November 9(D+1): V-I-B-I-D?

D+1
ZZZip. P-e-e-e-w-w-w-w
Crack…CrackCRACK
“Oh SHIT!”
“Hey! How does it go in that movie? ‘If it’s a whiz it’s close, if it’s a crack, it’s hitting you’ or something like that?” I hollered at the humvees next to me. That wasn’t the exact quote. But I think it was from Black Hawk Down, I’m not sure. I was standing ball-defilade in my hatch. That means, from my crotch up, I was exposed. Dawn was rising in the east and we were all situated on the overpass bridge now. The tanks were in the center of the bridge, hull facing south, gun tubes facing west. This gave anybody on the ground behind the tanks, the maximum friendly cover from the sniper fire. Either way, whoever was shooting at us, wasn’t far off.


CRACK…CRACK. The bullets were just snapping as they hit the metal all around me.

“Good lord. Where the hell is it coming from?” It was funny as hell as we all looked around bewildered. It’s a funny thing about getting sniped. You’re probably waiting for me to elaborate, but I can’t. That’s it. It’s just funny. Ok…so some guy has you in his sights and he’s trying to kill you. And he hasn’t yet. But the bullets are coming damn close. And you don’t know where he is. So that’s funny. And for some reason, any time you come real close to death, but live…that’s just absurdly funny. Maybe it’s also funny because somebody is shooting little bullets at this huge tank. A tank that withstood more than 10 RPG strike and never stopped rolling in Baqubah. But here we are standing ball-defilade because that’s where the best view is.

I licked my teeth. My mouth started feeling like a Chia Pet and I had a beard now. All off us needed to get out of the tanks. Our legs and backs were killing us. We climbed out of the hatches. As we did, more bullets started snapping all around us. “Oh SHIT!”

We scrambled to get off of the turret and onto the ground behind the hull. Once we were safely there, we just laughed some more about getting sniped.

“Oh man. I gotta brush my teeth”, but the only thing accessible was a case of 20oz. Riptide Rush Gatorades in the bustle rack for rinsing my mouth. I took a few breaths, and laughed as I scrambled back up on the turret. Bullets cracked on the turret as I dove onto the blow-out panels on the back of the turret. I had some cover from my TC hatch which was open. I reached down into the bustle rack, grabbed a bottle, and scrambled back onto the ground. I brushed my teeth and rinsed out with Gatorade. It was pretty gross tasting but I felt like a million bucks. I grabbed my electric shaver and buzzed my face. My face was filthy and covered with dust but it didn't matter. I felt just a smidgen cleaner now.

The BRT commander wanted to push west into the top or north side of the industrial zone so we could take our objectives. We had spent the early morning clearing the houses immediately to our west but they were scattered and had random shooters in them. We moved along the bridge and took the off-ramp that led us into the city. The tanks led, the bradleys followed and the scouts were right behind us. We pushed forward and my tanks sat on the objective. From behind us, the scouts started taking some decent sniper fire. Windows and windshields started filling with bullet holes. Tires on the humvees started blowing out. Phantom 6 sent his scout platoons back up onto the bridge.

”Red 6, Phantom 6. Come to my location. My humvee is in the middle of the road behind you. I’ll show you where the sniper is.”

I turned our tank section around and kept the brads up front. I raced back where I saw a green humvee in the middle of the road all by it’s self. Phantom 6 was standing by the shotgun seat with his handmike up to his head. There were a few bullet holes in his windshield.

”Do you see that building all by itself way out there in those palm trees?”
“Roger,” I replied.

Hit that fucking thing. He didn’t say it on the net. He shouted it at me. I couldn’t hear him with my CVC on and the turbine running, but I didn’t have to be deaf to read lips. It was clear.

“Damn, SGT P. He’s pissed as fuck. Let’s blow some shit up for him.”

I grabbed the override and laid him onto a run-down grey brick shack tucked into the trees.

“On the way.” BOOM.

Grey smoke and debris blasted out from all sides. I turned to Phantom 6. He still looked pissed but he gave me a thumbs-up. He loved having the tanks. They were like big huge toys to him. And it gave him a power he never played with before.

It was getting close to noon and we were now occupying our objectives on the east side of the central highway running east and west through Fallujah. This road was beautiful. We faced due east. There had to be at least 5 mosques I could see on the right side of the road spread out over 3 kilometers down. Huge complexes with white brick and blue domes. Twin minarets. Five minarets. This was going to be a touchy area. On the left it was just nasty. The industrial zone. This was supposed to be the bad guys’ sanctuary. Supposedly, all the die-hard insurgents slept in these warehouses. There were weapons caches to be found, IED and VBIED factories and quite possible the real heavy resistance.

About 500 meters in front of us on the left and ride curb were two Bradleys from Terminator. I noticed the “Bada-Bing” and the sexy, white female silhouette spray painted on one of the Bradleys. It was the Bradley of a buddy lieutenant with a tribute to the Sopranos painted on the track. I wanted to say hey.

“Red 8, Red 6. Let’s go link up with those brads and let ‘em know we’re right behind them.” We were on a different net than those guys so it was a good idea anyways to do a face-to-face link-up. We pulled up to the Brads but my friend wasn’t on the Bradley at this time, so we just pointed out where we were at and pulled back east on the road to our position.

“Hey Red 8, I don’t think those guys really gave a shit. They seemed pretty oblivious.”

We drove back, did a U-ey and sat facing the west again with the Bradleys in front of us for about an hour.

“Oh shit, there’s some dudes. Check it out!” SGT P hollered.

I looked in the GPSE and saw three guys hauling ass across the road from north to south with AK-47s slung over their backs about 900 meters in front of the Bradleys.. “Damn, why aren’t those Bradleys shooting them?” The bad guys sprinted into a row of garages. Kind of like a Cole Muffler shop with the long building and several garage doors.

I looked at the guys in the hatches of the Brads through the GPSE and they weren’t even looking in the direction of the bad guys. We sure as hell couldn’t shoot at bad guys with the Brads between us.

”Let’s go 8. Let’s move up to those Brads.” I sent a situation report(sitrep) to Phantom 5 and we tore back up the road. I got side by side with Bada-Bing.

“Did you guys see those dudes run across the road?”
The Bradley commander just stared at me like I had a dick growing out of my forehead.
“Three dudes just ran across the road with AK-47s. You didn't see it?” I was furious at this point because it was like talking to a wall.

Suddenly, two more guys ran across the road and into that garage ahead and to our left.
R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r! The coax machine gun chattered away as SGT P chased those sons of bitches with 40-rd bursts of 7.62mm.
“Goddaaamn!” SGT P was pissed. The bullets kicked up the dirt all along their feet as they sprinted from right to left. Man they were lucky. I was pissed too. I wanted to see them go down.

“Alright SGT P. Let's hit it with main gun. 3 rounds each” I requested some added firepower from SSG Terry. Let’s hammer this garage. I put my video camera up to the GPSE as I watched the LCD screen of the camera. BOOM.

“Damn!” One section of the garage blew up. BOOM. I watched a red beam shoot across the ground from my left as SSG Terry nailed the garage again. BOOM. SGT P hit the garage with another HEAT round. BOOM.
“Oh shit! He hit the light pole!” SSG Terry’s HEAT round just happened to hit dead center of a street light pole. The pole went down like a tree but the round hit its target. The garage was hurting.

“Disarm the gun,” SGT P told PFC Langford. The turret smelled of cordite and carbon. I loved that smell. And the smell of the ammo storage. That little compartment had its own distinct sweetness to it, which was only exposed when the ammo door opened.

The garage was pummeled and I don’t think any more bad guys were going to try that. We probably rocked the shit out of those Bradley guys from the concussion of the main gun. Whatever. This was our fight.

“Jesus Christ. Look at this,” SGT P said, exasperated.
I bent down and looked in the GPSE. Some stupid son of a bitch was low crawling on his belly with an AK slung across his back about 700 meters in front of the tank.
SGT P was appalled, “What does he think? I don’t see him? Good lord.”

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. SGT P aimed low and walked the rounds up. The bullets skipped along the road until they peppered him.

“Oh I got him! Look at that shithead!” SGT P laughed.
I started cracking up. The guy started turning slowly like a rolling pin.

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. SGT P kept peppering him to finish him off but he slid up against a curb of an intersecting road and used it for cover.
“Damn, I can’t get him.”

“I’ll get him with the Ma Deuce, just gimme a range SGT P.”

“About 800 meters.”

I made the adjustment in the .50cal sight and put that crawling terrorist in the long axis of my reticle.

Df-df-df-df-df-df-df-df.

I loved that deep bass of the M2 .50cal. It was so powerful and rhythmic. It was slow enough to feel, hear and see every round. Then there were the chimes of the brass and links falling all over the top of the turret. To top it off, the Ma Deuce was spitting out API rounds. Armor piercing incendiary. That shit would go through just about anything. And the fact that it was incendiary meant it would burn any ordnance up too. Great against IEDs, explosives and VBIEDs.

The .50cal started chewing up the curb like paper mache. The bullets shredded the guy and he stopped moving. “Well that’s the end of that guy.”

We relaxed a bit as we continued to sit on that road. About 4 kilometers down the road, 2 desert tanks punched through a wall and faced us directly. It was pretty funny looking. Here were our two tanks sitting squat in the road facing west. And directly opposite, they were doing the same facing us. They looked like two hulking beasts side by side. That’s when things started to get funny.

“There goes a fucking car!” A grey sedan tore out of nowhere onto the road in front of us.
Damn. We can’t engage. We wanted to hit it with a main gun round but we didn’t want to hit those friendly tanks opposite us.

”6. It’s headed right for them. I hope they see us and don’t shoot that car with main gun either,” SSG Terry called over. We were both concerned. If our tanks got hit with main gun rounds, we would be screwed. But we also feared for the safety of those Marines. A VBIED is a powerful weapon. If it was big enough, it could mess up a tank and kill the crew members inside. I started feeling despair as the car raced towards them. But the car swerved hard right and headed north. Shit. It’s headed for Terminator and Avenger. Now we just waited to hear an explosion. Worried that our own close friends were in harm’s way.

“Iss prolly one them V-I-B-I-Ds,” SSG Terry spit over the net.

“Holy shit. Did SSG Terry just say ‘V-I-B-I-D’?” SGT P asked us. We all exploded with laughter. “Iss one them V-I-B-I-D-B-I-Ds!” SGT shouted out mocking SSG Terry.

*****For months now, I’ve been meaning to keep a log of all of the back assward things SSG Terry has said throughout this deployment. Every time he says something seemingly incoherent, we all know what he means, and the conversation continues without interruption. But my junior NCOs and I all exchange quizzical looks that say “Did he just say that?”

One time we were preparing for a raid several months ago. I wrote out the list of things we would need on a dry erase board: Flex cuffs, blindfolds, chemlights, flashlights, entry tools like the Hooligan tool, pry bar and assault ladder. When I finished my brief, SSG Terry turned to the junior NCOs and started reading the list off. “Go get these things ready: the flex cuffs, the hydrogen tool, the-“.

We all looked at each other like we were going to throw up. HYDROGEN TOOL? We all started laughing our asses off. Right in front of him, it was spelled out “HOOLIGAN” and he reads off “hydrogen.”

“Shut the fuck up, dingle-berry dick. You know what I meant,” SSG Terry yelled to his sergeants. We all kept laughing but we continued on with the brief.

The other day SSG Terry was telling me about a good soldier in our platoon. And he was convinced a certain NCO was out to get this young soldier. I couldn’t agree with SSG Terry more. SSG Terry continued to explain to me, “I just think he has a personal bandanna against this kid.”

HOLY LORD…bandanna?!? VENDETTA?. But I knew what he meant, so I didn’t even feel like correcting him. It was after midnight and we were about to roll out on a mission. I was too tired to bother correcting him.

He also likes to say that he’s “not disagreeing with you, Sir. But I’m just playing devicle’s implicant.”

It’s one of our favorite characteristics of SSG Terry. His Arkansas Speak, as he calls it. There cannot possibly be more people like this guy on this planet.************

By now, three cars had sped along this highway. All of them turned north in the direction of where our main effort was holding up. We never heard any explosions, but we continued to remain vigilant. For the BRT, we were getting deeper into enemy territory.