Purple Heart Ceremony

Today at 15:15 we had a Company Mass Formation for a Purple Heart Ceremony for the fire fight that happened several days ago. My Plt Sgt who was standing next to me when we got ambushed was one of the soldiers today to receive a purple heart, for that bullet that almost killed him that went completely through his CVC helmet.

This Purple Heart Ceremony was by far the largest Purple Heart Ceremony we've had so far here in Iraq, a lot of people were getting them today, about a dozen. Most of the Purple Hearts awarded were for RPG shrapnel and grazed bullets from AK47's.

When they put out a time to be at a formation, like 15:15, what they really mean is be there at 15:00, you always have to be at a formation 15 minutes early, then at 15:15, you stand in formation, at the position of Parade Rest till the big shots show up. Today is was the Battalion Commander, the Command Sergeant Major, and the Full Bird Cornal. They didn't show up till almost 15:40. So for about 40 minutes we had to stand in the hot sun, sweating our asses off in our DCU's.

For completely selfish reasons, I always hate award ceremonies, because you get to watch other people receive medals, and your standing there in formation with bunch of guys who are thinking the same thing your thinking, "Hey, how come I didn't get one", which isn't really too fun. At award formations every now and then when somebody gets pinned a medal, you'll hear somebody in the formation cough the words "bullsh*t" under their breath, or whisper "What the f**k? THAT guy?!" But that childish behavior never happens at Purple Heart Formations, in fact, that's the one awards ceremony that I'm always glad I'm not one of the guys out there getting a medal.

Finally an Army Captain finally came out, and we all stood at the position of attention as he said his "Attention To Orders, these men are awarded the Purple Heart" speech. I only got to watch about 20% of the ceremony, because it was soo damn hot and we were standing in the sun for soo long that the sweat that was pouring down my face was getting into my eye balls, and the sweat was all salty and stingy because I've never washed my hat. (gross huh?) So when they pinned the third guy in the long line of awardies, I had to shut my eyes closed, because the salty sweat was getting into my eyes, and it would sting painfully if I tried to open them. You can't move your body at the position of attention, so I couldn't wipe the sweat from my eyes and face. I physically couldn't keep them open. So for about 80% of the ceremony I had to stand there with both my eyes closed. Finally, when everybody was pinned, they told us to stand at the position of Parade Rest and I was able to touch my face again, and wipe the sweat off from around my eyes and be able to see again.

Our Commander then gave a brief speech, I couldn't hear what he was saying, because he didn't really talk that loud and I was way in the back. All I heard was "you guys whooped them" or something. When he was done talking, it was all over and they released us. And exactly when they released us a Sgt showed up and yelled "QRF had been activated! 3rd Plt get your asses to the motor pool!" When they activate QRF that means something's going down in Mosul and they need US Forces to be there. As the guys from third Plt ran off to the motor pool to go deal with whatever they have to deal with I overheard one guy say "You guys don't get hurt, I don't want to stand around in another Purple Heart Ceremony."

Last night I was sitting down smoking a cigarette outside my room with a guy from my squad (from Michigan). And I was staring up into the stars over Mosul, when I saw a flash of a white streak across the night sky, and I freaked out and yelled, "Oh Shit!" and stood up. I thought it was a mortar or a rocket, but instead it was just a shooting star. My friend just laughed at me. That's pretty bad when you start thinking shooting stars are mortars.

I remember shortly before our deployment here to Iraq, the Washington Post printed a huge article on what a piece of overpriced sh*t the Stryker was and how the armor couldn't protect against anything. Which wasn't really an assuring thing to read prior to coming to Iraq. Soldier Of Fortune also tore apart the Stryker in their current issue. These people have no idea what the hell they're talking about.
Here's the deal, before deployment, if you would have asked me what I thought about the Stryker, I would have told you: No Comment. In fact a lot of soldiers would have told you that. But now that we've been out here and its been combat tested, and we've seen what it's capable of doing, and how it can withstand anything that's thrown at it, I will never say negative thing about the Stryker again, ever. In fact, no lie I don't know of a single person in my Brigade who has anything negative to say about the Stryker anymore. Even people I know who hated it and bad mouthed it every chance they had, talk very highly of it now.
Yea, Stykers are kind of an RPG magnet, but it can take a hit, and EVERY vehicle here in Iraq is an RPG magnet. For what we're doing out here, they're perfect, they're extremely mobile, quite, high speed, the armor works, and it's reliable. People I know who came from a light unit love it, and people who came here from 11Mike world, love it. Tracked vehicles suck in urban environments, too slow, too loud, and they always break down. The big advantage with the Stryker is that it's not a tracked vehicle, which allows it to be extremely mobile and fast. Which is what you need here.
List of Improvements:
-The seat cushions suck. It's like sitting on a slab of metal. I would put thicker foam seat cushions.
-The air conditioning sucks. Its like one 5" fan. I'm sure if they could design bunker busting missiles, they can design an air conditioning system that works. When it gets too hot, we turn on our NBC fans, and the tube that you hook up to your gas mask with fresh air, you shove that down your shirt or pants. Helps cool you down.
-More Electrical Outlets. There's only like 4 or 6 outlets in the Stryker, which is a big problem especially when we're out in the field for any long duration of time. You figure there's like a 10 guys in the vehicle, that's at least 10 things that need to be re-charged, like portable DVD players, Gameboys, electrical razors, Mp3 players, Diskmans, digital camera's, electric toothbrushes, laptop batteries, crap like that. I would at least add 2 dozen more outlets.
-Loud Speaker On The Outside Of The Vehicles. Nothing motivates troops more before a mission than good motivational music. Remember in the movie Apocalypse now, when they had the speakers hooked up to the Air Cav Helicopters? Well, we need to do the same thing with the Strykers.

One time we had this huge joint mission with the Iraqi Civil Police, it was an early morning raid. We all met up at the FOB before the mission. The ICP's all showed up in their Toyota pickup trucks, about a dozen trucks, all jam packed with Iraqi Police. Every pick up truck had a huge Iraqi Flag mounted on a pole, and all the ICP's had on brand new police uniforms, AK47's and they were all wearing the red and white jihad towels around their heads. It was an awesome sight. They all showed up with this aura of pride that I cant really describe. We had a couple Counter Intelligence guys ride with us on this one, and they brought these loud speakers with them. They place the speakers on the outside of the vehicle, and when we drive around town sometimes, they'll play this recording in Arabic. I'm not sure exactly what it says, but I think it says something like: Do not be scared, we are Coalition Forces, we come in peace and to help. Do not shoot us, or we will shoot and kill you. That kind of crap. Anyways, while we were driving out the main gate to the FOB to do this joint mission we had the loud speakers blasting Flight Of The Vaulkries, Theme song from The Good The Bad And The Ugly, The Star Spangled Banner, and the Rocky theme song. It motivated the hell out of us. In fact, it even motivated the Iraqi police, I remember looking over at them and they we're all getting into it big time.

One Enemy K.I.A.

I got a new guy on my gun team. A Pvt from Minnesota. In his room up on the wall by his bed, he has an 8X10 photo of the farm he grew up on, and a bunch of inspirational quotes from the bible taped up. I didn't know people still grew up on farms. Kid barely looks 18. He's been in the Army just as long as me, but he's been cursed and damned with bad luck so far his entire army career, getting kicked out of this squad and that squad, thus the reason why he's still a Pvt. In fact when they brought him over to me to tell me that he was now on my gun team, he had his rifle tied down to some survival chord that was tied off and wrapped around his waist. He left his weapon unsecured, so as corrective training and punishment for the next two weeks he has to have his rifle tied down on this string that's connected and tied off to his body so he learns not to go anywhere without his weapon.

Like I said before, if there's a problem, the Army has a solution. They sent him over to me, hoping that maybe I can straighten him out a bit. I'm a Team Leader for Gun #2 in my Plt, so I'm in charge of him now. I'm his boss. Last night we had a brief drive around Mosul and an OP planned for us. In the motor pool before the mission, be both met a little bit early so I could give him a brief class on the M240Bravo Machine gun, how to load it, clear it, and fire it, the basics. Since we're missing a couple guys from leave, they're having me operate the .50 cal on our vehicle for the next couple days. My job usually is to operate the 240 machine gun that's mounted on the back of our vehicle, but for now I'm having the new guy pull "Air Guard" and operate the 240 out the back air century hatch on our vehicle, while I cover down and operate the .50 cal that's on the front of our vehicle for the next couple days. Get him comfortable and familiar with the gun. I figure it would be good training for him.

I was teaching him how to mount the gun on the mount that's on the back of the vehicle when I asked him if he had any questions, he told me no. But I could tell there was something disturbing him, he was smoking his cigarettes very nervously and he looked kinda pale. So I pulled him over to the side and asked, "Hey man, are you all right? You look disturbed." he paused for awhile, and then without making eye contact with me he said softly "I'm not all right. I don't want to pull air guard." What? He doesn't want to pull air guard? WTF? So I asked him, "Why man, what's up?" He said, "I'm scared to be out the hatch. I don't want to do it. I was in 21Victor when we got hit with those IED's and ever since then I don't pull air guard because I'm too scared."

The story: a couple months ago we were doing a patrol and 21 Victor (A Stryker) got hit with two daisy chain 155mm Artillery rounds that were converted to IED's, both ignited at the same time. Two of our guys received purple hearts from Shrapnel. 155's are f**king huge. I was riding in the vehicle that was following 21 when they got hit, and that explosion was soo big and loud, that I actually thought our vehicle was the one that got hit. Anyways he was inside that vehicle the day it got hit and he's been creeped out ever since.

I have no idea what the f**k to say or do in a situation like this, a soldier scared to do his job. Damn.

In the movies the guy always says something cool in a situation like this to his soldier, but I had no idea what the f**k to say to something like that. So the big brother in me kinda stepped in and I told him, "Look man, you'll be all right, we're not going to be out too long, and nothings gonna happen to you. I know how you feel man, f**k, I feel the same way too sometimes, but you just gotta do it. You'll be all right man, nothings gonna happen, O.K.? It'll be all right."

I hate telling half-truths to people. But it worked, he looked a bit more relieved, and he paused and thought for a second about what I just said, and shyfully told me that he didn't want to do it, but he was going to do it anyways. I told him not to worry about a thing, and if he had any questions or anything to talk to me.

While we were driving around Mosul, I constantly looked back to see how he was doing, he looked nervous as hell, but overall, looked all right. We drove around a bit, and then when it got dark, we pulled an OP. We parked our vehicle, dismounted the guys, and I began my shift of scanning my sector with the 50 cal. In case anything happens I'm there to reach out and touch someday.

Then at about 23:00 I overheard on the radio the squad leader from 1st Squad whisper over the radio: "We have a man creeping up on us, break. He's wearing a white man dress, break. And he has a loaded AK47 in his hand, over." It was impossible for me to see the guy from where I was positioned, so I didn't have a shot at him. But what happened, from the story I collected from the guys from first squad was, this guy was creeping up on them with an AK, got close, saw that it was American soldiers, started yelling at them in Arabic, charged his weapon, pointed it at them and started firing. Almost hit one of our PFC's from Texas. They returned fire and ended him.

Now in the movies, when they kill people, they just leave the body there, and Charlie Mike (continue mission). Not us. We don't work like that. No, we police up our dead. We secured the area, and we had the guys in our vehicle go put the guy in a black body bag and throw him in the back of our vehicle so we could drop off the body at the local Mosul Police Station. My guy was a part of that detail.

As soon as they threw the body in the back of our vehicle it filled the vehicle with a very unpleasant aroma of a really bad stench, in a way I guess you could say it stunk like death. The zipper on the body bag was busted, and blood was drooling all over the place. The guys who carried the body in, had blood smear marks here and there on their BDU's.

Once we had the dead body in the back of our vehicle we took off and started to drive to the nearest police station, which was about 5 minutes away. One thing I've noticed about me since I've been here is that I've developed a really warped, dark, sick sense of humor out here. I have a headset on my helmet that allows me radio communication with the driver. Here's the conversation the driver and me had on the way to the police station while we had the dead guy laying down in the back of our vehicle:

DRIVER: Hey, did you ever see those old Police Academy movies?

ME: Yea.

DRIVER: Remember that one where they put the body in the body bag and he comes back alive?

ME: Yea!

Both Of Us: (laughter)

ME: Hey, you remember that Chris Farley movie, the one with him and David Spade where they're driving that car, and they hit a deer, and they both think its dead, so they put it in the back seat of the car and they drive off, and then all the sudden it comes back alive and goes psycho and f**ks the car up?

DRIVER: F**k yea, that sh*t was funnier than hell!

Both Of Us: (Laughter)

I am soo going to burn in hell. I have a f**kin dead guy in the back of our vehicle and I'm cracking funnies. So not cool.

On the way to the police station I was concerned about the new guy. He wasn't up in the back air century hatch behind the 240 anymore, they had someone else up there now. My guy was now sitting down in the back of the vehicle on the bench, with the dead guy on the ground by his feet. I looked back to check up on him, and I could tell right away from the expression on his face that he was all f**ked up. He looked like he was going to cry, and he was trying his hardest to fight it. F**k, g*d damnit, I didn't want him sitting down in front of that body bag. Why did somebody switch out with him? Why the f**k is he sitting down on the bench? That sh*ts going to f**k him up, I didn't want him sitting down in front of the body bag, he should be up in the hatch away from that.

But it was too late, we were almost at the police station. When we got to the police station we dropped the back ramp, grabbed the body bag and handed the ICP's the body and the weapon that he used, which was an AK47 that was completely missing the buttstock and handle. Ghetto.

After that we drove back to the FOB and we all went to midnight chow at the chow hall. They have a midnight meal available from 23:00 hours to 01:00. I wanted to make sure I sit down next to my guy, make sure he was ok. I looked all over for him, but I didn't see him anywhere. I found my Sqd Ldr, sat down next to my Sqd Ldr, and I asked him, hey, where the hell is the new guy at? He told me that when we parked the vehicle to go to chow, he said that he wasn't hungry and didn't want to eat, and he just wanted to go to his room. So he left and walked back to his room from the chow hall by himself.

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