An Infantryman's Tale: A story of Love and Hate (Part 2 of 3)

The Army has actually come a long way since my deployment in 2004. A lot of upgrades in armor and technology has made our chances on the battlefield a little bit better against an unknown enemy. But with all the upgrades and technology there is still room for human error. With that said, I'm still pissed off that the Air Force dudes who tried to kill me. Here's the story.

It was about 2200 at night (10 pm) and I was about to hit the rack, but as i was taking off my boots and about to lay down, we get a call to gear up. We were to head up north on the main highway towards Baji. Apparently a convoy had gotten hit by an IED and they wanted us to go check it out and make sure there weren't any secondary devices (since the unit that got hit, didn't take any serious damage and decided it would be best to run away then stick around and fight). We got in our hummers and drove the 30 minute ride up on Tampa North (that's what the main highway in Iraq is called). We get there and dismount and begin to take pictures and look around for any other IED's that might be ready to hit someone dumb enough to stop and check and see if there are any IED's still there....yeah....makes sense, huh.

Anywho, we did end up finding some mortar rounds that must of been apart of the original IED that hadn't gone off during the explosion on the convoy. So, we cordoned off both sides of Tampa, until we could wrap some det cord around them and blow them up with a little plastic explosives. That night I had the fun job of gunning on the slick. We were located on the Southbound lane of Tampa. Our other two hummers were across the way blocking off the Northbound lane. I noticed some headlights moving north, coming our way on the other side of Tampa. I radioed to my wing man on the other side that it looked like a convoy was coming our way. It's pretty easy to spot a military supply convoy at night in Iraq. It looks just like 100 pairs of headlights moving down the road. It's a wonder why they get attacked all the time....anyway, my counterparts on the northbound lane start using their flashlights to try to get the convoy to stop (we didn't want them running any of our guys over or possibly running over any unexploded mortar rounds we were about to blow). They didn't stop or even slow down. They kept coming at us. So my battle buddies on the other side started flashing their headlights and flashlights. We started flashing ours as well (if you've been in country long enough, you pretty much can tell the difference between a civilian car's headlights and a military Humvee headlights. They are way different) They didn't stop. They didn't slow down.

So, the gunner in the Humvee decides he'll shoot a warning shot with his machine gun in a 90 degree angle out in the middle of the desert, so they can see the red tracers and know that their are American soldiers up ahead and they need to stop. Now, I hope I'm making myself clear. He shot out in the middle of the desert. Away from the convoy. Ok, just want to make that clear.

The convoy saw the tracers. They finally stopped. And then their first and second trucks opened up on us with a 50 cal machine gun and a 240B machine gun. Now, i have to tell you, I've been shot at with a 7.62 bullet before, it's really no big deal. I kinda duck my head a little, get behind my gun and return fire. But when that 50 cal. opened up on us. I just froze. I had 50 cal. rounds flying every which way around me. To my left, to my right, up above me, hitting the ground in front of my AMERICAN HUMVEE. I froze. My first reaction was to return fire, but i knew these were American soldiers, who apparently were new to the whole, "we're supposed to shoot the bad guys, not the good guys" part of the job.

I remember my best friend Ceven Bauer being out in the middle of the highway. He had been sent out to take pictures of the blast hole. He was totally exposed when the firing began. I remember looking straight to him. He kind of just fell to the ground, almost as if he fainted (i don't think he did, i think he just hit the ground fast). I remember seeing all of the rounds landing what seemed to me only inches away from his lifeless body. At that point I stood back up and put the gunner of the first truck in my thermal scope sights. I was a split second away from pulling the trigger on MY 240B Machine gun, when my platoon Sgt radioed over to me on our Motorola to stay down and not return fire. After what seemed like forever, we started shooting star clusters in the air (basically it's like a big firework that is so bright, it's like the sun is out for a few seconds. The convoy finally stopped shooting at us. I ran out to Ceven, totally expecting to find my friend's body filled with holes like Swiss cheese. I got over there and Ceven rolled over on his own, looks up at me, and says "Dude, help me up so we can go kick those dude's asses." So I helped him up and joined the rest of my platoon, totally giving up all points of security as we ran over to the idiots who almost took all of our lives. Come to find out they were Air Force truck drivers escorting a supply convoy to Mosul. They claimed it was our fault because "we fired first." Well, after the realized we were going to pull them out of their vehicles, they pretty much just started driving forward and left the scene of the friendly fire. We stood in front of their trucks and had a good fight with them for a good ten minutes before our LT finally got a hold of all of us joes.

Now, I can't forget about my Platoon Sgt. During the shooting, he was on the radio calling the nearest base (which was an air force base by the way) to try and relay to someone to get this convoy to stop shooting at us. He told the girl on the other end, "We're pinned down, we're pinned down". All she heard through all the shooting in the background was, "We're ten down, we're ten down." So, "we're ten down" was relayed back to our company. Needless to say by the time the LT got us all back to where we were supposed to be, 2 Apache gun ships, 4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles, 4 tanks, and two fighter planes had made their way to our little one sided battle. All in all, it was kind of fun, looking back. Good fight at the end made us all feel better. Ceven wasn't dead, so that was good. All I can say, is yes, now i have a reason to hate the Air Force. My dad was Air Force for 24 years, so i never had a problem with them until that night. All i can really say, is thank God the air force doesn't spend as much time shooting as we do, because they managed to fire over 4,000 rounds at 4 humvee's and 32 men, and not hit a thing. Thank you Lord!