Mercy Kill_ A Mystery - Lori Armstrong [98]
I bristled again. “No, I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Name one time.”
“The time we were on convoy detail and you couldn’t take out that old man.”
Goddammit. I hated that I’d goaded her into bringing it up because I’d tried like hell to forget it’d ever happened.
During our stint at the start of the Iraq War, while we were awaiting new transfer orders to St. Mere, aka Camp Fallujah, we were stationed at Camp Ramadi and tasked to provide escort “services” along with the marines as part of their Tactical Movement Team. Our job was to protect the supply convoys traveling between Camp Ramadi to Combat Outpost to Camp Corregidor and back.
At the time, that area was the most dangerous stretch of road in all of Iraq, nicknamed “the Gauntlet.” Our convoys were consistently subjected to IEDs, sniper fire, mortar rounds, grenades, RPGs, Molotov cocktails. Basically, anything they could throw at us—or shoot at us—they did. “They” meaning rebel kids as young as five and old arthritic men. The insurgents used every dirty, inhumane trick in the book, and the hell of it was, it worked . . . at first. Our side sustained plenty of casualties.
Those of us unfortunate enough to be in the forefront of the first wave of “protection” passed the intel back to the powers that be, who revised the ROE (Rules of Engagement), which details the level of force authorized, in addition to the EOF (Escalation of Force), which provides criteria for reaching that deadly force threshold. The rules were in place for a reason, but it was frustrating when we were subjected to restricted ROE—usually at the behest of whoever was in command.
Normally on the convoys, we were assigned to the gun trucks. None of the marines or our fellow army soldiers blinked at having a woman manning the machine guns. The most qualified person was selected for the job. Gender was a nonissue, and what defined “combat” was a murky area at best. Getting hit with mortar rounds every damn day at base camp meant we were all in combat situations, regardless of whether we were officially deemed in the field or not.
With limited manpower, each vehicle averaged four soldiers. One of our sniper team members was on each truck, usually running the M240B or the M2, along with a marine driver and the TC (Truck Commander) who operates the radios, monitors in-vehicle chatter, and is linked to the main battle command system BFT (Blue Force Tracker). The third person was a spare gunner in case something happened to the first gunner—sadly, that was a frequent occurrence.
Corporal McGuigan, a young marine, was behind the wheel. As the highest-ranking officer, Captain Thrasher took the passenger seat as the TC. In this particular procession, I was relegated to the backseat of the Humvee, the designated spare, while my team member A-Rod manned the turret.
Since it was a convoy situation, if we took sniper fire, we weren’t allowed to stop, pinpoint the source, and remove the threat, which was usually our job on the sniper teams. Instead, we had to duck and cover, wearing full battle rattle, and keep the convoy moving. That always chapped my ass, but like a good soldier, I did my job, shut my mouth, and snapped off a “Yes, sir.”
We rolled out at 2200, so by the time we saw the sun come up hours later, we’d almost be at our destination. The “no unscheduled stops” had been drilled into our heads from day one.
About four hours into the slow-going desert trek, we were advised to take a tactical pause—army speak for a piss break. Answering the call of nature was no big deal for the guys. Although most female soldiers balked at any kind of special treatment because of our gender, the darkness was a godsend for quick, private relief. The women I served with had incorporated unique tricks to emptying full bladders while in the midst of several hundred men and when confined in a vehicle. Consequently, I didn’t need to relieve myself and opted to remain inside the Humvee.
Turned out to be a smart move on my part, because we immediately came under attack from small-arms fire.
Chaos ensued.