The Doc told me to write, so here I am. I am gonna write one event that happened to me and my crew during the deployment. I did post a little background info on myself in the Introductions section, so you all can get a glimpse of me before you read any further.

This is not easy to write. And if it offends anyone I am sorry, I am just venting on an event that I went through, and am still dealing with.

We wasn't even in country a month, before we got called up to do a recovery mission on a route in Baghdad. The route scared the hell out of me, as there was one way in- and the insurgents seen you go in- then you had to come back out the same way. Some never made it out.
An Abrams tank had rolled over a 700lb spanish bomb on the route, and we were the closest to helping and were the first responders to the scene. The bomb had blew the turret completely off the tank, and some of the tank's skirting that had gotten blown off was stuck in a radio tower over 500meters away.
The tank was on fire and you could hear the rounds inside cooking off. A few minutes later our Convoy Commander came over the net and informed us that there were still Soldiers inside the tank. I felt the life drain from me. There was nothing that we could do but watch as pieces and rounds sprayed out from inside the burning wreckage.

For 18hrs we sat there, for 18hrs we watched, for 18hrs we could do nothing at all. After that we had to conduct Mortuary Affairs as well- so we had to dismount and scavenge the area for the parts of the Soldiers.

******************

The feelings I get from this event: Helplessness, Anger, Fear, Frustration