Convoy WTF? Collection 1, Volume 1, Section 1, Chapter 1.

With the sky starting to lighten up in the horizon, I knew that our all night patrol was coming to an end. Just a few more checkpoints, a short security halt, and we would be on our way back to the base. A long, uneventful night time patrol on semi deserted roads had come up with nothing but the fact that we seriously needed to upgrade our night vision capabilities. I suppose that it is safe to say, several years after the fact, that we were woefully under-equipped. No IR capabilities, no up-armor, hell, for a while there, the most powerful weapons we had were a couple of saws, a middle finger, and bad breath. Straining one's eyes for hours at a time will result in the mother of all migranes, let me tell you. It essentially boiled down to two options.

At night, drive with your regular...

1) Lights on. This would allow you to spot (some) land mines, and possibly avoid them.
n.b. nothing better for Mahmoud on the hillside to gauge your position at night than by your headlights. If he was using an IED, you were screwed.
2) Lights off. This would allow you to (hopefully) sneak past the above mentioned Mahmoud and his nasty little toys. If he had put out any land mines, however...

I decided to call for a short halt before we returned to base. We pulled off the road, circled the wagons, and killed the engines. Marines got busy doing their extended sweeps, making sure that there was nothing in the immediate vicinity that warranted our attention. I got on the radio with company to inform them of our current position, status, and future intended action. Pulling out the map, I blinked...snort....mrph....jerked my head up to hear Lcpl. Schnozz yelling something in the distance.

'What the hell ever happened to noise discipline?', I though. I looked around. Sand and a whole lot of nothing else everywhere. Marines sitting in the turrets, standing guard. Marines spread out on the perimeter, standing guard. One Lcpl. taking a deuce behind a pitiful bush, giving the finger to another guy taking a picture of him.

Turning my attention back to Schnozz, I could make out ....looks li...[garbled]...mine...base..

Looks like Schnozz had sniffed out the companies first land mine.

Walking over for confirmation, it was pretty clear that it was some sort of anti-vehicle mine. As I am most definitely NOT a member of EOD, that was the extent of my analysis. I instructed the Marines to pull back to the vehicles, and to re-check the ground immediately around the Hummers. I didn't want to find another mine the hard way when we pulled back out to the road.

Looking around in the area where the mine had been planted, I could make out the faint outlines of a trail. Didn't really make too much sense for a 'road' to be here, as the terrain was pretty level. I understood why someone would not want to drive on the paved road, due to the number of explosions, but we had been trained to not drive the same route, if possible, when going off road to avoid setting up a predictable pattern for enemy attack. Perhaps the trail was etched out by the previous Battalion, or by locals traveling to another village out to the east. I very cautiously picked my way out of the area, and returned to the vehicles to make my report.

I was given the order to secure the area and await the arrival of an EOD team. This kind of put a kink in the much anticipated rack-ops. See, while the EOD team was notified, prepared themselves, and hit the road, we had to stay on site. I wasn't too worried about an ambush, being in the middle of nowhere, but we had been up all night, and looked like we were going to be stuck here for a few more hours. One of the other squads had to return to the base, pick up EOD, and then escort them to where we were. ETA was given at 1.5 hours.

Approximately 4 hours later...

My northernmost-posted Marine rogered up on the squad radio to announce another convoy traveling south to our location. The last two announcements had actually been regular resupply convoys, and not the EOD team that we were waiting for, so I wasn't getting my hopes up for this one, either. All of my drivers were sleeping, if they could, simmering as they were in sweat. (I had no desire to finish an extra long patrol only to have one of my vehicles drive off a bridge 15 minutes from the base due to a sleepy driver.) The rest of us were rotating watches in the turrets of the vehicles, keeping an update of how many lizards came around to check us out. I turned down a request to sharpen pistol skills on one particularly sneaky lizard we named 'Ahmed'.

After about 10 minutes of watching the convoy gradually come closer, it pulled up to our position and came to a stop. A huge number of EOD personnel, Army, if I remember correctly, dismounted and came up to our vehicles, about 40 feet off of the paved road. They asked who we were with, noted our recent arrival in country, and immediately assumed that we had called in a paint can lid.

There are some that will call in EOD for anything suspicious, and that is ok. Better safe than sorry. I suppose that EOD gets somewhat peeved the 56th time that they have to come out to clear an old pillow filled with trash, but that is what they get payed the big bucks for. I am happy to note that every time we called for EOD, they earned their money.

They were pleasantly surprised to discover that we had an actual, no-shit Italian land-mine on our hands. As they had their security element with them, they assumed control of the scene and set about training some newer soldiers on proper mine-sweeping ops. We mounted up, notified company, and set off back home. Not more than a few miles into the trip, one of the vehicle commanders came on the radio to announce that he definitely had a flat tire.

Sigh

An already looong patrol was getting incrementally longer, and I was not a happy camper. We pulled up to an old, abandoned, and mostly destroyed Iraqi National Guard checkpoint, and stopped for the tire change. Some goat herders who lived in one of the nearby tents saw our vehicles, wandered over, and proceeded to chat. They offered us some grapes, we gave them some bottled water and MREs. We both practiced our rudimentary language skills. I was pleased to note that they understood the majority of what I was trying to say in Arabic. They were shocked to find that we had a Muslim Marine (not myself, a Staff Sergeant that had come out on patrol with us). We gave them some smokes, and all was well in our little corner of the world.

The tire change was not going as quickly as it could have, due to the number of semi-professional back-home-car-tinkerers that we had in our squad. Too many chiefs, not enough indians sort of thing. I excused myself from the herders, and started back to the vehicle in question to find an ass to boot. When I was about half way there, in the distance to the south, I heard a muffled 'fwumpfwupmpfwump...fwumpfwump..brattbratt...fwumpfwump'. As the sounds of gunfire were coming from approximately where we had left the EOD team, it got my attention in a hurry. I yelled at the Marines to fix the tire or I would leave them behind. I dunno if they thought I would actually leave them, or they were determined not to miss out on the action, but they suddenly turned into the USMC / NASCAR tire-changing crew. Had that puppy off, tossed, and replaced in a heart beat. Marines were leaping into the vehicles, the vehicles were turned around, and the herders moseyed back to their tents.

As I jumped into my vehicle, Eagle Eyes flipped the switch on the speaker. The radio traffic filled the hummer. "...this is...[static]...taking...[garbled]....small arms...machine guns...[unintelligible]...north to...[something]...riendlies in the area, over?"

Sleepiness was forgotten and we hauled ass back to the EOD teams. 'Hauled ass' is a relative term, being as we were in old and decrepit vehicles, loaded down with all the ammo and sundry toys that we could carry, but we were moving as fast as safely possible. On the way, and in our rush, we forced a convoy traveling to the north onto the shoulder. Normally, the convoy would have the right of way, having a larger number of vehicles and a greater importance to the grand scheme of things, but when we saw them heading in our direction, we just flashed our lights, waved them over, and kept the pedal to the metal. As we had traveled the road not more than 20 minutes earlier, we could be reasonably certain that the roads were safe for the convoy to park for a minute as we passed. As far as I was concerned, providing support to an ambushed friendly unit held the highest priority, waaay above convoy priority. At the time, I didn't even think to question why the convoy hadn't stopped.

We arrived at the land mine site to find the EOD, worried about...us. For them, the gun fire had come from the north, as well as the same garbled radio traffic. Putting both accounts of the radio traffic together resulted in a little bit more understandable radio message.

"this is convoy 'ass nugget', we are going to take a minute to test fire our small arms fire and machine guns. We are traveling north to Camp Cupcake. Any friendlies in the area, over?"

Instead of making this announcement BEFORE opening fire, and what the hell, ensuring that there was actually nobody in the area, they just sent the traffic whenever, which turned out to be as they were firing.

Doc B.

Doc B. was an interesting fellow. He kind of struck me as one who, while he thoroughly enjoyed his position and duties, might have easily been a grunt in another life. Smoked like a chimney, cussed like a sailor, and knew his stuff.

To explain,

The position of Corpsman, what others call 'medic', is one that is not found in the Marine Corps. Corpsmen, like Chaplains, are provided to the Corps via the Navy. In training, they can usually be found in a safety vehicle, back from the firing line, waiting with a good book, in the event some hapless Marine discovers why it is not a good idea to stick ones finger in a bolt that is closing, dangle from a second story balcony before dropping to concrete, or learning why a particular plant in the jungle is named 'Black Palm'. Corpsmen throughout the Corps are usually named 'Doc', to his Marines. Some are there to finish reading the latest adventures of Conan, others are there because as a sailor, they normally don't get to do all the 'fun' stuff that we get to do. Doc. B was one of those.

He was quite knowledgeable in his area of expertise, and was eager to impart this knowledge to others. He was the one that in training in California that insisted that we should have at least two Marines per squad that knew as much as they could in regards to Doc's job. If he went down in Iraq, he didn't want to have to wait 20 minutes for the bird or for another squad's Corpsman to respond, he wanted someone to know how to do anything and everything to save him. He did let us know that for him personally, the first check to an unresponsive Doc. B. was to check 'the little Admiral'. "If he's gone, might as well zip me up, boys, no use bringing me back then, is there?"

One memorable class that he gave was the period of instruction on IVs and QuickClot. He gathered the platoon around him, got everyone where they could see his demo and proceeded with the class. This got him credit from me, as we had been at the old semi-abandoned Air Force base for about 3 weeks at the time, and wouldn't you know it, there were no showers anywhere. To say we were a little ripe in the hot Cali sun would be an understatement. Back to the class...

While hitting on basic, basic medical info for the Marines, he reached back into his little bag o' goodies, and pulled out this little rubber tube. He mentioned that like shooting a rifle, one had to have some modicum of focus and control when doing an IV. Especially in combat. ESPECIALLY if it was him we were going to be working on. He tied off the tube on his arm and proceeded to insert the needle into his vein. Made it look easy. While his demo was in process, he continued to instruct the Marines on the relevant information that the medical personnel were going to need back in the rear. "Those guys aren't going to have the foggiest as to what happened to put that Marine or Corpsman on their table, but believe it or not, the more information that they have, they better chance that you and I will have when it comes to treatment."

He withdrew his needle and ejected some of his blood on a disposable plate. "Now for the QuickClot. I'm not going to get into the details of this stuff, because honestly, I am not the expert on this. I do know, and you can think of it this way, is that this powder will help stop the bleeding on a traumatic wound. This is issued by the goverment, so you know it is good stuff." A few groans from the class. "For most wounds, a bullet hole, piece of shrapnel, just patch it up and tie it off. If it continued to bleed through, put more bandage on it. Those that are going to be in my First Responder class will get some more detailed training, but for the majority of youz guyz, that is all you will have time to worry about. This stuff", he said, shaking the bag of QuickClot for emphasis, "is to ONLY be used for emergencies like traumatic amputations, is there any other kind? huge wounds that won't stop spurting, etc."

He turned to the plate with his blood in it. "Normally, the blood is moving through your body, we'll just call it 'circulating around' (Har). When it exits the body for whatever reason, it maintains its liquid form for a little bit." He swirled the plate to demonstrate. Most of the guys were pretty into this class, but I noticed Lcpl. Cherry, over in the corner, looking a little green. "The reason that you only want to use this stuff as a last resort is because of this" he said as he poured the QuickClot on the plate of blood. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then wisps of smoke started to curl from the plate. Then the plate started to bubble and curl, itself. To my layperson eyes, the blood 'cooked' and holy shit, dried up real quick. Doc. B. took the plate, turned it over, and all saw that no blood dripped down to the dirt. "This stuff will hurt like hell, but it will stop the bleeding. Besides, if you are looking at your legs across the road, you will already be in a world of hurt, don't ya think?"

"Now, for the practical application of the class." Pointing to an enthusiastic PFC., "No, asshole, you ain't gonna get to use the QuickClot on anybody for training, I was talking about the IVs. Any volunteers?" In true Marine Corps fashion, he locked on to the least motivated Marine of the group and voluntold him to 'get yer ass up here, boy'. Cherry was an interesting shade of pale green at this time. Hee hee.

Doc B. then patiently talked Cherry through the process of inserting an IV for the group of Marines. He rolled up his own sleeve as the test dummy. He explained where he kept the needles in his bag, and how to get to them. He explained the purpose behind using the rubber ties, strips of cloth, or whatever was handy to search for the vein. He noted several alternative veins that one might be able to get to, should the arms not be a good point of access. He stopped several times to explain to Cherry that if he went any further, he would poke the needle through his $%^#@ arm, bone and all, and pin in to his chest. "Stop, son. Breath. Goddamn! Missed it again! Pull that bad boy out and try it again." After Cherry had completed a needle insertion to his satisfaction and without passing out or tossing lunch, I was starting to wonder if Doc was going to need some of that QuickClot stuff, after all.

Chaplains

Chaplains, like corpsman, are naval personnel that serve with Marines. I have had the pleasure of knowing more than a few chaplains and have gotten quite a few stories from them alone.

The first chaplain that really struck a chord was Father 'Joseph'. He had actually served as a Marine sometime in the late '80s, gotten out of the Corps, lived in the civilian world for a while, felt the call of God, became a priest, signed up for the Navy, and found himself right back with the Marines. He figured it was God showing him where he was needed, I kind of suspected that Murphy had his fingers in the process somewhere. Anyways, this guy was cool.

His introductory speech was given by our platoon commander. The Captain gave a brief bio, and explained that we might see Father Joseph wandering around here and there. Captain turned the floor over to the Chaplain, and left to take care of some other business. Father Joe expounded on his bio, and emphasized that he was an enlisted man before he was a priest, so more likely than not any of the trash that we were doing, he could relate to as he had probably been doing the same stuff, if not worse. He mentioned that one did not have to be Catholic to need to talk to him, his office was open to all Marines, religious or not. Proof of his enlisted Marine Corps lineage was evident when he spoke of 'the rule'.

"I could give a rusty @#%! about anything else, but if you take the name of sweet Jesus in front of me, I will kick. your. ass., understand?" Something you don't hear everyday from a) an officer or b) a priest. The man turned out to be a great asset, and actually had one of the best singing voices I have heard in person.

Another notable Chaplain was one in Iraq. My squad had just lost a man and had several laid up in several hospitals in and outside of Iraq. We had enough numbers on the FOB to support another couple of squads taking our place for a day or two. One of them promptly got hit and lost two Marines with several others seriously wounded. Morale (read overwhelming desire to make a serious bump to the enemy body count) was still high, but was showing signs of stress.

We got the word that a sister squad from another FOB way up North was making a trip down to our FOB with a delivery and to possibly help out with the patrol rotation. I made several trips to the command center to see what was going on in the area of operations, and to drink the 'good' coffee. On the patrol rotation or not, if there was some serious shit going down, my Marines would be ready to go at a moments notice. On one trip I noticed that the day had been somehwhat quiet, on another, I heard that the squad was patrolling down to our FOB with an unusually large number of people. The squad wasn't going to stay more than a day or two, but the extra bodies were going to stay and fill in the new boat spaces in our squads.

That evening, I was in the command center as the patrol arrived. I had just gotten the down and dirty update on the upcoming schedule of events for the next couple of days, and was just about to go greet my buddies from up North and to pass the word to my squad. As I was exiting the command center, I almost ran over an officer on his way in from the newly arrived patrol.

A description of hatches in remote Forward Operating Bases in Middle al Nowhereia, Iraq.

Aside from the standard sandbags that are all over the place, a concerted effort is made to have some sort of contraption that blocks the light from the interior of buildings to the outside environment, in certain locations. This is intended to impede the enemies ability to use any light as a nighttime aiming point. Using stuff that was lying around, some of the more mechanically inclined among us constructed this small photo booth-lookin' contraption just outside of the command center hatch.

As we were face to face in the hatch exchanging our 'scuse me Sir/Sgt. I noticed a few things. First of all, he was an unfamiliar Naval Officer, the Chaplain, as it turned out. A few steps outside of the hatch, I realized a few things more. He had on a kevlar helmet and flack jacket just like everyone else out here, and strapped to his thigh was a drop holster. He had no weapon on him. The drop holster? Specially designed for his Bible.



A man goes out on patrol. He straps on his heavy flack jacket with the armor plates, knowing that it can only stop so much. With some of the stuff out there, you might as well be wearing a floral Hawaiian shirt. For what it is designed to do and a little more, it is great, if not a little heavy, gear. You snap on your Kevlar helmet, idly wondering if it really does work as well as advertised (n.b. it does). Water? Check. Eye protection? Check. Blood type and personal information reported to those that need it? Check and check. Where all others reach for their personal weapon that has been no further than arms reach for the past 5 months, you reach...for your Bible. To carry on patrol. In Iraq. To go where Marines have just yesterday been wounded and killed.

Crazy? Brave? CrazyBrave?

Because I'm a Pistol Sniper

So a number of years ago, I was at a civilian range, having a good time blazing away through way too much ammo. There were quite a few people at the range, new shooters and old hands alike. I, as it usually seems to be, was somewhere in the middle. Not as experienced as I would like to be, due to time and finances, but I do manage to hit what I aim at, every once in a while. I was talking to these two gentlemen to my right throughout the course of the afternoon. Great guys, one was a Vietnam Vet, the other, the Gulf War.

At some point in the afternoon, we were running through some pistol qualification or the other, and I was quite pleased with my own results. In between the cycles of firing and moving to different firing lines, I was actually shooting pretty darn good. Most of my rounds impacted right about where I wanted them too, although I did notice that I was starting to anticipate a few rounds. Gonna have to work on that, I thought to myself. Other than a few stray rounds off in the realm of the blank paper outside of the black (I sneezed, dammit / the sun got in my eyes / insert excuse here), there was a nice, respectable, and raggedy hole developing in the (mostly) center mass of the target. I thought to myself, 'Self, you're a stud with a pistol!'

I happened to glance over to the two old Marines to my right, and noticed that they were almost complete with their targets, in that on their targets they were drawing smiley faces, hearts with arrows through them, and were currently shooting out the letters printed along the top of each target.



sigh

Olde Corps

The Marine Corps Birthday Ball is a pretty significant event for Marines. It is a time to celebrate the Birthday of our beloved Corps, pay homage to the past victories of Marines, raise a glass to our brothers here and now, and look forward to future glories. One of the means by which we do this during the Birthday Ball is the ceremonial cutting of the cake.

Most cake cutting ceremonies that I have witnessed have been a pretty formal affair. Marines definitely do formal pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. As the Master of Ceremonies narrates, the C.O. will stand in front of the assembly with the oldest and youngest Marines present. A brief bio of both the oldest and youngest are read off, usually accompanied by low whistles and much clapping for the grey beard, and groans for the young'un (as the room en masse realizes exactly how young that devil pup actually is, and how old that makes the rest of us). They are afforded the honor of the first slices of cake, symbolizing the passing of knowledge from the old to the new.

As I said, a (usually) formal occasion.

In order to confirm that the oldest Marine is up there for the cake cutting, several things happen behind the scenes leading up to that moment. As the Marines arrive at the Ball, the Marines in charge of the ceremonies patrol the room, alternately ogling the dates and searching for any older, grizzled vets. They collect information, compare results, and then determine who they will need for the ceremony.

At a Birthday Ball several years ago, conversations were at a low roar, Marines were looking sharp in their dress blues, and everything was all hunky-dory. All in step with the music, several Marines in an honor guard escorted the C.O., a Private we'll call Pvt. Schmuckatelli, and a distinguished looking older gentleman up to the stage. Meanwhile, the M.C. for the evening was doing a pretty good job at moving the ceremonies right along, with a minimum of feedback from the microphones.

M.C. was covering familiar ground in the description of the cutting of the cake ceremony. He addressed the crowd in a clear voice, proudly describing the significance and solemnity of the event for all, old hands and new. As he came to the bio of the older Marine, he paused momentarily, adjusted the mic, and jumped right in.

M.C. - Honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, Marines. It is my pleasure to introduce to you Sergeant Fogey and Pvt. Schmuckatelli. Sergeant Fogey was born way back in... ...dropping out of his senior year in high school to join the Corps in 19... ...after boot camp, he was assigned -

This is where it got interesting...

From the back of the room, a decidedly crusty old bastard kind of voice sounded off with, "What in the holy hell is going on here? Gawd-dammit, I am a hell of a lot older that that bastard up there! Pipe down, Mildred, I'm not gonna sit down and shut up! What kind of @#$^!!& operation do they think they're running here!" He might have been older than dirt, but his voice carried very well, indeed. Good set of lungs on that one...

The room got veeery quiet aside from a few whispered comments and chuckles, an "uh...er" or two from the M.C., one of the organizers very clearly muttering "aw, crap", and the crusty old guy ranted on. The C.O. was frantically gesturing for somebody to DO SOMETHING, M.C. was in full stop mode, and the Pvt. just looked like he wanted to take cover, somewhere...else. Me, I had nearly snorted a whiskey flavored ice cube half-way up my left nostril, I was in no position for commentary, as humorous as the situation was.

Suffice it to say, that in the 'good old days', when something was in the slightest bit off, crusty old bastards (like the one we were honored to have present), had no problem with sounding off in the clear, colorful direct-to-the-point language that warms the hearts of all Marines, making them think fondly of their Drill Instructors.


Olde Corps

Poetry

"My Rifle"

The creed of a United States Marine
by
Major General W.H. Rupertus, USMC

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.

My rifle, without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will...

My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, not the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit...

My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will...

Before God I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life.

So be it, until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace!

The Big Green Weenie

The Big Green Weenie was a saying that we had to refer to any situation that, for what ever reason, was somewhat less than ideal... There was one situation where Mr. Murphy ensured that I got an up close, personal, and quite literal experience with the green monster.

I wasn't the greatest of Marines by any stretch of the imagination, but with a half-way decent head on my shoulders, and a near obsessive-compulsion streak regarding constant gear accountability developed as a result of some painful lessons learned early in the Corps, I eventaully found myself as a section leader of an 81mm mortar platoon. As an E-3.

For the uninitiated, take a platoon of around 50 Marines, and divide them up into three groups. Send 7 or 8 guys a few hills to the rear, and call them the brains of the operation. Those are the guys that figure out all of the math, i.e. so-and-so is getting slaughtered 4000 meters to our north, we need to lay indirect suppressing fire (preferably over their heads) for the next 2 minutes until helicopters can sweep the bad guys.

The guys on the radio calling in the fire would be the forward observers. They are the ones that get to snoop-n-poop ala boyhood Rambo fantasies, or more likely get attatched to some other unit to ensure that someone-who-knows-how-to-call-for-fire isn't on the radio screaming "AH shit, they're killing us!! Fire Away over there!". This being a training scenario, forward observers were usually up on the hills somewhere, conducting intense... infiltration techniques. Right. When I was an f.o. it was me, another Lcpl. and a salty old SSgt. SOP was get to the hill about 4 hours before the range went hot, and wake up Mr. Grumpy occasionally to make sure that we weren't jacking up the calls for fire.

The large group of about 40 or so Marines is the firing line. They are the ones that actually do the blowing of shit up. They are sometimes divided in to two groups, 1st and second section, for ease in leadership and employment.

Anyways, one day the Gunny decided that I had enough living the good life away from higher staff NCOs and Os, called me down from the hill, and informed me that I was now in charge of 2nd section. I went from just worring about my own gear and ass to that of about 20 Marines, all of their gear, 4 or 5 81mm mortars, and any and all serialized gear (compasses, binoculars, radios, etc.) This is not somethat that you would normally expect to find a Lcpl. doing, especially when there were actually a few Corporals that I was in charge of. Guess he was just looking for a couple of laughs or something. Somewhat suprisingly (most of all to myself) I did a decent enough job.

So one one training excercise, we got word that the Battalion Commander was going to be making his rounds of Weapons Company, so everyone had to be on their toes, ready for the Big Green Weenie in the event that he decided to stop by. See, we couldn't just focus on our training, fire off our alloted rounds, move to the next position, and repeat as necessary. We had to pick one range with good overview for the brass, and make sure that when/if they showed up, we could put on a good show for them. Pain in the ass for us, hence our slogan Semper-er, no the other one, The Big Green Weenie strikes again!

As I was not too concerned re our proficiency with the weapons systems, I decided to focus on other training areas that tended to get neglected more than they should like land nav, first aid, and the like. Half way through a class, Gunny called me aside, along with the Sgt. Section Leader for 1st section, the Sgt. who ran the Fire-Direction-Control (big brains) and Mr. Grumpy. We kind of just ran over in what direction we wanted to continue training after the dog-and-pony show that was to be conducted upon the arrival of the brass. Acutally they ran through the plans. I was just a Lcpl. I didn't say shit.

Meanwhile, my Marines had completed the class that they were working on, and like any motivated group of highly trained, superbly equipped, professional class of military killers did what just about anybody would do in their situation. They started talking shit and playing grab-ass.

Back to the leadership meeting, most of our chain of command showed up in the always tactical white Ford f-150s and proceeded to make their rounds.

Meanwhile, one of my Marines was discussing his latest trip to the neighborhood porno-shop...


While the XO was discussing our allocation of rounds and new equipment...


my Marine was describing the joy of finding the perfect dildo....


XO noted the shabby condition of the paint on some of our Hummers...


Marine found that painting a didlo camoflauge green is a hilarious endeavour...


Walking up the firing line, the majority of our chain of command was greeted by a thundering roar of "1st section sucks 2nds Dick!!!" followed by what looked suspiciously like a HUGE. Green. Dildo. Soaring though the air accompanied by much definitely non-Marine-like tittering and giggling. By the time we got up to the line, my trusty second in command of the section had attatched the dildo to the front of his kevlar helmet and was running around like a bull sized hedge-hog poking everyone in sight chortling "Ha-ha, Big Green Weenie Strikes again!!!".

sigh. Got to love those Marines.

Country Bars, Classy Ladies, and Hand to Hand

A number of years ago, I worked part time at a country bar. I wasn't even really a big fan of country music, but I was a big fan of not being broke. Being broke sucks. Perhaps the best part about having experience working at the bar is getting to know all of the characters that hang out there, either for work and/or pleasure.

There was this bartender that worked there when I first started, for the purpose of this story we'll call her Red. Red was a little bit older than the other bartenders, but she had loads of experience in just about any situation that one could find themselves around in the bar scene. I liked her because she didn't put up with anyone's shit, even mine.

About 3 weeks into the new job, and I was feeling pretty good about my grasp of this line of work. Keep the bars stocked, money ready, and trash cans empty, and it was gravy from then on. I remember commenting to one of the other guys there something along the lines of 'sure aren't many fights here'. Sure enough, Mr. Murphy realized that he had not been paying enough attention to me and decided to develop an interest in the local country bar.

A couple of hours later, and I was in my first bar fight.

A few words here. Even though this was a few years back, we were still firmly entrenched in the modern day litigious society. There were a lot of rules regarding when, how, and what we could do to break up the fights. The one that the manager always stressed was 'watch out for each-other'. As an additional measure, he regularly hired Deputies to come to the bar and hang out. They got a little extra cash and usually just by being there the crowd was a little more subdued.

Usually.

Where was I...ah yes, my first bar fight. Clearing an empty table of beer bottles, I noticed a change in the crowd over at the far end of the dance floor. When a few bottles hit the floor myself and a few of the other guys headed over to that area. What we saw was about a dozen guys, all standing around a couple wrasslin' around on the floor. Elbowing my way through the crowd, I noticed that the pair duking it out were women.

Hmmm......

Grabbing the one that was on top, I pulled her off and handed her to one of the other bouncers. When I turned to the 'lady' that was on the ground beside an overturned table, I was able to see that she was very pregnant. Nice. I was only able to see this for about half a second however, because Classy lady #1 had broken free from my buddy and vaulted herself back into the fight.
Damn, was there something in the beer?

In a feeble attempt to stop the festivities, I grabbed Classy #1 from behind, right hand to her right shoulder. My left arm and hand I swung down in front of her to impede here ability to beat the hell out of Classy #2. What the hell was Classy #2 doing in a smoky bar that pregnant anyways? Classy #1's flailing arms made it somewhat difficult to trap, but I did manage to stop her.

Yay, I'm a hero, right?

Wrong. In managing to drag her off of the pregnant lady, I had somehow managed to grab a handful of Classy #1. Trust me, it was not; intended, enjoyed, or even all that remarkable.

It was somewhat remarkable to her, though.

In her stupor, her rage was transferred from the pregnant woman to the new bouncer. I had a seriously angry, drunken, combative woman on my hands.


Now, growing up as a child my parents had cautioned me to not get into any fights. After a few years of this, they noticed that I was regularly coming home with clothes torn and school supplies missing. They started getting notes from teachers and whatnot commenting on how I was getting my ass beat, but I wasn't fighting back for some reason. My folks told me that I had to stick up for myself. I swung 180 degrees the other way and started beating the hell out of bullies that were picking on me and my friends (Sweet revenge). Back to the 'don't get into fights at school, honey' speeches. Back to getting my ass kicked. Apparently, this happened on and off up to junior high. What was a regular lecture was the one about looking out for my baby sister, and not fighting with girls.

This kind of put me in a pickle. I was very reluctant to fight back with this woman but as she was very drunk, very pissed, and very country she actually knew how to throw a few punches. I was reduced to backing up, holding my hand in front of me defensively, and wondering how in the hell I got myself into this situation.

Enter Red, stage right.

With a shouted 'Hey!' she launched herself over a few chairs, and being a country girl herself, landed a textbook forearm right into the mug of Classy Lady #1. Bam! Fight over. As Red was propping up the seriously dazed Classy #1 and assisting her to the door (and the deputy), she looked over her shoulder, winked at me, and said, "Damn, son. Sometimes you have to fight back no matter what, you know?"

Indeed.

An Army of One.......Hummer?

In Iraq, one of the things that really chapped my ass was convoys. There was quite a few things that kind of pissed me off, but I could wrap my head around them. Like those ass rags that wanted to kill me. I could understand that they wanted to ensure that I had a Really Bad Day and would do just about anything to do it. But convoys? Never really could figure some of them out.

One aspect of the colossal goat rope that is usually convoy operations is that it is a vital but definitely NOT Hollywood-sexy job. Supplies, vehicles, and personnel all need to move from one area to another. This might involve transit from many, many somewhat secure to not very secure areas over the course of a long day. It is probably not what you trained for. It can be very boring. All of the above I can understand, and have been through myself. More than once. It was the resulting actions from some convoy troopers that really just blew my mind.

Cresting a hill towards the end of another long patrol, I saw the Hummer in the distance and called a halt. Once all of my vehicles were stopped and had our area secured, I noticed that the Hummer did not appear to be getting any closer. As I knew that I was the only security patrol in the area, I gathered that it was the lead vehicle in a convoy heading to the base, only about 30 miles to the North. A few minutes passed, and no other vehicles appeared in the shimmer of the horizon. Scrunching my eyes a little bit more seemed to suggest that the vehicle was stopped, and had a tilt to the starboard side.


???


I got on the radio and attempted to hail the convoy's lead vehicle.


Nada.


I got on the horn with higher, informed them of the situation, and asked if there were any of our patrols in the area, anything going on with Battalion that I should know about, or if there were any convoys in the area.


Negative on all.


I pulled my vehicle forward cautiously, and attempted to raise the mystery Hummer on the radio. By this time, a good 10 minutes had passed with no other vehicles appearing behind the Hummer, no visible movement outside the Hummer, and my 'WTF?' caution bell starting to ping. I passed some binoculars to my gunner, and called up one of the other vehicles to my position, with instructions to approach the Hummer from the west flank with all caution.

A number of scenarios were coming to mind as definite possibilities, and not too many of them were very cheery. I knew that convoys were almost always on a pretty serious time-line that usually got totally blown to crap 5 minutes outside of the wire. Convoys had a habit of miscounting, losing and/or abandoning vehicles. Civilian convoy vehicles (i.e. semi trucks, vans, etc) that got blown up or broken down were towed if possible, abandoned if necessary, in order to meet the time line. Military issue vehicle were not abandoned. Only under the most extreme situations would a Hummer be left behind, and steps would be taken to ensure that it would be secured (one way or the other) before departure.There was a mandate for a minimum number of vehicles on patrol and convoy. It didn't really need to be enforced, because who would want to be out on the roads with out serious back up?

Meanwhile, there was still no movement nor comm from and with the Hummer, and no other vehicles were in sight.

As instructed, my flanking vehicle approached from the west. It stopped a good 100 yards from the Hummer and the dismounts began their approach. My gunner still had his binos on the Hummer and informed me that it appeared that the tires on the starboard side were blown out, no other damage was visible, no smoke rising, and still no movement. My Marines came on the radio with a constant update as they approached the vehicle.

"Approaching the road...not one of our Hummers, possibly Army convoy...no new IED craters, looks like some old damage to the vehicle...(I see him stop and grab a look through his scope) Shit, looks like we got some bodies in the Hummer."

Making his way to the shoulder of the road, he paused to give the shoulder and vehicle a visual once over. No sense in rushing to secure bodies only to get your own ass blown sky-high by an booby trap. I had the binos by this time, and was able to watch him reach for the door handle, open the door and jump about 3 feet in the air.

Apparently, he had rudely disturbed nap time.

As it turns out, there was a convoy that had been scheduled for the morning run. Due to all kinds of SNAFUs, it was only running about 4 to 5 hours late. The scout element of ONLY ONE VEHICLE, sweeping the roads ahead of the convoy, managed to get a ridiculous distance ahead of the main body. Once sufficiently out of visual with the main element, the convoy-appointed member of the infamous Murphy clan came to pay them a visit. He took note of the LACK OF SPARE TIRE, and most definitely the COMPLETE FRIGGIN' ABSENCE OF ANY RADIO, and decided that the best course of character-building situation would be to blow two tires completely apart, go visit the convoy and take out an engine, thereby delaying them another hour or so.

Put yourself, if only for a moment, in this situation. You are perhaps a good 1 to 2 hours away from any back up . You are 30 minutes away from multiple villages that do not wish you well. There are IED and land-mine craters all up and down the road you are on. You have no means of communicating your situation to your commander. You are momentarily a mobility kill. (you can move, but not for very long and with not much in the way of speed). You know that the convoy will be along eventually, so what do you do?

a) Set out security elements to ensure that no one sneaks up on your ass, kills you if you are lucky, kidnaps you if you are not.

b) Attempt to communicate your situation with alternative means. Perhaps by hailing a passing helo re-supply flight, popping smoke, and letting them notify moi.

c) Leave the vehicle on the road, for all appearances abandoned, and set up an ambush in the nearby dunes.

d) Throw all reason to the winds, say 'Fuck it', and go to sleep.


Option d) won out, resulting in a slight scare for both groups.




In hind sight, I kind of think that we should have run up to the vehicle from behind screaming ALLAHU AKBAR!!!!

Situational Awareness

Holy Shnikes! I figured out how to do pictures on this thing! I know, I know, not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but for me, it is quite the accomplishment.

Now let me explain this particular moment...

Early in the morning, after a long, all night patrol all over the Area of Operations (AO), Mouth was getting a little bit sleepy. He had been behind the wheel for the majority of the night, and took pride in his ability to drive for long periods of time. At about sunrise, however, he just couldn't hold out any longer. He let me know that he needed to take a break from the wheel, so he and the gunner traded places. About 20 minutes later, as we were approaching the air base, I happened to notice that Mouth had uncharacteristically shut up. Glancing up to see why there was not the constant chatter, I noticed that he was out like a light.

Insert the Calvin and Hobbes evil grin on my face here.

As quietly as I could, I scrambled around for some extra zip ties. I found a pair that had not been already threaded together, and very sneakily wove one through his belt loop, and the other through an opening in the turret.

For those of you not familiar with the turrets on the Hummers, this essentially pins him in place, unable to maneuver around to face anything that needs taking care of.

This would accomplish a few things.

First of all, when we scared the Bejeezus outta Mouth, it would wake him up.

Secondly, by scaring the Bejeezus outta Mouth, it would wake us up.

Thirdly, and hopefully, it would teach him a lesson about staying awake and paying attention to situational awareness, i.e. not letting a bored and sneaky Sergeant with idle hands mess around without keeping half an eye on him.

Utilizing the time, money, and effort that the Corps had spent in training us all, I communicated the plan in hand and arm signals to the other Marines. I counted off with my fingers.

One...

Two...

Three...

All - (Screaming incoherently) AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Driver slams on the breaks, the tires screaming....

Me - (To a particularly startled Mouth, in the turret)

OHMYGOD!!!HOLYSHIT!!!MOUTHMOUTHTOTHEPORTSIDENOWOHMYGODOHMYGODA
AAAAAHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh"

Mouth - Mnphf, snar, wha??!?! AAAAaaaaiiiieeeee!!!.....You Bastards!!!

Waking up rather unexpectedly, his first inclination was to duck. He had started to slide his ass of of the make shift seat, fighting the rapid deceleration of the Hummer. The zip ties did their job, and made sure that his trousers weren't going anywhere. I do have to admit, the belt loops on the Marine trousers are very sturdy, they managed to hold.

Let's just say that Mouth experienced the dubious distinction of falling prey to the improvised atomic wedgie.