March 28, 2003
Late on the afternoon of the 28th, Cyclone Company’s tanks bounded ahead of us. They chose a route directly through our camp, kicking dust over everything. We now had the relative security of a kilometer or so between us and enemy contact. We set up camp chairs at dusk, admiring a brilliant desert sunset as we ate our MREs. The LT remarked, “It’s surreal. It’s hard to believe we’re at war and there are people out there who want to kill us. Back home, our families are probably all freaked out, thinking we’re in all kinds of danger.”
There had been heavy fighting around Nasiriyah, and GIs had been killed and captured. We were aware of that, but didn’t know much about it.
We talked about the interesting tracks lizards make in the sand around the desert scrub and the tracks of what appeared to be a dog that passed a few yards behind our Bradley in the middle of the night. Smitty and Baxter and a couple of visiting tankers idly debated whether POD can be both a Christian band and a heavy metal band. They compared the qualities of the different races and nationalities of women they claimed to have had sex with. Then Baxter said in an offhand way to Smitty, “You know, I don’t believe Critter has been dry-humped yet.”
Baxter was correct. I had not, in fact, been dry-humped yet.
“I don’t believe he has,” Smitty said. “C-Diddy. You been dry-humped?”
“No. I don’t think I’m going to be, either.”
As the two of them conspired, I made the mistake of turning my back, leaning into the back of the Bradley to fill my canteen cup at the hot water dispenser. I was actually surprised when I was suddenly grabbed from behind. The pair of them were each humping away, like a pair of happy Schnauzers. I managed to continue to fill my canteen cup without spilling a drop, while kicking backwards. I made contact with something.
“Critter’s putting up a fight!” Baxter said.
“Critter kicked me in the balls!” Smitty said.
“You kicked Smitty in the balls, Critter!” Baxter said.
“Critter, you kick hard!” Smitty said.
I had been sleeping outside for a couple of nights, tired of being jammed inside where there was always some hard metal object in my back, Smitty’s boots in my lap and the radio’s crackle in my ears.
On this night, with Cyclone having set up a perimeter, Baxter and Smitty took cots out of the bustle rack and set up outside as well. I told them not to get any funny ideas after that intimate moment we had shared earlier. We stretched out, and stared at the incredible star canopy overhead. It was like being a kid on a Boy Scout campout again. Our bellies were full, and we shared a smoke, passing the butt between our cots. We were all getting low, calling in old IOUs and trading favors for cigarettes. Whoever had them in our track shared with the others.
“Check that out,” Baxter said. “Two jets to your left. They must be on afterburner. You see the glow?’’
“Hey, see that satellite?” I said.
“That bitch is moving,” Baxter said.
We were beginning to doze off when the mortars positioned a few hundred meters ahead of us opened up. The radio in the track, on loudspeaker, told us the scouts out in the open desert north of us had spotted some dismounts and a truck. Fire blasted out of the mortar tubes mounted in the M113 tracks, and a few seconds later, the impacts lit up a small piece of the horizon, the sound following several seconds after that.
Behind us, we saw the brilliant trail of fire rising up in the sky of rockets from the Multiple Launch Rocket System batteries to the south. They shot up, one-two-three-four, their fire burning out about a third of the way up the sky. Then we were left to imagine the rockets sailing several thousand feet over our heads, arcing down on some out-of-luck Iraqis or maybe empty desert.
I threw my feet over the side of the cot to have a look up north. Bigger lights on the horizon, bigger booms a few more seconds later. The radio offered no clue as to whether anything had actually been hit.
In the morning’s intelligence summary over the battalion net, the intel major reported, “Last night, to the north, severe destruction was rained down on Iraqi forces. In Baghdad, several members of the Baath Party were killed, which is a good thing.”
That was about the extent of information we were getting.
Topics: Iraq
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:41 am on Wednesday, March 28, 2007
2 Responses to “March 28, 2003”
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March 28th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Bill’s Nibbles // Open Post — 2007.03.28
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March 28th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
March 28, 2003
March 28, 2003 Critter Crittenden Late on the afternoon of the 28th, Cyclone Company’s tanks bounded ahead of us. They chose a route directly through our camp, kicking dust over everything. We now had the relative security of a kilometer