Rockets...I hate rockets.
It's the sound they make when they fly in. Nothing else sounds like it and my heart always stops when I hear it. Lucky enough, I haven't heard rockets since 2004 when Camp Victory in Baghdad would get hit fairly consistently and I'd lay in bed wondering if the next one flying over would land in my room. Well...lucky until this morning.
This deployment has been boring for me. As I've jokingly said a few times, I get bored if I'm not getting shot at. Each one of my previous deployments there has either been a threat of indirect fire or I was going outside the wire enough on patrols and convoys that there was a potential for getting either blown up or shot at. Other than one minor incident, in which I was in no real danger, absolutely nothing has happened on or to this base. It's like the Taliban just choose to ignore it.
It took 10 months but some neighborhood Taliban asshole finally decided that we needed some rockets in the morning...5:30 in the morning to be precise. Damnit man, you could at least wait until after 8am when I'm at work!
The initial banshee scream woke me up followed by the explosion. A second rocket jolted me completely awake. I had two choices: rush to a bunker in my pajamas, or roll over and go back to sleep. Damn straight I went back to sleep...or tried to anyway. After 10 months of no rockets or mortars, suddenly having to face the realization that you are vulnerable makes sleep a tad difficult. When I finally went into work I learned that one of the rockets landed 100-150 meters from where I sleep. That's far in the scheme of indirect fire but it's a tad bit too close for comfort.
I'm way too close to the end of my deployment to want to deal with rockets. I feel like PVT Hudson in "Aliens" when he states, "Oh man, I was getting short. Four more weeks and out. Now I'm going to buy it on this rock."
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