Memoirs written in prose of Sergeant Robertson, Damon M. USMC while in Iraq | ...with frequent appearances of King Hammurabi.
If you are new to this journal, make sure to start reading in chronological order by scrolling down to the bottom of the oldest post in October 2004. Damon's letters from August 20th, 2004 - October 23rd, 2004 were all added to this blog on Oct. 23rd, 2004. All subsequent letters are posted in real time.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Re: Hammurabi, USMC - DMR
D F&F: Alright. Here's the short and nasty version: A cargo plane arrived at our flight line, and as per usual had loose loaded cargo stuffed around the palletized load in it's belly. One of our junior Marines was on board helping to offload the loose stuff and found a strange package. You know, the sort made from a tiny white box wrapped in duct tape with, oh, a signal wire sticking out of it. [included within, we were told much later by Explosive Ordinance Disposal experts, were approx 1 lb Composite 4 explosive, blasting caps, and a wad of shapnel in the form of tiny metal spikes. An intricate timing device, apparently having nothing to do with the "decoy" signal wire, was the true mechanism of activation, and thank GOD we found this thing in time. The odd thing is that without the signal wire, we wouldn't have thought twice about the package as a whole; the wire wasn't even used correctly, to put things in an intentionally unhelpful critique format: the rest of the bomb, we are told, was pure genious.] The crew of the plane hail from, oddly enough, former Russian satellite states. There were two iraqi nationals on board but they weren't the ones that popped the "hand swipe" test the EOD Marines ran to find particles of explosives on one of the crew member's hands. Apparently in this corner of the world, Georgians, Moldovians, etc., i.e. the same sort of folks who killed all the school kids not too long ago, have no problem taking a pot shot at Americans since we're not doing anything to stop what Putin's Russia is doing in her former sattelites. At the time I was several hundred yards from the plane, operating one of the forklifts and essentially experiencing one of the most frustrating offload procedures of my ENTIRE LIFE. Unloading a truck that's been loaded by unhelpful morons is one thing, but add to that the fact that the containers (big, thin skinned aluminum) are empty, we're left with some additional problems. Any error, as in any errant contact with the forks, will send the container skidding off the other side of the flat bed (I've done that before... "yee haw" I think about covers it). But that day, a fierce wind was screetching through Iraq courtesy of Siberia (yeah, butt-cold) so when I finally fenagled the containers off the truck, of course the wind toppled every single one of them. I have this "issue" as an operator. I used to let things like this bother me, as in I'd let the stress of the spectators effect my own stress level. Bah humbug. Not worth it. After killing fire hydrants, civilian truck chasis (not my fault), ammo crates (ooh baby) and a few bags of poorly stacked mail, things tend not to bother me so much. Why? No amount of self effacing behavior can fix the problem. "Yes sir, that is correct. I did run over the mail." (he is Major Mack, and yes, he's one of the biggest dorks *ever* made, with all the anal retentiveness of ... I dunno... no one else compares) "We saw you stop, devil dog. Then you decided to drive ahead anyway. you did it on purpose!" [in moments like these the accusation of sinister intent is so laughable I can only give these guys an incredulous stare, as if to say "Yes sir I'm wicked, you're right, for some reason unbeknownst even to the devil I deliberately ran over someone else's care package..."] But we can't be sarcastic with Major Mack, who is accompanied by a staff sergeant who *literally* parrots everything the major says. I don't really know how many times I heard "... but you ran over that mail, Marine..." come out of his mouth. YES, FOR GOD'S SAKE AND ALL THINGS HOLY WE HAVE ESTABLISHED THAT. MOVING ON... But I don't say that either. I sit in the cab, calmly explaining that the pallet of loose loaded material was unsoundly stacked, that I was driving very slowly (idle speed, like 1mph) and that when I stopped for the recklessly careening fed-ex van that nearly side-swiped me, mail fell of the front of the pallet. WHICH I CAN'T SEE FROM THE CAB... oh wait, am I yelling again? The only clue I had that I'd run over mail, or anything at all really, was the subtle roll of my cab as I heaved over something that shouldn't have been there.... major mack? No, only mail... darn.... I mean, who does that on purpose? OH, yeah. You wanted to hear about the bomb. So I wasn't there when they confiscated the package. Super Marine, being the NCO unloading the plane, ran and got his machine gun and ordered several juniors to do the same. Under his leadership they boarded the plane (tactical terminology uses the word "stormed the plane," but no shots were fired so that rhetoric seems a bit lofty) and detained the crew. Of course none of the staff have given him any credit whatsoever, and last we heard the postal Marines ...yes, the fat, dopy, glossy-eyed postal marines... were claiming to have discovered the package. [it should be noted that if he had not intervened, the crew would have escaped, the bomb most likely been passed on through the mail system to explode *whenever*. And yes, at that time the postal Marines would have definitely been involved, though most likely in terms that positively group them with another unit stationed here, the "mortuary affairs" division.] Dear God is there no justice... postal didn't even come to the site until THE NEXT DAY. [it definitely does NOT help that their master sgt, a modestly rotund woman of superior screaming ability, irritates the living crap out of all of us, especially when she enters our barracks screaming at the top of her lungs in true military fashion, i.e. for no doggone reason at all] back to the point, I don't know how anyone can be so freakin stupid to go around propogating that kind of false claim. Perhaps it is in strict adherence to the unwritten code of military conduct that states that "people who work hard should never get credit for what they accomplish; likewise, those same people, ever having made a mistake, will be expected to take full responsibility for their actions while their staff and officers are allowed to plead ignorance of all wrongdoing, etc." ... Particularly broken record types around here periodically repeat the famous boot-camp / recruiter slogan "They didn't promise you a rose garden." This is true. I was never promised a rose garden. Neither do I desire one. I was, however, promised Honor, Courage, and Commitment, which I was willing to group conveniently under the banner of "Integrity." Huh. Infer what you like. ... :D
# posted by chevas @ 11:35 PM 