Memoirs of an Outlaw: Life in the Sandbox

Chapter 40: The Mechanic

Upon our return to Baharia, things seemed to be looking up. In addition to the change of leadership in our platoon, we also had some shifting of vehicle crews. Due to the various events that had occurred in the past and the harsh environmental conditions in the desert taking a toll on our vehicles, our platoon was being broken apart to help shore up the other platoons. After all was said and done, our platoon was down to only three vehicles and three scout teams. Sergeant Learn, his crew, and scout team all moved over to Third Platoon. That left us with Sergeant Krall, Lieutenant May, and Sergeant Madden’s crew.

For the first couple of days after we returned, none of the platoons were doing much more than maintaining the vehicles and our equipment. We’d make a few runs to the PX to restock our snacks and cigarettes, but the rest of the time, we were given free reign to do what we wanted within the camp walls. I spent most of my time either at the internet center sending emails and playing video games or back at the hooch playing cards or doing something else to occupy my time. Once patrols resumed, our platoon was mostly left out of it since we were one vehicle short. We did run odd missions here and there, but nothing of significance. This routine lasted for about three weeks, which brought us to the end of August and into early September.

At this point, excitement was in the air. We had been informed that Alpha Company, our replacements, was on their way from the States. Also, we had been informed that another assault on Fallujah was imminent. Insurgents had regrouped within the city and had resumed their assaults on American forces. This time around there was going to be no holding back; it would be a full-on assault.

It had been about three or four weeks since we had gotten back from Iskandariyah, and the boredom was really starting to set in. I was jealous of the other platoons because they were now doing patrols on a daily basis and were participating in the precursor to the second assault on Fallujah. Nearly every day, sitting inside the hooch on my cot, I could hear the familiar sound of an LAV firing rounds, the artillery units firing rounds from Camp Fallujah next door, or an IED going off in the distance. And, as we had grown accustomed to by this time, mortars and rockets landed in and around our base on a near-daily basis. The only benefit to staying on base the whole time was that I could visit the internet center as much as I wanted. But that’s not why we were there, that wasn’t our mission. And because of that, I grew bored extremely fast, as did the rest of the guys in the platoon.

Word was spreading that the Alpha Company Marines had finally arrived in Kuwait and were readying their vehicles for the road march to our base. One day in early September, Lieutenant May and Sergeant Madden had us all meet out by where our vehicles were staged. Klinger, Sprenger, Honigsberg, Nava, and I were all sitting around bullshitting about some kind of random stuff, so when the word was passed to us that we needed to meet outside, we slowly rose, grabbed our rifles, and made our way to where May and Madden were. We figured it was going to be another speech on being prepared, doing training to stay active, or some other random bit of news that was passed on a daily basis.

As we began walking over to where we were told, I noticed that Lieutenant Snipes was speaking with Lieutenant May. When everyone finally converged on the spot where Lieutenant May wanted us, he began to speak. In short, he informed us that Alpha Company was ready to move north and make their way to Camp Baharia. As had been the case with us, once they arrived at Camp Scania, they would need to be escorted to our location, not so much for protection but to ensure they wouldn't get lost. We found out in the time that we had been at Baharia that quite a few convoys that were trying to get to either Camp Baharia or Fallujah got lost due to misleading highway signs. In one case, a convoy misread a sign and headed directly into the center of the city of Fallujah rather than to Camp Fallujah. So to make sure that didn’t happen again, Alpha Company was requesting that the Outlaws send an escort to lead them back to Camp Baharia.