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We Own This Road

943 views 8 replies 9 participants last post by  boricua 
#1 ·
We Own This Road.

By a U.S. Soldier

We own this road. Today we do. We’ll be on it for the next two hours. That’s how long it will take to get to the village. Two hours more of rocks and nothing.

Crossing the desert in the HUMVEEs sucks. More room than Bradleys, but sand gets in everything. It’s not like the sand I used to stretch out on, back on the Jersey shore beaches. This fine crap gets all over everything. Into everything. Guess what? M4s don’t like to get sand in them. Two hours in the desert and my black M4 is desert tan.

My sister Kelly back in America sends me baby wipes in her CARE packages with new DVDs my buddies and I watch and the candy I give Iraqi kids after we sweep house-to-house. These wipes are gold out here, man. The only way to keep my M4 clean.

The front of the column is slowing. Iraqi civilian vehicle ahead. At least that’s what it looks like. Pick-up truck loaded with a house load of stuff. Looks like the Beverly Hillbillies… “Loading up the truck and moving to Nasariyah.”

We’re out of the trucks and setting up a perimeter while the guys in the lead HUMVEE question the locals. We don’t talk to each other. This seems routine, but out here, nothing is routine.

I flick my M4’s safety off and scan the countryside. Nothing but desert for miles, but that means nothing. The closest rocks could be concealing snipers or RPG toting insurgents. The sand on either side of the road could be bristling with IEDs. Stay on the pavement. It’s hot. Out here you can see the heat. I look over: The locals aren’t sweating, but they’re not loaded down with a hundred pounds of gear, either.

I watch the Iraqi family. Husband, wife, six-year-old boy hiding behind his mother’s abayah. I watch their faces, their hands. I look for signs. Signs of what, I’m not sure. That’s the problem with fighting an enemy that doesn’t wear a uniform. I can see they’re nervous, but I’d be skittish too if I was surrounded by a squad of armed men. I see the fear in their kid’s eyes. They don’t believe we’re here to help them. They’ve heard it, but they don’t know for sure. Crap. We’re here to free them.

I see my C.O. is satisfied with their papers. They're Sunnis, moving away from Baghdad. Going back to the village where the father was born. I’ll be heading home soon. Six more months of patrols, my heart in my throat. Looking for bombs behind every discarded soda can on the side of the road. Looking for bombers behind the eyes of every Iraqi I come in contact with.

The column is moving again. Heart beat returns to Code Yellow. I fish around in my vest for a bag of M&Ms my sister sent me. They’re gonna be pretty squishy. I toss them to the scared Iraqi kid as we drive past his father’s sand-blasted truck. I think I see him smile, but I can’t look back. My focus is ahead, and the village. Whole new world of crap when we get there.

Until then, there’s just this ribbon of asphalt across the dunes.

We own this road.
 
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#2 ·
very good, added to my collection
 
#4 ·
The price they paid for that road didn't come cheap,God bless our troops,I ride with a disabled vet from Afghanistan he got lucky a few more inches to the right and he wouldn't be here
 
#6 ·
God bless you and keep you and all our troops. Keep up the good work.
 
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