I think I am in the Twilight Zone

So this is weird...I spent the entire day yesterday, thinking that it was Saturday. Today I wake up thinking that the Superbowl is today, and I logged into my Church Website to try to catch the morning service...then my Outlook Calendar alarm goes off to remind me that I have a Sychronization meeting in 15 minutes....I think to myself, "On a Sunday?"...then it clicks...Wait a second, today is Saturday.

I wonder if this is a sign that the stress is getting to me? LOL! Actually I think it is truly just the Groundhog day effect making itself known.

Anyway, now that I am re-oriented. I watched a good movie last night on my laptop. "the Hurt Locker". I actually had some real flashbacks last night to my last tour in Iraq. The movie is set in the 2004-2005 timeframe, just like my last tour. Its centerred around an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team that is dealing with IED's. Other than some technicalities that were not right in the movie...it was so realistic and the "movie sets" looked so much like what I remember there. The details were amazing and my heart was racing as I remembered the experiences of finding IED's and having a few of them detonate on my platoon. It was surreal...it really took me back and made me think of how close we were to death so very many times. It makes me very grateful that all of my Platoon made it back alive and without major injuries. There really is only one explanation for that and it is undoubtedly a divine one.

I remember on one of our very first patrols, my 2nd Squad Leader, Matt Blair found a set of IED's right behind (within 10 feet) of where my vehicles were halted, pulling security for another platoon as they dismounted in search of a suspected IED trigger point. I remember so distinctly the look on his face as he told me that two of my vehicles and my dismounted troops were right on top of two IED's that were large enough to have killed all of us. that was maybe the 3rd mission we'd run in Iraq...and I was dumbfounded. First, we'd done exactly as we'd been trained and it resulted in finding not only the IED's...but the trigger point, and the initiation system. Second...there wasn't anyone there to pull the trigger on us...even though we'd have been a prime target for them. There is no coincidence that this was the case...that fact was validated in the fact that we ran over 300 missions in a year as a platoon, had only 4 soldiers wounded, and no deaths...with dozens of IED's found and several detonating on us. We had no specialized equipment like the Buffalo Teams do now...and never had a full time EOD Team either...the very first time we used an EOD Team with us on a mission, we lost him to an IED strike (he survived) but was evac'd out of theater.

On one particular day, we found 17 IED's...1 emplacement was right beneath my feet, burried under an asphault roadway, virtually undetectable...had I not been getting a bottle of powerade out of the trunk of my vehicle, I'd have never seen the slightly exposed detonating cord as i looked down at my boot to see what it'd snagged. That ended up being 5, 155mm Artillery rounds, daisy chained together. Once again, a true miracle that we in my vehicle crew were not killed in a blast.

Is that irony? Is that luck? Is that pure coincidence? I refuse to believe that. I know that it was divine intervention, the result of thousands of prayers from 100's of people including myself. I am so thankful for the experience that I had on my last tour. I hope that it will always serve as a reminder to me to do my job well to provide the troops in my Brigade with the best information and training that we can give them. I also hope that it continues to serve as a reminder of God's love and protection. I wish that I could understand why so many of my brothers gave their lives on that last tour...and why me and my platoon were spared. I know that we didn't do...couldn't have done anything that different from them. My friend Denis says that we were good...we did do most things right, that we were aggressive and hunting all the time...thus we were seldom the hunted. But I think that it is so much bigger than that...so much more a part of some great plan. I know that there are some things that we are not meant to know...but I hope that God will answer the "why" questions for me one day.

There were so many experiences there...and I am so thankful to God and the men and women I served with for being the reason that we are all still here today.

I hope everyone has a great day!

Pro Deo et Patria!

Will