Incoming

I had given myself an extra 15 minutes of sleep. My self-dictated 0545 wake-up had, by Army executive order, been delayed until 0600. This being an Army-operated base, I assured myself that I would sign that order and route it up the chain of command as soon as I got to the office. At my desk until about 2300 the night before, I was not really enthused to get out of bed, except for one very important reason . . . . I really had to pee. Honestly, you drink so much water here that I largely rely on this biological necessity to provide the motivation. I worked to slide my feet into the flip flops that would carry me to the porta-john when the Big Voice rang out with its favorite refrain “INCOMING, INCOMING, INCOMING.”

Now I had heard this before without much conseq . . . . KABOOM! Holy crap! This was real. Kaboom, Kaboom, Kaboom I heard in the distance. “Hey insurgents! I gotta pee” I thought indignantly to myself. And almost simultaneously, “man, I really hope no one is hurt.” You can hear the low roar of Camp Victory’s automated defenses wind-up in an attempt to knock the rockets out of the air before they reach us. I like that sound.

I have a pretty good feel for where the stack of sandbags outside the tent tops-off and was positive my head was well below it. The sound of this was nothing new – all those Seabee (see Post #2) field exercises have plenty of indirect fire but you always knew it was just a flash-bang grenade. These were rockets. The real deal. Well, turns out the real deal landed pretty far away from me.

The ensuing silence was followed by an “All Clear,” quickly amended by the wail of sirens as the base’s first response teams headed to investigate the attack (or, Points of Impact – POIs). I can’t say much regarding the results, but no major losses for the camp. The base is huge. Over 45,000 troops and civilians live here and this place is measured in square miles. Remain calm, all is well. And I made it to the porta-john in time, which, truth be told, was my immediate concern.

I struggled with whether or not to post this particular part of my experience here but I was on the phone with a good friend not long ago and he mentioned that he really enjoyed the blog and it gave everyone a great opportunity to find out what it is really like here. It made me think. Although I find a lot of humor in almost anything I do, I also decided that I owe it to everyone to make sure I don’t gloss over some aspects that are a little more serious.