Post by i.Sarita.com on Feb 2, 2010 2:36:08 GMT -5
I had to do a memoir for my English Composition class. This isn't too detailed for non-Military people to understand, is it?
~April 3rd, 2005 was like any other day in Iraq. Full of fear, anxiety, exhaustion, and every other emotion you get use to pushing aside in order to accomplish the mission. It was normally around hour fourteen of eighteen that things really began to drag while on patrol. You start caring a little less about your situational awareness, and a little more about how soft your pillow is or how nice a warm shower would feel. The biggest and most obvious problem that can arise from being tired is the lack of good judgment; something that can get people killed on the battlefield. But sometimes we found ourselves in situations in which no matter how alert, or how on top of things you are, bad things were bound to happen.
I seemed to split my time as either a driver or a gunner on our M1114 HMMWV, that’s Humvee for non-Army types; and on April 3rd I was driving. It being the middle of the day and already being completely worn out, I found myself sitting inside the truck with the air conditioner on full blast at my face. I had spent the entire previous shift cycle fixing the air conditioner unit on that specific truck. So that added on with the never ending patrols, raids, and surges, I was pretty well worn out and trying to get as much rest as I could. My platoon had been tasked that day to escort our company commander, Captain Shaw, to a meeting with one of the local religious leaders. The mosque was playing anti-Coalition Forces rhetoric during Fridays, the Muslim holy day.
One of the biggest advantages we had over the local oppositional force was the ability to keep them second guessing us. We’d never spend more than a couple of hours sitting in one spot, nor take the same roads going to and from Camp Liberty. The problem with that specific day was that our CO chose us to escort him to the meeting, instead of doing the usual thing and waiting on the incoming Platoon to escort him around our sector. So we find ourselves sitting in a makeshift observation point just off of one of the busiest roads in all of Abu Ghraib, Route California. We had to set up our concertina wire in less than ideal places, and that stuff was basically our only defense against any vehicle trying to break our parameters. I remember thinking as I was putting the wire out: “This isn’t going to end well.”
And as often as things did in Iraq, my gut feeling ended up being a bad omen. After nearly three hours of sitting just off of Route California, a small white car breached the wire just to the front of our position. The driver of the car steered directly into the rear of the Humvee parallel to the one I was driving that day and detonated his car bomb. I never actually saw the car breach the wire, as I had my head resting on the steering wheel and my eyes momentarily shut. Our vehicle was no more than a dozen feet away from the other truck, another no-no broken that day out of necessity, and ended up taking most of the blast wave and shrapnel.
Shell shock is a hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it first hand, I’ve discovered since coming back from the war. It’s almost as you only really hear the explosion for a second and then everything just drifts away. You are no longer in a truck in Iraq, or even a war in a far away land. You’re simply floating on a sea of darkness created by the shock wave hitting your brain and scrambling your thoughts. The Earth stops spinning and nothing really matters, but then you slowly start to come back into reality; you start to smell the gunpowder, the start to hear the ringing in your ears, and you start to see the chaos around you. It’s initially almost a sad feeling that you’re being pulled back into a reality in which you’d much rather never be part of, but then you realize you’re still alive and you have a job to do.
By the time I found myself about to think and rationalize again, the machine gunner on my truck was falling down into the middle of the vehicle from his gunner seat. He was bleeding profusely from a wound to his arm and also from his face, which had been struck by a piece of the vehicle. I’ll never forget his words as he came falling down into the truck: “Damn Sergeant Robinson, I’m bleeding like a mother f***er!” Once I realized what had actually happened, I snapped into Soldier mode and began to think about what I had to do as Driver of the vehicle. Step one was to make sure that I wasn’t the only person still alive; step two was to make sure that the vehicle was still combat effective. That’s when I noticed that the entire front of my truck was ablaze and I reached down to grab my machine gun in one hand and the fire extinguisher in the other and kicked open my door.
I still wasn’t completely sure how long it had been since the initial blast to when I stepped out of my truck, but I immediately saw the burning wreckage of the car and the inferno that use to be the other Humvee. I thought to myself that there was no way anyone inside of that truck could have lived if the fire had already spread that quickly, then turned in order to the put out the fire on my vehicle before it spread any more than it did. I never got the chance to put out the fire though, as the moment I turned around to face away from the car, the gas tank erupted in a secondary blast from the heat of the fire burning around it. I was blasted with pieces of car, scorching gas, and burning hot chunks of what was left of the driver’s lower body. And for the second time in a matter of minutes, I was taken away from the battlefield to that lovely place of peace and quiet.
The next thing I remember is standing up against my vehicle, with the fire extinguisher powder all over the side and nowhere near the fire, yet it was somehow put out already. My Platoon Leader, 1st Lieutenant Betty, came running over to me, spun me around and grabbed on to both of my shoulders and shook me. He asked if I was okay, in which I nodded my head, though I can’t remember being able to hear him thanks to the ringing in my ears. I was numb all over and not in the mood to let anything else happen to anyone, still thinking that we just lost an entire truck full of guys. I took up a position in front of my truck and began scanning the area for the expected barrage of small arms fire that usually accompanies car bomb attacks. I noticed a car had stopped on the top of the overpass just down the road from where everything had happened, and two guys jumped out and started shooting AK-47s in our general direction. I began to return fire with my M249 machine gun as a few other members of my platoon who weren’t injured came over to assist in repelling the ambush.
It wasn’t long after that the air support showed up in the form of twin Apache Attack Helicopters, who quickly commenced firing on the vehicle sitting on the overpass. The entire car and two occupants were turned into burning lumps of molten nothingness within seconds of being hit by the “birds’” cannons. I do remember smiling to myself as I watched the Apaches make the attack run on the enemy, so quickly and so deadly. Now that things seemed to be more under control, I got back into my truck and mounted the M240 machine gun that was originally manned by our gunner. I figured that since I wasn’t hurt all that bad, it’d be best to make sure we have as much security as we could while we waited on the EVAC vehicles.
It wasn’t until the other Platoon out on patrol arrived to aid us in support that I realized I was actually hurt pretty bad. Sergeant Robinson had made his way back over to our vehicle after tending to our gunner with the Medic; he asked me if I was sure I was okay. I took a moment to reach down to my right side, just under my protection vest, to what I thought was just sweat. It turns out I wasn’t just sweating, but was in fact bleeding out of my side and from under my vest; I also finally noticed that my right wrist and arm had various materials burned into it. Sgt. Rob told me that I needed to go see the medics with the rest of the wounded towards the rear of the observation post, and he took over my spot on the machine gun.
Once I climbed back out of the vehicle, and after I finally realized I was hurt, things started to go dizzy on me again. I’m not sure if it was from the loss of blood, or just from the adrenaline draining out of my system, but it seemed like I had to walk miles instead of just feet to get to medical truck. On the way, I was crisscrossing around different parts of what had once been the car. One rather large piece startled me once I realized what it actually was; the upper half of the guy driving the car in the first place. He was missing everything below his waist, and most of both of his arms. He had to have been nearly fifty feet from where the car went off at, and yet he was still moving his mouth with his eyes open. I’m not sure if he was just dead and making dying movements, or if he was actually still alive and just in shock. Nobody was too worried about making sure he’d live; that much I do know.
It wasn’t until I was loaded up on the EVAC M113 armored track that I finally found out nobody in my Platoon was killed, or even wounded all that bad. Some burns here and there, and my gunner being the most severe with his face and arm wounds, but overall well off considering the severity of the attack and closeness in which it took place. We all got patched up at the nearest emergency aid station tent, and made sure Clark was going to be okay on his way to Germany for surgery to put his face back together. The last thing I remember vividly about that day is standing in on the side of my truck, holding my freshly bandaged wrist and starring at the air conditioner unit. It had taken a direct blow from a huge piece of shrapnel and was completely destroyed. If I was the type of person to cry, I think I would have at that moment; all that time wasted the night before working on getting the AC fixed for one day worth of use.
That car bombing attack happened in early April and we ended up finally leaving Iraq in mid June of that year. I had gone nearly ten months of avoiding being wounded in all the attacks and firefights during that time, and yet my number finally came up on that day. I was awarded the Purple Heart medal for my wounds, and an Army Commendation Medal for exemplary service during Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.5, as well as a Combat Infantryman Badge and a few scars. But I left that country in one piece, just like I said I would.
~April 3rd, 2005 was like any other day in Iraq. Full of fear, anxiety, exhaustion, and every other emotion you get use to pushing aside in order to accomplish the mission. It was normally around hour fourteen of eighteen that things really began to drag while on patrol. You start caring a little less about your situational awareness, and a little more about how soft your pillow is or how nice a warm shower would feel. The biggest and most obvious problem that can arise from being tired is the lack of good judgment; something that can get people killed on the battlefield. But sometimes we found ourselves in situations in which no matter how alert, or how on top of things you are, bad things were bound to happen.
I seemed to split my time as either a driver or a gunner on our M1114 HMMWV, that’s Humvee for non-Army types; and on April 3rd I was driving. It being the middle of the day and already being completely worn out, I found myself sitting inside the truck with the air conditioner on full blast at my face. I had spent the entire previous shift cycle fixing the air conditioner unit on that specific truck. So that added on with the never ending patrols, raids, and surges, I was pretty well worn out and trying to get as much rest as I could. My platoon had been tasked that day to escort our company commander, Captain Shaw, to a meeting with one of the local religious leaders. The mosque was playing anti-Coalition Forces rhetoric during Fridays, the Muslim holy day.
One of the biggest advantages we had over the local oppositional force was the ability to keep them second guessing us. We’d never spend more than a couple of hours sitting in one spot, nor take the same roads going to and from Camp Liberty. The problem with that specific day was that our CO chose us to escort him to the meeting, instead of doing the usual thing and waiting on the incoming Platoon to escort him around our sector. So we find ourselves sitting in a makeshift observation point just off of one of the busiest roads in all of Abu Ghraib, Route California. We had to set up our concertina wire in less than ideal places, and that stuff was basically our only defense against any vehicle trying to break our parameters. I remember thinking as I was putting the wire out: “This isn’t going to end well.”
And as often as things did in Iraq, my gut feeling ended up being a bad omen. After nearly three hours of sitting just off of Route California, a small white car breached the wire just to the front of our position. The driver of the car steered directly into the rear of the Humvee parallel to the one I was driving that day and detonated his car bomb. I never actually saw the car breach the wire, as I had my head resting on the steering wheel and my eyes momentarily shut. Our vehicle was no more than a dozen feet away from the other truck, another no-no broken that day out of necessity, and ended up taking most of the blast wave and shrapnel.
Shell shock is a hard thing to explain to someone who hasn’t experienced it first hand, I’ve discovered since coming back from the war. It’s almost as you only really hear the explosion for a second and then everything just drifts away. You are no longer in a truck in Iraq, or even a war in a far away land. You’re simply floating on a sea of darkness created by the shock wave hitting your brain and scrambling your thoughts. The Earth stops spinning and nothing really matters, but then you slowly start to come back into reality; you start to smell the gunpowder, the start to hear the ringing in your ears, and you start to see the chaos around you. It’s initially almost a sad feeling that you’re being pulled back into a reality in which you’d much rather never be part of, but then you realize you’re still alive and you have a job to do.
By the time I found myself about to think and rationalize again, the machine gunner on my truck was falling down into the middle of the vehicle from his gunner seat. He was bleeding profusely from a wound to his arm and also from his face, which had been struck by a piece of the vehicle. I’ll never forget his words as he came falling down into the truck: “Damn Sergeant Robinson, I’m bleeding like a mother f***er!” Once I realized what had actually happened, I snapped into Soldier mode and began to think about what I had to do as Driver of the vehicle. Step one was to make sure that I wasn’t the only person still alive; step two was to make sure that the vehicle was still combat effective. That’s when I noticed that the entire front of my truck was ablaze and I reached down to grab my machine gun in one hand and the fire extinguisher in the other and kicked open my door.
I still wasn’t completely sure how long it had been since the initial blast to when I stepped out of my truck, but I immediately saw the burning wreckage of the car and the inferno that use to be the other Humvee. I thought to myself that there was no way anyone inside of that truck could have lived if the fire had already spread that quickly, then turned in order to the put out the fire on my vehicle before it spread any more than it did. I never got the chance to put out the fire though, as the moment I turned around to face away from the car, the gas tank erupted in a secondary blast from the heat of the fire burning around it. I was blasted with pieces of car, scorching gas, and burning hot chunks of what was left of the driver’s lower body. And for the second time in a matter of minutes, I was taken away from the battlefield to that lovely place of peace and quiet.
The next thing I remember is standing up against my vehicle, with the fire extinguisher powder all over the side and nowhere near the fire, yet it was somehow put out already. My Platoon Leader, 1st Lieutenant Betty, came running over to me, spun me around and grabbed on to both of my shoulders and shook me. He asked if I was okay, in which I nodded my head, though I can’t remember being able to hear him thanks to the ringing in my ears. I was numb all over and not in the mood to let anything else happen to anyone, still thinking that we just lost an entire truck full of guys. I took up a position in front of my truck and began scanning the area for the expected barrage of small arms fire that usually accompanies car bomb attacks. I noticed a car had stopped on the top of the overpass just down the road from where everything had happened, and two guys jumped out and started shooting AK-47s in our general direction. I began to return fire with my M249 machine gun as a few other members of my platoon who weren’t injured came over to assist in repelling the ambush.
It wasn’t long after that the air support showed up in the form of twin Apache Attack Helicopters, who quickly commenced firing on the vehicle sitting on the overpass. The entire car and two occupants were turned into burning lumps of molten nothingness within seconds of being hit by the “birds’” cannons. I do remember smiling to myself as I watched the Apaches make the attack run on the enemy, so quickly and so deadly. Now that things seemed to be more under control, I got back into my truck and mounted the M240 machine gun that was originally manned by our gunner. I figured that since I wasn’t hurt all that bad, it’d be best to make sure we have as much security as we could while we waited on the EVAC vehicles.
It wasn’t until the other Platoon out on patrol arrived to aid us in support that I realized I was actually hurt pretty bad. Sergeant Robinson had made his way back over to our vehicle after tending to our gunner with the Medic; he asked me if I was sure I was okay. I took a moment to reach down to my right side, just under my protection vest, to what I thought was just sweat. It turns out I wasn’t just sweating, but was in fact bleeding out of my side and from under my vest; I also finally noticed that my right wrist and arm had various materials burned into it. Sgt. Rob told me that I needed to go see the medics with the rest of the wounded towards the rear of the observation post, and he took over my spot on the machine gun.
Once I climbed back out of the vehicle, and after I finally realized I was hurt, things started to go dizzy on me again. I’m not sure if it was from the loss of blood, or just from the adrenaline draining out of my system, but it seemed like I had to walk miles instead of just feet to get to medical truck. On the way, I was crisscrossing around different parts of what had once been the car. One rather large piece startled me once I realized what it actually was; the upper half of the guy driving the car in the first place. He was missing everything below his waist, and most of both of his arms. He had to have been nearly fifty feet from where the car went off at, and yet he was still moving his mouth with his eyes open. I’m not sure if he was just dead and making dying movements, or if he was actually still alive and just in shock. Nobody was too worried about making sure he’d live; that much I do know.
It wasn’t until I was loaded up on the EVAC M113 armored track that I finally found out nobody in my Platoon was killed, or even wounded all that bad. Some burns here and there, and my gunner being the most severe with his face and arm wounds, but overall well off considering the severity of the attack and closeness in which it took place. We all got patched up at the nearest emergency aid station tent, and made sure Clark was going to be okay on his way to Germany for surgery to put his face back together. The last thing I remember vividly about that day is standing in on the side of my truck, holding my freshly bandaged wrist and starring at the air conditioner unit. It had taken a direct blow from a huge piece of shrapnel and was completely destroyed. If I was the type of person to cry, I think I would have at that moment; all that time wasted the night before working on getting the AC fixed for one day worth of use.
That car bombing attack happened in early April and we ended up finally leaving Iraq in mid June of that year. I had gone nearly ten months of avoiding being wounded in all the attacks and firefights during that time, and yet my number finally came up on that day. I was awarded the Purple Heart medal for my wounds, and an Army Commendation Medal for exemplary service during Operation Iraqi Freedom 2.5, as well as a Combat Infantryman Badge and a few scars. But I left that country in one piece, just like I said I would.
