up a storm after one flew over, but SSG Carter was loving the show. He stared at the jet disappearing into the horizon with a look of child-like wonder and said to no one in particular “man, you kind of have to be a cocky bastard to do a job like that, huh?”

In Sufiya, for the enemy, the pucker factor was much, much higher. The 155mm artillery battery on Camp Ramadi began lobbing rounds into empty fields near the Albu Souda area to make the enemy think that we were beginning to drop the hammer on them. This is suppressive fire, and our intention is to get AQI to separate themselves from their victims with, what is essentially a high stakes bluff and delaying tactic. It worked and the enemy started to withdraw from the area.

At the same time, Manchu 6 and his convoy had been steadily advancing on the area. They met abatis obstacles with IED’s in them on the way and had the tanks blow them up. Normally we would have EOD deal with a problem like that, but civilians were actively dying and it justified the risk. The tanks blew the obstacles away with their main guns and then conducted an in-stride breach with dismounted infantry from Bravo Company on their flanks.

As Manchu 6’s convoy approached Route Nova, four vehicles full of card carrying Muj exited the tribal area with the most hilariously poor timing ever— passing directly in front of Manchu 6’s convoy— while dragging the dead bodies of Jassim’s tribe members away as trophies.

The drones were watching this, Jassim was telling the terp about it on the phone, and now Manchu 6 had eyes on them. The only advantage these nincompoops had was that they blended in with the locals, but here they were clearly identifying themselves for us. Manchu 6 probably chuckled before clearing the F-18’s to destroy the enemy vehicles. They killed 16 hardcore AQI guys in that one attack, while tanks maneuvered into to ambush positions to destroy fleeing enemy vehicles.

Manchu 6 was face to face with Jassim soon after, and the soldiers of Baker company took up defensive positions to protect the village from further attack. Manchu 6 gave Jassim the same deal that all the tribes had at the time. In exchange for their unyielding support, we would offer weapons, training, and protection. Jassim was eager to cooperate with us and provided information on where Baker Company could find weapon caches, ied’s, and enemy fighters. Baker Company began clearing out the remaining enemy in Sufiya and put in a Combat Outpost in the area.

This event changed the Brigades strategy. Instead of attacking Mula’ab at once like the Brigade initially planned, we were going to take advantage of this opportunity. TF Manchu would clear the two shark fins first, isolating the remaining fighters in the city from re-supply and reinforcement, and then attack into Mula’ab.

This event kicked off a period of almost nonstop combat in our AO for several months. On December 4th, a platoon sized element of AQI and some mortar teams positioned north of the river launched an attack on Dog Company between the Shark fins in an area near Fishhook Lake. Manchu 6 described this fight as “a knockdown, drag-out, eight hour- gunfight.” The Battalion suffered our first two KIA’s when the rooftop that PFC Nelson and PFC Suarez-Gonzales were pulling security on took a direct hit from a large shell. It killed Suarez immediately, and Nelson succumbed to his wounds shortly after.

Their deaths were controversial because the soldiers from Dog Company say they watched an Abrams tank fire on their position killing Suarez and Nelson. Brigade HQ launched a fratricide investigation, and it concluded that they were hit by enemy mortar fire. The guys there were not convinced, but there wasn’t anything they could do about it. The whole event was caught on helmet camera by their platoon sergeant, and it leaked to the press a year or two after we got back. Their families pressed Congress to look into it, but I don’t believe anything has ever come of it.

I was not there, so I cannot pass judgement, but having watched the video, I can say that I believe the guys in the video believe the tank shot at them. I would meet all these guys later, and I have no reason to doubt their word— they were all solid dudes from all of my interactions with them. Regardless of the uncertainty around the events of their deaths, what we do know for certain is that they died defending their position in a firefight, and they died a warriors death, worthy of our veneration.

Two days later, on December 6th, Sergeant Yevgeniy Ryndych from Able Company was killed by an IED in Mula’ab. We were in the thick of it now.

Next Part: Overwatch

After hitting 24 months in Indochina with the commando de Montfort, I volunteered to serve the remaining 3 months with a PATMAR (maritime patrol) commando that operated in the rivers of Cochinchina (the southernmost part of Vietnam). The cadre were all marine commandos, while the men were all Indochinese auxiliaries. I participated in a few firefights during my time in Cochinchina, but none more memorable than this one.

I wrote this story while I was hospitalized in Algiers in late 1959 after I was blown up by a hand grenade. This story was supposed to be the opening of the book I never got around to writing. I've tried to translate it as best I could:

A whistle, then a loud voice orders "brace up"! Get up in there! Only muffled grunts answer him. All the comrades of the commando were sleeping crammed on the floor of the LCT wet in the middle of a wild river in Cochinchina. The darkness is absolute, and we must not be spotted. Groping, everyone searches for their weapons and equipment in their location from the night before. In a short time, everyone is ready, it is a matter of moving quickly to reach the objective at the first light of dawn. We can already hear the purring of the patrol boats coming to pick us up. Quickly, each group launches its landing raft, and one after the other the patrol boats race off, each towing a raft. We are very tightly packed in these machines, our slight movements swing them from one side to the other so the water is within reach and a few splashes on the face finish waking up the most sleepy. The appetite is calmed by a few biscuits and canned cheese. The landscape is everywhere the same, muddy banks bordering a dark and thick bush of mangroves and water palms. Intense croaking and strange noises seem to animate this repulsive nature. No one is talkative. Suddenly the lead boat turns to the right where we can barely make out a clearing in the foliage, we enter an even narrower tributary. Almost at every turn, the boats have to stop to turn again, low branches sting our faces, sending legions of ants tumbling down, which we have a hard time getting rid of and their stings hurt terribly. Then daylight begins to break, suddenly, barely 50 meters away, behind a bend, a loud explosion makes us jump, the shock is like that of a grenade that must have been thrown at the first boat. Instinctively, hands clench on the butts and no one says a word. Eyes are turned towards the banks and scan the depth of the thickets. Immediately the machine guns crackle and spit out their luminous trails, it is our lead boat firing on the enemy still invisible from here. We continue our advance and pass a sentry box on stilts. At it's feet, we see bare footprints that the water is beginning to erase: those of the enemy lookout who has just fled. The speedboats increase their speed and we stand on our guard, ready to empty our magazines on those who won't dare show themselves. Recent experiences have taught us to be wary of an adversary who is dangerous because of his ability to hide in the mangroves. The space is getting narrower and narrower, it is now impossible to continue being towed, the rafts must continue alone, each commando takes a paddle and we progress in impressive silence. The machine gunner cocks his breech and positions himself at the front of the raft, then silence falls again, barely disturbed by the slight lapping of the paddles. The commander signals to stop, we are approaching the objective. The Petty officer commanding the 1st platoon, impatient to set foot on land, steps over our boat and jumps onto the bank where he finds himself stuck up to his waist in a horrible soft mud. He stood there for a few moments, stunned, unable to move his legs. A general burst of laughter broke out to the point of making us incapable of helping him immediately. But he did not see it that way and called us all the names that came to mind, almost holding us responsible for his misfortune. To free him, we had to work together and make a terrible effort. Later, the image of this unfortunate comrade would come to cheer us up during the day.

When the time comes, everyone disembarks and heads for the undergrowth while their feet sink into the sticky mud up to above their ankles. A nauseating smell of rotting plants rises from the ground. The march is difficult, the branches, roots and intertwined vines multiply the obstacles on the track we are making. Then, little by little the vegetation thins out and we find ourselves in a sort of less dense scrubland dotted with trees. Suddenly the scouts report a large number of armed men about a hundred meters away, and only a stream separating us. The information is transmitted by voice to the commander who has them answer: "Light them up". The answer has barely arrived when the bullets begin to whistle above our heads. In command of my squad, we immediately disperse into the wilderness, our machine guns join in and the shooting intensifies, then the mortar shells begin to tumble and explode with a furious bark. Three of ours suddenly collapse, among them the petty officer commanding the 2nd platoon, our comrades closest to the wounded begin to drag them crawling towards the rear. The grass is tall and we have to get up each time to aim and shoot, the Viet opposite to us do the same and it is reminiscent of a tragic puppet theater. Our adversaries are numerous, well-led, skilled and half surround us. They also posses a large number of automatic weapons whose crackling we can clearly hear. As for the NCOs, we are calm and in control. The commander goes from one group to another and monitors the developments of the raging battle. We have to shout in this thunder to transmit information. Everywhere the grass is mown down by bullets and the chopped branches of the trees fall heavily to the ground. Our mortars and rifle launched grenades crackle relentlessly. The invisible enemy is everywhere, we can guess it is hidden in the nearby bushes thanks to the furrows of its bursts. It is also perched in the tall trees, well camouflaged, as proven by the clods of earth that jump behind the mounds. After a good half hour of this saraband, the shooting diminishes and the shots begin to space out. Perhaps the Viets are going to run out of ammunition, it is likely that they will start to evacuate the area, leaving isolated snipers to delay us, it is their usual tactic and we know it well. Besides, the water level is dropping dramatically and we risk stranding the boats that are waiting for us. The commander therefore decides to have us re-embark in order to quickly bring our wounded back to the surgical unit. A few hours later, some Viets were taken prisoner in the same area, among them was a secretary of their staff. He did not hesitate to reveal that they had lost over 80 men and many weapons in this affair. These news delighted us greatly, it proved that with our raiding force of 90 men we had taken on a numerically superior enemy and inflicted tremendous losses, while having to deplore on our side only 7 wounded who would all return to the commando soon after; this operation showcased the tremendous value of the commandos when operating as a raiding force.

I didn't reenlist after I went back home from Indochina on February 7th, 1954. My 27 months there really affected my health! Both physical and otherwise I don't think I took a single solid shit for over 2 years, and I didn't see my family for the duration either.

My next time in combat was the jump into Suez with the 2e RPC.

On a different note: One of the young auxiliaries I served with during this time period would go on to become an important figure of the ARVN SEALs.

Summering

June 2007

When we were off duty during the summer, we would spend the daylight hours indoors because of the oppressive heat. We already had all the incentive in the world to work at night, and the heat sealed the deal.

I could not be outside long enough to smoke a cigarette before I was sopping wet. By the time I finished a Marlboro, my t-shirt soaked through, and I would be dripping beads of sweat as if I just got off a treadmill. God help you if you had to go into the porto-potties to take a shit mid-day— it was enough to break a man. There is no explaining how miserable it is to live without running water for a year, and I did not even have to burn shit. The only Joes outside during daylight hours were the unfortunate guys on guard, and we all had to do it some days. Now the nighttime guard shifts became the more coveted time time slots for the first time in my Army career. Tower guard at night during the summer was not great either, the temperature would plummet when the sun went down, and I would be shivering and wearing snivel gear to guard after bitching about the heat nonstop. It seemed that no matter what door you picked, suffering was the result.

The only upside to summer heat was the showers were pleasant. The water would boil in that summer heat all day and then we would have piping hot showers around sundown. The temperature had ranged from miserable to unbearable during the fall and winter. It was the only time all year where there was a queue to use the shower and when you stand in line for the shower, someone is going to start spinning tales about pee curing athletes foot. I don’t know why, but I observed it happen a couple of time.

We sheltered in the air conditioning and watched movies or played PC games during the day. Glaubitz and Cazinha started playing Company of Heroes together. I tried and failed to start writing this memoir. We watched comedies exclusively. The episode of South Park where Randy fights all the other dads at little league games was undoubtedly the favorite. We would quote the Germans from Beerfest, Anchorman, Wedding Crashers, all the best quips from all the early to mid-aughts.

Our squad picked up a new replacement over the summer. An college E-4 named Hazelkorn joined us. When he showed up, I was skeptical. I was not jealous that he outranked me, but none of us were taking shit from some haughty Ivy League Specialist who had just showed up in country that afternoon. I had a chip on my shoulder for no reason, he was great. He came in and acted with the deference that experience deserves. Although he was a new guy, he fit in with the squad right away. He was the only Jewish guy in the Platoon, and as far as I could tell, the entire Army. That became a defining part of his identity. He was intelligent and good natured, and he fell into the swing of things quickly.

We were still responsible for protecting EOD, but those missions were becoming less and less frequent, and we might as well have packed up the mortars by this point, we had not had a fire mission in months— and so we began our transition to our new job: Uber pool. We became convoy security for anyone who needed an escort or simply needed a ride across the AO. The convoys were usually to Camp Ramadi or TQ and we were ferrying officer types to and from the more civilized FOBs for staff meetings. Now that combat was over, Joe’s could start to focus on their lives falling apart at home. Joe’s wife got a DUI coming through the Fort Carson gate with some random Joe from a different brigade? Well, the legal office is on Camp Ramadi. Joe needs to set up an allotment for child support, the finance office is on TQ. These missions are what Army aviators in WW2 would have referred to as “milk runs”. I have no idea how many we did— a goodly sum. Many score. Battalion knows, but I would say between 50-100 would be a good guess.

While I am sure they served a worthy military purpose, my situational awareness does not extend far from the gunner's turret, and it was starting to feel like a lot of rolls of the dice for nebulous reasons. We had worked ourselves out of a job with EOD and rarely got calls to go out with them anymore and all the convoying was getting old.

Humvees are uncomfortable, so much of your space is taken up for equipment radioes, that you are usually squished with your legs unable to stretch out horizontally or vertical. The seats do not recline, and the air conditioning does not work. The extra armor on the humvees made them even stuffier and the doors were so heavy that always imagined it would snap my leg if the door closed on it.

The gunner's turret was my preferred position because I could stand up the whole ride, and chain smoke without bothering anyone. The gunner's turret had a small strap hanging down for you to sit on, but your ass would be numb in minutes.

I had not been down Route Michigan for six to eight weeks after R & R and my stint with the Psyops guys, and when I finally went on a Camp Ramadi run again; I could not believe my eyes. The gigantic crater near the government center was gone. The roads were clear of rubble and debris, all the potholes from the IED’s were gone. Emergency funds poured into the city and our Civil affairs teams paid the locals to fix the city. This solved the infrastructure and joblessness problem at the same time.

Ramadi had a police force again. They were everywhere now. There had been zero police in Ramadi when we arrived, the task force stood up a force of thousands before we left. As the Iraqi police and military flooded the streets, we became less visible, and the peace continued to hold. It seemed like we were keeping as low a profile as possible

U.S strategy had finally caught up with the realities on the ground. I did not fully appreciate what I was seeing at the time. I was still skeptical, despite my lying eyes. I was not entirely sure that the fighting would not resume when the temperature cooled down. I really had no idea what was going on and why the fighting stopped. At the time, I figured they did not want to die of heat stroke fighting in the summer heat and we would resume in the winter— the reverse of how Armies would go into winter quarters, I suppose.

The only moment that even registered a little on the clench factor during these lazy summer months was the time Williams accidentally misfired a pen flare into the humvee, causing it to ricochet off the floor and back out the gunner's turret past his face.

The comms guys had hooked our humvees up with headsets so we could all hear each other over the loud noises, and we repurposed it to start listening to music or stand-up comedy while driving around the AO. I recall a lot of 80’s hair bands driving down Route Michigan and laughing at Chris Rock’s Bigger and Blacker one afternoon driving around TQ running errands. Having entertainment on a long drive is another thing I learned to appreciate that year. I have never been a fan of music; in that I never choose to listen to music solely for pleasure. It never meant anything to me. For me, music is the spice for another activity, usually exercise. In Iraq, I appreciated hearing any music at any time. I listened to rap with Reynolds or Garcia, and all the girl bands that Cazinha liked. I enjoyed it all— for the first time I genuinely appreciated music for musics sake.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————- This part would go in between overwatch and operation get behind the mortars. This is when I was on light duty after falling into the maintenance pit. I left it out because I figured it was more so filler and I’d give you guys the sexier parts, but the more mundane stuff seems popular so I figured I’d throw this back in here since the part I posted above is fairly short.

“It’s better to be in the arena, getting stomped by the bull, than to be up in the stands or out in the parking lot.” ― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art

Dec 2006

Command Post

At this point of the deployment, the NCO’s had their own quarters in one room and the Joe’s were in another. The NCO’s quarters doubled as the Platoon’s Command Post (CP). I avoided the NCO’s and Officers as a rule, so I had not spent any amount of time in the CP.

Now that I had sprained my ankle and was on light duty, it was unavoidable. The radio was in here and it was my new duty station. I had never done radio guard before, a fact that became clear when Bird Dog called Thunder 7 and told the NCO’s to give me a refresher class on radio etiquette on my first day on the job.

They were living like kings in here in the command post. They had a tv playing AFN, (Armed Forces Network) a refrigerator and microwave. They had plywood walls and sheets separating their cots for privacy— it was the Ritz Carlton compared to the hovel the Joes were in. Part of the nature of being on counter-battery is that you typically cannot stray far from the guns because you are on call 24/7. So, we had some amenities that we otherwise might not have. Refrigerators and microwaves, for example. We were not allowed to go to Corregidor for chow because we would be too far away to respond to a fire mission so we would send a Joe in humvee over to the Corregidor chow hall to pick up pre-made plates for everyone. We would pull up to the back on the chow hall and one of the workers would load us up and send us on our way.

It did not take long for some of the more enterprising Joes to produce a quid pro quo with the foreign nationals who worked in the chow hall. My friend, Matt Garcia, from Sergeant Cazinha’s squad was our chief diplomat and negotiator. He was another guy who befriended everyone he met and knew everyone in Battalion. He is a great battle buddy to have because he was always getting favors from his many well wishers that helped all of us. It was not long before he had negotiated a bilateral trade deal with the foreign nationals.

They gave us cases of frozen pizzas, energy drinks, meat for our grill, ice cream, etc in exchange for old movies, video games, cigarettes, and other American goods. A black-market economy sprang up to the benefit of all the Joes. For once, we really were living up to the Mortarman’s reputation of shamming and living FOBulous. We had tv’s and dvd players. Someone brought a PlayStation 2 and we set up in the Joe’s room. We played four player split screen games of Call of Duty 2 and all the Rip It’s you could drink.

SSG Carter walked into Joes quarters one morning and found us playing Call of Duty.

“Don’t you guys get enough of this shit when we go out on missions?”

“Hell no, we live for this shit, born to kill, Sergeant.”

“Fucking A, carry on.”

Williams, Amos, SSG Carter and a couple other guys brought a banjo and a couple of guitars and they held nighttime jam sessions near the smoking area while we waited for fire missions. Everyone off duty would hang around in the communal area. In some ways, it was like a year long sleep over with your friends, except this time we are playing Army for real.

I discovered a cache of books at the MWR and started working my way through a series of W.E.B Griffin novels. They were historical fiction about World War Two era espionage. Very Tom Clancy-ish. I enjoyed them so much that I created an account on an online bookseller that I had never heard of, called Amazon. Ilana told me about it, and I used it to start ordering books to Iraq. I did not expect having any use for amazon after we got home.

Sergeant Ortega read a book penned by a Latin King gang member and his review of it was scathing. Lacking anything better to do and I decided to give it a fair chance. Let me just say, that kid had been accused of being a lot of things, but a wordsmith ain’t one of them— I still read the sequel when Sergeant Ortega finished with it.

I watched my first UFC event during a radio guard shift. Alaniz and Sergeant Ortega explained the sport to me. Alaniz was from Texas; he enlisted in his later twenties and already had a wife and kids. He was much older and mature than most of his fellow Joe’s. Rudy Alaniz was a big brother figure that was always teasing his fellow Joes. He always called everyone “guey”, pronounced ‘whey’ which to my knowledge means dumbass in Spanish. That was about the extent of my Spanish. His wife was named Frances, so, he called her Frank. He was a practical joker, too. He was that guy tapping you on the the shoulder to make you look the other way. A couple of the guys taught me how to play poker, a game where the stakes are raised when everyone has a loaded weapon under the table— an observation Alaniz made to me himself before he started slowly reaching under the table towards his M4 anytime someone would raise him. I loved that crazy bastard.

I was on radio guard for about a week or two, and until I could limp enough to do fire missions and tower guard. After a few weeks, I recovered enough to start going on big boy missions again.

Next Part: Road Warriors

Ortega and I started to come to terms with everything in our own way, and my therapy was area improvement. COP was a complete shithole, and no one spent any time trying to make it otherwise. We were sharing burn shitters with Baker Company, which meant the mortars were always stuck burning the shit. I remedied this by dragging over a 3 stall burn shitter and a can. Ortega and I put some Hescoes up around it, and I borrowed the mechanic’s Bobcat to fill them. It turned nice and now we only had our own shit to worry about.

Burning shit is a science that is only perfected through experience. The gasoline/diesel mix must be just right, and I prefer a 3-1 mix, filling about a quarter of the can with this mix. The trick is to initially light the can before you do anything, and slowly mixing it into a shit slurry. Add a bit more diesel for the slow burn and stir occasionally. Repeat for about 2 hours until all shit is turned into a nice pile of shit ash. Now this is very important but be sure to stand upwind of the smoke. Seems self-explanatory, but it is surprising how many idiots just stood there and took in all that shit smoke. With the right stirring mechanism, I could burn shit with minimal effort.

So, this was the morning routine; Ortega and I usually woke up in the dawn hours and went to the gunline to brush our teeth and do daily maintenance on our 81mm guns. We would wipe them down, punch the tubes with CLP, and cover them back up with their designated ponchos. Somewhere in between, we would pull the shit can out and start burning it. We took this time to talk about everything from Fonseca to our lives at home. This was the best therapy we had, and it kept us in the fight.

I always looked for projects to tackle to keep me occupied so I was always busy. I took the Bobcat and fixed the gunline by filling up around our pits and smoothing out the space between gun pits, I made hescoe parking spaces for the few trucks we had left, and I started turning one of our original kore trucks into an armored beast. By this time int hew war, we had bolt on armor, and what wasn’t bolted on was welded on by our mechanics.

I must give a shout out to these guys. Our mechanics worked 24/7 for the whole tour and could turn a blown-up Humvee back into working order in a day or two. They had trucks come in that looked like they would never see the light of day again but would be back on the road in 2 days’ time. They welded supplemental wheel well armor on every single truck we owned, along with replacing the original coils with heavier ones that could take the weight.  Our mechanics were miracle workers and deserved every accolade we could give them. The armor they welded saved numerous lives, more so as the IED threat picked up.

I worked with the mechanics to get our truck to the point that it was considered protected enough to be outside the wire, and soon we were weaseling our way into convoys to TQ to hit their PX and chow hall. TQ was a straight shot on Route Michigan and took about an hour to get there. If the road condition was black, we had to go around the big ass lake there, which turned the trip into a 6 hour round trip. Sometimes I preferred this route, because you got to see more of the desert. This area was mostly untouched, and the roads were not blown to shit. We got to cruise at 55 MPH (a struggle for the 3 speed Humvees) with the wind in our face and our shitty little CD player blasting barely audible music. It was as close to a relaxing cruise we could get around there.

The MCX was much better stocked than the PX at Camp Ramadi, and the chow hall was more of a 4 star than the shitty 3 star in camp Ramadi. Once you got over all the stares and dirty looks from the Marines there, TQ was a nice little get away to the rear. A place to forget about things for a while and bring back that little human that was hiding inside of all of us.  At the PX, we all stocked up on Arizona Sweet Tea, red bulls, and whatever other garbage we missed. My gun squad pitched in and bought an Xbox to share, and GTA San Andreas became our escape when we had the chance to play.

During the early part of our time at COP and Corregidor, showers and good chow were hard to come by. After having our chow truck blown up numerous times, our BN stopped bussing in chow from TQ and broke out the field kitchen. Dr. Seuss must have been in the Army, because his book, “Green Eggs and Ham”, is based on true events. For 7 months we ate green powdered eggs and little ham discs that always had a green tint to them. EVERY DAY.  Dinner was a rotation of chili mac and yakisoba. But it was hot, so we didn’t complain…much. The problem was the amount of indirect fire we received. They had already hit our makeshift chow hall numerous times, and these little bastards were bound and determined to hit our shitty field kitchen. We ended up rotating feeding hours, so we didn’t set a pattern, but we were always under observation from some point or another.

Showers were non-existent. On COP, we had a shower bay leftover from whatever this compound use to be, but the water was sporadic and ice cold. We had a water purification team on Corregidor who pumped and purified non-potable water for our cleaning needs. This water came from shit creek just outside of Corregidor. After months of washing with this water, they stopped pumping for a few weeks because after a random test, they found a high level of fecal matter in the water. And everyone wonders why we were always shitting ourselves.

Showers usually were a team effort, with one buddy holding a bottle of water over your head so you could take a nice, improvised whore’s bath and wash your hair. A few times Fonseca and I braved the showers on COP, screaming like little bitches every time the ice water touched our delicate little man skin. I went almost all of December without a shower.

One shower incident sums up the saying “experiences may differ” perfectly. I think it was mid-February when we had some downtime and got a chance to conduct a small run to Camp Ramadi, where out BDE HQ was. We had to run the long way and come in through the desert in the south because driving through Ramadi proper was a death wish. We just wanted some iced tea and Skittles, and it wasn’t worth dying over. We got to the chow hall first, and someone noticed fresh shower trailers that were installed. We were ecstatic, to say the least. It had been weeks since our last shower and we were pumped to be able to take a shower that was not full of human waste, and most importantly, was HOT! We all made dust clouds to the PX and bought our lickies and chewies along with towels, soap, and shampoo. We get back to these showers and immediately start tearing off our sweat and blood-soaked uniforms. As I am buck naked in the shower, washing away weeks of filth and combat, someone starts yelling about us being there. This individual goes on and on about how these showers belong to this certain POG company and we can’t be there. Everyone is ignoring him, and he disappears, only to return with some ranked NCO, an SFC I think. He starts ordering us to immediately vacate the shower trailers, asking who our 1SG was, threatening UCMJ action, etc. The group I was with was all HHC guys consisting of the Scouts and Mortars, and a scout SSG Wootan was the highest ranking with us at the time. He approached this guy very calmy but only stopped when he was inches from his face. In a low tone, he slowly told this SFC to fuck off and that where we come from, we do not have the luxuries so if he wanted us gone, it was going to take an act of God to remove us. This was amazing to see a SSG talk like this to an SFC, but we pretended we didn’t hear and kept washing our balls.

The SFC, in his nice clean and pressed uniform, leaves and comes back with his CSM. By this time, we were almost done, but the CSM asked for the SSG that had talk his SFC down. Once SSG Wootan walked over to him, he asked what unit we were and where we came from. SSG Wootan tells him we are 1-503D and just came from COP. That’s all it took. The CSM told him to make sure we clean before we leave, turned to the SFC and told him to leave us alone. Our reputation had started to spread throughout the BDE, and nobody wanted to get tasked with helping the 503D guys for fear they’d be sent to COP or Corregidor., which to them was a death sentence. This interaction did nothing but inflate our egos and reinforce how elite we were in the BDE.

Another such story to really hammer home the “experiences may vary” took place at Camp Anaconda. I was tasked with driving an unarmored LMTV to Anaconda to get it refit with a new TIE Fighter looking armored cab. The convoy left that evening and quickly ran into a sandstorm. We drove 10 mph throughout the night, arriving at Anaconda in the dawn hours. I didn’t really know the guys I was with, but they were from each line company, and we all looked just as raggedy as the next. A few week before, our truck carrying our laundry hit an IED, burning and tossing a BN’s worth of laundry all over route Michigan. Most of us were left with 1 or two uniforms and no way to wash them. So here we were, uniforms torn, stained, and our faces covered in dust. This was nothing to us and we didn’t think anything of it, so we found the mechanics and dropped off the LMTVs at their bay.

Their bay was filled with civilian contractors and was sat next to a huge yard of many acres filled with track, HMMWVs and anything else that had been blown to shit in Iraq. It was sobering to see. I saw M2 Bradelys burnt down to the track, Marine LAVs split in half, and numerous Humvees almost unrecognizable. A lot of these vehicles had blackish red blood that had dried all over them. It was nightmare fuel, for sure. This yard of destroyed vehicles was a snapshot of what was going on in Iraq, and it was only early 2005.

After shaking this vision off, we went and found our transient tents, dropped our bags, and immediately went of the hunt for chow. We found the chow hall quick enough, but we felt immediately out of place. Everyone there had fresh and clean DCUs, all starched and creased to perfection. Their rifles all had the hadj-sewn dust covers over their sights and muzzles, and some that covered they’re whole lower receiver. Nobody had a magazine in their weapon, which was unthinkable for us. This pack of raggedy PVTs could not help but be in shock of how people lived here.

Most importantly, they had bacon for breakfast. REAL bacon, and we got made-to-order omelets, fresh orange juice, and fruit that had not been used as a punching bag. To say we gorged ourselves was an understatement. All of us walked out of that chow hall 10 lbs. heavier. But, on our way out to scope out the rest of the camp, we were stopped by a random Master Sergeant. The conversation went something like this:

MSG,” Why on God’s green earth are you Soldiers walking around in such terrible uniforms? Who told you this was ok? Who is your 1SG?”

Me, “MSG, we just came in from COP in Ramadi and these are the only uniforms we have. Our laundry was blown up, so we don’t have replacements.”

MSG, “Unacceptable, you need to get your supply SGT to DX these uniforms and get new ones, this is a disgrace, and it shows you have no discipline.”

Me, “Msg, our supply Sgt was with the truck that got blown up.”

MSG with a blank stare, “well, figure it out. Get out of here”

I do an about face and we walk away bewildered and angered at the audacity of this rear echelon motherfucker trying to tell us what to do. Our bewilderment only grew as we walked and saw that Anaconda had not only one swimming pool, but two! They also had a movie theatre and a little square where you could order a real burger from Burger King and have a Pizza Hut pizza delivered straight to your barracks door. What kind of fucked up war were we in? Hours away from this place good men are dying every day, and those who do not not come back to T-rations and shit filled water. I had had enough. Well, after I ate a whole pizza, I had had enough.

 I walked back to the transient tents and sat outside contemplating my lot in life. Suddenly, some sirens started going off and everyone started running around franticly. Me and this other guy from my unit are looking confused so we just sat there. There were literal screams being thrown out, and I mean grown as people screaming like they would in a Hollywood Movie. I can’t make this shit up. After a minute or two, a faint boom rolls across the camp, and after a while and all clear is sounded. I hadn’t moved an inch the whole time.

People start emerging from their bunkers and some Airforce guy puffs over to us and says,

“You are supposed to get in the bunkers when there is incoming!”

I stared at him for a minute and just responded with a sarcastic “OK”. He stomped off and that was it. To me, incoming was nothing. Judging by the boom, it was miles off so I could not understand why they all acted as if the base was under a heavy artillery bombardment. I found it disappointing and comical at the same time. I needed to get out of there as soon as possible. Lucky for me, a short while later we received word our trucks were done, and we would be leaving just before dawn the next day. A chance to stuff my face at the chow hall for dinner was a chance I was thankful for, until we get there, and the main dish was chili mac. I settled for grilled cheese, fries, and a Dr. Pepper for dinner and left satiated, but not before I shoved 4 Dr. Peppers into my pockets. We left the next morning in our Star Wars styled LMTVs and had an uneventful drive back to COP. Experiences may vary.

Foreword: Truth be told, there's absolutely nothing interesting about this story or scene at all. It wouldn't deserve to be written on purpose, not really - that'd seem absurd. And yet a few weeks back, a random comment about 'military waiting room televisions' reminded me of this little experience, compelling me to share it despite being pretty deep in a thread that had nothing to do with stories or military experiences. I stepped away, found a tree standing where I left a seed behind. I figured I'd circle back to share it here before one of you goblins realizes I have a second family across town.

#__

I find myself suddenly brought back to a nearly-forgotten memory from years ago, of sitting around aimless in the waiting room of a bottom-bidder style 1970s-era single-story US Army dental facility. It was the kind of building that feels like it's constructed solely from materials cannibalized from refurbished trailer homes but somehow isn't, the kind of thing held together more by its inch thick layer of lazily reapplied interior paint than its nails. But it had air-conditioning, and that made it a palace.

I arrived hours early on purpose since doing a whole lot of nothing is superior to doing a whole lot of bullshit. I'm conscious only in the technical sense of the word, quietly squinting up at the tiny ceiling-mounted television with eyes that aren't really seeing what they're looking at. Even half-opened eyes have to look at something and a television is by definition - if nothing else - 'a something' regardless of what's on the screen. I'm alone for nearly an hour before another patient arrives.

A colonel walks into the room with a blast of warm outside air; a 'full-bird', we like to say. You can typically feel the gravitas wafting off them before you even notice their rank, but they're usually quite harmless on account of being well-aware that you're well-aware that they're well-aware that they could fuckin' eviscerate your ass if warranted. Accordingly, he politely takes a seat a few chairs down, emits an exaggerated dad-noise, briefly glances around the room as if wondering how he ended up here, then slowly leans closer to me with a conspiratorial smirk.

"You like that stuff?" He asks cryptically.

"Sir?" I say, honestly unsure what he's getting at.

He shrugs his head towards the TV without looking at it, as if afraid it'll know he's talking about it. "Y'know... The news. Fox."

"Ah..." I say while trying not to look like I look like I'm trying to figure out what he wants me to say or if saying the wrong thing carries any specific social or professional consequences, "...Not particularly, sir, no."

He scoffs in amusement, leans a tiny bit closer. "Between you and me... Garbage."

"Garbage?"

"Complete. Fucking. Trash." His eyes drill into mine as he says it, as if challenging me to disagree with the assessment.

I nod reassuringly, "No, no, I'm with you, sir. Not a fan, not at all."

Seemingly satisfied with my response, he pulls away, slaps his knees Midwest style, stands up with a lazy stretch, then mumbles something that sounded like "Hang tight, soldier."

He struts over to the reception desk, leans over the boundary in an extremely unprofessional way after noticing that it's unmanned. After scrounging around for a few seconds, he comes back clutching a dingy little television remote held together by tattered duct tape. The colonel jiggles it in his fingers at me like some sort of precious Golden Idol stolen bravely from the maw of some underground Aztec ruin, then plops back down into the seat - this time one spot closer to me.

"So, what do you wanna watch, son?" He asks.

I have no clue what to tell him since I'm more of a reader than a television-watcher, I've never even owned one, but he seems to misinterpret my expression.

"What?" He rolls his eyes like an angsty teenager, "Fuck are they gonna do, I'm a god damn colonel."

I blink in reply, expressionless. I had no clue how to respond to that, but he seemingly expected that since he just starts rapidly flipping through the channels anyway, eventually stopping on Cartoon Network of all things. He leans back into the chair with crossed arms, seemingly satisfied as Courage the Cowardly Dog begins to play.

And that's the last thing he ever said to me.

We sat there for another half hour or so in complete silence watching TV, neither of us looking at each other or saying anything at all except just once when he quietly mumbled to himself a single remark: "...Hell of a dog."

Not a compliment - not quite. A tactical assessment. A good dog is an effective dog, and this one is singlehandedly defending a homestead against aliens. Al Qaeda wouldn't stand a chance, presumably.

The receptionist finally calls my name shortly after, interrupting the comfortable silence with a string of industry-appropriate faux-pleasantries and the impatient mannerisms of a flustered hen. I flash the man a respectful nod as I pass and he nods solemnly in return, a mysteriously brotherly gesture that's hard to describe unless you've worked the kind of job where I wouldn't need to describe what I'm talking about in the first place.

Something changed there, somewhere along the way. It's always difficult to determine exactly when a silent stranger stopped being a stranger, and awareness of that mysterious transformation only ever comes within the moment of inevitable departure if it occurs at all.

That's life, I suppose. Loss is what allows us to differentiate absence from emptiness.

The colonel is gone by the time my short checkup is complete, seemingly replaced by a scraggly-looking E2 so jacked up that even I, a secret Duke within an 'E4 Mafia' that totally doesn't exist, briefly consider making an awkward scene on martial principle alone. The kid reeks of infantry in an entirely metaphorical way, so I let the issues slide under the assumption that whatever brain damage inspired him to enlist in the first place is also what makes him great for the job. There's no remote in sight, luckily. I checked. The cursed thing may as well be unexploded ordinance outside of the colonel's possession. The kid is locked-on to Johnny Bravo or something, but I flash him a friendly nod on my way out all the same.

And that's that. A mundane bit of unremarkable waiting room nothingness, an unexpectedly flippant colonel. It's barely worth a story at all, I fear, but I think that's why I find it all so strangely amusing. These things happen all the time, and are so easily forgotten despite being so strangely... Real? Human, perhaps. It's easy to remember the big moments in life, the odd and frightening stuff, but even a hundred pivotal events only ever adds up to a mere fraction of any one lifetime.

Given enough free drinks and/or the right combination of narcotics, I'd probably even argue that it's the unremarkable rhythms of life that shape us. Not combat; traffic. Not promotions; laundry. And honestly, what's a romantic marriage proposal got on simply holding hands in between mid-aisle grabass games with someone across hundreds of entirely unremarkable bi-weekly grocery trips? If you had to delete one of the two, which? One of those a big deal, the highlight of two lifetimes and fulfillment of a significant sociocultural tradition. The other is an errand, just a stupid chore.

I don't know, maybe I'm the weird one.

...And you know what, as I've been reflecting on this seemingly forgettable little experience for the first time since I lived it, I suddenly find myself wondering: Did the colonel even have an appointment?

No, seriously. Until now, I assumed he did - why wouldn't I - but the details don't add up. I feel like the only other exam room was dark when I passed by, so I'm honestly not sure. I think this motherfucker may have literally just strolled into the place solely for a few minutes of conditioned air, pulled rank on a major's old television, sat around for a bit watching cartoons, then fucked right off without elaboration.

Holy hell. What a fuckin' legend.

__

^Edit: ^Words ^unfucked.

I joined the French Navy at the age of 17 and a half in November 1950. After three months of classes at the Hourtin Navy Training Center in Gironde, I joined the marine infantry school at the Siroco center at Cap Matifou in Algeria. After six months of that, I was selected for the marine commando course following a series of violent physical tests. There were sixteen of us in a company of 80, and at the end of this specialized training, with the green beret and the badge, five of us were designated to serve in Indochina. We joined the commando base at Cap Saint-Jacques, in South Vietnam in November 1951. There were three marine commandos in Indochina: François, Montfort, Jaubert. Each commando had 70 men. These commandos were raiding and reconnaissance units, and our operations were conducted along the entire coast from southern Annam to the Gulf of Tonkin(including Ha Long Bay).

The missions were carried out as follows: the commandos embarked on board two "far east Navy" ships, the Robert-Giraud and the Paul-Goffeny, which were two former German Navy aviation supply ships requisitioned after the war. They had a rear deck low-level allowing the embarkation of two LCVPs (flat-bottomed landing craft with front door), zodiacs and M2s. On board these ships, no premises were provided for the commandos; meals were taken from mess tins on the deck. Each commando had to find somewhere in the middle of the ship's infrastructure to spread out his blanket for the night because, obviously, there was neither a hammock nor a bunk. In the summer months it was OK. In the rainy season it was a disaster. Finally, the officers were housed! The shower was a bucket of sea water on the deck. After ten days of this regime, we were not a pretty sight, and in the end we lived like the Vietnamese.

The landings always took place at 5am or earlier. All operations were conducted in areas totally controlled by the Viet Minh(the 308 and 312 divisions as well as Viet Cong militia in most cases). The incursions to reach the objective could be 30km inland (jungle, sand or swamps). Outside of the truly outstanding Arromanches(the name of the aircraft carrier from which they took off) pilots, no help was to be expected, even as we faced an enemy that severely outnumbered us. Personally, I participated in sixty-four landings on the Vietnamese coasts, and with my comrades I experienced very dangerous but also sometimes comical and dramatic adventures during the 27 months I spent fighting in Indochina.

Until 1953 there was no surgical unit in the commando, only a combat nurse with his first aid kit. The dead or wounded had to be transported on makeshift stretchers made of bamboo. The seriously wounded had no chance of survival. In the landing craft, there were no life jackets. In the event of capsizing (frequent) in the breaking waves, when re-embarking it was: "Sort it out"! Often the marine commandos were designated for "death-defying" missions, and the reason we succeeded more often than not, was our extreme youth, our training, our balls and the incredible talent of many members of the commandos.

In terms of pay, it was not amazing. For a commando, it corresponded to the monthly salary of a postal worker in metropolitan France. When we were designated for Indochina (two-year stay) we received a bonus at the start (11,000 francs at the time) or half the monthly salary of a postman in France. I wasn't special, but I did live through a lot, including some things which would be unimaginable for the commandos of today.

I want to share two stories that stick out in my mind for two very different reasons:

I worked as a machine gunner and a rifleman in the second squad of the second platoon of commando de Montfort. At the time, the squad leader was Petty Officer Habasque André. In 1953, it was decided to create the position of sniper, the purpose of which was not clearly defined. Given the specific nature of the marine commandos (reconnaissance, raids and sabotage missions in enemy zones, etc.), the mission of the sniper could not be comparable to that assigned to the snipers of the Second World War, who often acted in static positions. In the commandos, the sniper evolved within the framework of his squad and his platoon, and in the context of the various missions entrusted to their specific commando. He had complete latitude to assess the moment and the way in which he was going to intervene. The weapon of choice was the semi-automatic MAS rifle with a fifteen-round magazine. I no longer remember on what criteria I had been chosen, I was barely 20 years old at the time, and I had not asked myself any questions about it. The training took place at the Cap Saint-Jacques base. A mobile shooting range had been set up on a deserted beach, and consisted of a target and a tripod to hold the rifle. The shots were taken at 200 meters. The scope, which I believe was German-made, certainly lacked the sophistication of a modern sniper acope. The training sessions took place every day and lasted for several days.

As an aside: I was recently invited to observe the training of our commando snipers, and I could not believe the quality of their training compared to ours! France is certainly in good hands.

Subsequently and during the operations, since July 53 I believe, I would use my weapon several times to counter enemy fire at long distances. I definitely killed several Viets, but the notion of a confirmed kill could not exist for a commando whose mission was not to fight, but to reach the objective very quickly, and to return, if possible, just as quickly(which was not always the case..).

On September 28, 1953, with two comrades including Petty officer Ferre, during a scouting operation in the Song-Cau region (North Annam), we were designated for an infiltration one hour ahead of the commando, towards an objective that had been indicated to us during the briefing: the mission was to reach a small peak overlooking a rice paddy, and then observe and report on Viet movements by radio. When we arrived at the objective we noticed a lot of movement in the paddy, Viet regulars and partisans. Apparently these elements were coming from a small village made of straw huts.

At a distance of about 300 meters, we noticed a Viet, most definitely an officer, emerging from the village and entering a small dike, certainly unaware of our presence. I consulted with my comrades, one of whom had a MAT 49 submachine gun and the other a US M.1 carbine. Despite the distance, I decided to take a shot. I thought I could take out the Viet, perhaps not at first, but by repeating my shots because the dike was low and he had no way of protecting himself since I was up high. I adjusted my shot as I did at the range, leaning on a tree. I aimed very slightly in front of the head at neck height. The first bullet hit the right temple. In accordance with our instruction (and my own experience after almost two years of operations), we did not move from our advantageous position despite the very heavy and precise fire coming our way. The enemy would have to be suicidal to charge across the wide open paddy against a sniper.

The bulk of the commando arrived thirty minutes later, led by Lieutenant Collet, accompanied by his command group and an Army Intelligence Officer. The Pasha signaled us to join them, and he informed me that the Viet I had killed was a battalion commander of the 803 regiment. He was carrying a backpack and a satchel in which many important documents were discovered(I will never understand the communist obsession with always carrying hand-written plans!). Personally for me it was mission accomplished, and I frankly did not dwell too much on these facts until now. He was just another Viet, far from my first or indeed my last. More importantly: my rifle also helped me by allowing me to recover an American made tent from a Viet I had killed shortly after(as I said). Indeed, for Tonkin we took one tent per team of two, half a tent each. My teammate had half a U.S. tent and I had half a French tent. These elements were not compatible and this prevented us from putting up the tent at night in Tonkin in the drizzle.

I'll close with this:

We naturally tend to glorify our actions during the various battles we have fought. However, there are facts that undermine this glory, like when I was thrown into the depths of abject horror during my first operation in the Thai-Binh region of Tonkin. Since the beginning of the morning we have been advancing on a large raised dike, continually harassed by Viet mortar fire. Below the dike there were bamboo groves. A black shape moved in a grove. Our machine gunner Amann fired a burst from his machine gun at this random black shape. After that, I saw a young Vietnamese girl who must have been about sixteen(at the absolute most) come out and climb onto the dike. She was wearing black pajamas and she had long hair that fell to her shoulders. Under her right arm she was carrying a basket of rice. She approached us and at that moment I saw that her left arm had been torn off. She was crying and moaning and followed the commando who continued to advance. At that time there was no doctor in the commando. What should we have done? Well, the most disgusting solution was chosen; a commando whose name I want to keep secret here pushed this kid forward and shot her three times in the back. I saw the young girl collapse with each bullet impact. This crime was committed at the time under the eyes of the pasha (Lt. Taro). What a beautiful propaganda victory for the Viets!

As for the author of this execution, he was condemned in 1952 by the Vietnamese authorities, and was interned in the Chi-Uan penal colony for the horrific rape, torture and stabbing murder of another young Vietnamese woman, in a pacified zone...He had an accomplice who was also condemned. Yes, there were sadists in the commandos, I met some, as I also did during the years I spent as an army paratrooper in Algeria(1957-1959).

Ultimately, I have never forgotten this young Vietnamese woman who did nothing to deserve her horrific end. Another forgotten victim of the wickedness of men.

This is really interesting, Brad. You know, Iraqis don't really seem good at fighting, but then they never really completely surrender either. – Cpl Josh Ray Person, Generation Kill

The “Second” Battle of Ramadi

History says that Coalition Forces fought two battles in Ramadi. The “first” battle of Ramadi occurred during a four-day period during the first battle of Fallujah in April 2004 when hundreds of insurgents descended on Ramadi to try to relieve pressure on Fallujah. On the morning of April 6th, fighting kicked off when insurgents ambushed Marines from 2/4 in Sufiya and near the stadium in Mula’ab.

The AQI fighters attacked in multiple locations throughout the city with small arms, rpg’s, and IED’s. Twelve Marines died in running gunfights on that first day— devastating losses for a battalion. The fighting continued for a second day, with both sides taking heavy losses. On the morning of the third day, the Magnificent Bastards were on megaphones talking shit to the insurgents, goading them to come back out and fight. In a four-day period, the Marines killed an estimated 250 enemy fighters. That four-day fight kicked off the fighting, and it may have died down, but the fighting never really stopped.

The 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines suffered 36 KIA’s over the six months of fighting in Ramadi. After them, our brigade came in and suffered devastating losses in 2004-2005 securing the city during the elections, and then the National Guard Brigade after them suffered approximately 80 KIA’s and 600 wounded. To me, it seems obvious that the fighting never ended. I do not see two Battles of Ramadi, I see a single, protracted battle, with intensity and momentum shifts over a period of three years.

In the year the battalion had spent on Fort Carson training, things in Ramadi, and Iraq as a whole, had continued to deteriorate. Ramadi was the worst place in the country by far. In the summer of 2006, it averaged three times more attacks per day than anywhere else. Al Qeada in Iraq (AQI) dominated nearly all of the city's key structures, had complete freedom of movement, and had constructed defensive belts throughout the city. They planted powerful subsurface IED’s and then covered them with well built fighting positions to launch secondary ambushes on anyone helping the wounded— this made large parts of the city inaccessible to Coalition Forces (CF). Around this time, AQI broke away from Bin Laden’s Al Qeada and switched their name to the Islamic State of Iraq, which of course, would later become the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), but we did not get that memo and still called them Al Qeada.

At a time when CF were pulling out of cities across Iraq. Colonel Sean MacFarland of the 1st brigade, 1st Armored Division, also known as the Ready First Combat Team (RFCT) was preparing to go into Ramadi. He received a warning order to move his Brigade from Tal Afar to Ramadi and relieve the 2-28th. His instructions were simple, “fix Ramadi, but don’t destroy it.”

They wanted to avoid displacing the population and destroying the infrastructure as much as possible while clearing the city of insurgents. For some reason, the Army had forgotten to do an AAR after the Viet Nam war, and we had to relearn some hard lessons about self defeating strategies. We would move slowly, deliberately, and implement good counter-insurgency tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Insurgents came to believe that a large Fallujah style attack was coming, and prominent AQI leaders fled. The ones who stayed prepared to implement their defense of the city. U.S forces were hunkered down on the outskirts of the city. The 506th had assumed control of Combat Outpost and Corregidor, which controlled entry into the city from Route Michigan to the East. The 2-28 IN Brigade Headquarters— soon to be RFCT HQ— was at Camp Ramadi on the Western outskirts of the city. There were also a few Entry Control Points (ECP) and outposts throughout the city. 3/8 Marines operated out Camp Blue Diamond to the north-east of Camp Ramadi and they also occupied the Government center in central Ramadi along Route Michigan.

Insurgents controlled everything else, and they had the numbers and resources to launch simultaneous, complex attacks, in multiple locations throughout the city, sometimes with platoon or company sized elements. The Government center in central Ramadi was under siege and the governor of Anbar province who worked out of there had dodged approximately 30 assassination attempts. The city had no power, no running water, and AQI destroyed the cell phone tower with a VBIED, effectively cutting off mass communication for the population. Civil order had broken down entirely.

These AQI fighters knew the basics of small unit tactics, and they even had casevac procedures and would transport their wounded to cities only hospital, which they also controlled. To simply drive from one side of the city to the other on Route Michigan, convoys would have to follow the large pathfinder vehicles used for clearing the roads or risk hitting a subsurface IED.

To sum it up in military terms, the situation in Ramadi was a total clusterfuck in June 2006.

Colonel MacFarland would implement the techniques that the 3rd ACR had used to remarkable success in Tal Afar. In Tal Afar they had quelled sectarian violence by getting off the large FOB’s and creating combat outposts in the neighborhoods where they could protect the population and referee the feuding groups. Ramadi did not have the sectarian strife that tore apart other parts of Iraq, but their domination of the city allowed AQI to brutalize and intimidate the local population. They had long since run off the cities police force. The handful of Iraqi Police that would show up for work occasionally were too scared to patrol and would hide in their police stations on the western outskirts of the city.

I have heard it said that Fallujah is the size of a neighborhood in Ramadi. The city of Ramadi and its environs had several named districts. West of the city, on the other side of the Euphrates River, sat Camp Ramadi on an old Iraqi Army base next to the district of Tameem. East of that, and South of the Mula’ab, was an area known as the second officer's district. The insurgents had rat lines in this area to run supplies and fighters into the city.

1-37 Armor would be the main effort attacking into this area to further isolate the city. They put two Combat Outposts into this area, COP Iron and COP Spear. Colonal MacFarland wanted to conduct operations every four days to keep the enemy on their back-foot and Combat Outposts went up all summer. 1- 35 Armor would put two COP’s into Tameem. 3/8 Marines retook Ramadi General Hospital and put a Combat Outpost next to it. They got services back up and running for the city's residents, and arrested wounded insurgents that did not get the memo to stop going there. And so began the “second” Battle of Ramadi.

As the Combat Outposts went up, insurgents would impale themselves on them trying to hold the terrain. All summer, neighborhood by neighborhood, not unlike the island-hopping campaign of World War 2. As they did, the insurgents' numbers were attrited, the area they could operate in shrank, and the residents began to see that we were not leaving and letting the insurgents re-occupy their neighborhoods. We were sticking around and providing security and civil services. Slowly, we regained the people's confidence and the initiative.

The tribes on the outskirts of the city whose fighters had entered an alliance of convenience with AQI had begun to sour on the Jihadi’s by late 2005. Some had tried in late 2005 to expel them from their areas. Unfortunately, AQI was, by far, the most dominant Sunni insurgent force in Anbar and easily slaughtered all the sheiks involved in the plot by January 2006.

By late summer 2006, Sheik Sattar on the west side of the city saw the Brigades operations happening near his home and began to negotiate with the Colonel MacFarland. AQI had killed his father and two brothers when they tried to revolt, and he was looking for payback. He would supply the men for the new Ramadi police if we would provide training and weapons. He began a movement that became known as the “Anbar Awakening” and held a meeting of Tribal Sheiks and military officers to announce its creation in September 2006. Dozens of tribes joined him, and thousands of young men began training to protect their own neighborhoods. We would clear the city; the new police would hold it afterward.

The 1-506th were on our Battalions old stomping grounds at Camp Corregidor. The 506th put a Combat Outpost into the Mula’ab neighborhood and named it Eagles Nest, after Hitlers famed retreat that the regiment captured at the end of the war. Both the 506th and 3/8 Marines were at the end of their tours and were exhausted. They 1/6 Marines relieved 3/8 in early October 2006 and elements of our battalion began to show up around the same time. We would clear the Center and Eastern sides of the city, respectively.

Our Battalion would be the parent organization of a Task Force that would take back Eastern Ramadi and two towns to the east, Sufiya and Julayba. This area was known as the “shark fins”— because of their location at bends of the Euphrates River that looked like shark fins on a map.

In addition to our Battalion, Task Force Manchu included Bravo Company, 1-26 In (mech), tanks from 3-69 Armor, Engineers from the 321st Engineer Battalion, a platoon from SEAL Team 5, dog teams, EOD, Psyops, public affairs, and various other elements too varied to list or remember. We had Army, Navy, and Marines on the task force. We also had the 1st brigade of the 1st Iraqi Army Division and their Jundis (Arabic for Soldier) with us, for what that was worth.

This is another area where the history of the battle becomes muddied in the history I have seen. Usually, I see dates of the second Battle of Ramadi listed as being between June and November 2006. In October 2006 when were arriving, the enemy still controlled the districts of Quatana, Mula’ab, and Iskaan, all in the heart of the city. They also controlled the Shark Fins, Sufiya had rat lines AQI used to run supplies and fighters into the city and intelligence suspected Julayba had an enemy command and control center in it. AQI was still strong in Ramadi in October 2006 and to emphasize that point, they held a parade downtown in mid-October on 17th Street. Upwards of 60 AK wielding Jihadi’s donned their signature black pajamas and drove around in the back of pick up trucks in an unopposed show of force to the city's residents. You can watch it on YouTube.

Then a few days after that, on October 21, they detonated a chlorine bomb VBIED in the first known use of such a weapon in the war. That was the situation we were walking into— the battle was far from over in November 2006.

https://imgur.com/TbItHEC

This map of the battle space was made after the fact by the official U.S Army topographer.

Next Part: Corregidor

I recall as a boy of around 8 years old asking my maternal grandfather, RJ, why his right ear was shriveled up. He told me that he had been in a plane crash during the war and had been badly burned. On further questioning he said that as the plane was going down, his crewmates took their crash positions but he could not as he had to dump the fuel and bombs, so when the plane hit the ground he was thrown into an antenna, which broke his back, and was trapped in the burning wreckage. He explained that his friends had pulled him from the plane and rolled him in a ditch to put out the fire. Being only 8, the only antennas I had seen were the whip antennas on cars and I could not figure out how something like that had broken his back, and my only image of disposing of the bombs was were the short films I had seen of bombers dropping dozens of bombs all at once, so I askedif he had been pushing the button to release the bombs. "Something like that" was his response, leaving me mystified as to how something so simple had resulted in him being unable to take his crash position, and he wouldn't say anything more.

It was not until many years later that I learned what had really happened. In June of 1944, RJ was transferred to RCAF 422 Squadron, based at Castle Archdale in Northern Ireland, and flew anti-submarine patrols over the Atlantic in a Sutherland Flying Boat. The Sutherland was a large, heavily armed, 4 engine plane designed to exclusively take off and land on water. Crews flew long patrols, often in excess of 12 hours, over the ocean searching for German U-boats, attacking any they found with a combination of .303 and .50 calibre machine guns and Depth Charges. On August 12, 1944 Short Sunderland NJ175 took off for a convoy patrol over the Atlantic with RJ as its Flight Engineer and 11 other crew. Shortly after takeoff the starboard outer engine seized, and the propeller assembly broke off and became wedged in the wing float. With 3 engines still functioning, the plane should easily have been able to make a water landing, but Standing Orders at the time required the crew to dump fuel and depth charges over open water, then make a landing on solid ground - in a plane that had no provisions for ground landings.

Disposal of the depth charges was a much more complicated and laboorious operation than my naive, 8 year old boy's vision of pressing a button. Each 250 lb depth charge had to be connected to a rack inside the hull of the plane, then manually cranked out into position under the wing, and released. The rack was then cranked back into the plane so the next depth charge could be loaded. This is the task RJ was performing that prevented him from taking his crash position.

With disposal complete and the outboard engine now on fire, the pilot attempted to land the plane in a bog near Cashelard, County Donegal, Ireland. The resulting crash killed the pilot and 2 other crewmen, with most of the remaining crew suffering injuries and RJ being trapped inside. Although inured himself and being surrounded by ammunition that was cooking off in the fire, the Co-pilot helped RJ escape the burning wreckage and the two men took shelter in a nearby ditch.

RJ suffered a fractured spine and burns to his hands and face, including the melted, shriveled ear that so fascinated me as a child. After a few months in hospital in England, RJ was returned Canada to continue his recovery, and received a medical discharge in 1945. In spite of suffering constant back pain and headaches he had a successful career as a Civil Engineer and Minister, and was heavily involved in the Rotary Club. His passing in 1987 was mourned by his wife, 3 children, and 7 grandchildren.

As a direct result of the investigation into this crash, RAF/RCAF Standing Orders were changed to allow Flying Boats to land on water in an emergency.

65 years after the crash, my mother and her 2 brothers were able to travel to Ireland and visit the crash site. While there, a man approached them who remembered seeing the crash as a boy, and who on learning the reason for their visit gave them a piece of twisted aircraft aluminum that he had pulled out of the bog and kept for decades. This small piece of my grandfather's plane remains in our family, currently in the care of my nephew as a reminder of the great-grandfather he never got to meet.

In 1984, I was in the Navy, living in the barracks and for some reason, Airmen, (E-3 and below) would come to me if they had a problem, even though I was just a Airdale Third Class (E-4). Usually it was simple things, how to fill out a leave chit, how pass an advancement exam, how to get a local driver's license, how to file taxes, etc. All the thing their chief should have helped them with but wouldn't. Then there was Airman Snuffy.

Airman Snuffy , earlier in the week had his ear pierced by his girlfriend, using a needle, potato and ice cube and it did not go well. He came to my room on a Friday night with a washcloth over his ear and told me he needed help. He pulled the wash cloth away and, friends, his ear lobe was as purple as a plum and about as big. It was swollen, tender and hot to the touch . I told him, "You need to go to sick bay, pronto!" Being the young up and comer, he demurred, saying he didn't want to get written up for destroying government property or some such nonsense.

It was hard to argue with that logic, so I procured some motrin, 80 proof ethanol and a single edge razor blade. Prepping for surgery by heating the razor blade with a cigarette lighter and prepping the patient with the aforemention ethanol disguised as fruit juice, I commenced to cut. The ear lobe fairly exploded with nasty yellow-green pus and the airman nearly fainted but still managed to sit up right as the pus poured out and fairly soaked the wash cloth.

By this time, we attracted the usual crowd of onlookers, who were also imbibing and making side bets on whether his ear would fall off. I gave him the motrin, just as the Corpsman would have and lacking any antibiotics, I put athlete's foot ointment on it.

The patient was treated internally and externally with ethanol for the rest of the weekend and seemed to have made a full recovery three days later, thus proving that the Good Lord indeed watches over drunks, fools and the US Navy.

Thankfully, this was on a Friday night and Monday was a holiday so Airman Snuffy had an extra day to avoid the prying eyes of a chief.

My mid-tour leave was scheduled for December through Christmas and New Years, with Fonseca following me once I got back. As the time drew closer to my leave dates, I really struggled with the idea of leaving theatre, especially leaving Fonseca. We had grown as close as you can in a combat zone, heavily relying on each other for emotional support, even if we try to hide those emotions. He slept two feet away from me in the barracks and if I went to chow, he went to chow. We were inseparable to the point that in our Squad sign-out board, we just started writing our combined names, Fonzinha, because everyone understood that where one was, so was the other. When we were mounted, he would drive and I would gun, and when we were dismounted, we were a battle buddy team. Our closeness grew in part because we really did not trust our Team Leader to make good decisions under fire. SSG Hurst was a bulletproof combat leader, but our E5 team leader, although a great dude, left us more dependent on relying on each other.

Fonseca had a great way about him and as I try to describe him, I struggle to find the correct words to build him up. When we would pull a 6-hour guard shift after an 18-hour mission, he was always the one to keep us awake. He came up with every word game you could think of, along with every hypothetical question known to man just to keep us talking and awake. You can’t help but bare your true self during these times, and no topic was off limits. To have someone know your true self down to your soul and still want to be your friend is an indescribable feeling. This bond is stronger than blood family is the source of the military brotherhood that the civilian world struggles to understand.

My leave time arrived, and on a pre-dawn December morning I grabbed my bag and walked out of our barracks. I was awake before anyone else, and as Fonseca slept, I had an overwhelming urge to wake him up and tell him that I loved him. I squashed this urge and told myself that grown ass men don’t tell their friends that they love unless they were gay. I justified it that this brotherly love didn’t need to be expressed and that he probably knew that I considered him closer to me than my own blood brother, so why wake him for something so trivial?

How do I adequately explain the experience of going from near constant combat, living in a bombed outbuilding, burning your shit, and showering once a week from a water bottle to a world that barely knows where Iraq is? I picked up my sone in Omaha and flew with him to visit my parents in Texas. It was surreal and I struggled to understand how my shared combat experiences were not front-page news. Americans had the audacity to continue to live their lives as if we were not facing death every single day. A spark of anger and resentment started to kindle in the bottom of my soul. This spark would slowly build into a raging flame that controlled me and my emotions for many years to come. But for the moment, I was focused on living it up while I had the chance.

Fonseca had agreed to call me after a week just to let me know he was ok and fill me in on everything I was missing, but I never received that call. I did not sweat it too much, because every time someone was wounded or killed, the MWR went into a comms black-out until the families were notified. This was not just for our BN, but the whole Brigade. If someone in 1-9IN died across the city, MWR comms went black.

I did not think too hard on this, and just went wild. Victoria, Texas is not a very large city, but has grown over the years, thanks to oil and gas booms. One night, I went to a country western bar with a childhood friend and proceeded to get stuttering drunk. I remember seeing a guy I went to high school with and laughed internally because he was the stereotypical “I peaked in high school” type. Balding, a little chubby, and still prowling local bars. How could he sit here when there was a war going on? Why wasn’t he doing his part? I started to get angry, and just wanted to push his stupid war-dodging face in with my fist. I let it slide because I was working on this young Hispanic woman sitting close to me. That mission ended up being a success, but I don’t remember getting to her place. My buddy waited for me outside in my truck as I drunkenly proceeded to seduce this woman, whose name I had forgotten before we even left the bar.

I add this story because this, to me, was the first indicator of who I was turning into. I was reckless and full of rage. Surviving so many close calls, witnessing so many terrible things, had turned off a piece of my humanity and reserve. Fuck it, I’m going to get it in while I can before I become another number in this war. No one knew what we were going through and how could I explain it? So reckless abandonment became the theme of my life after that.

One night I had an extremely vivid dream. It was close to the end of my time, and I had not heard from anyone, so I was starting to get concerned and was anxious to get back to Corregidor. I was all alone with my rifle, on some random street in Ramadi. I climbed up to a roof and my rifle turned into a sniper rifle, so I scanned for targets. As I scanned, it was eerily silent, and before I had a chance to react, I saw a muzzle flash and was shot in my head. I didn’t die, but I was left there, eyes open, immobile, and unable to cry out. As I lay on this roof, I saw my platoon walking down an alley on a patrol. I struggled to scream out and warn them of the impending ambush, but I was just silently screaming in my head. In an instance, gunfire erupted, and explosions rocked the scene. I was thrust awake with a gasp and found myself alone in my childhood room, drenched in sweat, heart beating as if I had just run a marathon. Until then, this was the most vivid and lucid dream I had ever had, and it bothered the shit out of me.

Two days later, I took my son back to Omaha and began my journey back to Iraq. My transit airport was DFW, and while I waited there, I ran into our Platoon Medic, Doc Heath, who had gone on leave the same time as I had. His duties were taken up by my buddy, Biddinger, who was EMT certified, and he acted as the Platoon Medic until Doc Heath came back. I greeted him and asked if he heard anything about the Platoon while we were gone. Doc looked confused and told me that Smith had been killed, along with SSG Vitigliano, PFC Greer, and Fonseca.

My world started spinning and I had to find my voice to ask him to say all that again. He was confused and thought I had known already. He apologized but I barely heard him. The world around me went into a muffled chaos and I struggled to make it to a payphone. I dialed my parents house and wanted to speak to my dad, but my mom answered, and I immediately unloaded explosives sobs. I kept repeating “they killed him, those fuckers killed him” I didn’t even give her a chance to try to talk to me in between my sobs. I was a ghost and floated through the gate and onto the plane. I had a side row all to myself and all I can remember of that long flight was laying down and crying. I didn’t eat any meals, didn’t acknowledge any flight attendant, and just cried for 10 hours.

A few out there reading this know this pain. I am not poetic enough o properly describe this, but I can tell you that this the only time I have uncontrollably sobbed for the loss of any human in my life. By the time we landed in Kuwait, I was numb to the world. My only thought was to get back to third Platoon and be amongst my brothers and people who understood me. All around me in Kuwait were Air Force and Army individuals who had no idea what loss was, let alone a real combat deployment. None of the rear echelon motherfuckers could understand the world as they walked around in their pressed DCUs, eating 3 full meals a day in a catered chow hall. A bad day for them was if the internet was too slow. I needed out of there and to be back among people who I understood and understood me. Shared misery builds unbreakable bonds.

The travel back from the states and to Iraq is at least a weeklong, with many transient stations along the way. With all this time to think, all I could do was dwell on Fonseca. How could God take this young man with so full of life, who had so much to look forward to? He had just gotten married and had a whole life ahead of him. Fonseca’s life revolved around his family, and especially his little nephew, whom he always talked about. He was so caring, so young, and such a good person, and much better than me. Why him and not me? Why is it always the best and brightest of us that are taken?

We had lost a lot of great NCOs and Soldiers, and they were all the best of us. Doc Meyer was killed earlier in December and was a huge loss. I remember him and the other medics, back in Korea, getting drunk and giving themselves IVs in the dark. He was a dedicated doc and took great care of everyone. He even gave me an IV before the EIB ruck march to help me hydrate. His platoon walked into an alley ambush on 2 December 2004, with Doc Meyer being wounded in the leg in the initial contact. He was pulled back, but there was two of his guys left in the alley, wounded and still under fire. Doc didn’t even hesitate, he got up, ignoring his wound, and ran back into the alley to drag his guys out. In the process, he was shot again and died shortly after, but he saved his guys. He willingly and readily gave his life to save those he cared for the most. He was posthumously awarded the Silver Star.

SSG Vitigliano was very famous in our BN. A former Marine rumored former underwear model, and a tabbed former Ranger Battalion guy. He was larger than life and the poster boy for the Army Infantry. With his chiseled jaw line and combat , he was one of the best Squad Leaders in the BN. Everyone loved and respected him. He was in 1^(st) Platoon Charlie but wherever he was, you knew. On the morning of 17 January 2005, Charlie conducted a company sized mission into sector with 1^(st) and 3^(rd) Platoons dismounted and Dog Platoon acting as the mounted cordon. (Everything form here forward is a combination of the firsthand accounts told to me by everyone in the Platoon) SSG Vitigliano was conducting a dismounted patrol when a suspicious car drove up to them, catching the eye of Vitigliano. He had two Soldiers with him, Greer and for the life of me I cannot remember the other guy and approached the vehicle. At some point, Vitigliano realized this was a VBIED and called out, simultaneously grabbing one of his Soldiers and shielding him from the impending blast. In his last action in this world, SSG Vitigliano grabbed his Soldier, shielded him with his body, and save that Soldiers life. PFC Greer, along with SSG Vitigliano, were killed in the blast. SSG Vitigliano was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for his actions.

This explosion was the signal to start an AQI coordinated ambush on Charlie Company. 3^(rd) Platoon, a few blocks away, immediately came under oppressive fire. SSG Hurst and my squad were pinned down on a rooftop by two to three different machine gun positions. Ortega was up there at this time, but Fonseca was on the street below. With me not being there, he did not want to be under our Team leader and approach SSG Hurst about his concerns. SSG Hurst then talked him into SFC Jusino’s driver position since Doc had gone on leave. Fonseca started receiving fire from another position but was in an alleyway under cover and not at his truck. At some point, he made the decision to get to the truck and secure it. While sprinting to the truck, he was hit in the lower abdomen.

Ortega heard this moment, even over the deafening sounds of combat. It was the unmistakable voice of Fonseca saying in his quazi-sarcastic way “owww” as if he just stubbed his toe. There was another Soldier in the alleyway with him, I was told. Etsity, a native American in another Squad whom we were casual friends with. As Fonseca lay in the middle of this street, Etsity sat there and did not make any attempt to go to his aid. Or so this is what I let myself believe for many years. The truth of the matter is he was most likely pinned down and unable to move, just like the rest of the Platoon. Putting this judgment on him is something I regret to this day.

What I do know, is that SFC Jusino selflessly ran out into the open, under intense fire, grabbed Fonseca, and got him back to cover. Biddinger was called down and went to work trying to stop the bleeding, but Fonseca was hit in the upper groin/abdomen, right in the femoral artery. Biddinger watched the light fade from Fonseca’s eyes as he furiously tried keep him alive, begging him to stay with us. Biddinger had to be pulled off Fonseca because he refused to let him go. Fonseca slipped from this mortal life on 17 January 2005, near Market Street in the Mala’ab district of Ar Ramadi, Iraq. He was 19 years old and left behind a young wife and a loving family.

Fonseca wasn’t even a citizen yet, having joined the Army with his Green Card, yet here he was. We had talked before I left on leave about how he was trying to get his wife from Mexico to the states, to the point he hired a Coyote to get her across the border. They had gotten married so soon before our deployment, he didn’t have time to get here immigration paperwork together. They had been married less than a year and he is buried in Dellagado, Jalisco, Mexico.

Ortega later told me when they finally got back to the aid station, he realized Fonseca was gone. But in combat, there is not much time to grieve, and before he had a chance to process this, they got the call to mount back up and head right back into the city. This is how it goes; combat Soldiers are faced with the most horrendous and psychologically damaging events of their lives, but then forced to stow their emotions away and continue the fight. We do not get the luxury of processing grief or mourning friends. Mission first. You carry on and make sure all the death and destruction were not in vain. By the time we get home, there is too much to unpack and by this time, we don’t want to revisit all the pain and misery. So, we carry on the long tradition shoving it all down until it explodes in the unhealthiest way.

“The hardship of the exercises is intended less to strengthen the back than to toughen the mind. The Spartans say that any army may win while it still has its legs under it; the real test comes when all strength is fled and the men must produce victory on will alone.” ― Steven Pressfield, Gates of Fire

Road Warriors

July 2007- August 2007

All the excitement was over by late summer, everyone was on autopilot, everyone wanted to go home. August marked 10 months in country, and I was going stir crazy. With how calm the AO had become, we stopped pulling guard as teams to try give everyone as much down time as possible.

It was a double-edged sword for me personally. I welcomed the down time, but lonely nights were when the demons began whispering in my ear. When I had no one to talk to, my mind would wander to places it should not, second guessing decisions, beating myself up for mistakes— doors I thought I had closed violently kicked back open. I would relive the close calls we had and somehow walked away unscathed. A small part of me felt guilty about that for some illogical reason. Many better soldiers died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it is not fair if you look at it objectively. It is luck or fate or God, or whatever you choose to call it, but I was ambivalent.

I am a nincompoop that bumbled my way into a gigantic chasm, and I walked away relatively fine. Buford was unfortunate enough to hit a tiny pressure plate on on a big road and dies, where is the justice in that? The IED he drove over was triggered by a pressure plate and the one we drove over a few weeks later was command detonated. That is just the way it is. No rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes, when I replay the events in my head, things would play out worse than they had— Cazinha taking a bullet to the head instead of the graze off his helmet. This is where my vivid daydreaming started becoming a liability. Sometimes it would elicit actual tears, even though it is a scenario that only occurred in my head.

Another part of me wanted to relive the firefight on OP South or get into another one. That could have gone badly, but it did not, and whenever I have thought about it afterward, I wished I had been more present in the moment. It was a one-of-a-kind experience— as Winston Churchill once said, “nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

Another part of me knows that defending from well-built defilade is the absolute best-case scenario in a fire fight and I did not enjoy myself so much down on the street getting ambushed. It is important to keep things in perspective; but it felt good to be able to hit back at least one time. I was currently around the few people on the planet that could truly relate, but Joes do not discuss our feelings or insecurities. If you want to cry, go call your girlfriend.

The internet and phones were on almost 24/7 at this point, which was also both good and bad. Obviously, it is good that we were not taking casualties anymore, and it made communication with family more frequent and predictable; but focusing on home more made time slow even more. Ilana had created a message board where I could leave messages for my extended family and vice versa. Most of my communication in the first half of the deployment had come through leaving sporadic updates on there and reading messages from whomever. It was a very efficient system.

I had made the occasional phone calls or chatted on AOL instant messenger with Ilana, but there had been a four-to-six-week period in January-February where every trip back to COP was during a communication blackout. When we could talk, it was always brief.

There were time limits on the phones and computers. Our conversations started feeling awkward and distant after so much time. A year is a long time, especially to kids. We were growing apart, I could feel it, and I did not know what to do about it. She was the only one I ever opened up to about my feelings, so I internalized it and let it eat me alive during those lonely nights on guard.

I had changed a lot, and I am sure it did not seem for the better seeing me from the outside looking in. It felt like we were stuck in stasis here while the world moved on without us. Day after day of staring at the same buildings, same fields, same goat herders, driving the same roads and hoping nothing blows us up.

Drive west to Camp Ramadi or driving East to TQ. I am Bill Murray in Groundhogs Day. I am the narrator in Fight Club. The days felt so much longer on the back half of the deployment. The walls of Combat Outpost were the bars of our prison cell. Everything started to wear on me. The heat, the dust, the sleep deprivation, lack of running water, lack of privacy, freedom of movement. The chow hall served the same food on a weekly schedule. We got surf and turf every Friday. It was garbage to begin with, it did not improve with repetition.

I escaped this hell to Ancient Greece with a few historical fiction novels about ancient Sparta and the Peloponnesian war. American history is still the best history in the world. I continued working my way through W.E.B Griffin OSS novels.

Some of the Joes created Hot or Not accounts. For the uninitiated, Hot or Not was a website where you could post a photo of yourself for people to rate anonymously on a 1-10 scale based on physical attractiveness; or you could post your ugly friend's picture for a couple of yucks, that was fair use, as well— the mid-aughts were a better time. I started lifting weights seriously for the first time in my life. I tried to start this memoir, but I was not ready. Anything to pass the time. Anything to break the monotony. This is what winning looks like— bored Joe.

One gloomy night on gate guard at COP, a stray dog approached our position growling at us. After several attempts to shoo it away failed, a Joe walked up and shot it with his M4.

The shot was not fatal, and the dog bolted. It got far enough away that he could not pursue it to put it out of its misery, but not far enough away that we could not hear its cries as it bled out. It took an uncomfortably long time to die. This was one of those moments where I could feel regret emanating off someone just from body language alone.

The Sergeant of the Guard came over demanding to know what happened and he was furious. Both, because the dog was suffering and because no one told him they were going to shoot beforehand. He berated the entire gaggle of us collectively for a minute before storming off. The rest of the night we sat in silence listening to a dog bleed to death. It was a dreary night, even for Ramadi.

The convoys to Camp Ramadi and TQ we did were usually nothing more than ferrying officer types to and from the more civilized FOBs for staff meetings. These missions are what Army aviators in WW2 would have referred to as “milk runs”. I have no idea how many we did— a goodly sum. Many score. Battalion knows, but I would say between 50-100 would be a good guess.

While I am sure they served a worthy military purpose, my situational awareness does not extend far from the gunner's turret, and it was starting to feel like a lot of rolls of the dice for nebulous reasons. We had worked ourselves out of a job with EOD and rarely got calls to go out with them anymore. The COP was a ghost town by this point. Most of the units that were attached to the task force were long gone and we were planning to turn over the COP and Corregidor back to the Iraqis when we left. Slowly, but surely, amid the convoy operations and guard shifts, work details formed to clean out buildings and ship equipment out of the AO. Sometimes we were laborers, sometimes we guarded locals who we paid to be laborers.

Buford’s mother Janet reached out to me on social media. Someone from Dog company had told her about a video of Buford on facebook. I shared a video and pictures of him from our first field problem with Dog Company. I regretted not thinking to take any pictures the few times we ran into each other at Eagles Nest. She had been reaching out to and offering support to anyone who knew him. She offered to send us care packages and invited me to visit their family in Texas for the one-year anniversary of his death where they were planning to celebrate his life. It was clear to see where his generous spirit came from.

Battalion sent us a new platoon leader to reestablish good order and discipline. We got the former XO of Charlie Company, Lieutenant Hood. He was knowledgeable, professional, and experienced; but I did not get the feeling that he was happy to be with us.

LT Hood was a non-smoker and apoplectic to find that some of the Joes— and a couple of the NCO’s— were smoking in the porto-potties. The consensus seemed to be that the smoke was the least offensive odor emanating from there and everyone let it slide all year. LT Hood was not buying that bill of goods and moved to quell this gross violation of valuable military equipment. He made us start posting armed sentries at the porto-potties with a logbook to sign soldiers in and out of the shitters. He had Joes out there in full battle rattle next to the shitters for days.

I do not think he ever used those Porto-potties; he just made us do it on principle, which amused me. I always appreciated creative punishments in the Army. Making someone do push-ups has no style, no panache. If you make a Joe wear a tow chain with two license plates attached to it because he forgot to wear his dog tags to work sends an unforgettable message to everyone in the Battalion.

LT Hood was A-okay in my book after that. He only made us do it for a week or two; it was a gentlemanly warning shot across our bow.

Soon after, SSG Carter became the new platoon daddy. Our section was obviously incredibly happy with the choice. SSG Carter is one of those NCO’s who takes a pink belly like a man. He was right there in OP Central with Knight during the big fire fight at Eagles Nest. He would take the gunners spot occasionally when we convoyed. He was always right there with us, keeping a watchful eye on the Joes. He was a soldier's soldier. He was the obvious pick to be the new Platoon Sergeant in my mind. Our squad was happy despite losing him as section sergeant.

Guard shift, convoy, rinse, and repeat. The drive to Camp Ramadi felt very safe at this point. When we drove down Michigan in that direction, it was smiling locals clearing the debris and bringing their city back to life. No one was planting IED’s there.

The big stretch of unattended highway driving to TQ felt dangerous. We had crushed AQI in the city, but they still existed in other parts of Anbar province. There was a lot of open road left unattended for someone to drive up and plant an IED. At this point, it was better to just try to put it out of your mind and trust in the force.

We had successfully lowered the threat level in Ramadi to the point that big Army could find us again. If there was no indirect fire threat anymore, then we did not need to wear body armor walking around the FOB, and so we could not hold a for record PT test on Camp Corregidor.

The Joes were not amused, but not because we were out of shape. We were going to the gym a lot. This was one of my higher scoring PT tests. It was just the principle of it. It was 130 degrees and we had not been taking it easy for very long. The kinetic phase had only ended a month or two ago, why can’t the Army ever relax and smell the roses?

In hindsight, it was depressed Joes like me that they were doing this for. Instead of being sad, I was now mad at the Army for having standards. Before we knew it, they were going to want us wearing clean uniforms again I reasoned. I could see which way the winds were blowing. Angry Joe is preferable to sad Joe. No one likes sad Joe.

The Battalion had other morale boosting tricks up its sleeve as well, they held a mandatory Fu-Manchu mustache growing contest to help keep up morale. I grew a sick pencil mustache that honored Army Aviators from a bygone era.

In August, we went to Battalion HQ on Corregidor for a ceremony where, those of us who got them, received our Combat Infantryman Badges from Manchu and Hotel 6. The combat Infantryman badge is the badge. It is the most coveted and prestigious badge in the U.S Army. I did not get many awards in my time in the Army, and I did not particularly care, but this I cared about. It was the most important distinction in our profession. As I said earlier, an Army uniform tells you exactly who someone is. I looked up to anyone who had a CIB, and I was immensely proud to be among them.

“This is the most prestigious badge in the U.S Army, how do you feel?” Manchu 6 asked me while he pinned my CIB on my chest. “I feel proud, sir.”

It was the only time I spoke to Manchu 6. He looked genuinely proud to be awarding these to his Joes and I was genuinely proud to be receiving it. It is one of my fondest Army memories.

Sergeant Cazinha and SSG Carter watched from the side like proud dads. Think of the scene in Forrest Gump where he sees his childhood doctor again as an adult. “We sure got you straightened out, didn’t we boy.”

It was a great experience, other than the fact that it was 130 degrees and Battalion Headquarters did not have air conditioning for some reason. I do not know if they were hosting hot yoga that day, but it was unbearably hot during the ceremony. I could not believe we were currently living more comfortably than the Battalion Headquarters element, which was pretty baller for a lowly mortar squad. This is what happens when everyone in the building has a Ranger scroll, everyone is too hooah to complain about the air conditioner breaking.

I promoted to E-4/Specialist on September 1st on my two-year anniversary in the Army and Cazinha was already pushing me to begin studying for the promotion board. It is strange because I had no problem memorizing the soldier's creed, the infantryman’s creed, or the Army song; but for some reason I was struggling to memorize the full NCO creed. I took it as a sign that my heart was not truly in it.

Eleven months down. Four more to go.

https://imgur.com/a/GkTiEgw

Next part: Wake me Up When September Ends.