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...