I laughed at our reenlistment NCO who tried to convince me to stay in. Two weeks and one day later there I was, reenlisting on top of Kolekole Pass. This was two weeks and one day after 9/11 happened.

I really wanted Pearl Harbor by the USS Arizona but this was impossible to do due to circumstances.



I am a history buff and was infatuated by the movie Patton and the history between him and Rommel when I was a kid growing up. Our PLDC group had been put on detail to clean the 7th Army's PLDC Commandants office. When the Commandant SGM came in and saw me dumbfounded staring at what was in his office, he asked me what was going on so I told him. So he made me go over and sit in the chair and took this phot for me.



That's Rommel's former desk that Patton took for his own.

And here is MOH recipient Commando Kelly's MOH grandson, who was in my group and bunkmate during PLDC.



And speaking of the MOH, I was a student of Paul Monti. His son Jared Monti was posthumously awarded the CMOH. The song from Lee Brice "I drive your truck" was inspired after listening in to Mr. Monti talking about his son. He drove this same truck that was Jared's to meet with me for some pizza after I had retired from the Army.

The very first time I had experienced incoming was when I was put on a detail with another guy that neither of us got along with the other during OIF 1. While arguing over petty things and tossing trash into BIAP's burn pit, we both stopped and asked each other what that whistling sound overhead was, saw the impact plume and poof of black across the road and dove into the swill. Our 998 cargo hummer was pocked marked. It was a somber silent drive back to Hotel California.

The very first time I was shot at, was when I was making a parts pickup run to the SSA with my section SGT after our relocation to Balad when OIF 1 became OIF 2. Our 1025's right passenger side half shaft made a loud bang and thump thump thump so we thought it had just broken so I pulled over. Then we heard a few more bangs and cracks through the vehicle behind us in the cargo area and still couldn't figure it out. It wasn't until we saw the green tracers flying past the hood that we both had realized what was going on and bailed out for some better cover.

Second time I was exposed to incoming fire, was inside Anaconda near the ROWPU area close to the fence line on blackout drive with a shitty 7A. That area was always being lit up back in 04 at nighttime only. A tool truck 923 belonging to 4th ID was on the opposite side when a blast landed between our own 923 and theirs. That driver hit the gas and drove it like he stole it with no cares and smash his mirrors into mine and I took a face full of glass after my mirror impacted my kevlar. That wasn't so bad really.

Then a round impacted right outside my door as while doing a 360 to get out of dodge. The door absorbed most it and what little went through my IBA stopped, except for the few that broke skin and stuck underneath my neck, my chin, and nose. That wasn't bad either despite bleeding really good by then.

What was bad was my brain dead stupid TC who tried to apply pressure to my neck and was choking me while I was both trying to drive a blacked out 5 ton without an NVG because that went into another galaxy, and wiping away blood in my eyes and was cutting my right hand doing so or making the cuts deeper because they were stuck in their good. Anyway despite all of that we got back, I backed up and combat parked the 923, cock blocked it and with drip pan underneath all coated by my blood because I was having an eccentric sense of humor to mock the BS they made us do daily. Then walked into the TOC and said that I was going to the CASH unit of reservist that showed up a few weeks before nearby us.

Everyone in the TOC was dumbfounded, and before anyone could process exactly what they were looking at, I was already at the steps to the CASH entrance with both my section SGT, platoon SGT, and XO all yelling nervously at me to hold up . I was their first casualty at that CASH and it was full of deployment 10's. Absolute heaven.

The third time I was exposed to incoming fire, was after pausing the game COD or MOH. It was coming out from dam mission when the game's hero was being shelled at. I decided to take a headphones break. Five seconds into my cigarette break I heard the familiar sound of mortars overhead here in Mortaritaville.

When I was an E-5 in Bagram I was detailed after Mountain Thrust's Team Cadillac end of mission from Task Force Muleskinner to be a gate guard for just one week at the not so secretive OGA's camp few blocks over from Camp Vance. I stopped a vehicle trying to enter with a full bird insignia person but nothing else on their uniform and being driven by a very salty guy with all gray hair, both had no ID so I called it in to the SOG. The grey hair was about to light me up but the full bird stopped him telling him that I was doing my job.

Turns out that was CAG's commander and that was his CSM. I didn't know this at the time until we were called to COB and I was presented with both coins from them.

Pretty cool but still meh because I wasn't doing anything special other than what my job was at the time and obeying my special orders.

So what's your stories of randomness?