I just realized today is the 12th, if you're reading this on Sunday, pretend it's tomorrow 😅
Hey, everyone, it's been a while since I've posted a proper blog, and today is an important day for me so I thought I'd share. Today is the 19th anniversary of the first time someone tried to kill me. A little backstory first. I had just gotten back state-side from Korea and was assigned to the 101st Airborne Division. I decided to join my new unit (who had already deployed by the time I got to Ft. Campbell) as soon as possible, rather than wait an extra 3 months. Soldiers returning from an overseas duty station are guaranteed a certain amount of time in the States before they can be sent back overseas. Anyway, I turned it down (on account of I'm an idiot 😂), and found myself on my way to Kuwait. I arrived in the very early hours of June 12th, and a short helicopter ride later, was in Mosul, Iraq. My new home for the next 9 months. Myself and maybe a half-dozen other guys that I arrived with, spent the night on the roof of the HHC building of the 3rd Battalion Widowmakers. It's funny how fate works (if you believe in that sort of thing), because the next morning when they were deciding which companies the new arrivals would be assigned to, I was the only one who had a Humvee license. Therefore, I was assigned to Delta Company (The Mad Dogs), a mounted anti-tank Infantry company. D Co. happened to share the compound with HHC (Headquarters and Headquarters Company), so I grabbed my shit and moved next door. I was assigned to 4th Platoon Renegades, and told that we would be rolling out on a mission very shortly. 4th Platoon was tasked with providing security for a unit that was recovering 2 burnt out, wrecked Humvees. Aside from IED sweeps and other straight-forward combat missions, Delta companies were also used as escorts for non-combat arms units. If anyone went anywhere, D Co. was there with them. Anyway, we arrived on the scene before the wrecking crew to secure the area. There was a big crowd picking through the wreckage of the 2 vehicles, and just as we stopped our trucks, some dipshit (or dipshits) rolled a couple grenades between our trucks. The crowd quickly dispersed and when the smoke cleared, two of our gunners and one of our other drivers had taken shrapnel from the grenades. I had been in country less than 12 hours, didn't even know the names of everyone in my platoon yet, and found myself in a mad dash to a field hospital because three of them were wounded. They all ended up being ok, none of them were seriously wounded (although my buddy, Soto, still has trouble with metal detectors from the shrapnel). But that's it, that's the story of the first time someone tried to kill me. I could do a series on these, I wrote a blog a while back about the second time. It was a little over a month later (the day after my 20th birthday!😁). If you want to read it, I think there's something about a camel in the title 😂. So anyway, it's not a great memory, but it's also not terrible. Everyone was ok, and I ended up earning one of my nicknames (Lucky), my CIB (Combat Infantry Badge), and a Battalion Challenge Coin, all on my first morning. Oh yeah, June 13th, 2003 was also a Friday 😏.
Here's a link to the other blog
https://www.suicidegirls.com/members/imnotferris/blog/3341195/a-kiss-from-a-camel/
