Yesterday afternoon LTC Tomahawk voice rang out in the hallway “LT Thunder”. I sprinted down the hallway, careful to skid to a stop with just enough room to walk into the office at a measured pace. Before I had a chance to report the commander looked up and said “LT – you will be traveling with me to the raid tonight. We will leave NET (No Earlier Then) 0300 in the morning. I suggest you get some rest.” As soon as he finished he turned back to finish up some mission planning. As I wandered back to my office my mind tried to unravel just why I would be moving out with the command element on the biggest raid of the year. We had been planning this coordinated raid for the better part of a month and although I had offered to move with some of the lead elements I had been told I would be staying in the TOC. By time I made it back to my office I was no closer to figuring out why the mission changed – I was just happy that it did.
I spent the next hour double checking my body armor and weapons and prepping my gear for the early morning mission. The IBA armor is a modular system that allows soldiers to clip on a riot of pouches and equipment to help them accomplish specific missions. Since this would be early morning raid I was weighted down by 30 round magazines for my M4 rifle, extra 9mm magazines, a smoke grenade, and a host of specialized NVG (Night Vision Goggles) equipment. With everything anchored to my vest and all my equipment checked out I headed over to my room and caught a couple of hours of sleep.
I woke up close to midnight and started armoring up. I started by putting on a fresh set of DCUs. It is still early Spring here in the desert but the heat has flared like an overheated matchbook. Our uniforms bear the brunt of our bodies frenzied attempts at dumping heat, in the course of a normal patrol our DCUs become saturated with sweat and dirt. As the grimy mixture evaporates you are left with a uniform marred by patches of greasy earth and white rings of salt. We’ve come to ignore the dirt as a cost of doing business, but I wanted a fresh uniform. I couldn’t stop a brutal splinter from ripping through my body but I didn’t want to help it by giving it a chance to carry the infectious dirt through my veins.
Once my uniform was on I started donning my gear with practiced ease. First on was the boots – their tan lines marked with fat black letters indicating my blood type Then I strapped on my boot knife, a gift from my father in law that never rests more then an arms reach away. After it nestled against my calf I moved to the heavily padded kneepads whose gouged faceplate carry the physical memory of my impacts with the shattered urban rock. Next up was my sidearm, the comically underpowered Beretta 9mm pistol the Army made standard issue more then a decade ago. I tightened up the thigh rig until it latched to my leg like a thermoplastic barnacle and finally came to the bulky IBA (Interceptor Body Armor) with its life saving ceramic plates. The IBA can be a curse – it is heavy and restricts your trunk movement to stiff movement that resemble the tin man. But in payment for its cumbersome weight it imparts a superhuman physical and mental carapace. When the sky is split by the supersonic crack of incoming rounds the armor offers its armored skin in payment for your own - which can add considerably to any soldiers peace of mind. Then I took my kevlar helmet in hand and walked to the TOC.
And then I waited. Normally I can bury any pre mission jitters under a thick blanket of work. But it was 0100 in the morning and other then the TOC personnel busily compiling the thickets of incoming radio traffic there wasn’t much to be done. I started some coffee and by time the pot was brewed we were loading the vehicle and starting our PCIs (Pre Combat Inspections).
As we pulled out of the wire I peered through the NVGs at the desolate roads. We were moving in the midst of Baghdad’s all encompassing curfew and everything seemed vacant and still. We traveled in a wide loop towards our staging area and then broke off the road into a tenebrous field. The vehicles lurched across the broken landscape like ungainly animals, occasionally throwing up gouts of stinking mud. The drivers were hunched over as if moving closer to the armored windows would somehow help them discern images in the green haze of the NVGs, but the mud seemed to swallow any trace of light. For those without NVGs there was little to do but to rock with the tumbling gait of the vehicles like a sailor riding out a violent storm.
The vehicles came to rest in a tight circle, and as the troops dismounted and moved to secure the perimeter the gunners wheeled their armored turrets back and forth to provide overwatch. Once the vicinity had been visually cleared by the recon troops everyone condensed into a tight cigar shaped formation in the space cordoned off by the gunships. Every soldier took a knee and focused on reaching their senses for anything that seemed out of the ordinary. The only sound was the grease slicked slide of the armored turrets as they scanned the muddy expanse.
And then LTC Tomhawk’s booming voice ripped the through the silence “LT Thunder6 – Post”.
The voice wasn’t a request, it was a command, and I was on my feet before I could process the words. I slipped past the tangle of ankles to the center of our tight little formation and came to a halt in front of the commander. I stood there in front of LTC Tomahawk unsure of whether I should take a knee again, but since he was standing I remained standing there in front of him. And then the CSM’s (Command Sergeant Major) voice rang out “Attention to orders!”. In the twilight the voice seemed to wash over our little formation and I found my left arm reflexively snapping to my side. Then in a quicksilver flash LTC Tomahawk pulled out his knife and cut off my LT rank as the CSM read the orders awarding me my Captain’s bars.
LTC Tomahawk made quick work of my old rank with his blade, and by time the order had been read he was pinning the rank to my armored mantle and onto my collar. As he finished pinning the rank the LTC half whispered “take a knee”. Once I had dropped to one knee he pulled out his tomahawk and gently placed it on my left shoulder. Then he told everyone assembled “he kneeled a lieutenant, now he rises a Captain” and helped me to my feet.
There was no pageantry in that wretched field. Truth be told there were few witnesses – all eyes were scanning for contact. But I wouldn’t have traded the rugged midnight ceremony for any amount of pomp and circumstance. For an instant that wretched field was nobler then any parade ground - war be damned.
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