Layover in Scania
Three-thirty AM Sunday morning. The phone rings and reality confuses itself with dreams. By the third ring you realize what's happening and leap from bed like it's on fire under you. Racing down the hall and across the living room you pray that you can reach the phone before the caller hangs up. Whew! Made it!
I already knew who was on the other end. Well, maybe I wasn't positive, but I had a pretty strong feeling. We got to talk to him for a bit, all the while forcing the sleep from our eyes.
He was in Scania waiting to escort another convoy north. His layover would take him to early Monday morning, well before sunrise when the routine would start again.
They had started out Sunday morning before dawn from Balad (Anaconda). The "sticks" leaving under cover of darkness allowing him to experience yet another beautiful sunrise in Iraq from the drivers seat of his Stryker. (I sensed the words were tinted with a touch of sarcasm.)
South of Baghdad the lead elements spotted an IED buried in the median of the road. An EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) team was called in to remove it. This held up all convoys - both south bound and north bound for two and a half hours. Several 155mm artillery shells were pulled from the ground without incident. Sitting quietly on the road these Stryker Soldiers think they'd rather have had the militia attack instead of finding an IED in the road. If attacked they would get to fire back and actually do something. With IED's they sit on their butts like big brown or green targets silhouetted against the tan background of the desert - especially the fuel tankers (In fact a couple days earlier one went up in flames after an RPG attack.)
He had tried to catch forty winks Saturday afternoon before they left. He couldn't get much rest though. It was 125 degrees in Balad - ( I believe he exaggerated a tad, I read later that it was only 119). He had laid in the tent sweating and feeling miserable. And the tents, besides being hot and stifling, are a haven for the camel spiders and scorpions that come inside to get out of the sun during the strongest heat of the day.
And the morning prior, Friday, they woke up to fog. A warm heavy confining fog which lifted as the sun came over the horizon turning the entire base into an open air sauna. The heat and humidity leaving everyone drained - made even worse because of the heavy Kevlar vests they wear at all times. He wondered if it would have been better if it had rained during the night but had second thoughts when he remembered the holes in the roof of the tent above his bed.
After talking to him (which can be pretty depressing when he tells us things like this) I can't help feeling that he's in prison and being punished - for doing nothing wrong at all. Murderers and child molesters in our prison system get better treatment than this.
Every day that passes is one day closer to home. But the hours seem to go by slowly - much too slowly.
I already knew who was on the other end. Well, maybe I wasn't positive, but I had a pretty strong feeling. We got to talk to him for a bit, all the while forcing the sleep from our eyes.
He was in Scania waiting to escort another convoy north. His layover would take him to early Monday morning, well before sunrise when the routine would start again.
They had started out Sunday morning before dawn from Balad (Anaconda). The "sticks" leaving under cover of darkness allowing him to experience yet another beautiful sunrise in Iraq from the drivers seat of his Stryker. (I sensed the words were tinted with a touch of sarcasm.)
South of Baghdad the lead elements spotted an IED buried in the median of the road. An EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) team was called in to remove it. This held up all convoys - both south bound and north bound for two and a half hours. Several 155mm artillery shells were pulled from the ground without incident. Sitting quietly on the road these Stryker Soldiers think they'd rather have had the militia attack instead of finding an IED in the road. If attacked they would get to fire back and actually do something. With IED's they sit on their butts like big brown or green targets silhouetted against the tan background of the desert - especially the fuel tankers (In fact a couple days earlier one went up in flames after an RPG attack.)
He had tried to catch forty winks Saturday afternoon before they left. He couldn't get much rest though. It was 125 degrees in Balad - ( I believe he exaggerated a tad, I read later that it was only 119). He had laid in the tent sweating and feeling miserable. And the tents, besides being hot and stifling, are a haven for the camel spiders and scorpions that come inside to get out of the sun during the strongest heat of the day.
And the morning prior, Friday, they woke up to fog. A warm heavy confining fog which lifted as the sun came over the horizon turning the entire base into an open air sauna. The heat and humidity leaving everyone drained - made even worse because of the heavy Kevlar vests they wear at all times. He wondered if it would have been better if it had rained during the night but had second thoughts when he remembered the holes in the roof of the tent above his bed.
After talking to him (which can be pretty depressing when he tells us things like this) I can't help feeling that he's in prison and being punished - for doing nothing wrong at all. Murderers and child molesters in our prison system get better treatment than this.
Every day that passes is one day closer to home. But the hours seem to go by slowly - much too slowly.
posted by deesci | 9:12 PM
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