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Christian I - …It’s a very hot night. We’ve just been singled out by SFC Glenn for this mission. Typically, for these type of operations, we go (full battle rattle). PV2 Mabry and I had our K-POT (Helmet), 80 pound rucksack, and heavy weapons with us (We both had machine guns-S.A.W). So, as I mentioned before, we had 300 yards in front of us in order to get to our objective and breach the wire so that the next morning my platoon could rush their perimeter and just rip the wire aside (Triple strand, about six feet high). THAT’S ALL I KNEW AT THE TIME.I could barely see where these POGS where, or even where the wire was. It was very dark, and despite the fact that there was a full moon, there was also cloud cover overhead. We could feel the bugs and hear stuff around us, but that was about it. Being the motivated soldier that I was, I was ready to “Get me some POG”. J Mabry and I donned soft caps and offloaded our rucksacks and heavy weapons and left them with the rest of the squad. We started crawling-sweaty, tired, motivated, hungry, and basically blind. Good training!
Now when you low crawl, it’s basically like slithering on
the ground like a snake, keeping your head literally against the ground, so as
to provide as little presence as possible
We started underway, making the best of it. Honestly you couldn’t
hear anything, except the cicadas and crickets. It seemed like a half hour had
passed and the terrain had gotten… easier! Very cool. J Suddenly there was a roar of
an engine and the brightest light in all creation barreled toward us and
increased in size. I went from G. I. Joe … to a bunny rabbit P.E.Z candy
dispenser. J
Mabry, of course, was behind me… somewhere, but at this point he was the last
thing on my mind. I broke from low crawling and hurled my body backwards not
knowing how far but I soon discovered that I was on top of Mabry! Yes, ladies
and gentleman, we had come to a small road.
Thanks to my cat-like skills, the pain tolerance of Mabry and
the careless unsoldierly demeanor of the POG driver, we were undetected. We
quickly scurried across the road only to be welcomed by the same wonderful
terrain that we were eager to say good-bye to only moments before. Good
training!
I can assure you it was a good hour of straight low-crawling
with only the sound of my wormlike buddy slightly behind me but in hot pursuit.
I need to pause to give you a bit more description. When we are on OPFOR
missions, we were made to turn the top half of our uniform inside out so as to
make it easier for the POGS to see us. Apparently during that last week they
were complaining that they could not defend against us because our camouflage
was “working too well”. This was a directive that came down from my commander,
and so regardless if we thought it was a good idea or not … we followed orders.
So now the “inside out “uniform (which is light-gray) is also soaked with salt
water and now you can be confident that it is almost white.
After all that crawling the clouds momentarily broke and the
full moon shone through. It must have been a beautiful sight but, Mabry and I
wouldn’t know because our faces were buried in the mud (which is common
practice for an infantryman that is exposed to light during an operation). Do
you remember those 50 caliber machine guns? Well, we didn’t know about them at
the time! :) I smelt cigarette smoke and heard a guy
scream, “Hey man, look over there!”.
We now had visibility, and just realized that we had stopped
five feet in front of the Constantino wire! And two 50 caliber machine guns
were fifteen feet on the other side of the wire. We were goners. Normal
practice was for the POGS to shoot us (with lasers setting of buzzers we had on
our bodies) and take us captive by force. Mabry and I must have looked like two
white elephants out in the middle of the tall grass in the moonlight. They
opened up those machine guns on us and the vibration was so incredibly strong that
I could feel the hair on my face moving and tickling my cheeks. I very slowly
turned my head to the side and the light was so bright that I was beholding
something unnatural for that time of night, that’s for sure! J
Just when I thought the Lord was going to show up or
something, they stopped firing. I could tell because the hair on my body
stopped moving. I was having a lot of trouble at this point (Although Mabry
didn’t know it and I never told him later). You see, the noise was so loud that
all I could hear was a high pitched tone. So I did what I was trained to do in
that situation. I LAID DOWN AND FROZE.
The POG must have thought that he was seeing things or
whatever because he and the other machine gunner left the machine gun nest. I
laid there like a deaf man for about twenty minutes. I’ve got to take my hat
off to PV2 Mabry, because he lay there also. Something very interesting
happened just then. I wasn’t sure what to do! I didn’t even know if I could
hear properly. Just then there were enormous explosions and lights and gunplay
coming from the other side of the POG camp. SFC Glenn didn’t tell me, but the
rest of my platoon and squad created a diversion on the other side of the enemy’s
camp so I could cut the wires! Not knowing this at the time, I thought it was a
good chance to use this opportunity to snip the wires!
My hearing returned, the POGS were gone, a cloud came over
our heads again, we were in the clear, and there was a great distraction going
on elsewhere. It was go time! Good training…I grabbed those wire cutters, stood
straight up and rushed the wire (Not hearing anyone around) and I snipped all
the wires in about fifteen seconds. It was amazing. I flopped back down in the
grass next to Mabry only to hear him whisper “Yes”!
I hate to leave Mabry and I in the grass, but this blog is
getting too long. I wonder if we got back ok. Was the mission successful the
following morning? I’d love to tell you about it. Some of my favorites gave me
a nudge yesterday to finish the story. Please let me know if you want me to go
on, and as a side note, this hero feels miserable today. L
I didn’t make it to my office, but I am having a great time telling
this story to Ethan and he’s typing for me. By the way, Ethan also made it the
National Bible Bee Competition that will happen in November- 73 place out of
1,193 gives him a ticket to go to Tennessee to compete some more. Good job
Ethan!
Christian II - Yesterday Christian was over 600. Today our
boy is doing just fine. Last night we stayed up late to celebrate Ethan’s
accomplishment, and this gave us a great opportunity to watch Christian closely
and to administer insulin accordingly. The boy is just the apple of my eye, and
the sooner we could get him squared away with a service dog the better.
