Meat Gazer

            “We got a squatter!” I announced brazenly from the latrine.

            “Ohhhhh!” responded the long line of Crazyhorse men waiting to take a piss test.

           

During a urinalysis to test for illegal drug abuse in the ranks, there is one soldier that documents everything and has to take a class in order to be in that position.  Another soldier is picked at random to be the meat gazer.  That lucky soldier was responsible for going into the latrine with each soldier and watching him urinate to verify that the piss in the cup was indeed his.  Oh my.

When I was selected to be a meat gazer I would turn it into a show, because if I had to do that disturbing duty I might as well have fun with it.  Some guys would get nervous pissing in front of another man and we dubbed that fear “stage fright.”  If a soldier had stage fright we would make them drink copious amounts of water until he couldn’t hold his urine any longer.  That tactic never made sense to me, as I’m sure it diluted any trace of drugs.  To help some friends that had substance abuse problems, I just kept quiet about the dilution.

Some soldiers would just need some help urinating and no, I’m not talking about physically helping them down below, you pervert.  Simply turning on the sink and talking about waterfalls would do the trick.  With other soldiers I would stand about two inches behind them.

“How ya doin’ there, buddy?” I’d awkwardly ask.

“Oh fuck off, man,” they’d all reply.

“Everything going OK down there?”

“I hate you right now.”

To mess with them even more I would wait until I heard them pissing and then start massaging their shoulders.  Since they were in the act of filling the cup, they couldn’t turn to punch me in the throat, so it was funny to see them squirm and freak out.  To civilians this seems creepy, but to those of us watching in line it was pure entertainment.  Every now and then we would have a special case.  A soldier would turn to me with dreaded verbiage.

“Sergeant Vance, I have to go number two,” a soldier said.

“You motherfucker,” I responded with dead eyes.

“So what do we do?”

“You will sit your ass on that toilet and I will grab a chair and sit down right in front of you in the stall.”

“What?”

“Oh yeah, its game on. You don’t get off that easy. Have fun filling that cup with piss while you’re trying to drop a deuce.”

A soldier that had to go poo would be deemed a “squatter.”  It could be an innocent coincidence or it might be an attempt to be in private to swap another soldiers urine sample with his own.  The trick for me was making people feel uncomfortable.  I never had to literally check out somebody doing their business.  I was just boisterous and close enough to deter them from trying to cheat the system or putting me in a shitty spot to either report them or do something immoral.  Finding a spot on the wall just over their shoulders was my point of focus.

The things soldiers have to do in the military isn’t quite what you thought now is it?  No worries, because many of us would rather not enlighten the world of certain duties such as being a meat gazer.  I, on the other hand, don’t give a shit.  I just want to be as accurate as possible so you know exactly what randomness we do on the daily.  Also, this will open your eyes on what to expect with that veteran you just started dating… hahaha!  We’re all a little loopy, so don’t judge.  Even you have issues.

Hippies Throw Oranges?

            “At least its not like Vietnam and everyone supports the troops.”

            “Oh look at you, living in your tiny bubble.”

            I received mixed reactions from different groups of people in my life when I enlisted.  My family didn’t quite know how to react and usually just asked if I was sure I wanted to commit to something like that.  Most of my friends were the same way since not too many of us joined the service.  A lot of people were just curiously excited to know someone about to go to a once in a generation war.  One irate female cussed me out in front of a restaurant full of people.

            “So hey guys, I decided to enlist over spring break,” I mentioned.

            “Are you a fucking idiot?!” a girl yelled as she stood up at the table.

            “Probably.”

            “Did you at least sign up to be an officer?”

            “Nope.”

            I definitely didn’t see that reaction coming.  It was my first encounter with a strongly opinionated person that wasn’t fond of the idea of war.  I let her vent and feel good about herself and then quietly left.  The things that people say about events that are set in motion won’t matter in the long run.  Ultimately that girl was the “fucking idiot” for attempting to humiliate a guy that just wanted to go on an adventure helping a country that couldn’t help itself.  There’s nothing wrong with voicing an opinion, but for God’s sake at least find out why somebody enlisted before assuming they did it in the name of killing other human beings.

           

            Off I went to the army and my first duty station was at Fort Lewis, Washington.  Hello west coast.  On the weekends we would do anything to get out of the barracks.  Along the I-5 corridor the three major cities for “Joes” to go party at are Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia.  Tacoma was the closest place to base and although the locals loathed our primitive behavior, we supplied a lot of money to their economy so they put up with us.  Seattle was 45 minutes north and far enough away that people maintained a “support the troops” attitude, but it was close enough so that college boys recognized our hair cuts and stayed out of our way when talking to college ladies.  Olympia was another story.

            “You’re in the service aren’t ya, boy,” an old man grumbled with a sneer.

            “Yes, sir,” I replied with a smile.

            “Then fuck you! FUCK YOU! Fuck all you baby killers!”

            I was in shock.  Then I was angry.  Then I was just confused.  Olympia, for the most part, was home of the hippies.  They didn’t care what your reasons were for joining or what was really going on overseas.  They just wanted somebody to hate.  Our haircuts easily gave us away in a city where musicians and white Rastafarians roamed the streets.  Some bars solely existed for political gatherings.  That old man at the bar almost got pummeled, but we decided to walk it off to the next bar.  From that night on we tried avoiding places of that nature.

            After my first deployment, our Strykers were loaded onto huge ships and we flew home, except a small contingent of soldiers that stayed with the Strykers for security thru pirate-infested waters.  The ships arrived about a month later at one of our local ports.  We notified the public the ships were arriving at a different port than the actual destination to avoid a hippy gathering.  It wasn’t long before they figured it out.

            The first wave of Strykers were off the boat and ready to convoy back to Lewis.  Police officers were at the gates of the port to both escort us while on the highway and keep the hippies back.  The hippie’s numbers swelled.  I was in the second chalk (convoy) and watched as the first chalk took off.  The hippies managed to cross in front of the convoy while being chained to each other with metal pipes.  Apparently they thought this would stop us.  The police were very effective in moving them back off the road after a few minutes, but then things got a little juicy.

            “These assholes are throwing oranges at us!” one soldier said.

            “Oranges?” I asked.

            “Yeah, who the fuck throws oranges?”

            “That’s gotta hurt. There’s nothing peaceful about being hit with an orange. What kind of hippies are these?”
            As the first chalk continued thru the gates, a hippy driving a car decided he was going to ram a Stryker with his Pinto sized vehicle.  This was funny because that hippy didn’t realize a Stryker was 20 tons until he was just meters away and changed his mind, slamming on his breaks.  I definitely thought hippies were peaceful people.  Not so much.  Throwing heavy fruit and trying to ram us with cars was a lot different than flowers in your hair.  What would they do next?

            One hippy actually pulled a Tie Neman Square by lying down flat in the middle of the road in an attempt to stop the convoy and allow further attacks on us.  What that hippy didn’t know is that there was easily two feet of clearance under a Stryker and we could drive over them without causing any bodily harm.

            “We got one lying down up here. Want me to just run her over since we ain’t gonna actually touch her?”

            “Nah, cause then she’ll sit up as we’re rolling over her and I don’t wanna clean that mess up. We just got these washed.”

            It was time for my chalk to start its move.  The gates to the port were pretty far away and we couldn’t see exactly what was going on, so for all we knew we were about to get an orange barrage to the face.  Instead we got a nice surprise from the local police force.  They were armed with paintball guns and sprayed the out of control group of anti-war hippies.  By the time my Stryker made it thru the gates, the hippies were doused in multi-color paint splatters, holding hands and flipping us the peace sign.  Finally, a stereotypical hippy move!  We laughed and waved to the police as they waved back and cheered us on. 

“Mat, why don’t you ever fight back when people act so rudely about something they know nothing about?”

People ask me this all the time.  If I fought back it would ruin everything I believe in about being a soldier.  I’ve had things hurled at me, been cussed at, spat at and threatened on many levels, but I’ve never raised a hand at the people that disrespect us.  It’s a freedom they have and we secure it for them.  Many years from now nobody will remember what the hippies did, but they sure as hell will remember what soldiers did in a time of war.  Perhaps one day I will fight back and I feel sorry for the family of the person on the receiving end of that, but for now I can only smile and walk away from people that will never understand what soldiers really do.

Face Raped

            “Oh yeah, I see poison or venom in the middle there,” one medic said.

            “The dark shit in the middle? I see it alright,” another medic announced.

            “So how do you fix it?” I asked.

            “Just don’t touch it. Yeah, just don’t touch it.”

            “You don’t have anything, to help me out?”

            “Let us know if it gets worse?”

            “Wow.”

            In late February of 2007, White platoon was preparing to move from F.O.B. Falcon to F.O.B. Union III in central Baghdad.  Temperatures were in the glorious 80’s as we moved our equipment.  Between runs to our new home we had a few hours to eat and sleep so I crashed on the shrapnel proof matted and dusty floor of a Stryker.  I bundled up some camouflage netting to use as a pillow.

            A few hours later I woke and utilized the latrine.  As I was washing my face, I noticed two tiny white dots right above my chin.  They were very close together and I assumed they were new pimples, so I popped them both and rolled out.  While dropping off some wounded locals to medical facilities we picked up on the way, I kept asking Shmiddie the same question.

            “What’s the temperature?” I asked.

            “For the hundredth fuckin’ time food stamp, I don’t know. What’s wrong with you today?” he bickered back.

            “I got the shakes man.”

            “There’s no way you should be cold.”

            “I’m freezing.”

            All the way back to Falcon I was shaking in the gunner’s hatch.  I had no idea what was wrong with me.  We parked our vehicles for a couple more hours of rest.

            “What’s on your face, Vance? Herpes of the mouth?” Puppet asked.

            “Huh?” I responded quivering.

            “There’s a big ass red thing on your chin.”

            The two little pimples joined forces and started to swell.  I felt a pulse on my own damn chin and it started to burn.  What the hell.  I hadn’t missed a single mission to injury or maintenance, so I just manned up and got ready to roll out again.  White got set to roll for a third time that day by lining up at the gate and test firing our weapons.  I had trouble seeing, my hands locked up like I had carpal tunnel and every single joint in my body began to ache.  Standing up in the gunners hatch became an issue.

            “Shmiddie, he’s fucked!” our medic, Bullis, yelled from the inside of our Stryker while looking up at me.

            “I’m good,” I pathetically argued as I mean mugged Bullis.

            “Vance I don’t even recognize your voice. Sometimes you just have to sit one out. We’re dropping you off and you’re going to go rest,” Shmiddie ordered.

            “Roger.”

            I went back to my room, hit the mattress resting on a cot, bundled up and passed out.  I didn’t even hear White come back.  I woke up 11 hours later thinking I had pissed my pants.  It was sweat.  I completely sweated thru the mattress.  Disgusting.  The good news was the fever broke and I started feeling better.

            “We’ll get you checked out at Union III,” Shmiddie affirmed as we prepped for a morning convoy north.

            Half of my chin had been covered in this scab-looking crater with an extremely dark color in the shape of a cartoonish lightening bolt in the center.  With the exception of the superhero symbol center, it resembled a nasty fever blister, or as Puppet dubbed it, herpes of the mouth.  To this day, I still have a zigzag scar just above the right side of my chin where the dark center was.  We tried to find out how I got it when the light bulb went on above my head.  That camouflage netting I used as a pillow!  We always found critters hiding in that thing.  Some nasty spider crawled on my face and took a bite.  I hope it crawled in my mouth and I ate it in my slumber.  Lesson learned.  Bastard.

Drunk Punch Pow

            “Hey Vance, you wanna go muddin’ with us?” asked one of the guys in the barracks.

            “I dunno man,” I replied with curiosity.

            “Well do ya, or not?”

            “Yes?”

            “You never been, have ya?”

            “Nope, I’m from the suburbs.”

            “Wow, grab some clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.  You’re about to have a great time.”

            Ending that conversation with “You’re going to have a great time,” would be some famous last words.

            Cheap tequila was being passed around the bonfire like electrolytes at a marathon.  We had been driving all over a wooded training area getting stuck, then unstuck and then stuck again thru heavy mud, swelling streams and rock formations.  It was the summertime in Washington state in 2005 and the weather was sunny and in the high 70’s.  We had just commenced the celebration of off-road vehicles surviving the day when out of nowhere, one of the veterans leaped over the bonfire.

            “YEEEEAH!” cheered the circle of inebriated people.

            “You’re crazy,” I pointed out.

            “And you’re next, Vance,” another vet called me out.

            So, we have a lot of alcohol, a large fire and a guy who can’t jump.  These are the ingredients of a poor decision.  Lets do this.

            “I better have another swig of that tequila first, cause you know my clumsy ass is going to fall right in.”

            I was sober enough to decide to start my running jump from the top of a hill.  Luckily the tequila and Bud Light kicked in as I started my move to numb any misfortunes.  Off I went trying to prove myself again.  I waited until the last possible second to take the leap.  Up in the air I went using my jean-covered legs as a shield for the rest of my body from the heat.  Landing safely over the bonfire of pallets wasn’t difficult at all.  Again?  Of course!  We leaped and drank well into the night.

            “Alright guys, I gotta get back to the house to relieve the babysitter,” Able said.

            “Boooooo!” we bitched.

            “I know, I know.”

            Able, his girlfriend, Johnny Francisco, Rojas and myself crammed into his small SUV.  The rest of the group stayed as we made our way down thru the gravel covered country road.  Able seemed fine when we left, but who was I to know being intoxicated myself.  He was bantering back and forth with his girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat.  The two were laughing hysterically and I noticed Able wasn’t paying attention to the sharp turn ahead.  This sobered me up pretty quick.

            “You OK to drive?” I asked.

            “Yeah, yeah I got this!” Able answered sounding annoyed.

            He then sped up to take the turn.  I’m assuming this is a tough guy’s attempt to impress his girl.

            “Slow the fuck down, Jesus Christ,” Cisco said with authority.

            “Shit,” Able muttered.

            Of course he took the turn too fast and the vehicle started to fishtail.  As we violently swerved and Able tried desperately to maintain control, butterflies went apeshit in my stomach and the hairs on the back of my neck went all Teen Wolf on me.  Brace for impact.  The vehicle finally went perpendicular enough to the road with the right amount of velocity and flipped an unknown amount of times.  All I remember is the SUV hitting on the side the first time then waking up to Cisco’s voice.

            “Get off me Rojas.  You’re fat,” Cisco said.

            The vehicle landed on its side and the three of us in the back were on top of each other with Cisco getting the brunt of the weight.  Luckily for me I landed on the top of that pile.  I crawled out and we helped each other clear the wreckage.  I only counted four of us now.  Where’s Able’s girl?  I looked around the area and there she was on her knees in the middle of the road about 30 feet behind us.  Apparently she flew out of the sunroof when the vehicle went belly up and didn’t have a scratch on her.

            “Thankya Jaysus. Oh lawd I thankya!” Able’s girlfriend screamed to high heaven in a country accent as we all stammered to check on her.

            “Good luck with that tonight, Able,” I laughed.

            “Oh great,” Able replied knowing his girl was going to be an emotional wreck for a while.

            Shortly afterward the car toss, Vines and Phelps pulled up in an old black pickup that Vines had spray painted orange and yellow flames on.

            “You guys have fun?” Vines asked.

            “Had my ass kicked worse than that,” I laughed again.

            “You barracks guys hop in.”

            We collected all the alcohol so Able could leave it overnight without being investigated too thoroughly if anyone found the vehicle before he could get it towed the next day.  Vines drove us back to the barracks and I slept wonderfully that night.  Mudding was fun, but I need to select a DD with better efficiency.

           

            A couple of weeks later I was propositioned for another trip to go mudding.  Of course I jumped at the opportunity to get out of the barracks.  This time I went in Whitey’s 4-door Durango.  Not your typical vehicle to go mudding in, but that thing could take a beating.

            After mudding until the sun went down we commenced in the consumption of tasty beverages again.  At some point in the night I hit the wood line to relieve myself.  Glaze wandered off to do the same.  As I’m marking my territory, I hear the Durango’s engine rev up.  I turn my head enough to see that Whitey wasn’t done mudding yet.  He was barreling in the same direction that Glaze had walked.  It was dark, so Whitey had his lights on and as the Durango started to get some air under it I see Glaze scampering off to the side laughing his ass off.  If Glaze didn’t move he would have been crushed.

            “Glaze, you almost got run over, man!” I yelled thru the woods.

            “Heh! Fuckin’ Whitey, man,” Glaze laughed with a big grin, shaking off the fact he almost got steam rolled.

            Brett Glaze was a proud Texan (shocker) of average height, strong, brown hair, blue eyes, no fear and had a crazy streak in him that magnetized other soldiers to his always “loyal to my bros” side.  If I were to make my own team of scouts and infantry to go to war with, Glaze would be at the top of my list.

            “You good, Glaze?” asked Whitey.

            “Yeah, fuck it,” he replied still laughing.

            It was time to head back.  I sat behind Whitey in the back and Glaze was on the opposite side of the back seat with me.  Once again, my driver seemed OK.  I was wrong, again.  As we headed towards Fort Lewis down some country road I noticed we were going too fast for the up coming s-curve.  I didn’t bother to try and say anything since my attempt the last time this happened went unnoticed.  I just braced myself the best I could.

            We skidded off the road and hit a tree on Glaze’s side of the vehicle.  I flew across the back seat and the side of my head slammed into Glaze’s broad left shoulder, knocking me out cold.  Both windows on Glaze’s side shattered and it looked like Chuck Norris did a roundhouse kick between the two doors.

            “Vance!” Glaze yelled.

            “Yeah? I’m good,” I replied in a haze.

            “No dude, I’ve been screaming your name.  You were out.”

            “Shit, well I’m good now,” I said with a smile.

            “I think I fucked my shoulder up.”

            I felt the warm sensation of my own blood running down my head and all over my right shoulder.  There was a gash on both my ear and my temple.  I thought,   “This can’t be good.”  That tough Durango wasn’t done yet, though.  Whitey managed to wiggle the vehicle off the tree we almost wrapped around and got us back on the road.  Somehow it rolled back to Fort Lewis.  One problem was left.  How are going to get thru the gate with a vehicle that looked like it was at the receiving end of a monster truck rally?  It looked like Gravedigger made a violent return.

            As we crept up to the gate on a slow roll, Whitey killed the music and the lights while we remained silent and bloodied in the back seat.  He came to a stop at a gate guard shack on the left side of the Durango, concealing the damage on the right side.  The guard checked our military ID’s Whitey gave him and we were in the clear, or so we thought.  As Whitey was taking the ID’s back, a second guard came out of nowhere on the right side of the vehicle about 25 feet away. 

            “Hey. Excuse me! Are you guys OK?” asked the guard.

            “We good!” we all said together as the wheels started to turn.

            “Fucking go, Whitey!” Glaze whispered.

            We all laughed as the two guards shrunk in the rear view mirrors.  That second guard saw all the blood and vehicle destruction and then didn’t know what to think or do.  Luckily for us it was a narrow escape and the Durango was officially retired that night.  Whitey dropped us off at the barracks and we continued to drink at the monkey bars while telling Baker about our adventure.  We just let the ensuing rain wash the blood away.

Doing crazy things on the weekends without any regard for anyone around us was normal behavior.  By no means was it right or should it be condoned or popularized, but it’s just how people in combat arms tend to handle stress.  We were releasing angst we couldn’t explain.  We just had to do it and not care about consequences for the time being.

Part Deux

            LT’s were responsible for accountability reports on all equipment in the platoon.  Birdbrain was actually signed for an expensive Leopold scope that came up missing.  One of our soldiers said they had seen the LT take the scope out of its storage bag and place it on top of the Stryker.  Birdbrain denied this.  He made us dump everything out of all the trucks after a mission in the middle of an Iraqi summer.  We had to lay everything out in a fancy, organized fashion.  Then we told his highness everything was ready to be searched.  He found nothing.  Birdbrain then searched our personal items… twice.  He found nothing.

            One day while out on patrol we stopped by an Iraqi army post in Tibij.  Out of a field an Iraqi soldier came walking up with a pipe-shaped object while pointing at Birdfuck.  Oh hell no.  It was the scope worth thousands of dollars that had been missing.  That turd lied about not taking it out and putting it on top of the Stryker.  Birdbrain left it on the Stryker during a night mission and it flew off after we hit a few bumps.  He just laughed with joy, because now he didn’t have to pay for it.  We loathed him.

Soldiers in White started to openly show their disgust after that.  Birdbrain got testy with one in particular.  Specialist Rogers was our Military Intelligence soldier that collected and analyzed all the intel we were getting.  He also interrogated people for information.  Rogers was an asset to White and unfortunately he had to work as closely with the LT as I did.  Since nobody was giving respect to Birdbrain, he tried to force it on the lowest ranking soldiers, such as Rogers.

“Sergeant Vance, I want Rogers to start calling me sir,” Birdbrain announced.

“Excuse me?” I snapped back like a hood rat.

“I don’t like how he calls me LT.”

“Well…LT, Rogers is authorized to call you sir, LT or lieutenant.”

I had no idea if that was true, but he was so scared of me it worked.  For you young leaders out there, you need to earn that salute or title through gaining the respect of your subordinates.  You never ask for it, because if you do, then you’ve lost it forever.  I was an enlisted soldier and people saluted me at times.  I introduced myself as Vance, not Sergeant Vance, but people still called me Sergeant.  Not everyone is going to respect you, but don’t ever ask to be called something you haven’t earned.

How’s about a little action story regarding our special little lieutenant to finish this off.  We had received a call from an Iraqi army unit in Asadiyah about an IED on the road.  It wasn’t our platoon’s area of operation (AO), but we were on quick reaction force (QRF) that day and escorted explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) to the site.  Was that enough abbreviations for you?  We rolled up and stopped a few hundred meters away from the IED on the road.

“I want to dismount and check this out,” Birdbrain said.

“That’s not a good idea since this isn’t our AO.  For all we know, we’re parked in the same spot third platoon parks in when they get a call about an IED,” I advised.

“So?”

“So that could be a decoy IED and the real one is waiting for us to jump off these Strykers.”

“I want to over watch EOD.”

“At least keep everyone else on the trucks to minimize targets on the ground.  We haven’t cleared any of these buildings or that cemetery on the other side of the street.”

“White 4, White 1, I’m dismounting with White 1 Tango and the terp.  Everyone else stay on the trucks.”

“This is White 4, Roger,” Woody said back.

The air was filled with dust and visibility was down to just under a mile.  Something bad always happened under those conditions.  We started our walk and I noticed White 3 took a couple of soldiers into a nearby courtyard to help clear the area against Birdbrain’s instructions.  He ended up not hearing those instructions and Lt apparently didn’t hear White 3 say he was dismounting.  This is why communication is key and saves lives.

      BOOM!

This is what's left of the wall where the IED exploded throwing Carter, Rogers and White3 into a building.

My team was walking in the middle of the street a few feet ahead of the debris. Hall was about ten feet from the blast. 

I felt the concussion of the blast push thru my body as my bones shuttered and debris flew all over, but managed to stay on my feet.  My ears were ringing as my other senses heightened.  AK-47 gunfire rang out as the Iraqi soldiers commenced with what they do best, the death blossom, which is spraying bullets aimlessly in all directions in fear.  I turned to check for casualties and actually had a split second of comedic relief.

“LT!  Terp!” I yelled.

The terp was just in a slight daze, but Birdbrain was literally crouched down and spinning in circles with his head down.  It was almost like that game we’ve all tried where you spin around ten times with your forehead on the handle of a baseball bat that’s touching the ground then you walk like you're highly intoxicated.  It was hilarious.  Everyone reacts differently to contact, but that was by far the funniest.

I grabbed both men and directed them to cover and climbed up the side of one of the Strykers to talk to the gunner.

“Hey!  3 Golf!  Where’s White 3’s team!” I screamed fearing the worst.

“I think the courtyard!” he hollered.

You think.  Right.  I climbed back down and told Birdbrain and the terp to stay behind me so we can check on White 3 and his team. 

“4, 1 Tango, I’m going into the courtyard to check for casualties,” I said on the net.

“This is 4, roger,” Woodrow said back with a quickness.

A little bit of panic set in, because some of the guys on White 3’s team were mine and he told me he was taking them for the mission.  I didn’t approve, but I didn’t have a choice since he outranked me.  Thanks to White 3 not hearing the radio calls to stay on the truck and Birdbrain not heeding to my warnings, lives are in danger.  As we ran into the courtyard the three soldiers were holding each other up and moving to the exit.  The blast had thrown all three into a wall.  My team secured their backside as we went back to the trucks to assess casualties.

“Hall!  Drop the ramp!” I yelled to the back hatch plug.

Something was wrong with Hall.  He could see me yelling, but he couldn’t understand me.  Hall saw the wounded soldiers moving towards him and dropped the ramp.

“You OK Hall?” I asked.

“I can’t hear shit!” he yelled.

The blast was right next to his Stryker and his head was completely exposed at half the distance I was.  The blast in the courtyard was the back blast area and not as strong, but it still managed to throw three men over 200 lbs into a wall.  The main force of the blast hit Hall on the other side of the courtyard wall in the street and then ten feet later hit my team.  It blew his eardrum out and gave him a nasty concussion.

White headed back to C.O.P. Cobra for medical attention.  The gate was blocked by local construction crews trying to get on the compound, so Swanny jumped on top of his Stryker while he was gunning and took matters into his own hands in the name of helping his brothers.

“Hey! Get the FUCK out of the way! Fucking MOVE!” he screamed.

The locals didn’t have to speak the same language to understand that if they didn’t move, they were going to be the next casualties via Swanny’s wrath.  Well played Swanny.  We dropped our walking wounded off at the squadron medical trailer and returned to the gate to park until we were called out again.

“1 Tango, this is White 4,” Woody said to me over the net.

“This is 1 Tango,” I replied.

“Yeah, you gotta come up here and get evaluated for a concussion.”

 I could tell it wasn’t his choice so I complied even though we both knew I had worse blows to the noggin.  As I arrived, I couldn’t help but notice our little LT was feeling sorry for himself and that was his first brush with death.  Aw, need a hug little guy?  Woody had a funny conversation with our troop commander.

Sergeant Woody, why is your LT trying to get a purple heart for a concussion?”

The entire platoon bellowed in laughter when we caught wind of this conversation.  What a pussy.  That’s why he called me up to the medics.  He knew if I requested it, people would listen.  Well, I don’t believe in requesting a Purple Heart for myself.  Especially when there was no loss of blood or permanent physical damage, so he was shit out of luck.  Traumatic brain injuries are a whole other discussion.  Score another one for the good guys.  He’s also one of those guys that received a Combat Action Badge for a mortar round that landed on the opposite side of a compound, nowhere close to being a threat.

Birdbrain represented everything a soldier shouldn’t be.  He wanted awards and respect without earning them and refused to take responsibility for getting several men wounded.  I saw a growing number of soldiers like this as my time in the service came to an end.  What can you do?  I say raise awareness of dirtbags by making fun of them mercilessly.

Burn Toppy Burn: Part 1

There was this guy… we’ll call him Birdbrain.

“Alright White platoon, lets see if you’re smarter than a 10 year old,” I said on the net while we were pulling security for engineers late one night.

            Friends and family had mailed a card game during my second deployment that asked questions at an elementary school level.

            “First question; do astronauts travel faster or slower than 18,000 mph while in space?” I asked while imitating a baseball commentator’s voice.

            “That’s easy, way faster,” First Lieutenant (LT) Birdbrain proclaimed.

            “You sure?” asked Courtney.

            “Yeah, astronauts come back from space younger than when they left Earth.”

            “And how is that, sir?”

            “Because they are traveling at the speed of light; way faster than 18,000 mph.”

            Of course the entire truck pretended to laugh at his stupid joke, but then we realized something.  Birdbrain was dead serious!  Then the entire truck legitimately burst into laughter.

            “So, you’re telling me that we have achieved warp speed?” Courtney asked.

            “Well, yeah.  What?”

            "Sir, nothing with mass can travel the speed of light."
            "Yes it can."            
            “Did they teach you that at West Point, sir?”

            “So here’s the next question,” I changed the subject to prevent our heads from exploding in shock.

I came across some real characters during my military time, but rarely did I see this level of turd in a leadership position.  Birdbrain was the highest-ranking person in our platoon and the first word we got about him was that he was a complete failure in all faucets of military training.  Unless "Turd Burglary" was a new subject, because I'm sure he aced that portion.

            “Oh your platoon is getting Birdbrain?” said another LT that graduated from West Point with him.

            “Why do you say it like that?” I asked.

            “Well everyone except for him passed the last set of exercises.”

            “Is he going to be difficult to work with?”

            The LT just smiled and walked away.  Oh boy.  We’re getting ready to deploy in a few months and we’ve got a piece of work in coming.

            “Bet you wish you took that promotion last year, Sergeant Vance, ah-hehehe,” Sergeant First Class (SFC) Ryan stated with a flem-filled throat.

            “Not really, I love being a team leader.”

            “But as the team leader in alpha section, you’re on the LT’s truck.  You get to fix ‘em.”

            “Well… shit, fuck, damn.”

It was a shame we had to switch LT’s so close to deploying.  Our previous one, Jamal Kahn, was outstanding.  He was born in the United Arab Emirates, graduated from Michigan State, average height and build, black hair, brown eyes, great sense of humor and was of the Muslim faith.  Jamal’s humor, thick skin and faith produced non-PC jokes throughout the platoon, which eased tension during a time when some people weren’t very excepting of Muslims.  It also allowed a lot of our guys to ease into a culture many of us were naïve too.  Myself included.  Socially, he was the perfect LT.  If he saw something wrong with a platoon member, he would ask that soldier’s first line supervisor if that was normal behavior.  If it wasn’t, the first line would correct that soldier.  In the field, he was always listening to everyone's ideas before making a final decision himself with certain confidence.  We were proud to follow him.  To say that my second deployment would have been better with Jamal is still a serious understatement.

            “Sergeant Vance, the new LT is here,” SFC Ryan gurgled.

            “Clear your fucking throat,” I whispered to myself.

            “Huh?”

            “On the way, sergeant.”

            I walked into our platoon cage where I saw a kid of average height, thin, pale, brown haired and nervous.

            “Hi guys, I’m Lieutenant Birdbrain.  I just want to start off by saying everyone has said I have an easy job to fill, because I’m walking into a platoon that knows their shit.  That being said, I want you to know that I know I have a lot to learn from you all.  I’m not going to get in your way.  Just do your thing.”

            The next year and a half would make this statement erroneous. 

“What do you think, Vance?” someone asked.

“Seemed like a rehearsed speech and he gives off this… douche bag aura,” I said, “but time will tell.”

During our first field exercise with Birdbrain we were told not to use cell phones by the squadron commander.  Of course, we would use our cells anyway, but Birdnuts took it one step further.  He aimlessly walked out in the open in broad daylight looking like the Verizon guy who always annoyingly asked “Can you hear me now?”  We could see our troop commander staring him down from a few hundred meters away.  They would have a one-sided conversation later on.

Birdbrain would always break little rules like that out in the open, leaving him and our platoon vulnerable to attention from high-ranking people we didn’t want attention from.  In Kuwait he was in charge of organizing conexes full of our equipment.  Equipment needed for war!  Remember that.  A conex is just a big metal container the military uses to transport gear via ships.

“Sergeant Vance, where’s LT?” SFC Ryan frantically asked in the middle of our troop's tent.

“No idea. What’s up?” I asked.

“The squadron XO (executive officer) wants to know why he isn’t present for the arrival of our conexes.”

“SHIT!”

“He won’t answer the radio either.”

Little Birdbrain was off visiting one of his buddies in a completely different unit.  Way to go, jackass.  Do you know who gets blamed for a butter bar being fucked up?  That LT’s platoon.  The XO had some choice words for him though.  While Birdbrain was getting his ass chewed, one of my soldiers approached me with a written letter he found near the LT’s cot.  It was a love letter.  I really wanted exploit it, but told the soldier to put it on the LT’s nasty cot.  Upon his return, Birdbrain was upset with me.

“Sergeant Vance, I don’t appreciate people moving my private letters,” he said.

“Lieutenant, that letter was found on the ground.  A soldier read it to find out whom it belonged to and out of the kindness of his heart placed it on your cot.  If you don’t like people touching your stuff, I recommend you tidy up a bit to avoid this situation,” I said, verbally cold-cocking him in the face.

“Well I don’t think people should be talking about how messy my cot is.  You need to tell me if its messed up, sergeant.”

“So you want me to tell our highest ranking, highest paid, grown-ass man that graduated from West Point how to keep his area clean so people don’t pick on him?”

“If this is a problem I’ll go talk to the platoon sergeant.”

“Let me know how that works out for ya, lieutenant.”

SFC Ryan slapped me on the wrist and asked that I be patient with Birdbrain.  I thought I handled it well.  Birdbrain just didn’t like getting embarrassed by a lowlife enlisted man such as myself.  I just looked at SFC Ryan as if to say, “really?”  Birdbrain saw enlisted fellas as an inferior race.  I don't know what West Point teaches, but I hope its not that officers are any different from enlisted members.

Oh boy, what’s next with this guy?  How about a story surrounding a stuffed animal and softcore porn?  After we headed north into Iraq, we discovered something odd about Birdbrain.  He had a Beanie Baby sized giraffe he named Toppy.  Toppy would go everywhere with Birdbrain.  The reason for this is because his alleged fiancé gave it to him and he wanted to take pictures with high-ranking Iraqi officials and send them to her.  Well, as you can imagine, Birdbrain got sloppy.

The first problem was that he wasn’t very sneaky in the placement of Toppy.  He would walk into meetings with the damn thing sticking out of his cargo pocket for everyone to gawk at in strange curiosity.  Birdbrain would then walk out to the trucks after a meeting grinning.  His grin was so awkward.  Our medic, Meany (that’s his real name, cause he’s awesome) dubbed him “Double Chops” because he would clinch his teeth and open his lips as far as possible, completely exposing all of his teeth.  It was cartoonish in nature.  Both his smile and an exposed Toppy were killing our platoon's well respected reputation.

            The second problem he had was disclosing too much information to a platoon that despised him.  He would always bitch to us about issues with his fiancé.

            “Well we’re from Vegas and she’s going to live there while I’m deployed, but I don’t know why she still has to share a storage unit with her ex-fiancé,” he questioned.

            Maybe because she’s sleeping with him!  I couldn’t say that though.

            “Yeah that’s so weird,” I’d say with a blank stare and innocent smile.

            The dumbass even got sloppy with the placement of his fiance doing an awful striptease, much like Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance for Arnold in “True Lies.”  How do I know this?  One night at a checkpoint it was my turn to sleep, so off I went in the hellhole of the Stryker.  Mitch, who was on watch at the time, awakened me.  He didn’t say anything, because he didn’t want to wake up the LT, who was sleeping only a few feet away.  Mitch just gave me the universal symbol for “keep quiet” with his index finger over his lips and showed me a video on his cell phone.  It was some woman doing a terrible dance.

            “I don’t get it, man,” I whispered.

            “That’s the LT’s chick!” he whispered back as he tried not to laugh.

            “How?”

            “I asked if I could get some music from his phone to listen to and he gave it up.  I downloaded EVERYTHING!”

            That video made its way around the entire platoon and he never knew.  Score one for the good guys.  Of course we all made references to chicks making videos for us, but he never picked up on it.  Shocking, I know.

            The last screw up with Toppy and its connection to his fiancé was not securing Toppy after he pissed us off to the point where we had to take action.  In Vietnam, LT’s like Birdbrain would “disappear,” but we couldn’t do that and get away with it so we had to get creative.  One day he left Toppy unsecured on the truck.  With my crew, that was a mistake.  Especially after he recently made the platoon give back peanut butter cliff bars we “acquired” fair and square from the chow tent.  Those were like gold when meals were sparse.

We decided to kidnap Toppy and hold him hostage.  We offered his freedom for our cliff bars in a ransom note written in Arabic by one of our terps along with a picture of me and another soldier fully masked like terrorists holding a grenade next to Toppy’s head.  Birdbrain was such a dumb prick that he only offered straight up cups of peanut butter after translating the letter and claiming he could figure out who was in the picture.  He never found out who was in the picture or that the terp that translated the letter for him was in on the joke with us.  When we refused to release Toppy he threatened to talk to higher.  Wow, he wants to tell the commander that somebody has his precious stuffed animal?  The commander would have reamed Birdbrain, but then we would hear about it and we didn’t want that kind of attention. What a douche.  We released the giraffe… temporarily.

Woody, Mickey and myself were bitching about how poorly the mission went one day and decided to take it up a notch with the innocent giraffe. 

            “I’d burn that motherfucker now if I had ‘em,” Mickey stated.

            “You would?” Woody asked in a tone I hadn’t heard him use before.

            “Birdbrain is in a meeting right now and I know exactly where Toppy is.”

            “Lets do this,” I added.

            Woody grabbed Toppy and handed it to Mickey.  Mickey stuffed it in a box we had gotten in the mail and I lit the fire.  Little Toppy went up in smoke as platoon members came out to be by the fire.  The three of us had to keep it a secret until everything blew over.   

Bye Bye Toppy

            For the rest of the tour we played dumb when Birdbrain asked about Toppy.  He threatened to do an inspection of everything we had to find it.  We said no.  It was a glorious victory watching him squirm at the loss of the only thing left that connected him to his unfaithful fiancé.  Oh but the fun isn’t over yet, folks…

…..To be continued…. dun dun duuuuuun…

Casa de Muerte and a Case of the Heebee Jeebees

           

Casa de Muerte spray painted in black.

            “Is that a stick or somethin’?” asked Staff Sergeant Shmiddie.

            “Negative sergeant.  That is an arm and hand,” I replied.

            “An arm?”

            “Yeah, a human arm.”

            “Oh shit.”

            It was the late Fall in 2006 in southern Baghdad and White Platoon had been getting shot at and tested for a few months.  We had a midmorning patrol scheduled under cloudy skies.  As we headed for the gate to go outside the wire, or out in sector, nine 107mm rockets hit F.O.B. Falcon with several detonating close to our Strykers.  We pushed thru the barrage and hoped for a new mission plan.  We got just that.

            The troop talk (our headquarters) informed us over the net that cameras on the blimp had captured smoke plumes where they suspected the launch site of the rockets was and provided us with a grid.  We were instructed to move in and investigate.  Just 30 seconds later plans changed, again.  The camera operators saw two men leaving the possible launch site on scooters and our radio guys in the talk would relay their movement to us as this mission turned into a game of “hide and go seek.”  Oh hello, adrenaline.

            We got word that the scooters stopped in a nearby street and the men ran inside a home.  I was very pleased to be a dismount on this mission.  Our three Strykers surrounded the shack of a home as ramps dropped and we ran out to raid the house.  Inside we found two men and two women.  The women were acting docile and the men were jittery, but not acting surprised we were there.  We took the men outside so we could talk to the women first.

            “They say they are very scared of what their husbands will do,” said our interpreter (terp).

            “Are those men outside your husbands?” I asked.

            “They say no, that is why they are scared of what their husbands will do.”

            “Did those men say or do anything to you before we got here?”

            “They say they were told not to talk to anybody or they would be killed, but they are more scared of their husbands knowing other men were in the house while they were away.”

            “That’s all we needed to know, thank you.”

            Well I guess that’s the one good exception to third world countries not having women’s rights.  Those women were more scared of their husbands than they were of the men trying to kill fully armed Americans for cash from Al-Qaeda or the Jaysh al-Mahdi Militia, militants loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr.  After a quick search of the shack while questioning the women, we moved outside for the men.

            “Separate them and make sure they can’t communicate,” Shmiddie ordered.

            While interrogations of the men commenced, a team of us searched the perimeter for any kind of evidence. 

            “Eh Sergeant Vance, got somethin,’” Hall said.

            “Whatchya got?” I asked.

            “Got a video recorder. Might be theirs if we can figure out how to open the video files.  Found it over there under that water container.”

            “A video camera that nice, hidden outside this shack and under a water container?  Try to get that thing working, cause I’m betting it has footage of them attacking us.”

            “Roger.”

            Hall took Mango’s place in our platoon and I couldn’t have been happier.  He was everything an NCO wanted in a soldier.  Hall knew when to take initiative.  That’s rare in a new soldier since I usually had to play “Red Light, Green Light” with my previous 3 soldiers when it came to controlling an area.  He was white, quiet, light haired, average build and from Tennessee with a thick accent.  Hall dove right under the water container that all of us had walked past and he hit the jackpot.

            “These guys answering questions?” I asked.

            “They aren’t saying much.”

            “Got it!” Yelled Hall.

            I ran back to Hall and Woodrow as they were examining the footage.

            “Motherfuckers,” I said, starting to look like Clint Eastwood.

            The footage showed these guys launching all nine rockets at F.O.B. Falcon off route Jackson/Irish.  Yahtzee!

             “Look familiar?” I asked one of the detainees as I showed him the attempt on our lives.

            Both of the men put their heads down and had two completely different stories on why they were in that shack.  Game over.  We blind folded them and put them in separate Strykers while we finished searching the area for more evidence against them.

            “Vance, we might have another problem,” Shmiddie proclaimed.

            “What’s up boss?”

            “See those wires on the ground? That's a makeshift detonator to a command-detonated explosive. I’m going to follow the wire to see where it goes.  Make sure nobody fucks with that.  I don’t want to get blown up.”

            “Got it.”

            What that means is that Shmiddie saw a red and blue wire attached to a small, white plastic cap.  If these two wires were pressed together, they would complete a circuit.  This circuit extended thru very thin white and black wires that went into a field.  Shmiddie had to find out exactly what was intended on being detonated.  I hovered over the wires while he went solo to make sure casualties would be at a minimum in case something went wrong.

Very small and difficult to see, but Shmiddie's eyes saved some lives that day.

            “White 4, this is White 3.  We got a five gallon drum EFP IED crusted in dirt by a trash pile and need to make this route black ASAP,” Shmiddie said on the net.

            “3, this is 4. Roger,” replied our platoon sergeant, Pons.

            To put things into perspective, a coke can sized EFP (Explosively Formed Penetrator) IED can take out a humvee.  A five-gallon drum would cut a 20-ton Stryker in half and maybe send it through an apartment complex.  It was resting by some trash on the side of a heavily traveled route.  To make that route “black” means to shut it down.

Over a half mile away, we found where the wires ended.

            “EOD is en route,” Pons said after reporting to higher.

            As we waited for EOD, we got a call from the talk asking that we go to the original grid of the launch site and investigate after EOD showed up to relieve us at the EFP site.  We complied.  Keep in mind, we still have two detainees.

            “Sergeant Vance, this asshole won’t shut up,” Hall said.

            “He’s probably bitching about how we ruined his big payday.  First he fires rockets on video and then he tried to obliterate a Stryker.  Take a shotgun and charge it one time next to his head.  That’ll shut him up,” I said back.

            Chk, chk!  That detainee sat up straight and about pissed his pants.  He thought he was going to be executed.

            “That’s enough, I don’t need them shittin’ all over my Stryker,” Shmiddie pleaded.

            “Mount up White, time to roll,” our platoon leader said.

            We found the launch site.  There were nine stands from where the rockets were launched and a tenth rocket that never fired on top of a tenth stand.  The evidence on these guys was definitely earning them a trip to a dark, small cage.  Next to the launch site was a half constructed yellow brick and cinder block house.  We dismounted the Strykers and searched the area for more evidence.  I started with the unroofed structure.

107mm Rocket that luckily didn't work.

            “Shmiddie what’s all this white shit on the ground?” I asked.

            “No idea. Lime maybe?”

            I turned a corner and saw a bright blue rope sticking out of the ground.  The dirt around it looked fresh.  Protocol was to get a metal detector around suspicious looking things like that in case it was an IED or land mine, but I had a gut feeling it wasn’t an explosive.  It was way too obvious considering the lengths the two detainees went to conceal their EFP boom boom.  Nobody else was in the room so I took a chance with my own life.

            I gave the rope a little tug from a distance and it seemed to give way fairly easily, so I got closer and pulled much harder.  The rope gave, dropped it from my hands and I fell right on my ass.  I couldn’t believe I was staring at a half decayed human arm and hand.  After others from my platoon started to come into the room I looked around.  It wasn’t sticks or kindling to make fire that was lying around.  It was human bones.  I had just accidently uncovered a mass grave.  The “white shit” on the ground was lime; meant to mask the smell of all the corpses. 

            “You ok, Vance?” asked Shmiddie.

            “Yeah, I just. I don’t know. I guess I have a case of the heebee jeebees, man. I’m gonna smoke by the trucks. Just give me a few.”

            “Yeah, go for it.”

            We had come across a lot of dead bodies before and I had no problems, but the idea that so many people were just dumped in a hole got to me.  They were a few hundred feet from an entire town and our detainees probably put them there.  What the fuck is wrong with these people.

Days like that opened my eyes to how insignificant we all can be in the eyes of monstrous people.  In many places around the world, Darwinism takes a dark turn in the name of survival.  This is why combat vets are always ready for something to go down and prepared to kill to survive.  Its not easy to hide, but just take one look at us when we’ve been startled by something.  You won't make that mistake twice.  It may seem morbid, but this made me appreciate life so much more.

             Specialists came in to investigate the scene as we headed off to Cropper, a jail we brought detainees to in the green zone for further “questioning” and “trial.”  I never got a body count, because there wasn’t enough time for the investigators to count them all.  It was a busy and productive day for White.  We rolled out with our heads high and happy we were all alive as the sun set under clearing skies.

             “Are we going to eat dinner chow in the green zone before coming back to Falcon, Sergeant Vance?” asked Lemon from the driver’s hole.

             “Hell yeah, man.  I think its Mexican night too,” I replied.

             “Woo hoo!”