“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.