Presence....

So the other day I was asked by another NCO if I would fill in for a mission down to Kabul, Afghanistan. The mission was simple enough - just a straight escort mission...drop off some personnel at one fire base, pick up more at a different one and then return to base....simple.

Well, I was told that only I was needed from my section and would not need to bring my truck along. As is my little tradition, the morning of the mission I get up and after I am ready to go I say a prayer or two. I always say Psalm 91 and part of Psalm 23 (the valley of death part), but that morning something told me to say a couple of others. For one, I wasn't going to be in MY truck with MY normal crew...I was to be in charge of the last vehicle in the convoy, had a new driver and a gunner that I knew, but had not worked with very much. So, I said the prayer to St. Michael and a prayer to St. Joseph.

Shortly after saying the prayers, I got all my gear on, we had our mission brief and then headed out. To say that everything went according to plan would be a lie - things started poorly and got worse after that.

I can't go into operational issues here, but the fact is there are a lot of moving parts involved anytime a mission goes outside the wire...and none of them were very well oiled that morning!

When we finally got out of the gate, we started down the route we were going to take. About 30 minutes into the drive, we noticed there was A LOT more construction going on and the road was even more tore up then it should have been. As I said before I was the tail vehicle in the convoy - this creates a few issues with how much sand and dust there is here. As we approached a section of a traffic diversion to go back up on the main "road", there was an incline we had to climb a bit with a drop on the passenger side of the road. The vehicle two in front of mine was a much bigger and heavier vehicle (the type I normally drive, gun or command). When that vehicle made the left turn to climb up and get back onto the main "road", the shoulder started to collapse and give way under the vehicle's weight. The vehicle directly behind them and directly in front of me, saw this and the driver made necessary corrective action to avoid that area and got onto the "road" quickly. As he did so, he mashed his accelerator, he kicked up even more dust than what was already hanging in the air (with no cross wind the dust is like talcum powder and just "hangs" in the air for long periods of time) and completely obscured the road ahead of me and my driver. Now my gunner, doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing, was covering the rear of the convoy and looking directly to the rear of our vehicle, so he could not see anything that was going on. When my driver and I could finally see, all we saw in front of our vehicle was a drop off of approximately 20 feet or so...no big deal right?!

As soon as we saw the drop off I yelled for him to turn hard left (which he was already doing) to avoid the drop off. As he turned the wheel hard left, the shoulder under the right rear end of our vehicle started to give way...and we started tilting towards the drop. Now, I like to think that I am not shaken very often or very easily, however, when I was faced with the possibility of my truck (weighing well over 33,000 pounds) rolling down the side of a hill, it got me a little nervous!! One of the interesting parts was that training kicked in immediately. As my driver tried to maneuver the vehicle, we only sank further and tilted further, but we ran the rollover perfectly - my gunner got down and secured, anything that could fly around was grabbed and secured and my driver and I took proper precautions. Now, imagine, if you will, sitting in a large metal box with radios, a computer, 70 pounds or so of combat gear on, your weapon and other sundry items....and now having to move your hand off of the dash that is supporting you to work the radio!! I had to call the convoy commander to ensure he knew what was going on and to get help to get us out of there. Many "interesting" events and conversations were had in the short time it took for one of my friends (an NCO that I have served with for about 2 years now) to get his vehicle back to us, get us hooked up on the winch and pull us out.

I knew the situation had been bad and close to catastrophic, however I didn't realize it until we were pulled out and showed pictures that were quickly snapped as we were being extracted. The driver's side tire was at least 2 1/2 feet off of the ground...and looking at the picture, there is absolutely NO logical explanation I can come up with as to why we DIDN'T roll down that embankment. The only reason I can come up with was that my Aunt JoAnne and St Michael were standing on the front end of my truck not allowing it to go over. As I said, it is few and far between instances that can shake me up or make me nervous, but this one had some of that effect. When I spoke to Emily about it that night, I got a little choked up thinking about my aunt and how much she had meant to me on my first deployment and how much I missed her that day...but definitely felt her presence.

I know that no matter what happens here I will be alright, especially with the guardian angels I have watching over me...