I meet a girl

Nov 16

I've had a hard time keeping up with this General's log. It seems that so much can happen in a day. Anyway EOD's (explosive ordnance disposal) scouts pushed to the East clearing the houses we had just engaged, finding nobody – dead or alive.

    We continued with the mission moving slow, finding one IED (improvised explosive device) after the next. Watching around us Thompson turned and said to me that they were shooting at the Cobras (helicopters). I looked up to see the second, surface to air, missile launched into the sky. I quickly shot an Azimuth with my compass at its point of origin or as people like to say, it's "POO". Ha Ha

   

I think that I had impressed the Capt with my quick thinking to get an azimuth of the launched missile.  I remember he was at least surprised, then excited realizing he had a chance to get these guys.  He quickly had his maps in front of him on the radio calling for fire. 
To call for a fire mission, like I had done several days before, is when you give the known location of yourself and then the distance and direction (azimuth)  of the enemy.  Then, maybe miles away, a mortar platoon or artillery launches shells into the sky. One at a time at first, allowing you to see where they land and make adjustments to have the bombs drop right on top of the enemy. Once you are on target, you "fire for effect" and watch as the fire rains down.  All of this happening in the time it takes for a helicopter to crash.

 The helicopter dropped in elevation behind us, and then flew to our front where I couldn't see it land in a farm field. One pilot was okay while the other had shrapnel to his back and a broken arm. The injured pilot was ground medevacked and minutes later I handed the captain yellow smoke to mark an LZ (landing zone )for a 46 to pick up their pilot. He popped smoke and tossed it in the middle of the road about 30 meters from us. I didn't expect for the helicopter to land right on the smoke, but they did.

    The first pilot stayed back to provide security for the downed bird and we continued our mission. It was taking a lot longer than we had thought and had become dark. We had been finding IED's then trying to detonate them by shooting them with the .50 caliber or 25mm. If that didn't work we would have EOD come up and blow them in place. There would always be a countdown to detonation, or a heads up before someone engaged. But when I heard a nearby blast without either of those two things happening, I knew something was wrong.

 

   

A reserve battalion from Texas and Louisiana call sign "Cajun" had dismounts patrolling both sides of the road looking for wires leading up the road to an IED. Since it was now dark they were pretty much dragging their feet, hoping to trip over one. They had found one and followed it up to the road where it blew them up. The Captain called for an Air Medevac, but by the time Gunny had loaded up the casualties (2 urgent surgical, 2 urgent, and 1 priority) and two routine – the birds were coming in. I jumped out the back of my vehicle and cracked the two green chem-lights I had tied to the end of a bootlace I had taken off my K BAR and began swinging them over my head to mark the LZ with the "Buzz-saw". Two CH-46's landed right in front of me. The wind almost knocked me over. I met the flight nurse on the road, a woman. Even with everything going on, I still noticed and thought for a second, but could not recall the last time I talked to a girl face to face. She asked where the casualties were and where the corpsman was. I took her to the back of the log ,where the casualties had been loaded , and walked up just as the doors were swinging open. Doc jumped out and began talking with the nurse, yelling over the noise of the helicopter. I grabbed a corner of the liter with the most critical patient and began  running  him to the first bird. It was dark and loud, so I saw no blood, but I did notice how bad he was shaking. He was going into shock. We got him in and I went back for the next. He did not seem to be in as bad of shape as the first but heavier. We still got him there with a quick jog and just like that the helicopters flew away.

    That mission took us 25 hours to drive no more than 5 miles, finding a total of anywhere between 15 and 20 IED's. I had lost count.