Last week I went out on the roads of Iraq and found myself up shits creek without a paddle. Heading down Dirty Tampa, as it is so affectionately called, my HETS (Heavy Equipment Transport System) blew a tire. Quickly we radioed back (I was in the 3rd vehicle of a 35 vehicle convoy) to the convoy commander to let him know we had a flat and were pulling over. Just as we slowed to a halt 1/4 mile down the road, the already worn hub seal rubbed leading to a fire. Myself, driver and another passenger egressed, taking all of our sensitive items with us and found ourselves alone with no more than 2 M16s and my M9 with the nearest Gun Truck support vehicle 1/2 mile back. With no comms with any military vehicle and after ensuring the other two Soldiers were safely out of the truck, I turned to look back only to see absolutely no movement of any kind. Pulled out my green laser but couldn't get the gun truck crews attention so it was time for a leisurely jog down the most dangerous road in the world to get help.....sweet. Once I got to the nearest military vehicle, a M1151 (hummer for all the civilians reading this), I hoped to quickly informed the driver of the situation....but after I said "My truck is on fire" they sped off to pull security on it.... leaving me to yet again fend for myself on the 1/2 stroll back to the truck now engulfed in flames.....Finally got back to the truck and after battling the fire for 10 minutes with 2 fire extinguishers, the Wrecker's TriMex30 (a self contained system fire fighting system), all of which were completely used up, we resorted to throwing sand from the median onto the fire (turns out this works better than government issued fire extinguishers)....finally we got it under control and put out. The truck was non-mission capable and we went into recovery mode....peel off the melted tire, cage the brakes, remove the drive shaft and hook it up to the wrecker....nothing like learning how to do this under pressure (change a tire in iraq...its quite possibly the worse neighborhood for such a task). And there I was, laying on my back, underneath a 86k pound truck, covered in soot and liquid chemicals, prying off bolts from the drive shaft with my maintenance tech and I realized I was exactly where I wanted to be. I've never backed down from getting down and dirty with my troops but strangely enough it was at that moment that I realized how much I have missed it and look forward to doing it again. Laying on my back. In Iraq. Under a truck. Looking like a chimmney sweep. After everything was said and done, myself and my crew were on the ground for over 2 hours. With just 2 M16s and my M9. Not exactly ideal.
Medic came over to treat us for smoke inhalation and made sure we promised to go to the hospital if symtoms got worse. Checked out my arm after I got a stinger from when it was banged around with the rest of my body....asked me to keep him posted.....My fingers were crossed.
Final damage done.
Under the HET tearing off the drive shaft with my maintenance tech....where the epiphany happened.
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