Thank You for My Service by Mat Best & Ross Patterson & Nils Parker
Author:Mat Best & Ross Patterson & Nils Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2019-08-19T16:00:00+00:00
Chapter 10
Iraqi Rave Party
Not every day in Ranger Battalion is a shooting gallery at the carnival type of day. You forget that sometimes. You also forget that you tend to do things a little differently than the other branches of the military and that they look at you differently than you see yourself. Often you don’t realize this until you get pulled from direct action raids and are attached to other units for short periods to complete specific objectives or to fill in when other elements of a unit are rotating home.
At one point in Iraq, I was tasked as the Ranger fire team leader along with four other Rangers to an Air Force Pararescue team (PJs) for a two-week CSAR (combat search and rescue) rotation. CSAR teams are typically first on the job any time an American helicopter or plane goes down. When we get the call, the Rangers secure and defend the crash site while the PJs do the recovery and provide any necessary medical care to the downed pilots and crew. Once they’re good to go, the Rangers then plan the movement for exfil and return to base.
It’s not uncommon to lose aerial assets during wartime, and this was especially true in the adverse conditions of hot, dusty Iraqi deserts and the 14,000-foot Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan. That said, it was rare enough that when it happened, it usually made the news back home. What that told me was, with only two weeks before I had to go back to my platoon for more direct action stuff, there was an excellent chance that this could be a nice, quiet little vacation.
Around 10 on the fourth night of my two weeks with the PJs, I was in our squad room, deep into a gnarly solo on the expert level of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock, when our radios kicked off:
“Roger, we have a downed fixed-wing.”
So much for the vacation. An unmanned Predator drone had malfunctioned during takeoff and crashed about ten miles outside the wire of our base. Rushing to my kit room, my first thought was: Dammit, I am NEVER going to beat “Through the Fire and Flames” this way! Then I realized that I was getting all dressed up and I probably wouldn’t even get to shoot anyone. That was even more disappointing. Pulling on all your body armor and strapping on your normal weapons load for a CSAR mission with no definable adversary is like putting on a condom to have sex with a blow-up doll. Sure, technically, it’s action, but it’s not like you’re gonna catch anything…
Then the master breacher in me took over: Wait…do I get to blow this thing up? I’d breached plenty of doors and walls before, but never anything this big and complex. I had no idea how much demo I would need to get the job done. In uncertain moments like these, whether it’s blowing up a drone or lighting up a party, I follow a very simple formula: P = Plenty.
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Afghan & Iraq Wars | American Civil War |
American Revolution | Vietnam War |
World War I | World War II |
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