War
We entered Iraq on February 17, 1991 the day our planes started their air strikes on Baghdad and Kuwait. I believe it was on January 22, 1991 when screams carried over the radio waves “Enemy Down Range”. “Were taking on enemy fire, we need immediate assistance.” This sounded serious! We had to rescue are fellow soldier who were in definite trouble. As my tank commander received his orders with the full details from our platoon sergeant over the radio. Another message came over the radio waves letting us know that our scouts were under enemy fire. Waiting patiently up ahead in the clear were our Scouts in their Bradley fighting vehicles. We shot out from our position racing to the stress call location. All nine M1s raced ahead, as we spotted a truck that was firing on our location.

As we viewed our perimeter with our binoculars and our periscope our recon and found that there were several men around a truck and three men inside the truck. The men inside the truck had an arsenal of weapons. Though we could not see inside of the truck, but we could see a little of the arsenal since it was slightly tilted toward us. The weapons those men were using, were only harmful to ground patrols with out protection. We searched the area for a while but still weren’t sure if they had WMDs? If they had any WMDs they were hidden pretty well.

Outside of the enemies vehicle could have been other weapons but they were hidden from our sight? Until that point in my life; I never shot anyone, I only knew what war was from those old movies. I never thought that I would actually be in a war or even in the heat of the battle! I was scared and probably not alone!

We were about to let those Iraqi soldiers know who they were up against and why we were in their country. Before we could inform them that we were Americans they started firing on our positions. At that point we were given the order to fire back. We fired everything we had at their position until we could see they were over and done with. In order to know for sure that those Iraqi soldiers were dead or throwing in the towel, we sent our scouts out to patrol the area.

After an hour in their investigation they found only a couple badly wounded survivors. We were given the word to move in and help clear the area of the dead and wounded enemy combatants. We then drove up to the truck; man, did we blow the hell out of it, that truck was wasted! Words could not express that scene enough.

The men in the truck were charcoaled to death and the truck was still on fire. I saw nothing but ash and smoke everywhere I looked. Then I looked over my right shoulder. There were a few men still alive with severe wounds. One man’s wound was a circular hole right in the center of his stomach. Another man was suffering with his intestines hanging out of his stomach plus a few other body parts we needed to pick up and put them aside for the medics to attend to.

These men needed medical attention even though we were at war and they fired at us first. It was our obligation to help them, not to judge them. These men may have been our enemy but what would we be if we didn’t help them? Why in the hell did they not wait to see who we were before firing? Those stupid assholes could have been alive if they would have been patient enough? They never gave up fighting us! They fought to their deaths, for that no good son of a bitch “Saddam”.

Looks like we found some armor piercing rounds in the near by brush. That may have been able to penetrate our vehicles but unlikely. We just hope that were never put to that test! We found lots of ammo and many grenades for their Iraqi grenade launchers. You could smell the burning flesh it seems to have been embedded into my nose. I could not and do not want to describe how that smells. I will only say that the smell was worse then the smell of your arm hair burning, maybe ten times worse.

The enemy’s blood and guts were lying around everywhere and that was too much for me to stomach. My life flashed before my eyes as I engaged in all of this kayos. My stomach felt a bit queasy, I wasn’t sure if I could go any further? The fluids and food I ate that morning made there way out of my system and onto the ground. I am sickened that we had to destroy human life. I understood that those men were firing on us. Don’t get me wrong it was our lives on the line, I choose to live. Those stupid assholes, if they only waited for us to negotiate. Maybe they could have lived another day, be with their families. Not today, tomorrow, or ever again! They were dead because they were scared we were going to take away their religion? American’s don’t care who you are we tolerate every person’s right to be what you want to be with some view!

My future now seems so redundant I can’t fathom what I could possible do now, with my life? Everything I knew, I wanted to know, was gone. I broke one of Gods’ commandments, “Thou shall not kill!” Will he forgive me, can I forgive myself? I don’t know who or what I am. I know that all of this sounds childish to some of you maybe you have forgotten I was only nineteen years old and this was my first real experience with death and war.

Why did those men have to die for a mad man like Saddam? Why did they give their lives for Saddams’ cause? I can’t say that I understood certain people, why do people kill? Some people are given orders to kill, others do it for their god given right to live, and some kill for the sheer sport of it. I killed in self defense, not for enjoyment! Saddam has ordered the killing of thousands of humans that stood up against him and some of them were targets for Saddams’ pleasure.

Why do some dictators think that killing is the answer to getting their way? I bet these same dictators took candy away from babies or candy was taken from them? Why do we ….. What’s the use, I will stop with what I already wrote. I don’t mean to whine or whimper like a dog.

We regrouped in an area five miles north from where we fired on the truck. My crew didn’t speak of the incident we were too shell shocked over the whole ordeal. Richards, Willam, MacArthur, Chacón, Lan, and I were out talking about home when I asked Chacón for something that I would never ever have asked for. I asked him for a cigarette, at first he said “No” because I was always complaining about the smell.

I was persistent because I wanted to numb my nerves, in better words kill the pain that surrounded my soul. Since cigarettes are about fifty different harmful chemicals in one small rolled up paper it would probably kill my nerves so that I could not feel them and possibly me! I lit the cigarette then took a deep drag down my wind pipe all the way down to my lungs. Then I choked profusely on the smoke. Chacón said everyone chokes on the first drag especially if you inhale the smoke down deep into your lungs. After a few drags the horrible taste went away, not really but my mind thought so.

I still hated the smell but that was a small consequence for calming my nerves. At what cost? I hoped that the cigarettes would not cause any future problems with my health. Since WWI, the cigarette companies have sent free cigarettes to the soldier as promotional gestures. I think they probably do not do that any longer with all of the protesting and lawsuits they are going through?