Experiences Part 4

Man what a week this has been! Some days have been while others have been down right awful and yet life goes on while I'm trying to keep up. Well I think I know where this blog is headed because of recent events therefore I know I need to blog about it.

Well time to go back in time a few years lol more like five to be exact. I remember the events of that day just like every other major event that happened while I was in Iraq and that's just like yesterday. It doesn't take much for me to recall the sights, sounds, and quietness as well. Some may ask, " How can their be quietness in war?" Well hopefully I can show you through my writing what the quietness of war is like and how that plays out in my story.

So here's the setting: Its now late March 2007 and I'm on a small patrol base in southern Iraq and there's desert as far as the eye can see with a few roads around our base that we could see. That morning was just like any other morning in Iraq or so I thought. I remember sitting in our communication building just going about our normal business when the tower aka guy on the berm called in that there was an explosion out by an oil pipeline. I walked outside to spot what had happened, but before I could get on to the berm to see what had happened rockets started raining down all around our little patrol base. I remember what is was like having the first one land and explode, I never thought I could put my body armor on so fast. Within minutes the rockets were landing all around us, but not one hit within our base nor was any damage done. There was a lull in that time when everything seemed to just be still. It seemed like eternity honestly. There was probably 5 or 6 of us outside this bunker when the quietness hit or what is typically called a lull when it comes to combat. We waited and listened to see if we could hear anymore rockets that when 2 or 3 more came down.

 The whole event probably lasted only 10-20minutes and then it was all over. In the coming days we would soon learn just how big these rockets were and just how many were shot at us. We found pieces of shrapnel from these rockets and let me tell you if they'd hit anything we would have a major problem. In the following days we couldn't hardly sit still at the sound of a door being shut, we were all pretty jumpy honestly. I just remember the day when we got a new member who hadn't down much with his unit and that first day I was ready to knock him out. He was our cook and therefore was going through our freezers, tossing everything around which made me jump every couple of minutes. Finally I went over there and had a few choice words with him and that settled things down pretty good.

Well one more blog down and an untold more to go I guess. The sun has finally come through and we don't have anymore fog our nasty cloud cover which makes me very happy! This post hasn't been as hard as some of the others have been for me to write which is nice, but this still helps me to put things in perspective now that I'm home and still trying to figure out which direction I want to go with my life. Thank you for taking the time out to read my blog and as always Take care and God Bless!:)

© Nathan Fahlin