Border Crossing

We crossed the border at a breach made by one of our heavy companies. The berm was basically pushed into the tank ditch to fill it in and we just drove through and into Iraq. The horizon was filled with the glow of burning vehicles, all of which we hoped we Iraqi, and periodically a flash would illuminate the night announcing someone else had just reported to their heaven or hell. I was there. After all the time training and preparing I was actually in Iraq. I was the picture on the television.

As the movement continued the fires from the burning hulks became clearer and we easily recognized the outline of Russian designed combat vehicles. Sporadic bursts of automatic weapons fire could be faintly heard of the drone of the HUMVV engine but the dotted strings of tracers were clear and well understood. Our objective was only a few clicks more and we were to stop and establish a battalion Aid Station (BAS) to support the rest of the convoy as it moved north along the MSR. The cover of darkness was our friend and the night vision goggles made us as an animal stalking in the night. You know it is there, but you can't see it.. Just the feel of the desire to kill, to protect, to survive. I feel for the enemy for they are praying to Allah for a quick death for they know the end is near. They can feel it. They must for it is upon them.

We stopped short of the depression noted on the map recon and check the PLGR. The coordinates were right on so the security element was dispatched to secure the area. I remained with the ambulance while my driver moved forward as the medic for the team. Within a few minutes they came up on the net with the designated code word, Superman, to announce the area was secure. Although we were frequency hopping and the net was secure, we still used the word in a sentence to encrypt the hidden confirmation. Fernandez, my driver, was also operation the man pack and when to to go ahead he came back with, "Superman has left endor and doesn't have any Kryptonite". "What a dumbass", I said in a low tone, "Superman inst from Endor". All of a sudden I found myself as Cartman on Southpark! "Wookies are't from Endor"!

The rest of the night we stayed in the small perimeter we had established with the ambulances spread apart for enough to protect them for collateral damage in case one was hit, but close enough to be mutually supporting. We had our number three and six chests out and the cabinets with the inserts open and prepared for casualties. We all were wonder what the first casualty would be like. A blast wound, shrapnel, multiple gun shot wounds. All the standard were thought through and prepared for. Around three in the morning, the medic from B Company came in to the BAS with one of his soldiers. I could see they were moving quickly and even used the running password as they approached so I thought that maybe this was it. Someone had been injured and the ball was rolling.

Specialist Gregg, a heavy equipment operator by trade and a 'fifty gunner by default, was the first victim of the Iraqi desert. According to Jaime, the B Company medic, Gregg had been complaining for the last couple of hours about his back hurting and his nuts being in a bind as he put it. His driver and the assistant driver for the five ton on which he was the gunner told him it was just from standing in the ringmount for so long and all the beating around he was taking. When they finally stopped he got down a tried to piss, but couldn't go no matter how hard he tried. The the most God awful felling grabbed him around the waist and flung him to the ground reeling in pain and announcing his position to everyone in the grid square. Now with the ongoing sporadic small arm's fire in the area the first thought was a stray round had hit him, but it was worse that that.

A tiny piece of calcium had decided the ride from Kuwait in the gunners mount of an M939 series five ton truck was just too much. This minute piece of spiny stone began to make its way out of Greggs kidney, into his ureters on the way to his bladder. Along they narrow way the mighty rock scraped and poked the side walls of the little tube piercing the tissue and stimulating the synapses to fire thus creating the effect in Greggs body that someone had wacked him across the back with a baseball bat and was twisting his scrotum in a vice. Renal Calculi, "Kidney Stones". The scourge of the dehydrated soldier for the rest of the year in Iraq. I realized that I didn't bring enough Toradol.