Bullet Point Pt 1

A sand storm doesn’t have the awe inspiring force of a thunder storm, or the drenching violence of a desert gully washer. It starts with a strong breeze. Then the horizon goes a little blurry. Sometimes there is a wall of dust that darkens the sky making the sun fade to a pale shadow of the moon. Once the dust arrives the wind drops a little, sometimes it will become calm. You walk around in a world of orange, noon cane bee too dark to take photos without a flash.
What is impressive about sand storms, is the penetration of dust. It gets every where. Through doors and windows, carried on the bodies of soldiers, or blown in. A flour fine layer of dust begins to settle on everything. A computer left for a few hours can look like it was just pulled from grandma’s attic. Soldiers look a little more tan, and windscreens a look fuzzy.
The army doesn’t like to fly it’s expensive whirly birds in sand storms, something about chewing up engines. Given a choice they prefer to let the birds sit under tarps during a sand storm, rather than flying around until the turbine chokes with dust and stops working. So the mission is cancelled. This doesn’t worry me.
There is nothing so critical about my job here that I want to risk a pilot, or his aircrew’s life. There is always tomorrow. The mission pace is such that we really don’t have to push through. If the visibility is low, we still have to prep the trucks, and get ready to go. Then wait for six hours to see if the storm clears.
The storm was forecasted to last for three days. SSG Moto gathers us up, and breaks the news. There is a forecasted break at 1500 the next day we will be leaving during that break. It takes four hours to get to the next stop, the clearing should last that long. Then we stay the night, and come back during a break the next day. It is a sane and reasonable plan.
1445 finds us leaving the gate, 43 civilian trucks, and 7 gun truck escorts. Today I am in the lead truck, the mine roller/ polish mine detector. We used to use a 5-ton truck for this role. It survived two blasts and kept rolling, well the second blast meant it had to get towed back home. Now we have an MRAP, with a mine roller. (Think big wheels pushed out in front of the truck to set off any IEDs.)
I should say that our weathermen have the historical accuracy of a Magic 8 Ball, A broken Magic 8 Ball. Oh, and two days ago an IED took out one of our armored trucks, killing the Truck Commander, making the Driver a quad amputee, and putting the gunner in intensive care. These guys weren’t from my unit, hell they were active duty engineers, and were due rotate home in a month. The next day, our other squad found anti-tank mines on the same road.
Little stress anyone? We roll north. This is the first time I have been looking forward and not seeing the south end of a north bound truck. My sister has a great line about doing this job. “Keep your head about, ride easy in the saddle, and keep your eye on where the horizon meets the sky.”
Where the horizon meets the sky is a little dark. There are massive thunder heads blowing in from Iran. Why does all the crappy stuff come from Iran? In front of the thunder heads will be a bit of dust. SPC Sancho drives, and SGT Bulldog sits in the TC seat. As I see the dark brush strokes of rain falling from the clouds, I get a sinking feeling. You see I took my rain gear out of my bag months ago.
I dig out the Brigade Quartermaster expensive knock off of an Arab headress out of bag, and wrap up. Then the sand storm hits. Change is painful, at least that is what the shrink says. From clear air, into a forty knot head wind, at 30 miles an hour, means facing forward into a 70mph sand blaster. Then the fun really starts.
We only spend a few minutes in the dust, it briefly blots out the rest of the convoy until we slow enough to make out their lights 100 meters behind us. Then the rain hits.
It is that beautiful desert phenomenon, brown rain. I mean literally the rain is brown, it makes mud on the windows and goggles, then when you wipe them off, they are muddy again in a few minutes. The mine rollers kick up a bow wave every few minutes. Chunks of mud fly up and fight the windshield wipers for dominance. Mostly the mud wins.
A jack knifed Iraqi truck blocks our road for fifteen minutes until about a dozen locals PUSH the truck with a busted front axel, back onto the road. Then through the rest of the storm. Lighting begins to arc, sometimes across my entire field of view. Sometimes it hits the ground, sometimes just up in the sky. Here I am soaking wet, on top of a metal vehicle, on a flat plain, in the middle of a thunderstorm.
We push through to the next post. Wet and tired. Chow closes 2 minutes before we get there.