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ll everyone did so there was no need to discuss it but the truth was it was ssg terry s responsibility to maintain 100 situational awareness friendlies do often die like this and it s one of the reasons people hate tankers and think we are big dumb idiots but in our defense tankers were designed to fight in open ground against other tanks they weren t built for close combat and good nearby visibility if you don t believe me sit in a tank and try to look around nearby that is why we hang ball defilade out of our tanks because it s the only way to see what s going on around us and then our commanders yell at us to get inside of our tanks where we can t see a goddamn thing we finished the casevac plow lane once we reached the rear bradley that was up at pl mike and isabel now nobody had to get out of anyone s way if a vehicle had to egress in a hurry they could just back up and take off in the plow lane that was right behind the first one once we were covered by the bradley we jumped out and raised the plow behind the security of a bradley and came back down the casevac route to get into our original position in the front the brt was firmly positioned in the plow lane and started letting loose with machine gun and mk 19 grenade fire it was just an awesome display of firepower m1a1 abrams main battle tank armored humvees with m2 50cal machine guns m240 7 62mm machine guns mk 19 grenade launchers at 4 rockets and bradleys with their 25mm he 7 62mm machine guns and tow missile launchers and to top it off we had stalker platoon with us we unleashed a barrage of machine gun fire and grenades into the house as the machine guns chattered away the tows corkscrewed amusingly into the air and landed among the houses without exploding it was funny but also disappointing those bradleys had just been through too much hell for those tows to stay serviceable or else it was just a bad lot of tows but then something suddenly flew straight out of the sky like a kamikaze bomber it entered the roof of a third story and blew out every single window as it drove itself to the first floor damn debris shot out of every window and every level of the house seemed to be exploding in a flash and just like that everything in the house was cooked i remember it like it was in slow motion even though it happened in a flash the windows and debris blew out level by level as the missile worked it s way down what the hell was that that was a fucking javelin stalker platoon stalker was the only platoon that i knew of that had the javelin system with them the weapon is absolutely devastating no tank is safe from a javelin it is designed to shoot at the target and then drive itself straight up into the sky and then nose dive onto the top of the tank we ve all seen the video of a javelin hitting a soviet t 72 let s just say that after a few seconds on impact the turret comes falling out of the sky and nothing is left but scrap metal it s scary now it was main gun time alright sir you ready ssg terry asked me i had only loaded once before in my life it was at ft knox and it was a dummy round made of metal and plastic and rubber and we were in a motor pool in peace time and i had had a full night s rest i never got to be in the loader s station when the gun fired gunnery was different because back then i was in the tc s station doing my own thing worrying about fire commands and acquiring targets and not messing up for my gunner now we were in combat and these were real rounds that explode the only reason there was nothing to fear was that the enemy was not taking the offensive with us at the moment yeah i m ready i said just give us a good loud up ssg terry instructed me when the loader puts a round in the tube he raises a giant metal lever up which arms the gun if it s down there is nothing the gunner can do to make the round fire by announcing up the loader tells the crew that the gun is armed and that he has backed up against the radios or the side of the turret any place that is clear of the breech the tank commander can now say fire when the main gun fires the breech recoils almost to the back of the turret and if you were in the way you would get royally screwed the breech would smash into you shattering your bones during gunnery failing to announce up or giving the command to fire before getting the up is a safety gig and a crew cut in points that is why loaders give a bloodcurdling uuup instead of that stupid cheery up you hear in the ucoft computer trainer and the cctt simulations let s go ssg terry said i hit the knee switch to open the ready rack and was too nervous to enjoy the sweet smell of the ammunition it s not gunpowder or cordite it s something else you can smell it in the honeycombs that support platoon brings when they deliver the rounds i slapped the clip that retains the round and the back end of a heat round squeezed out a few inches i grabbed the end and pulled it out somewhere along the way i gashed my right index finger open it was a blunt injury so it was numb as the skin peeled and bled everywhere i shoved the round in the tube and popped the lever up aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup i screamed as i made myself as narrow as possible it was the longest loudest up in the history of tanking and if someone saw me in the loader s station it would like owen wilson in shanghai noon trying to hide behind a little wooden beam as he was getting shot at in the church i was straight up and down with my arms pinned to my sides and my chin in my chest go ahead laugh the gun fired the afcap dropped with the sound of a pot falling to the ground and the breech dropped i opened the ready rack door and repeated my mission by the third round i was dripping with sweat from my forehead my cvc was feeling extremely humid and my hand started to hurt finally this continued for 9 more rounds it was exhausting while stoker was going to town with the main gun ssg terry was letting loose with his machine gun still and it s typically the loader s job to refill the ammo on the tc s gun even though i do it myself on my own tank 50cal ammo isn t heavy but it is by no means light and replacing can after can in the middle of loading main gun rounds was making me break a sweat sir you gotta wear gloves when you re loading he saw the blood on my finger i know i can t believe i forgot tankers never tanked without their gloves tanks are unforgiving you find yourself without gloves then you ll find yourself incapable of pulling maintenance on those hot ass tank parts i try never to take my soldiers for granted which is why i try to do as much stuff myself as possible and lend a hand where i can where it doesn t put me in their way but serving as a loader on this day really humbled me i thought i appreciated langford before but now it occurred to me that loading will smoke you and my respect for his job was the utmost now just then ramrod 6 pulled up at the end of our column i looked over at the extra bradley that joined our melee and watched as he unloaded his basic load of 7 62mm and 25mm he r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r r pock pock pock pock pock this went on for what seemed like minutes the tow launcher rose up slowly on his bradley jesus let em have it ramrod 6 zzzzffeewwwww the tow entered the house and exploded much like a main gun round it still wasn t as cool as a tank because it lacked the initial boom from launching out of the tube he launched his tows and suddenly did a right face and pulled away guess he s not sticking around for the after party after about 2 hours we were through pummeling the city block we headed back to the stronghold area and from there phantom 6 cut us loose to refuel and re arm at the lrp posted by redsix at 5 08 am 8 comments 1 k o but the fight s not over we are 2 5 km south of the cloverleaf on msr mobile and 3 km east of the city we are waiting for an escort to show up to escort this het back to camp fallujah with my tank and crew on it posted by redsix at 4 56 am 2 comments blinky is down this photo was taken by sgt stoker from ssg terry s tank his back is to the houses with the sniper that ends up shooting at us in a minute my tank is facing north west and phase line mike is a few hundred meters behind stoker you can see my track laid out underneath it are more tank mines one of which ssg terry kicked mewborn is in the driver s hole langford is up top i am looking at the number 7 roadwheel and sgt pritsolas is coming around posted by redsix at 4 55 am 2 comments wednesday september 21 2005 q a with some lady from san fran public radio i get a lot of emails from people who want to write an article for the school paper or talk to me on public radio well rather than forward the q a session via email to each new person i thought i would post it here i m sure to catch hell with this one also for the record i never said the dell comment in that wired magazine story it was a miscommunication between those guys and me but they were very apologetic and wanted to know if a correction needed to be run they are good people and no harm was done so i really didn t care that much but just so you all know it was a choice between medical school and the army not a call center and the army q a how is it that soldiers actually have laptops and internet access while on active duty it s hard for those of us at home to imagine this and please help us understand how you have the time not only to write down your thoughts but to maintain a very professional looking website first of all combat experiences vary depending on the mos some soldiers are on vacation in iraq drinking alcohol and carrying on in speak easies in baghdad i haven t seen it myself but i ve heard it firsthand from soldiers who made it to baghdad on escort missions plus we you and me both all saw that picture in the papers of that pfc who lifted her shirt at one of these wild parties man what are people doing in iraq that gives them the time to throw parties that rivaled my fraternity days in pike at college other soldiers have quiet sectors where nothing happens and there is no danger some people s mos s require them to go out the gate several times a day on combat patrols to drive around in sector presence patrols or counter mortar missions other people s mos s require them to sit at a desk from 9 5 and never see a hint of danger all of this is relative of course because technically if you are in iraq a mortar round could fall on your head but that s not dangerous that s just wrong place wrong time so take people s experiences with a grain of salt just about everyone has laptops we don t always sleep in the sand and have no amenities there are soldiers living in saddam s palaces with every luxury available to man satellite tv electricity all the time a c hot showers in the winter etc some of us didn t have that for 3 weeks in fallujah we just lived and fought off of our tanks and ate muffins and powerbars and drank water sometimes we were brought gatorade or some chow from usmc camp fallujah but when we were in baqubah we had decent living conditions we were living in former fedayeen barracks and it beat sleeping in the dirt living at the river bank of the tigris sucked as far as living conditions but we were out there by ourselves away from the company and the first sergeant sometimes that is nice i have tried to explain this over and over again 99 of a combat deployment in iraq is boring even for combat arms soldiers we were in baqubah on june 24th 2004 in some the heaviest combat 3rd bde 1id had ever seen up to that point and we were in fallujah for the month of november 2004 those were the two greatest combat experiences ever yet other than that there wasn t too much excitement until election day on jan 30th ieds vbieds and stupid enemies taking pot shots at us with ak 47s are not a big deal people make them out to be huge ambushes trust me they are not a big deal except in baghdad where the ieds are ridiculously huge whole nother ballgame there saw those craters with our own eyes as we came home from fallujah those things would probably tear a tank up ask any soldier he s seen more movies on dvd than any civilian ever will we worked our asses off on the tanks and with maintenance and patrols at any given time of day or night yet we still had time to screw around just imagine what a person who doesn t patrol does when he s not working 9 5 some units even got sundays off which i think is ridiculous but believe me iraq is not hard on a side note i didn t mind being out in sector all day on thanksgiving christmas it rained cold all day or new years but man i woulda killed to have the day after the super bowl off so i hope that answers your question about time maintaining a professional looking website is nothing everything is automatic with blogspot com i am not computer savvy at all enough said on that what kind of civilian response have you received to your entries that provide detailed descriptions of battle mostly supportive some people insist that i write well and paint a vivid picture the compliments are very nice but i am no writer i was a science type guy in college i never enjoyed writing the fact that people think i m a good writer makes me question the whole profession of writing but i love my job as a tank platoon leader and as a combat arms officer maybe that passion has something to do with it a few negatives have appeared on the website these negative people know nothing of combat so i don t really care for their opinion if there is one profession you cannot judge it is the work of a combat soldier who faces the enemy even soldiers cannot judge one another unless they themselves have faced the enemy that s why when everyone was up in arms about that marine sergeant who killed that guy in a mosque i didn t care and said out of emotion i probably would have done the same thing i was there in fallujah fighting alongside the marines if you weren t then you wouldn t understand insurgents were walking up with white flags or speeding in vbieds with white flags coming out of them we learned that the marines offered assistance to them and then they blew themselves up taking dozens of marines with them every situation is different you gotta be there to understand my favorite responses are from veterans of any era they fire me up with their energy and their passion but especially tankers years go by and they still are as psyched about tanking as i am are there any topics that you feel are off limits i e do you censor yourself yes discussing classified material current operational stuff mission related and personally i don t like talking about politics or people who died how would i like it if my mother read about my death on some soldier s website in fact i took down a post about recovering a downed vehicle and one dead and one dying soldier i hadn t realized how widely read this website had become it was meant for my friends and family my post about the ...