The Good Life.

The Aftermath

2010-08-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a mission to go check out the remains of a supposed IED digger who got hit with a hellfire missile from an Apache helicopter, or at least whatever was left. Of course we didn't expect to find much, I mean after all it was a missile, body's and missile's don't mix well from my experience.

We arrive in the village of Altimur, many kids are gather around, we approach the impact site. For those of you that don't know, afghan kids love free things, actually all kids love free things. They will ask you for pens, books, water, food, and other simplicity's.

After hounding the kids away we find the hole where the missile impacted earlier that morning. We did not find a body, I don't know who thought we were going to in the first place. However we did find blood splatter and what appeared to be, from out medics point of view, a human kidney. A man soon came to us and said that his dog was also killed in the blast, and that it was a heavy loss for him.

Let me clear this up, if any type of collateral damage happens out here, we have to pay for it with money. The man knowing this try's to play it off as if the dog was an honored part of his family. When I would say roughly 9/10 afghans despise all dogs and wish they did not exist. So we say sorry and promise to make it up to him, soon after we leave and come back to the FOB.
Now I don't know why we went there in the first place, everyone knew there wouldn't be any type of body to recover or investigate. Although we did get to see the blood from his body, and the nice little hole a hellfire makes on impact. Overall The Aftermath was quite a site if you knew what went down that night.

A Rush Better Then Any High.

2010-08-05T22:20:00.000-07:00

Most people in the "normal" world don't have any trace of an idea what it's like to be shot at. Now when I say shot at I'm not talking about your normal thug in the hood shooting a couple 9mm rounds towards you.
I'm talking about a sniper taking well aimed shot's at your direct position. A 3 man team with Machine Guns and RPG's.

People have told me in that certain situation, they would be scared shit less. Honestly it happens in different ways to different people. For me it happened like this.

8:30 AM Me and 4 other guys are sitting in a Afghan tower pulling over watch for another team in the village.
8:33 AM We get the call that we are going to pull out of the Village at roughly 8:50.
8:45 AM The first round is shot at us. A sniper 900 meters out places a round on the side of the tower right next to our snipers window. Now when a round passes close by you, it creates a loud SNAP sound. If it just barely misses your head, it will whistle. Since we were only hearing cracks we knew he wasn't the best sniper in the country.

As a M48 gunner my job was to lay down suppressing fire so the sniper could peak out long enough to get a shot. After laying down some 30-40 rounds, the sniper kept his head down long enough for ours to find his target.
Soon after this little engagement, a man in the village starts shooting AK rounds from behind a Kulat. Me and our Sniper are already engaged with someone, we don't have time for this bullshit. We have 2 others soldiers fire roughly 10 40mm HE Grenades at the building... the man stops firing after the 9th one. We considered him dead.
Our afghan sniper friend finally comes back out from his mudhut. He has kids standing around his feet shoulder to shoulder. Our sniper fires one round, smacking the wall next to the man, all the kids scatter as fast as their little feet can carry them. The man freezes in astonishment....... our sniper takes his well awaited shot.

After all has calmed down we pop smoke and ex fill out of the tower and back to the PB. All in all it wasn't a bad TIC, but we did have fun, and some people got to earn their CIB that didn't have it. Truthfully, this is The Good Life.

Welcome to The Good Life...

2010-08-05T15:02:00.000-07:00

Alrite... So as you may know I'm completely new to this "Blogging" thing. Although if you were in my spot you would need a way to vent the insane things that race through your mind like a million tiny bullets in a Firefight. As of right now it is 2:22am, 08/05/2010.
I'm sitting in my tent in Afghanistan, although it is the dawn of a new day, and I get woken up at 1:17 AM for the most ridiculous reason.. An Apache Helicopter waxed some guy digging an IED and they want US to go recover the body. Now the Apache decided to use a Hellfire for the specific task of killing a single man armed with nothing more then a Shovel and an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). If you know anything about a Hellfire, you would know there would not be much left of a single man after being smacked in the face with one of those bad boys. Although this is part of my Job and what I signed up for, this is not what pissed me off.
What got me angry was the fact that I sat in my truck and slammed a whole can of Monster Energy Drink, while we're supposed to be getting ready to roll out, only to have my PLT SGT come out and stay STAND DOWN! Now, awake and energized, I sit at my laptop at 2:30 AM only wishing to sleep but can't thanks to the amazing people at Monster Energy Company in California. I would love to write more because only god knows I got so much more on my mind. Alas, I am going to try to sleep again. There are only 2 things I need out here to continue to push forward in hard times. Sleep and Music!