Before he or I knew it, my Glock 19 was under his chin, and as I pulled the slack out of the trigger I remember saying to myself, “You will remember this the rest of your life.” In that split second of hesitation, I chose another path and I pistol-whipped him to the ground and landed on top of him, hard.
I flipped him and flex-cuffed him just as a small pool of blood began to form on the ground from a laceration across his forehead. He just added himself as a “plus one” to the guest list of the interrogators back at the compound awaiting our HVT.
We ex-filtrated the area with both the HVT and the would-be rifle thief. But, I didn’t want to talk to my girlfriend about that. I didn’t feel like I was in any danger and I didn’t want her to worry, so I just said, “Nothing much, played HALO,” and then asked what sort of lingerie she was wearing.
The rest of that conversation is for me, but after about 30 minutes it was time for me to start my workday. I grabbed my toiletries and headed for our community shower trailer to wash off last evening’s mission that ended four hours ago. Ahead of me was a teammate we will call “John,” heading in the same direction.
“Morning,” I said.
“Fuck off,” John warmly replied.
We chose our individual stalls (it pays to be a Green Beret) and began our hygiene routines. As I was soaping up my “poofyshowerscrubberthing,” I heard it. The high-pitched whine of what was most assuredly several rockets screaming down onto the outpost.
WHUMP, WHUMP, BOOOOOOM!
The shockwaves from the impact were literally lifting the shower trailer from the ground. I was being blinded by my shampoo as I pushed hard against the flimsy shower walls, riding the damn thing like a rodeo clown.
I was naked, soapy and now blind. “Are you kidding me!” I exclaimed, “This is how I die! Fuck it! Fuck you all!” I bellowed and then I heard John. “WOOOOOOHOOOOO, fuck you Iraq!” he screamed in between maniacal laughter. I started laughing along with him.
Little did John and I know that not 300-400 feet away, an intelligence sergeant making her way from a debriefing was bleeding to death, torn to shreds by an insurgent rocket that landed right in front of her. We were too busy pretending not to be scared.
I wrapped my towel around me and made a run for my hooch after the initial volley of rockets stopped, got dressed and quickly ran to the medical aid station to await possible casualties. No one assigned to the joint task force was injured; the rockets all fell literally just outside the entrance to our compound. The same rocket attack killed three doctors just down the road at the combat support hospital. They had just finished with their day of trauma surgeries that saved some warrior’s live.
Later that afternoon I heard that the deceased intelligence sergeant’s husband was also in Mosul. He was a platoon sergeant in a U.S. Army infantry company across the airfield. He had to identify his wife’s remains at the morgue and was to be accompanying his wife home.
The next day I made another call home and my then-girlfriend asked me, “What did you end up doing yesterday?” I just repeated the same thing I always did: “Nothing much, played Call of Duty with the Delta guys again.”
I never told her about almost dying, or seeing death, being near it, causing it and desperately trying to beat it. I didn’t want to be looked at differently or feared. Death in war is simply what occurs, and you remind yourself of that by saying, “It is what it is.”
Editor’s note: This article was written by Derek Gannon, a freelance journalist based on the West Coast and Green Beret veteran of the Global War on Terror. He researches and reports on African, and Horn of Africa Terror Networks & News. Twitter: @derekgannoncm6. It was originally published in 2017.
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