Cancelled Missions and The Resulting F-Bombs

Time does fly when you're having fun. It also appears to fly when in a combat zone. It is now December. It has also been a week since Thanksgiving, and also, my last post. We've had some missions go well, some missions not go at all, and a whole lot of nothing going on...which I've found to be good. On just about every mission we go on, we are provided escort by either the Iraqi Army (IA) or the Iraqi Federal Police (IP). If they don't show up, we scrap the mission and call it a day...just part of our agreement with the Iraqi government. Frustrating? Sure. 2 missions in row were cancelled earlier this week due to IPs not showing up to escort us into the city. One of these we found out about the night before, which provided a nice day off...a precious commodity, as I think I've mentioned before. However, the other mission we didn't find out about until we waited at the gate for nearly an hour. That proves to be the most frustrating. Every mission that we do here requires hours of planning, regardless of how mundane or monotonous it may seem. Along with the planning goes hours of preparation, whether that be fueling the trucks, checking radios, equipment, water, etc... We're often out on the trucks hours before we actually roll out the gate. Along with all of that, there is a period of mental preparation. While we haven't had any direct action with bad guys, we must prepare ourselves for that event with every trip "outside the wire." Even the most goofy guy in the platoon has to get a little amped up and show his war face from time to time. In the event of a mission cancellation at the gate, it is as if all the preparation leading up to the gate was for naught. So, that feeling combined with being amped up and ready to fight makes for expletive-laced, but rather quiet (and usually humorous*), ride back to the house. I really think our Iraqi counterparts are just trying to keep us on our toes. Good training.


* - Many of our missions involve the Provincial Reconstruction Team from the US State Department. That involves us taking "suits" to various places around the Ninevah Province. Most of these guys are pretty nice and cooperative. It's clear they don't like riding around town in our trucks with body armor and helmets on, but the rules are there for a reason...we had a PRT member catch an ammo can with her helmet-less head a few months ago...she's ok now. Anyhoo...On one particular cancelled mission the other day, we had a passenger mention to my platoon sergeant how he'd overheard the "f-word over 30 times." He actually spelled it out for him, but I don't feel I need to. The PRT fellow couldn't remember what truck it was, but it really didn't matter. My platoon sergeant laughed. I remember, though, and we're careful to not talk so loudly when he's in our vehicle these days.