Out in the Army: My Life as a Gay Soldier by James Wharton

Author:James Wharton [Wharton, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849546188
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2013-06-17T04:00:00+00:00

Later:

Eventually we moved to a location near to where we would be meeting with the convoy, just behind some large mounds and quite out of sight, but news came through on the radio that the convoy was being attacked by mortar fire and was delayed once again. Two hours later we moved out on to the road, operationally named ‘Falkland’, and slowly crawled along. My eyes were searching every inch of road in front of me for disturbed ground. When we got to a bridge crossing a large river, we moved right up close to some civilians who were also crossing the bridge. We know insurgents won’t kill civilians to get at us.

Once over, Shagger, Scoffy and I carried on our slow crawl along Falkland and finally came to a halt at a small roundabout. The last thing we now needed was yet another delay. We were completely exposed. And guess what? The convoy had struck a roadside bomb which had caused casualties who now needed to be air evacuated off the ground and back to Basra. This kept us waiting at the roundabout for about an hour. My arse was twitching throughout! How many problems does one convoy need? After what seemed like an eternity, finally Octavia arrived and with Shagger in command, Scoffy on the gun and me in the driver’s seat, we led the biggest convoy in the whole of Iraq home to our FOB in the middle of the desert. I would rather have been anywhere else on the entire planet than at the front of that convoy which had been battered since leaving Basra twenty-four hours before. I’m holding it as one of the most stressful days ever. The convoy is due to return to Basra tonight having delivered the various pieces of equipment we need out here, including an armoured petrol tanker to fuel us for the next few weeks. Poor Shagger is the lead call sign again, but me and Scoffy are now back working with Danny in the much more pleasant vehicle of a WMIK. Danny is FACing [forward air controlling] the mission so he’ll call in air support from fighter jets if the convoy, or us, comes under any attack. It’s a pretty cool job.

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