So at least 2 of our guys almost died today. We were finishing up a dismounted patrol, heading outta the village when an IED blew up. One got knocked the hell out by the force of the blast, one caught some shrapnel to his face, and one was a little dizzy from the concussion. I was maybe thirty five meters behind the blast, I was squad leader of our second section fire team.
It was definitely a command wire detonation, the trigger man wait for the ANA to pass, and then detonated the IED when soldiers were around it. One guy was 2 ft from the blast, and two were in front of it, and two were behind it.
One enemy on a bike at the intersection maybe 70 meters in front of the blast fire a couple of rounds and then booked it, we fired at him, but he had decent cover on his exile, we think he was the decoy, to give the real trigger man time to get away.
One of my joes saw what we think was the real trigger man, running back towards the town we just left.
These fucking people….
We really are in the shithole of the province. I can't see any possible way to convince these people to become pro-government.
We MEDEVAC'd the three guys showing symptoms of TBI.
They were lucky. No doubt about it.
If the bomb was just a little bit bigger, or a buried a little more shallow. The injuries would've been a lot worse.
It was a HME IED. Homemade Explosive. I remember the acronym ANAL. Ammonium Nitrate and some kind of Aluminum mix. It was maybe a 3-5 pounder. Hahaha...Anal
All I know what when that bomb when off and I saw that dust cloud, I thought immediately that someone is either dead or dying.
Thank god I was wrong.
That cloud engulfed all of 1st section and I thought the worst, and when 1st section squad leader got on the radio; he was walking point, called for a medic, I thought my fears were confirmed. I yelled back as loud as I could
MEDIC!
It was eerie, because I've seen it plenty of times in all those hollywood war movies, where someone yells for a medic, but I never thought I'd have to do the same…
I hope I never have to do it again, because next time…
next time I don't think we'll be as lucky.
Winning the hearts and minds of these people is doing nothing but make us more vulnerable. There are so many stupid fucking rules that we have to follow as required by ISAF.
This is definitely NOT Iraq.
In Iraq, if a person is bad, an he's in that house. we TAKE that house.
Over here?
We have to knock and ask if we can come in.
And that's only the tip of the iceberg.
We're being sacrificed. Plain and simple. We're being sacrificed in the short term (1-2 years) so that hopefully it pays off in the long term (2- ?? years)
I'm just glad my guys are ok. Even if I think they're shitbags, lol.
….On a good note. EOD here is fucking kickass. It doesn't take 9 millions hours for them to show up, unlike Iraq, where you wait for 10 hours, and then wait some more.
Over here, when you want em, you get em. And the one's I've encountered a complete professionals, unlike some of the lazy fobbit douchebags I've met in Iraq.
I almost blew 2 local teachers away too. It was funny after the fact.
Pretty much they came towards us on a red motorcycle (the decoy was on a red motorcycle, he dropped it and ran, the bike was gone when we came back after MEDEVAC'ing the 3) and my SAW gunner yelled
WADAREGA!! (Stop)
but they didn't stop
WADAREGA!!
still nothing.
50 meters away…
So I pop up on one knee, point my weapon on them, put the selector switch to semi and yell
WADAREGA YADI WILLUM (Stop or I will shoot)
They stopped on a dime.
I called the terp over…and pretty much I felt like a dick.
What happened was that the motorcycle driver heard the initial yells for STOP, but he had a helmet on so it was a bit muffled, and also he didn't see/hear where it was coming from, because my SAW gunner was cover/concealed pretty decent.
So pretty much he had the shit scared out of him when he saw me pop up and yell that I was pretty much gonna blow his head off.
So I told the tap to tell him I'm sorry (I really was…I felt bad) and talked a little bit, and sent him back (we had the area cordoned off for a 2nd possible IED)
Oh, and leading the way back to the IED site after the MEDEVAC sucked. It's normally the ANA in front, leading the way, because we want every mission to have an AFghan face on it (But we're happy mainly because they'll be the ones to step on the trip wire/pressure plates).
But on the way back, I was leading it, not ANA. It was Myself and the Terp, THEN ANA, THEN the rest of my platoon. When we started walking I pray to god in English, Arabic, and say a little "hey buddha..please watch over me" and said fuck it and started walking.
Talk about puckered buttonhole.
The funny thing about all of this?!?!
This is just another typical day.
Yay.
Is it September yet? Is it time for my R&R ?
ha...
