“Uh…I’m gonna get out of the turret”

The Iraq war has changed many things about the army especially equipment. The Improvised explosive device or IED has been the #1 killer of Americans since the war began. To combat this threat the Army has tried fielding numerous modifications to existing vehicles and new vehicles period to protect its expensive night vision goggles, weapons, radios, oh yeah, and soldiers if possible. Soldiers are cheap, but those Infrared laser sights? Outrageously expensive. So one vehicle expressly designed to protect the army’s sensitive items and it’s crew is the MAXX PRO Mine resistant, Ambush Protected (MRAP) truck. The MAXX-PRO is basically a dump truck chassis with like 30,000 lbs of extra armor strapped onto it. Being 13 feet tall, and 13 feet wide, with a majority of it’s weight being in the top 2/3rds of the vehicle. This idiotic distribution of weight caused for a very unstable vehicle, especially if it’s not on an American quality highway. Iraq tends to lack those, especially after we blew the bejeezus out of this country. The MAXX-PRO has an alarming tendency to rollover, generally killing it’s crew. In fact, there’s been months in Iraq more guys have died in MRAP accidents than actual combat. To try to nullify rollover casualties the army began a series of training on how to react to vehicle rollover, even using an MRAP mock up that uses hydraulics, sort of like a carnival ride (of doom) to physically rollover and force the crew to react.

So there I was balls deep in a mission, driving on COB Adder to the gate to leave for a road trip full of oppressing the locals, energy drink consumption, and iPod jam sessions. The main road was under construction so the convoy was forced to drive on a temporary dirt road beside the pavement. Now there was a rather soft shoulder and deep ditch to my right. The classic MRAP rollover scenario was about to unfold, almost. So we’re driving about 3 mph (the army isn’t big on getting places in a timely manner, hence why we’ve been at war for 9 years.) Suddenly the truck began to list to the right side and I could tell something was afoot. Before I realized that the shoulder of the road was crumbling under the 52,000 pounds of truck sitting on it, we were at at least a 30 degree angle (30 degrees is the threshold for rollover in these trucks.) After tilting to the right we slid into the ditch. We stopped moving at teetered at that angle for a few seconds, I looked at Sgt H, my truck commander who calmly said “take it slow” I heard my gunner Matt who said “Uh…I’m gonna get down from the turret” to which I replied “yeah…you should probably do that” he calmly got down and laid in the floor holding onto whatever he could, including our company 1st Sergeant who sat there in stone cold silence. We were all remarkably calm, then our Convoy Commander started flipping out over the Radio net, yelling “ALL STOP ALL STOP TRUCK 2 YOU’RE ABOUT TO ROLL!!!! (insert string of expletives here)” I inched the wheel to the right, and let the truck slide into the ditch, righting itself to a normal position. We all looked at each other and started laughing hysterically, realizing we should probably all be dead. A few words of thanks were exchanged between us and God, the only thing that probably kept us alive, we backed out of the ditch and drove on.

When we stopped at a FOB for dinner like all soldiers do, stories were exchanged over the table. Apparently we were the calmest people in the whole convoy during the incident. Most of the guys thought we were totally going to buy the farm, Luckily thanks to a higher power, our truck crew and our fearless First Sergeant lived to “fight” another day.

Of course this would happen to me.

So before we left Camp Shelby, Mississippi for Iraq our “Leadership” decided that we could go on a 4 day pass. After 2 months of dealing with the idiocy of Camp Shelby a nice dose of normal civilian life was more than inviting. Unlike a few of my companions who opted to go to New Orleans and rack up a 12,000 dollar tab of debauchery, I decided to save money, stay out of trouble and just go home. Overall it was probably the best 4 days I could have had. I did everything I had set out to do. I got to visit VMI, I got to dress up and go out with my friends, spend some one on one time with my closest friends, and of course quality time with the family, including one last Sunday service at Church of the Holy Spirit.
Before the service started I went up to our Pastor, Quigg Lawrence, to say hey, and he was talking to another guy. Once Quigg saw me he introduced me to the man we has talking to. It turned out that he had been in the first Iraq war, Operation Desert Storm. After discussing the finer points of living in this miserable country, and fighting the heathen savages of Babylon we went our separate ways for the service.
At the end of the service, after the Holy Communion and before the benediction and passing the peace (it’s an Anglican thing) Quigg motioned me to come to the front of the sanctuary by the altar to be prayed over before I set off for vacation, erm, I mean “battle” in Iraq. He asked anyone close to me to come up and pray with us and to my surprise the man I had met before the service came up and grabbed the mike to pray over me. I was truly touched at this gesture of a fellow soldier, who merely an hour ago I never knew, imploring the almighty to protect me in combat. At the conclusion of the prayer pastor Quigg gave the benediction and we began to depart the sanctuary. On my way out my new friend gave me a business card and told me to drop him a line once I arrived in Iraq, he’d love to hear how things are going over there. I put the card in my pocket shook his hand and told him I’d see him in January.
Once I arrived at the car I told my family how nice the guy was, and how he even gave me his card so I could drop him an E-mail so he could keep in touch. I took the card out of my pocket and finally read it.

Family Choice.
Funerals & Cremations
www.familychoicefunerals.com

Name
Phone
E-mail
Business address.

I Heart Irony.

Hollywood Ruined it.

Americans have always had a fondness for movies. Every year billions of dollars get spent and made in the film business. Like every American kid I grew up watching Tom Hanks save Private Ryan, Mel Gibson lay waste to the English (twice in fact), Robert Duval conducting air assault missions on Viet Cong villages to the operatic sound of “Ride of the Valkyries.” I saw Ewan MacGregor, Eric Bana, and numerous other stars storm the city of Mogadishu, and a cast of no names fight the Nazis from Normandy, to Holland, to Bastogne, and finally Germany. Just like many girls, who’s standard for men has been put hopelessly high by Disney and Nicholas Sparks, my expectations for my first combat mission were about on the level of Omaha Beach…well maybe not that insane, but I at least though I’d see someone shoot at something.

All I saw was trash, mud shacks, and an amazingly sucky country.

War is boring. Not like a weekend in Salem with nothing going on boring, more like “oh my gosh if no one shoots at us soon I’m going to lose my mind” boring. The fact that we do these convoys all through the night doesn’t help the situation. If you want to experience Iraq, go put on a bicycle helmet get in the biggest, heaviest, most awkward vehicle you can find, drive from Roanoke, to Harrisonburg, to Philidelphia, Pa all through the night. Sleep half the day, then the next night drive back. Welcome to my job.

To ease the boredom we found things to do. We shot pen flares at each other, and hit our own vehicle with star cluster rounds from our m203 grenade launcher, threw things at the Iraqi police checkpoint, threw phosphorescent chemlight juice at each other and the vehicles. We answered life’s most challenging questions such as “who is hotter, Jessica Alba, or Jessica Biel?” I heard there may have been a hood-surfing incident but that is just rumor and speculation. A certain gunner almost got a phone number from a local national while we were blocking traffic from going on a one lane bridge…too bad it was a male local national. I may or may not have seen a gun truck attempt to play chicken with an Iraqi tractor trailer. Your tax dollars at work.

The Counter IED training they gave us at Camp Shelby was a joke. EVERYTHING out there looks like an IED (improvised explosive device, basically a roadside bomb that has been the #1 killer of soldiers in Iraq.) The whole country is covered in trash, the roads are full of potholes, not to mention it’s dark so you can’t see anything more than 10 meters or so off the road. Saying I wasn’t ever nervous or scared would be a lie, there were a few mad sketch neighborhoods we drove through… luckily it was around 2 am, so you’d have to be one dedicated heathen savage to sit that long and wait to shoot at or blow up a convoy.

So thus begins the longest 10 months of my life. The most frustrating part is that these missions interrupt my workout schedule, they ALWAYS fall on salsa dancing night at the club, and I don’t get internet while we’re away from our base, but as they say, war is hell.