Soldier Humor

Nobody thought this is what it would be like. Nobody seriously thought his is the way it was going to be.

It's been like 55 days now- our guys out doing missions every day. Each mission about 18 to 24 hours long...how long can we continue this? How long before we are totally used up?

We have a board in our room that tracks the number of times each of us has been hit by either IEDs, VBIEDs, or small arms fire. It's a matter of honor as each patrol comes in to update the board. People argue I am tied for first. I say it's CPT T, because a couple of mine are iffy...some of the small arms fire is from the Iraqi police...

126 days in country. 42 missions. Sometime our luck is going to run out.

There is only 21 days until I go home on leave. I will have 15 days there to make love to my wife, play with my kids, chase my dog...

It will never be far from my mind...what is that bag on the side of the road? IED or trash? That person on the roof. Sniper... or girl hanging laundry?

When I get back...189 days left in country, with an option to renew...

We are all dead men walking. The lucky ones will have the sentence postponed.

God Damn you people.

There is a Fine Line...

I have heard that there is a fine line between many things in our existance. Truth and Fiction, for example...or I suppose a better example would be Evil and Good.

In the military there are many of these fine lines. Some of them are subtle, like respect for your superior officers and sarcastic disrepect...or thinking inside the box and stepping outside it to accomplish your mission.

One of the most clear of these thin lines are between the warriors and the rest of the Army.

To me, the warrior is the one who faces the cutting edge of the fight, out in the wild getting shot at, blown up, and having to deal with all the realities of warfare not covered in those pretty history books that are all the rage in the PX book section.

This warrior is not always the typical one you would think of, 6 foot two inches, 240 pounds of physical prime US male. Sometimes the warrior is a skinny little blonde headed girl.

The one skinny little blonde I am thinking of is a warrior. She is a supply sergeant working in an Iraqi supply depot. One day a series of rockets rained down on the depot wounding her and several of the Iraqis. She responded by remdering first aid to the wounded Iraqis, saving two of their lives, before seeking medical attention.

One would say that she was lucky, this was a fluke. Except...It happened once before to her.

She was riding in a convoy that was hit with an IED. She took over the convoy and got them out of the killzone. She called in the medivac for the wounded.

She is truely a warrior.

She is 20 years old.

This thin line seperates the warriors from the others...the REMFs...the FOBits...and the other words used to describe those who's combat existance is full of living on a fire base eating three hot meals a day and complaining there are no good DVDs in the PX.

This people are uncomfortable around the warriors and do their best to shunt them off away from their comfy world.

We we return from a patrol we usually try to hit the mess hall. I have been told by a fat Sergeant Major in starched DCUs that I should go change my dirty, sweaty uniform before I enter the 'dining facility'. "Muther-Fucker, I just spend 24 hours riding a gun on patrol! Get your fat ass out of my way before I cut you down."

But it doesn't stop at that. I have been told that some 'commanders' on the US side have complained that my advisors are 'in violation of AR 670-1 (Uniform Regulations) by wearing illegal patches on our uniforms.

These patches are our Iraqi Units' and we wear them on our pockets to symbolize our belonging to the unit. We do this in much the same way the American Advisors in Vietnam wore the unit patches that they were assigned to.

BUT- here in 3ID land all that is important is that we obey- without question- the WORD.

my thinking:

AS LONG AS WE CONTINUE TO THINK ALONG OUTDATED LINES OF THE PEACETIME ARMY THE LONGER WE WILL BE IN IRAQ.

There is a thin line between the bullshit and the battlefield.

I have been ordered by my commander that all our patches will be removed and all uniforms will follow uniform regulations.

we will lose this war.

Fallen Comrade

We lost and Advisor this week. He was killed in action while on operations with his Iraqi Unit. Operational Security requires me not to mention his name or his unit, nor the location of his death.

He leaves behind a family who will miss him very much. Those of us who remain here will miss him as well.

I did not know this soldier very well, as we are a large organization scattered all across Iraq. I had met him during our training prior to coming over, and again after I arrived in country.

He is not the first Advisor to fall. I doubt he will be the last. His sacrifice will be remembered.

20 Mission Crush

I remember old movies about WWII American Bomber Crews and the 20 Mission Crush. That is the shape their visor caps took after twenty bomber missions and was the mark of an old veteran.

Our team has been in Iraq for 100 days. Most of that time has been spent getting the 1st Mech Brigade up and running outside the 'wire'. During that time I have been on 28 combat missions.

Of those 28 missions 13 of those have drawn enemy fire.

So, about every four days we are running a mission. About 46% of those missions have recieved fire. On average those missions last about 15 to 20 hours, so maybe 490 hours of missions in 2400 hours (17.5 hours per on average).

We expect our mission profile to increase once the Battalion goes on line. The Tank Battalion is running on average three seperate missions a day.

How do you explain to the people back home what we do? On average I am pulling a mission every one out of five hours, of which I get shot at about once every 27 minutes?

i don't count the attacks here at the FOB, wich are annoying at best, humorous at there norm (Our friends in the 3ID tend to overreact to badly aimed mortar fire...IMHO).

Today on a combat patrol we came under fire from a heavy machine gun at one location, and under an attempted RPG attack at another. Seems the idiot forgot to arm the rocket.

On the positive side- I got some patches.

100 days down, 235 more to go.

5640 hours.
338400 minutes.
2,030,400 seconds...


oh...just been told we have a mission for tomorrow.

2,030,397 seconds...