Kilts, Ke$ha, and the Best Mission Ever.

So there I was at camp Taji, Iraq getting the truck ready for the return trip, escorting a bunch of trucks back to our FOB. Missions have become routine, and we’re all getting a little tired of this job (myself included) so I took it upon myself to mix it up and make our lives a little more interesting. I dug through my rucksack to find an article of clothing that I had been saving for this very occasion. An olive green, cotton canvas kilt, it even had cargo pockets. Changing into a kilt in a combat loaded MRAP is quite a challenge, but after a minute I finally had it on. Cameras came out, laughs were had and someone actually had the nerve to ask if I was wearing it on the way back. Who brings a kilt to war and doesn’t wear it? Not this guy. We load up, and move out. I was suddenly really scared after realizing I going into combat with a kilt on, how embarrassing would it be to get wounded or killed in a kilt?

After leaving the gate and getting the mission jitters out of the way I was suddenly on cloud nine. This was probably the most comfortable I’ve been the entire deployment, like seriously guys I would highly, HIGHLY recommend it next time you’re on a 9 hour road trip. www.utilikilts.com check it out. Seriously. So we drove all night till our MRAP is low on fuel, and we needed to “Splash” which means we take our 5 gallon fuel cans lashed to the MRAP and pour them into the tank while we’re pulled on the side of the road, in Indian country. This was usually my favorite part of these missions, for 15 minutes I got to feel like I’m actually an infantryman rather than a truck driver. I got to walk around, outside, pull security with my rifle, it’s really pretty cool. SO the truck rolls to a stop, I opened my door and leaped on onto the road with my kilt on, this scene needed one thing to go from epic, to legendary status and that was 9.5 inches of cold American steel affixed onto my rifle’s muzzle. To complete the ensemble I drew and fixed my bayonet, and menacingly stared at the passing Iraqi drivers, who had absolutely no idea what was going on, and why an American kid was wearing a skirt, and pointing a rifle with a knife on it at them. After the truck was re-fueled, some facebook pictures were taken, and enough Iraqis were oppressed with a Gaelic vengance, we loaded up and drove on.

That alone made it the best mission ever but it actually got better. “how is this possible?” you may ask, I myself wondered the same thing until the dance party unfolded.

On the horizon we saw this huge black cloud of smoke. We had no idea what it’s deal was, but as we got closer we could see flames, like A LOT of flames. It turned out a fuel tanker had wrecked and caught on fire in the middle of the road and now we had to go around it. My gunner could feel the heat from it even though we were pretty far away. On the other side of the wreck traffic was stacked up for quite some time. It was 8 am, we hadn’t slept in a long time, we were bored, and then our favorite pop artist, Ke$ha, came on the iPod. We looked to truck one and saw their gunner, Juan Diaz (see “the cosmic power of rain turtles” post) breaking it down in the turret like he was at Radford University on a Saturday night. There was only one thing we could do, and that’s dance our faces off. We made total fools out of ourselves as we were passing the Iraqi traffic. We danced like there was no tomorrow, for a brief moment we were at a Frat party in Blacksburg, Harrisonburg, or Charlottesville, not covered in Kevlar in a desert. As my gunner was doing "the reject" in the turret, we started to notice something we never saw coming. The people in their cars were dancing too, every car we passed; the passengers started dancing in their cars as they were stuck in traffic. The rest of the convoy said that when they passed the cars, even after we were a half mile ahead they were still dancing, which then made our crews dance, until there was one big mile long dance party on the Iraqi highway. Ke$ha, if you’re somehow reading this, know that for a brief moment, your music stopped a war, and started a party.

"FALL IN!"

Since the Iraq war is now a rather low intensity conflict, with very little actual war happening, the Army, rather than leave the country, feels the need to find things for it’s soldiers to do instead of the usual sitting around and doing nothing, making lady GaGa music videos, and going to the gym 12 hours a day. To occupy time the Army occasionally does training to keep it’s soldiers in shape and proficient at their jobs. Since we’re a light infantry unit, our main job is (supposed to be) shooting things, and walking places. Since it’s too hot to walk, and let’s face it, no one really wants to do that, the command decided that we were due for a range day here at Tallil. The wonderful thing about the desert is that nothing lives there. Southern Iraq basically looks exactly like the deserts in the movies, flat, dry, hot, and lifeless, except there’s the occasional random berm or road to nowhere. Well the command felt the need to verify that outside the gate was in fact a wide open desert with no one living in it so we could go shoot. This meant that a “leader’s recon” of the site had to take place. Now usually the term “Leaders Recon” is used to denote the hours before an attack where a small group of the leadership sneaks up closer to the objective to see what exactly they’re attacking. So when I was told that my truck was being chose for a “leader’s recon” I was expecting that we’d be thrown into an attack soon, in reality I was driving 20 minutes outside the gate into Indian country to make sure that the desert is in fact flat, lifeless, and hot. Why was my truck picked? Well to quote a confidential source “yeah, we picked your truck because you guys are dependable, and won’t tell the CO to go screw himself.”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the reward for being a dependable, good soldier in the army is getting put of crummy details.

So we all load up in 3 trucks to go make sure the desert is flat and lifeless. We drive for like 20-25 minutes till we’re definitely in the middle of nowhere, at a stretch of desert with a few random berms, a narrow road that appears to go to nowhere and no targets whatsoever. The CO said we were on the range, and told all officers and NCOs to get out and meet on him while the junior enlisted pull security to make sure they don’t get jumped, sniped, mortared, etc. What unfolded looked like a scene from a terrible war movie. We had 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 1 first sergeant, 2 staff sergeants, and 3 sergeants all huddled in a mass about the size of a practice target on a mortar range, silhouetted against the skyline on top of a berm looking like a shooting gallery for a sniper. My driver and I, while pulling security to make sure that nothing happened to our fearless band of leaders realized pulling security was boring and then opted to turn our leader’s recon into a facebook picture photo shoot. In our defense we still remained vigilant while taking pictures, and always left someone up in the machine gun turret. After a few minutes of modeling my new bayonet, and the leadership discussing how the range would work we piled back in the trucks and headed back to base.

A few days later the actual range day kicked off. The whole company loaded up into our trucks and we all convoyed out there to the middle of the desert. Now there’s a few things that you don’t do in a war zone, bunching together, silhouetting yourself, standing at attention, and saluting. The reason for this is that big bunches of people get attacked with artillery and mortars, people who are silhouetted against the sky get shot, people standing at attention have zero situational awareness, and if you salute someone, you’re basically telling any sniper that “Hey Mr. Sniper, this guy is an officer, if you shoot him in the face, we won’t have anyone in charge.” So where was I? oh yeah, so we get out of the trucks, stand around, wait for instructions on how this range will work until we hear the two words no soldier should ever hear when he’s outside the wire, in full battle gear, in a combat zone.

“Alright guys, FALL IN!”

Wait…what? Like seriously? We’re really doing this? I mean, this company has done a lot of really dumb, and silly things, but have a formation in a warzone? Like for realz guys? So like soldiers, we all form up into our squads and sections, and then go to attention. Eyes forward, chest out, standing tall. The CO comes up, the 1st Sergeant salutes, the CO salutes back, they call up people to get promoted. They promote some guys, more saluting, more standing at attention, more being in a big block of people in the open, then after we finish getting talked at, we finally fall out and start the range day. I seriously stood in a formation, not only in a combat zone, but outside the wire, in a place where people want to kill you. I mean, we all honestly deserved getting blown up for being that stupid. Though someone else brought up another point, if this country is at the point we can stand in a formation, salute each other, and in general, be idiots outside our protected bases, why do we even need to be here anymore? Just food for thought.