In January of 2003 myself and the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines were deployed to Kuwait. After a couple of months of jerking off we got the order to invade Iraq which we did. For this particular post I would like to speak about one day, although obviously there were many other days, which I may talk about later. For some reason this day popped into my mind recently.
So when we invaded Iraq we did so in Tracks, amphibious assault vehicles that more or less resemble tanks but without the armor, and float on water. Now I was a radio operator attached to line company India, so basically the Company Officer dragged me around by my handset. One day three tracks broke down all at the same time, and we were forced to go it on foot. India Company happened to be lead element for the entire Battalion on this day. As we were hoofin it my CO turns and looks at me and says, “Anderson we have reports of snipers in this area so don’t walk so close to me”. Now if you are not familiar with war, snipers know 2 things: shoot the radio operator and knock out their communication, or they know the person next to the radioman is the man in charge and shoot him. Mind you I am walking with a radio that is equipped with an 8 foot antenna waving in the air yelling shoot me.
I don’t get sniped but we do receive fire from our left. As we are trained we all yell out contact left, drop and return fire. To help you picture in your mind what was happening: there was this long ditch to our left (you know what a ditch looks like right?) and the enemy is was on the opposite side of that ditch, say 300 meters. There was this make shift bridge not too far away that connected to the opposite side of the ditch. The CO grabbed me and we dropped about 3 or 4 feet down the side of the ditch. Then the order was given for everyone to cross that bridge which was under heavy fire. This is going to sound strange but as I watched all of our guys cross that bridge without ANY hesitation whatsoever my eyes literally teared up. Can you believe that shit, in the middle of a firefight I’m crying like a little bitch? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain, but when you witness pure courage it is truly breathtaking. Anyway, the CO thought we were safe but we were not, guys started popping out of sewer holes on either side of the ditch. My CO drew his pistol as did I and we started firing, they turned and fired back. One of our SAW (squad automatic weapon) gunners turned and returned fire while they were shooting at the CO and me. I felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder and dropped my pistol, but that SAW gunner for all intents and purpose mowed some motherfuckers down and probably saved my life. Unfortunately he was hit in the stomach. His fire team carried him to the other side of the ditch where myself and the CO were located. I called for a medevac. The corpsman did what he could to stop the bleeding. He died. The corpsman lost it, just screaming and crying and what not. I had to call off the medevac, but you can’t just say over the radio: so and so died don’t need you anymore. It’s bad for morale. Instead you say ‘the injured Marine is stabilized and the situation is not as urgent as before, over’.
,
Humanity by Dog: "Throw the human species a bone and watch them kill each other over it"
ReplyDeleteShame... such a shame. But an ordinary extraordinary person like yourself, survived and was given the rite of passage to scribe a thank you to your heros above. To do them justice whole heartedly... is to rise out of the trenches of 2003...
Stabilize yourself as the urgency is yet to come.
Oh, so that’s how you got shot! Much more dramatic than my bullet in the leg!
ReplyDeleteHa, a little bit
Delete