April Fool's Day

On April 1^st 2005 I left Iraq in one piece. I never would have imagined then, that I would be capable of sharing my stories with all of my friends and family. It has been an emotional exercise that I have struggled through and I am excited that I am finished.

We arrived back into the United States in the middle of the night, landing in Bangor, ME. As we came down the jet way we were met with a cheering crowd of total strangers. I wanted to cry and the lump in my throat almost choked me. At all the stops we made, on the way back to Twenty-nine Palms, we were met with a hero's welcome everywhere we went. I remember looking out of the window, as we taxied after landing at March AFB, and seeing fire engines on display with their red, white and blue lights on and water shooting hundreds of feet into the air with a huge spotlight on the American flag.

I hope that we are still doing those things, but I doubt it.

I have a hard time talking with people about what I have done, seen and felt. I have always felt that I didn't deserve the thanks that people were giving me. When my dad dropped me off at the airport I didn't expect to ever see him again.




 

June 14, 2004

I arrived yesterday, back to California, back to the Marines. After a fast couple of days trying to get all of my stuff over to my Dad's while at the same time trying to spend time with family and friends for what felt like was more for them than me. I do not like being in the spotlight. I feel uncomfortable when people tell me thanks for something I have not done.

    My Dad drove me to the airport in mostly silence. We talked about E-470 a road to the airport that nobody takes and other odd subjects to avoid thinking about why I was being taken to the airport. Although the true subject did come up a few times but the conversation never lasted long and always ended with one of us turning up the radio or rolling down a window. We had arrived at the airport. My Dad had offered to park and come in with me – an idea that I had shot down – he removed my sea bag from the trunk and then insisted on a hug, which is unusual for us. I couldn't remember the last time we had hugged. I couldn't help but think about my Grandpa. He had taken me to the airport in 2001 the last time I was overseas and died before I had come back.

The security line at the airport was the longest I had ever been in. I boarded the plane as soon as I got to the gate. I was stuck in the middle seat. I listened to the pilots talk to air traffic control the entire flight on my headphones.

I feel like I have been given a second chance or have cheated death so many times that I have realized how valuable life is. I try now to take time enjoy my life with a different perspective that, I hope, people that read this journal can now maybe see. Not just happy to be alive but I am thankful to have my legs to run, my arms to help a friend move and my eyes to enjoy the view. There are a lot of people that didn't make it home to tell their story. Thank you everybody for reading mine.

Marines, Brothers, Best friends you are the only ones that know the stories that I left out. Both good and bad, I kept some things for myself.


 

My Last Entry

March 16

    We all made it out of Hit, went back to Al Asad and saw Tobias and Sam. Tobias will go home with all of us after the Colonel got involved with his flight arrangements. All the doctors say he needs to go home. Sam White's name was not entered, neither was anyone else on the advanced party list for flights out, so it was nice to see them all again. I was in Al Asad for four days, and then we drove up back to KV where we plan to leave all of our vehicles with 2^nd LAR. We went out to Ah Rutba on the 11^th for two days. Everything was quiet. We were again back in probably the safest place in Iraq.

Photo taken of us being blown up from front of convoy

    Then on the 13^th at about 1500 when we were returning to base my vehicle got hit with an IED just as we began to cross a bridge. We were the 5^th vehicle in the convoy and boom. Nobody saw it coming, not us, not the 4 vehicles in front of us, nobody. The blast forced me into the vehicle, all twisted and turned around. The vehicle was still moving with 6 flat tires. I was buried by my day pack and the Capt.'s helmet, which all fell from the bustle rack into my hole. I turned around to see who was hurt. Boldin's hand was bleeding. Skrabas face swelling up. I stood up and gave the Captain a thumb up, not that we were okay but that we were all alive. The vehicle rolled to a stop about 500m past the blast sight. The Capt. Jumped down and looked at the vehicle, then ran looking for his helmet that I had on the floor. Doc Palten, who was sitting next to me yelled, "Get out, get out!" I crawled out the top and dove onto the road. Doc, taking the same route, was right behind me. He was on fire.

I didn't have a scratch on me. This blast more severe than the first had injured everybody besides me and the driver. That didn't matter we still were alive. The explosion tore through the armored vehicle putting holes the size of basket balls in the hull and dozens of smaller ones every inch of the side exposed to the blast. Doc's pants had caught fire after the laptop in front of him had spit out one of its batteries as shrapnel ripped the computer apart. That Dell saved his life, but not his pants.
We were scheduled to leave country on April 1st but everybody thought it was the cruelest April fools joke ever.  Two weeks until we were home and we almost didn't make it. The Chaos of the Med evac quickly snapped me out of the slow motion fog of being blown up, we were thrown into the "Log", (our LAV ambulance) and a section broke off the main party to escort us back to base at high speed while the rest of the Company went looking for the men who tried to kill me.
When we got to the front gate of KV the lead vehicles stopped to let us drive directly to the Battalion Aid Station. I saw that Barker had been on point and the look on his face of concern was relieved with a thumbs up I gave him as we drove passed.

 

“Let’s get the hell out of here!”

Yesterday was mostly quiet except for a few minutes when Doc Patlan and I almost got hit by mortars. We were sitting in our fighting hole, just shooting the shit, talking about different police departments. Like I said, it was pretty quiet. I even had my helmet off. Then a Humvee pulled up about 75m to our right. At the time we thought nothing of it. But looking back we decided that was what they must have saw and shot at.

The first round fell way short, landing in the middle of the Euphrates. I threw on my helmet and grabbed a hold of my rifle. The second and third round dropped near the Humvee but had missed. The Humvee started up and sped away. Doc and I got deep in the hole. Doc yelled out to Steffen and Walden in the hole next to us asking if everyone was okay. Only seconds later, one dropped in front of us, to the right only about 10m away. Doc, almost on top of me, said, "Let's get the hell out of here!" I replied, "Where the hell are we going to go?" Then another round fell right behind us, exploding on top of a palm tree it hit, knocking palm leaves down. Our ears were ringing but we were okay, everybody was okay.

Doc and I in our hole before the attack.

    

 I woke up this AM. No, I'm missing a day somewhere. Everything is running together. I woke up hearing more mortars, followed by gun fire, then someone yelling for a corpsman. I was mad at myself for not being there; thinking one of my scouts was hurt. But it was an Iraqi kid who had caught some shrapnel, nothing too bad.

Today was filled with sniper fire. One shot hit the building that my scouts were on the roof of. Sgt. White, Sam, stayed in Al Asad and is leaving on advanced party back to the states on the 1^st. So I now have two more scouts and a Doc working for me. Tobias also stayed in Al Asad after breaking his hand by punching a table in Ramadi because he was drunk off some whiskey Louie had got for us. I already miss them both, but Tobias is getting medevac and is probably home by now with his wife, who I'm sure deserves to have him more. I don't think Sam is happy to go back without us. We all want to leave but we want to leave together.

 March 1

    So far, HIT has brought mixed emotions. It was talked about by the command like it was going to be a mini Fallujah. The attitude of everyone seemed the same. Nobody wanted to die after making it this far and almost home.

The City of Hit

We left Ramadi just a few days to FOB hit to link up with the Iraqi freedom guard (IFG). The plan was to move into Hit that night but after another element of the IFG was ambushed the plan changed. We were to go search route bronze for the ambush site. Six IFG in a white SUV. Three escaped. Two captured and one left for dead. We never found them. The next morning we went to the Haditha Dam to refuel and re-supply. That night we drove 5 hours cross country then set up in a coil just outside of the city of Hit. The next morning we moved into our positions along the Euphrates River in a palm grove. We spent the first day digging in and fortifying the perimeter with trip flares and concertina wire. Red PLT to our north engaged a man that on the IFG guys spotted with a mortar tube minutes after an attack. That night again, Red had spotted some activity. There were five guys sneaking around by the bank of the river, on the other side, crawling around and digging, moving things from one place to the other.

    It was around midnight and I was in the turret with Johnstone. We saw them a couple of times but too many palm trees were blocking our shot. For the next hour or so we sat watching through the thermals and listening to Red platoon continue to call the Capt. Over the radio, keeping them updated with what these guys were doing, and almost begging to kill them.

    The Capt. was on their side and became almost belligerent with battalion when they told us we were not authorized to shoot until shot at. This was going against our rules of engagement. We had positively ID'd these men with weapons obviously up to something. Wolfpack (our Battalion call sign)  did not want to "stir the hornets nest" because Force Recon was going into the city at 0300 and we would be pulling into our hot positions for a show of force with Illum. Everyone was afraid that these guys would not still be there at 0300 or even worse, they would shoot at us first. 

    0300 came and they were still there. Cpl. Barker's LAV initiated the attack with a TOW shot across the river and then the 25mm opened up on a steaming pile of body parts. We fought through the night.

The TOW stands for Tube launched, Optically tracked Wire command linked missile system.  The shot that was taken was said to be impossible according to "the book" One of the systems limitations is its inability to be deployed over a body of water. 

Wake up, bad guys!

Feb 23, 2005

   

Today is our 3^rd day in the town of "Hit" and I have been meaning to write in the record for weeks. After the elections, we seemed to step it up a notch and raid a couple of targets before we turned over our zone in Ramadi. The first house we hit with little success. Driving into the village and having mortars provide illumination; I guess we scared them off with them hearing our vehicles. There was said to be around 20 of them fleeing the target house. Nobody we caught was who we were looking for.

The next raid was in the town of  Saqlawiyah. The Capt., myself, and my scout team linked up with Red Plt at OP 11A along with an Italian reporter. We patrolled about 2K into the town at midnight. The first house was on the outskirts of the town. After we had surrounded the house, a green chemlight was cracked and thrown into the air for the signal to move in.

We stormed in kicking the door down and pulled five guys out of bed, along with finding just as many AK's. After zip tying their hands and blindfolding them, we dragged them with us to the next objective. Working our way deeper into the town, we continued to kick down doors, stringing along our train of detainees, hitting all four objectives with the only casualty being my new guy Skraba falling into a waist high puddle of shit.

 We ended up with eleven detainees – all bad guys. Even the HIET (Human/Intelligence Exploitation Team) was surprised at how successful the raid was.

The Elections

Jan 31

    The Iraqi elections were yesterday and I don't yet know how they went. Things seemed strangely on the normal side here at OP.

This is an image that I hope people never forget

     

Yesterday A.M. we went out on an ambush patrol and set in about 2K South of our OP before sunrise. We had suspected that they had been dropping mortars in that area but only saw Shepherds.

Thompson was all the excitement I had that A.m. He was to my right, set in for an ambush watching out back with the saw, and I found him sleeping. I threw a rock at him, surprising myself with my aim and hitting him in the feet. He didn't move. I threw a couple more rocks and then had to go over to him. Staying low, I snuck over there and knelt down putting my knee into his back and told him with an angry whisper, "Wake Up". He started immediately saying he was alert. I stopped him by grabbing his helmet and twisting his head to an uncomfortable position telling him I would deal with him later.

    I finished reading The Da Vinci Code yesterday – a gift Tippie had sent. Now Tobias is reading it. Jo sent me some Vodka and Bourbon along with some pictures of her. Some Copenhagen, some cups and little umbrellas. Shelley sent me some pictures too, of her and her kid, Kyla. I am so thankful for having such great friends back home.

    When we were back at Ramadi this last time, Johnstone got beat up pretty good by Buchanan. I didn't get to see it, but I heard it. Right outside my house. Johnstone and Doc had been going around for weeks antique'ing people. Something they had seen on a CKY movie where they come up on somebody sleeping and throw a handful of flour on their face. When they first had the idea and showed that they weren't just talking by getting a 10lb. bag of flour from the chow hall, I told them if they ever did that to me, I would be right behind them running out of the house barefoot to kick their ass. They gave me a look of disbelief saying, "It's only a joke," and I warned them that they should be careful who they humiliate.

    After antique'ing a few people without incident, they got somebody who didn't like getting woke up by a handful of flour launched into his face.

    I guess Buchanan, who I don't even like, only hit Johnstone two or three times but it was bad. Johnstone's right eye was cut and the next day was almost swollen shut. Scabs on his nose and lip showed up. Now he was the one humiliated.

Phone calls home

Jan 15

Back at FOB Hefner. Today the CG's jump got hit with and IED just down the road and had one urgent surgical medevac. We went to help even though it was Cajun's zone but when a two star general is involved, everybody wants some face time. We arrived just minutes before the bird came in. I've had a lot of time to think while I've been over here and there have also been times that I wished I had time to think. I may not be as religious as I should be but there is no question as to miracles that have occurred. RPG's bouncing of vehicles. RPG's hitting vehicles with no one in the back. Mortars falling only inches from hitting us. Anyway, some call it luck. Not me. And I'm thankful for it.

    I heard today that my friend Ben Barker is back with the company and I'm looking forward to seeing him. I had not talked with my friend Greg Murphy for years and made a point to call him before I left for Fallujah. The talk was good. He had been mad at me for a long time and when someone's mad at me, my last defense is to be mad at them, and that's where we were.

    He told me that he was going to be a Dad and that I was going to be an Uncle. That meant so much to me because I always thought of him as my brother. I have not spoken with him since, but I didn't want to die in Fallujah without "making up". I hope we fall right back into our old ways. I called home just a few days ago. I call home more than I thought that I would, but it's more for them than me. First my Dad, we spoke for a good while. I told him about Sgt. Davis and all the dead Iraqi's. I hadn't planned on letting them back home know that kind of thing but it went okay. I called my Mom and knew that we wouldn't talk long but just wanted to say hi. She said to me, "You're still in California, right?" I was shocked.

The War is not Over

Jan 10

I see more dead bodies in one day, than anyone should have to see in a lifetime. I am numb.

Not more than a week ago, while conducting a route recon of "Golden" we discovered 8 dead bodies in the middle of the desert, all blindfolded and hands tied behind them, lined up and shot while standing. Bullet casings 7.62 scattered on the ground ten feet in front of them. They had been killed not more than 24 hours before we found them. Their clothes were still soaked in blood and the dogs had only begun to eat them. We informed the Iraqi police and days later the bodies were still there.

We are in Ramadi now. Have been for a little over a month. We work out of Camp Ramadi and every three days we drive about an hour east to FOB Hefner (Forward operating base)Everything was going well. We fell into our routine and were planning on smooth sailing until we went back home.

FOB Hefner

On January 6^th Sgt. Davis was killed. While taking blankets to another OP to be given out to Iraqi's, a piece of shrapnel from an IED went through his head. I wish that I would have known him better but am glad I didn't. It would have just made it harder.

We took his body back to Camp Ramadi and had his driver,Kliff, over to the house. Johnstone had got a ½ gallon of Crown Royal in the mail and we drank to a fallen marine.

When I say that we had fallen into our routine, I am admitting that we were guilty of becoming complacent.  Everywhere you look in Iraq you see signs that read Complacency Kills. You were told stories of Marines that had died with ipods in there hands and in there sleeping bags instead of alert and on watch.  I am not saying that anything done different would have saved Sgt. Davis. It woke us up that we were not home yet and there are people that are trying to kill us.