wait in line is so long it i s not even worth it. When we have four or five hours to sleep before we have to be back up for midnight , it i s not worth waiting in line for two of those hours just to make a five minute phone call. It i s a hard choice to make sometimes, but exhaustion usually wins.
It is very difficult being so cut off from the world and not knowing what i s going on. The only information we get is newspaper clippings that are usually weeks old by the time they arrive. Day by day, we have no idea what i s going on back home, how our families are doing , or what is happening in our old lives. It i s a very cold feeling to be so separated from everything you love.
My night off, though uneventful, was very nice. Watching movies and eating snacks was a way to pretend I was somewhere else for a little while. I could pretend I was s omewhere comfortable, somewhere safe, and anywhere but here.
I constantly think about the people who are stuck living in this shit. In five months, I get to leave here and go home. The people who live here have no such hope and little hope for a better way of living any time soon . Every day, when I a m on a mission or out on pat rol, I look at all of the people who have to endure the kind of life they are given here . I can no t understand how I was so blessed to be bor n into something so much better, and until this experience, I have never appreciated any of it.
March 17, 2003 :
Just before my midnight shift started, the squad was getting ready to go to our assigned OPs . I was gearing up, getting my machine gun ready, and packing ammunition into my rucksack. The alarm horn sounded, and we all started rushing out towards our OPs . As soon as I got outside of our building, I could hear a lot of gunshots. The shots were coming from the east and as much as I wanted to head that way, my OP was on the west. I needed to respond to my point. Just because the compound is taking fire from the east does n ot mean a second attack is no t coming from the west, and we need to secure every inch of the perimeter. Any time there is an attack of any kind, we are requir ed to go to our assigned points and not necessarily where the current attack is located.
The gunshots lasted for maybe forty-five seconds to a minute after I started hearing them, and then they were done. I found out a few minutes later that an OP along the east wall had taken multiple shots from a large , open field across the street from the compound. It was pitch black outside, and no one knows how many people were out there, but rounds did strike the OP. No one was hurt, and even though the guy inside the OP was shooting blindly into the dark, laying down fire from an M249 sent the shooter running. It i s just another reminder that anything can happen at any time.
The fact that anything can happen at any time sounds stressful, but to experience it is something completely beyond that . Every night I sit in my OP just hoping not to be hit by a sniper. Every day I patrol the city on foot , and I pray I won’t be shot or blown up. Every time I try to sleep , I hope I a m not woken up by the warning siren or by an incoming rocket. Y ou canno t become complacent and develop an attitude of “It won’t happen to me.” That kind of thinking gets people killed; however, it eats you alive to constantly be prepared and worried about what i s lurking behind every corner. It i s a shit situation with n o alternative , and it is a perfect example of being damned if y ou do and damned if you don’t.
I know this place is n o t only getting to me, I can see it in other people also. Guys that were funny and goofy when we first got here are different now ; some are barely talking , and others are just constantly negative about everything. Guys that were friends now seem to hate each other. We all do our jobs every day, and we do them better than could ever be asked of anyone, but it i s taking its toll on everyone.
Later on in the night,
It is very difficult being so cut off from the world and not knowing what i s going on. The only information we get is newspaper clippings that are usually weeks old by the time they arrive. Day by day, we have no idea what i s going on back home, how our families are doing , or what is happening in our old lives. It i s a very cold feeling to be so separated from everything you love.
My night off, though uneventful, was very nice. Watching movies and eating snacks was a way to pretend I was somewhere else for a little while. I could pretend I was s omewhere comfortable, somewhere safe, and anywhere but here.
I constantly think about the people who are stuck living in this shit. In five months, I get to leave here and go home. The people who live here have no such hope and little hope for a better way of living any time soon . Every day, when I a m on a mission or out on pat rol, I look at all of the people who have to endure the kind of life they are given here . I can no t understand how I was so blessed to be bor n into something so much better, and until this experience, I have never appreciated any of it.
March 17, 2003 :
Just before my midnight shift started, the squad was getting ready to go to our assigned OPs . I was gearing up, getting my machine gun ready, and packing ammunition into my rucksack. The alarm horn sounded, and we all started rushing out towards our OPs . As soon as I got outside of our building, I could hear a lot of gunshots. The shots were coming from the east and as much as I wanted to head that way, my OP was on the west. I needed to respond to my point. Just because the compound is taking fire from the east does n ot mean a second attack is no t coming from the west, and we need to secure every inch of the perimeter. Any time there is an attack of any kind, we are requir ed to go to our assigned points and not necessarily where the current attack is located.
The gunshots lasted for maybe forty-five seconds to a minute after I started hearing them, and then they were done. I found out a few minutes later that an OP along the east wall had taken multiple shots from a large , open field across the street from the compound. It was pitch black outside, and no one knows how many people were out there, but rounds did strike the OP. No one was hurt, and even though the guy inside the OP was shooting blindly into the dark, laying down fire from an M249 sent the shooter running. It i s just another reminder that anything can happen at any time.
The fact that anything can happen at any time sounds stressful, but to experience it is something completely beyond that . Every night I sit in my OP just hoping not to be hit by a sniper. Every day I patrol the city on foot , and I pray I won’t be shot or blown up. Every time I try to sleep , I hope I a m not woken up by the warning siren or by an incoming rocket. Y ou canno t become complacent and develop an attitude of “It won’t happen to me.” That kind of thinking gets people killed; however, it eats you alive to constantly be prepared and worried about what i s lurking behind every corner. It i s a shit situation with n o alternative , and it is a perfect example of being damned if y ou do and damned if you don’t.
I know this place is n o t only getting to me, I can see it in other people also. Guys that were funny and goofy when we first got here are different now ; some are barely talking , and others are just constantly negative about everything. Guys that were friends now seem to hate each other. We all do our jobs every day, and we do them better than could ever be asked of anyone, but it i s taking its toll on everyone.
Later on in the night,
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