Its midnight and its dark inside my HMMW-V (hummer). The only lights on the inside are a few green or red LEDs on my radio. The bright glow behind me comes from my gunner's video monitor. My gunner is PFC David Knighton. They call him Crow. He stares into that monitor for the duration of our nightlong journey to Anaconda. This is one of the tools we find IEDs with. Ahead of us is the dark night. The only light comes from our unusual amount of spotlights that turn the night into day. To our left and right is a sea of darkness....it is the Iraqi desert....there's something out there but we are primarily concerned with the roads...this is where our fight is.
Tonight we finally continue the trip to Anaconda. We are escorting dozens of semi tractor trailers full of stuff. Things like fuel, milk, food, lumber, vehicles, and a myriad of other things that allow soldiers in this war to operate under the best conditions possible. My CET (Convoy Escort Team) Commander, LT Lang Doster calls himself the Milkman of Iraq.....without his escorts....the GI has no milk.
As we drive the only sounds we hear come from the chatter on the radio. My driver, SPC Ryan, PFC Knighton and me keep each other awake by talking about everything....the army, the war, other people, politics, home, religion and anything else. We will drive until after sun-up so any topic we can think of we talk about. On the late night Iraqi highway its a survival skill.
As we drive the only sounds we hear come from the chatter on the radio. My driver, SPC Ryan, PFC Knighton and me keep each other awake by talking about everything....the army, the war, other people, politics, home, religion and anything else. We will drive until after sun-up so any topic we can think of we talk about. On the late night Iraqi highway its a survival skill.
The other noises in our headsets come from the rest of the convoy. We cross-talk about the mission at hand and we also call about humourous topics. We mercilessly pick on each other. Anything is game. Once again...survival on the late night highways. Falling asleep at the wheel is something we are very aware of and we talk to avoid it. 
My radio can't hear everybody in our convoy because our string of vehicles is so long. Our vehicle is one of the scout pair so we are way out in front of the main body, making sure the route is clear for everyone else. The other night we had to turn around in the highway because of the weather. It took almost 90 minutes to do that. There is an old song that says, "give me 40 acres and I'll turn this rig around." Well, how many acres does it take to turn around our string of semis in pitch black darkness? Apparently we had enough because we did....with much difficulty.
The road is a 4-lane interstate of sorts. There are no painted lines. Farms come right up to the shoulder. There is the occasional concrete jersey barrier, checkpoints, discarded wire and old blown tires. There are also lots of scars from the war. Mostly in the form of blast holes from previous IEDs. Those usually get patched but there are several right along the edge of the road that show evidence of explosions in the not-too-distant past.
As we approach the big city of Baghdad we fall behind another convoy. We debate about passing it but find out that it is a route clearance team. These guys have special equipment to find IEDs on the road. We decide it is better to trade speed for security so we follow the RCT for several miles.
After an hour or so the RCT and us part ways and we continue toward Baghdad. We are close…right on the edge. It is about 3am and time to make the turn into the city. It was an interesting turn…..I’ll tell you about that part of the trip tomorrow.
After an hour or so the RCT and us part ways and we continue toward Baghdad. We are close…right on the edge. It is about 3am and time to make the turn into the city. It was an interesting turn…..I’ll tell you about that part of the trip tomorrow.
SABER 2,
out.
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