Routine is a word that we use to describe or daily rituals. Most everyday starts out routine then evols in to a good day, or a shitty day. On Facebook people FML all the time, i.e. "My car won't start. FML.", "My baby daddy got a new bitch and don't pay me my money. FML."- so on and so forth.
Mostly the day starts out the same, I wake up in the small plywood room in a hard stand building, an upgrade from a tent? Maybe. Question my existance and motive. Evaluate all the shit I have to do, conduct personal hygiene and the rest of my morning ritual. Roll to the CP get the scoop on anything else I have to do. Go to the trucks where my men are getting ready for the days mission, conduct inspections and commos checks and roll out the gate. On this day we decided to take a different route since the purpose of the mission is "Route Recon". It was a shitty road, as most are in the Stan. Someone in the department of defense decided to purchase vehicles almost to wide and way to heavy for the shitty dirt roads that spiderweb all over this place. I get it, they want to protect us from IED's and such but in the thinking of the new vehicles why didn't they consider who we were chasing and what they get around in i.e. dirtbikes, bongo trucks, ford rangers, donkeys.
We stopped at one village out in the middle of no where, which is everywhere. On the way there we got stuck, then during a brown out my driver almost took us into a unforgiving hole, we avoided a couple roll overs, but hey its a route recon. At this particular village we speak to some Pashtuns, and start talking about a school and how they set aside land for a school but the government won't give them the money for the school. Well in the village there is already a building for the school but due to some crazy lost in translation shit, the kids don't go there. Well we walk down the road to the school to talk to the people that reside in the school. Its a residence that is supposed to be a school. There is an imaginary line in which the Pashtuns don't cross. We get to talking to a fellow that knows about the school, he is Tajik, his brother was the principle and the Pashtuns killed him for one reason or another. I'm still pretty confused as to the Tajiks (which are fewer in population than the Pashtuns in this village). There are tons of kids and as we leave they follow us up the road and once again they stop at the imaginary line.
We talk to the Pashtuns again and I'm outside with the guys pulling security when my driver tells me about a guy who crawled 400m up the side road outside his window. The medic and I go to check it out and it was about a 18 year male who had horrible birth defects which limite him to scooting and crawling. I tried to give him some water and he swung at me, but when doc checked him out he let the doc touch him. There was nothing we could do for him. He kinda looked like the chick from the Grudge, the men said that he was a zombie and a bad omen.
Well he was.
We drove up the road a little ways and passed over a colvert that looked very sketchy we turned the trucks around and headed back over the same colvert, first and second vehicle made it over, but the third in front of me the right tire bounced the giant truck shifted, then in slow motion the truck slid right and rolled off into a 15ft ditch. I was terrified, the truck landed on the turret completely upside down. I called on the radio that the truck rolled, I ran and jumped into the ditch as the driver was eggressing. I asked if everyone was ok and they assured me they were, I asked again, they confirmed everyone was alright. Unbelievable lady and gents seatbelts save lives. 5 Soldiers rolled over upside down off a 15 foot road and nobody was hurt not even the gunner. We waited for 6 or so hours for QRF and recovery assets to make it out to us. I set in an OP on top of a hill while the rest of the men pulled security on the truck below. I believe that the Russians dug the op we were sitting in because it was perfect. 360 degrees and upto 3km vis in every direction. Had the Taliban decided to descend on us in our weakend state they would've got their asses handed to them. They didn't (unfortuanately)the wrecker driver was amazing and picked the truck out of the ditch and then towed it across those shitty roads we passed earlier. We all felt very relieved when we got back on the hard-ball road (paved road). Any slight jerk to the right or left though on the way back freaked us all out in my truck at least. We talked in length about our sighting of the man from the grudge.
Routine, sometimes routine turns into holy shit, and FML. I got back and saw the usual facebook posts. I laughed at the FMLs that were posted, and thought that had something been a little different someone might have been killed or seriously injured, in the routine day to day life, on a "route recon" a mundane and boring mission. Routine.
FML
J/K
LOL
DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!
1 comment:
Wish I was there with you!
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