Tower Guard Finale: Journal 8/19/06

This is my triumphant and often dreamt of end of tower guard blog. My total rotation comes to 4 weeks of the year long deployment. This last week wasn’t nearly as memorable as some of the others, but I blame that on my lack of caring.

With repetition comes lethargy. This time around, I stripped all non-essential items from my body because every ounce counts when climbing up that god forsaken ladder. I dumped by neck protector, first aid pouch, extra magazine that is normally strapped to my M-4, and the stupid arm protectors that look like big wings on our body armor. (In my opinion they cause more harm than good because they allow zero arm movement. Try to climb a ladder or raise your weapon without the use of your shoulders.)

I’ve already mentioned previously how hot it was up there, so I won’t reiterate.

Highlights of the week:

A dead cow floating in the moat in front of the tower.

Iraqi children jumping in the moat to cool off in the late August heat. They really made me smile. It reminded me of cooling off in the hot Chicago summers.

Seeing the C-Ram gun go off to defend the base against a mortor attack. It was like the 4th of July. The gun shoots off something like 300 rounds a second and half of those rounds are tracers. It looks like a red laser beam shooting out into the sky. It’s so fast that the sound of the rounds being fired are delayed by a good 3 seconds. Then after the tracers fade off, all you hear is “pop pop pop pop pop pop pop”. Very cool in a macho sort of “America! Fuck yeah!” sort of way.

Slamming a round into my chamber when they announce red status. It’s so un-cool to get excited over a loaded weapon, but come on! I can admit to it. It got my heart pumping.

Hearing the Howitzer gun batteries return fire. That deep thud that I may never feel in my stomach again after I leave this place. Watching the flashing of light from the Howitzer rounds landing in the distance through night vision goggles.

Waving at the little girls who are herding their sheep, goats, and donkeys back to safety. This really amazes me. Every day three little girls would herd 30 or so animals back to their village. I estimated their ages to be between 8-10. They liked to stop for a moment in front of our tower to wave and say something in Arabic. My partner and I swore they said something about buying a watch. Who the hells knows.

So… that’s the fairly anticlimactic end. For the rest of my life, I’ll never have to do anything like that again. I didn’t have to fire my weapon once. I only had 1 life threatening incident. I did everything I was supposed to do and did it well. My training never failed me once. And now the first chapter is closed in this book of deployment.

Forever and ever, amen.

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Related posts:

1. The Return: Journal 10/12/06
2. Self Imposed Coma: Journal 8/15/06
3. Round 3 of Tower Guard: Journal 6/4/06
4. Journal 2/3/06
5. Journal 12/19/05