Welcome To Iraq

1/15/05

nudge nudge, wake up rotten, it's 0130. Uhhh, man...just when I was getting some quality sleep. I force myself to open my eyes, I look around, everything's blurry; I need to put my contacts in. I can see that I'm the only one still in my sleeping bag, everyone else was gone. "Where is everyone?" "The trucker's had to be on their trucks by 0130, we got till 0200." "Oh..ok." (hehe...suckers) I got dressed, putting on my same set of clothes since the day before, I put on my contacts. "Damn it's frickin cold in here, hey, what's the thermostat say?" "68" "DAaAMMn" I went to Joe's Cafe, the MWR tent that has coffee and to go food for the transients. I grab 4 Strawberry milks, put it in my cargo pocket and head out to the Humvee. I'm walkin down the line...walkin....where the hell did they park the frickin humvee...ok..i've gone too far..I walk back...There they are. Load up, help set the .50 cal. Hey rotten, it's 0200, gotta go to the briefing. put on your full battle rattle. damn man....fine....throw on my iba, bring my kevlar, my pro-mask, weapon and walk over to the briefing."

"All right, same old story, we're gonna SP outta here at 0300 (Yawn..still groggy) We're gonna take MSR Sword in force. Shit's been pretty hot lately, reports say that there's been 4 incidents in the last hour, they're also starting to try and hijack the vehicles. Guntrucks, If you see ANY civilian vehile move into our convoy, take out their tires, it's dark and we're not taking any any chances...hooah?" Every one of the gun truck soldiers face lit up. "Hell ya"

I'm thinkin, ooooh man, this is it. Finally. I just remembered..SWEET..I'm gunner too..whoo hoo. lets get it on. Escort NCOIC comes up to us and tells us that we're gonna the 3rd GT/Middle. YES!!

............

on the road...doing bout 55mph. "HEEY ROT, we're bout to get on Sword, be ready." "I'm always ready!" I yell back to Koff.

come on come on....10, 20, 30 min go by. Nothing much. a string of vehicles parked on the side of the road, lining up to get gasoline for their cars, alotta bonfires on the side, "TCP's coming up" "Ooookkkaayy!!" we roll up, take over for GT 2, blockin the north bound lane, our convoy had to cross over to the southbound because there were to many iraqi vehicles in front of us. I'm on the Gun, facing the traffic, which were mostly stopped about 30 yds back, except for this one pickup truck, which was about 20 ft from us. I noticed that on the bed of truck was a frickin assload of propane tanks...whoa man..that don't look to safe. My battle and I seemed to think that the same time cuz he ran up to the pickup and told him to move back.

We start rolling again and things start to die down, *yawn* another boring day coming to an end, man I'm tired..wait..I see the lights to the ECP into the base, YES! day is done, gone the sun.

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1/17/2005 the next day.

SP 2000 from Taji to Scannia.

1900 - Convoy Briefing
The CC tells us the usual, watch out on the on ramps, shit been hot as usual, we're gonna SP to scannia and RON (rest overnight) We did our group prayer. "lord please protect our convoy and watch over our troops and enemies and show them the light of your love......and more of that good stuff...AMEN"

I'm driving, my boy "SPC C" is Gunner tonight. (we paper,rock, scissored...he won, he was whining cuz i got to hog gunner all the way up here). So it's nighttime out, and already I'm a little tired. It blows, I slept all day and I'm tired...I can't help it, my brain is not accepting the fact that just cuz it's night it don't mean It's time to sleep. anyways, I popped a Hydroxycut pill to keep me up. I bought the damn thing to work out and I've yet to be able to use it for that reason, I've been using it as a frickin no dose..lol..it works though.

So we leave scannia, headin down MSR Sword (where the shit always hits the fan). but as any other night, things look dead. so we're rollin down the MSR, no moon out, on a straigaway 6 lane highway, I'm in the "Back-middle" of the convoy.

Sooo boring....

all of a sudden a fireball 3 stories high lit up the black sky. CONTACT LEFT!!!! BOOOOOM (the sound of the explosion and the shockwave came as soon as I yelled contact left.

"WHAT'S U WANT ME TO DO SGT. K?" (He's the TC of my truck)

"What the situation!!!!"

"KEEP ROLLING...HAUL ASS!!!!" he says.

"GOT IT"

(HOLY SHIT.. IS THIS FOR REAL?)

(MAN OH MAN...that fucking fireball was SWEEET....big ass fuck...)

(Don't look like any vehicles got taken out..everyone's still rollin)

"WE'RE HEADED ONTO THE RAMP...KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED" says SGT K.


BOOOOOOM!!!

this one was two trucks in front of us, right on the on ramp, my gunner "C" started yellin,

"C"!! U OK?"

"FUCK...$#%$^2"

"U ALRIGHT"

"ya, I'm fine...my fucking ears are ringing, I got shit in my eyes from the blast"

"IED IN THE REAR..CONTACT IN THE REAR" yells SGT K on the comms.

The blast was alot smaller, thank god, didn't hurt any of the vehicles at all, but this one was truly too close for comfort.


we rallied up..adrenaline pumping. I was laughing the whole time, Too excited to notice if I was scared or not.

I was cursing at the air the whole time, "you ain't shit Hajji, just show me where you're at..come on...show me those green tracer's...I'll send you straight to fuckin allah" stupid...but the adrenaline was pumping. They got their shot...where's mine? still..not a single shot since I've been in country.

Turns out on of the "White trucks" (Civilian trucks interlace with our military trucks) blew out a front left tire, and another truck was just pouring fluid outta the engine block, we had to ditch the latter one; got the driver out and radioed out for the MSR Patrol guys to secure the truck we left behind.

When my adrenaline settled and things got rolling again, SGT K and I started making fun of "SPC C", sayin how it's his fault that all this shit happened because he's the one bragging "I've never been hit before" Stupid "C" and u're bad Juju (or mojo).

So now I'm at Scannia, talking to my ever sooooo amazing friend Cassie. Words cannot even begin to describe a girl like her. Hmm..Vegas for a week Cass? I'll be waiting for you :)

time's up, gotta get to sleep...damn..its 3am...I'm outtie

Just saw on CNN some crap about maybe a war with IRAN??? God I hope not.