Posted on 08/09/2004 12:23:17 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
My Sqd Ldr came back from leave the other day. So the Sgt that was filling in as Sqd Ldr while he was away, is now back in the TC hatch, so now I am now back to being a Machine Gunner again. They asked me if I wanted to stay behind the 50 cal in the hatch and I told them, "hell no."
We had an Observation Post today, in the hottest part of the afternoon. Well over 100 degrees today. We went somewhere, parked the vehicles, and dismounted. 1st Sqd, who was several hundred meters away from us, called in over the radio that they discover some UXO (Un-Exploded Ordinance). So me and my AG (Pvt from Minnesota) walked over there with our Plt Sgt. to investigate it. When we walked over to them the Sqd Ldr for 1st squad pointed it out to us, it was a small 60mm mortar round with blue paint, just sitting there in the middle of the dirt road by itself. I kept my distance from it, I didn't want to get too close to it. That thing could booby-trapped or be a f**king IED or something. I told my AG to stay with me as our Plt Sgt walked over to it, and we walked a couple steps away. As he looked at it perplexed he said, "Damn, what a strange country. Mortar round just sitting there in the middle of the road." The mortar round had its explosive completely taken out of it, and it was just its outer shell. My Plt Sgt suspected that they probably took the explosive out and used it to make an IED. We disposed of the mortar shell and went back to pulling our OP shift.
Before we came here to Iraq, we had a bunch of OC's from the Joint Readiness Training Center in Fort Polk Louisiana come up to Ft Lewis to help us out with our training. We were doing some simulated combat training to help get ready for Iraq, and in one of our training scenarios, Lt Armeni engaged a lone sniper with a Tow missile. Which gave the OC's a hard on, they said that, that was fantastic, because it was like smashing a fly with a sledge hammer. Lt Armeni brought that same smash your enemies tenacity out here to Iraq which inspired all of us. Right now Lt Armeni is in critical condition in Germany. He was wounded on that attack on 05 AUG 04. I received a e-mail from his father thanking me for this site which allowed him a little more insight to the event that critically wounded his son on that day, and to continue praying for him. I am asking everybody to please include Lt Armeni and his family in their prayers. It would mean a lot. To me, and everybody else here. I know of at least five guys here who are alive today because of his actions on that day.
Prayer Warrior ping
Carolyn
God Bless and God Speed to the family of LT Armeni and the family of Cannoneer No. 4. May God put a protective hedge around you and all of our troops!
Worked for Uday...
Good one, Gunner.
Thank you for the prayers. Even though I am just the guy who started this thread and not CBFTW, I do appreciate them.
ping
ping
"as our Plt Sgt walked over to it.."
?!
I liked the part about using a TOW on the sniper in training at Fort Lewis.
I got yelled at for a similar stunt in training at Drum.
I suggested that we use two howitzers in Direct Fire on a sniper's position.
The OC's went bizzak on me for it.
May the LT heal up quickly, his guys need him.
May God help Lt Armeni become well again and grant Lt Armeni and his family the courage and relief for the process.
105mm BEEHIVE tank round is supposed to be good sniper medicine. I've heard tales of 90mm canister being used for that.
LOL!
Yes, the APers-T is supposed to be good for clearing brush of unwanted observers.
(Though the artillery handbook doesn't say it that way.)
My unit's gunners were drilled on something called 'Killer Junior'.
You take an MTSQ fuze and set it to a predetermined setting, and when enemy approach into a predetermined area, you fire off all your 'killer junior' designated rounds.
They reach a set timed point and go off, spraying the ground with shrapnel.
But we had a guy playing sniper on us during a simulated fire mission, no live rounds were ever touched -critical when the OC's are up your nose, and I suggested that my gun and gun four turn towards the treeline where this guy was sitting and simulate a direct fire on him.
No sooner did I say it than our OC's were all over me for it.
*sigh*
I guess they didn't have any imagination.
High Angle Hell bump.
Keep up the good work - and stay observant.
Blue is the color of inert training rounds - could they have been trying to see if you would just automatically assume it was inert for future reference? Good thing you were cautious.
Reminds me of an incident on a Coronado mission. The 155 battery we were supporting with ammo had been firing all night at “0-0” - zero fuse setting with zero elevation. The rounds would go off almost upon leaving the barrel.
It beat the heck out of being over run.
!!!!
Yikes!
The other choice is worse.
My unit got hit with a bad lot of fuzes, and we had a round or three premature at various points along it's flight.
That scared the crap out of us.
We'd fired two rounds and heard from the 13F guys "Round unheard round unobserved."
So the last of the three went this way: "Gun one standby, gun one -FIRE! Boom - BaBOOOM!"
We had to turn in all of our fuzes (Regardless of which lot#) and wait while they sorted everything out.
The VC use to take regular HE grenades and paint them blue then put them with other training ammunition. Regardless of the color code, always worse case it. Plus some other country might just have a different color code.
25mm HEI works nifty too, and keeps the collateral damage to a minimum.
Saw some Marines do that in Somalia... smoked the Skinny and did't even scratch the people in the next room.
I join in prayer for this hero and his loved ones!
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