On the road again

I have one knee in the dirt; I’m behind a Bradley Fighting vehicle and what protection it offers. We haven’t taken any fire yet, but that can all change in a split second. Snipers can be anywhere…a fly buzzes near my head. I don’t even attempt to swat at it. A stream of sweat drips into my eye. It burns, but I have something else on my mind. Something that has my attention so firmly in it's grasp that I don’t even bother to rub the salty fluid away. My rifle is near at hand, but at the moment I’m not even too concerned with that. Then, that which I dread, but that which has happened 8 times already, happens again. I double over and empty my stomach into the dirt…not much left in there. Two dry heaves after that I’m face down in the dirt, almost in my own body fluids. Too weak to get up this time. My buddies come drag me off the road and doc sticks a needle in my arm, starting my first of several IV’s flowing. My body is forced to take the liquid that it is desperately trying to lose in ANY way possible.

Flashback 8 hours

Another hour of our mission comes and goes. We hold our position in one of the “not so nice” area’s of Iraq. We’re back in Fallujah country, again.
We are over-watching a small village in the outskirts.

I’m standing near a road in sector, going on 30+ hours of no sleep. Lost in that dazed, zombie-like state of being, that only sleep deprivation and lack of physical activity can bring. I’m watching the road, watching the village, watching the fields….ever watching.
Sometimes my eyes glaze over and I’m not seeing much of anything. BOOM! An explosion, not so far away, jerks me out of my haze. The radio crackles to life with fragments of …..”…impact....anyone observed…?…crackle crackle…”

Hours pass. Conversations between me and Maddog are random; First thing we will do when we get back home. The infinite universe. The multi-verse…time travel. Army policy on “safety.” What Kyle would look like with a wig on….etc.
Then Duece yells, “Blue bongo approaching!” We look up. Indeed, yet another vehicle is coming down the road. The road they are not supposed to be on. Silly Iraqi’s, you’d think this was “their” road. We do nothing. The bongo approaches. “700 meters!” yells Duece. We start to get out of our Humvee and wave at the guy to turn around with a big orange flag. “500 meters!” wow, what a jerk, we’re tense enough with explosions and threats of suicide bombers without this guy pushing his limits. But then again, he probably lives around here and is just trying to get home. But that’s not my problem, not today. “400 meters!” That’s it. I open my M203 grenade tube and swap out a High Explosive round for a star cluster. “This should get his attention” I say as I snap the breach closed. “Wait a second,” Maddog says. He pulls out an Anti-tank rocket, holds it up in the air and yells, “Behold my boomstick!!!” The guy can’t hear or understand Maddog from that far away, but “sign language” has done wonders for his comprehension of the English language. The vehicle comes to a quick stop. He exits the vehicle. Via interpreter, we explain what he is NOT going to do, then tell him what he IS going to do. He wants to argue. So we tell him what WE are going to do. He leaves.

Flash forward 9 hours. Doc is giving me yet another IV and pronouncing that I have food poisoning. NICE!!! Rotten dirty military MRE’s…..and the fact that I probably got something nasty on my hands out here, despite gloves and hand sanitizer…sometimes you just can’t win.
Doc puts something into my IV. I haven’t been able to hold down any water or oral medicine, so it’s a needle in the bag and lights out for me. I wake up hours later rolling back into base. It takes the night and next day to get back to “normal.” But the mission is over, a success with no injuries. It’s been an interesting week and a looong 48 hours.