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.