Servicemen & Women: Share Your War (and Peacetime) Stories, Win a Sweet GameDay package for Army game

I was USAF for 6 years (00-06) stationed in NE and the reason for my hatred of everything Cornhuskers.  I was able to visit Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq.  Typical military service.  Was able to watch Air Force One land, with F-15 and F-16 escort, at Offutt AFB, NE on 9/11/01.  Watched as Pres. Bush was rushed to STRATCOM and went underground.  I was guarding the alert NAOC plane the day we started the Shock and Awe of OIF, while listening to the reports on AM radio, not knowing that in a couple short years I’d be back overseas on the ground in Iraq.  I got to travel around Iraq a little bit from the border of Iraq and Turkey, down south to Kalsu, out east to Kirkuk and west in Tal Afar and Sinjar.  I did patrols and some convoy security.  I was Air Force and I was the ground support, while the Army provided us with air support.  Didn’t make sense then, still doesn’t. 

I remember being on a late mission the day of the Michigan v. Notre Dame game in 2005.  My gunner is a huge ND fan and I, of course love the good guys.  We finished up our mission and were able to turn in and head to the MWR tent, hoping to all things that AFN was going to show the game.  Sure enough the game was on the AFN and we along with about 30 others all sat around watching the game in the early hours at FOB Speicher. 

To this day, my buddy and I get together for the Michigan vs. Notre Dame game, whether sitting at home watching or at the actual game.  Best of memories even while going through the bs we did.         

I cried at the end of Saving Private Ryan.

go Army 

I served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from Aug 05- Sept 06. I was a E-5 (SGT) combat support Military Police officer. I escorted many convoys and trained Iraqi Police while stationed there. I saw and did things I never would have thought imaginable. Needless to say, It changed my life In many good and bad ways. There are many stories I sit here and think "Oh this is the one I should share...No, How about this one."...Well,  since we all share a common love for sports, I do have a story of a time I was in Iraq. 

         Tallil was a town we went through quite often. One day, my squad and I were waiting  to rendezvous with a civilian contractor convoy to escort in a very poor area of Iraq. Homes made of mud and  streets of sand. Just very poor.  While waiting there, we watched children play soccer. They were kicking something around that was shabby, beat up and torn. I asked our interpreter to ask the children what their ball was made of. One of the children said it was old clothing knotted up with rocks in the middle to add weight. The outside of the ball was taped up with layers of what looked like box tape.

             I sat back and watched. Heart broken. These children still found a way to honor the game they loved. They didn't let anything stop them. No war or having a real soccer ball was going to deter them from playing.

         We knew we had to do something. We told our families at home to send soccer balls and hand pumps to us in our next care packages. They arrived a few weeks later.

         While going through that same village weeks later, we saw some of the children that were playing that day. This time they didn't have that shabby "Shirt-ball". One of the children told our interpreter it fell apart. 

         I grabbed a soccer ball from the Humvee and tossed it to one of the boys. If I had a camera at that moment.....wow. To see them light up with excitement....priceless. 

         At this point we had to leave. The boy ran up to us to give the ball back. We told him "No, it's a gift." These boys were the most thankful and appreciative kids I have ever seen. They hugged us, some had tears and others were apprehensive to the idea it was theirs. I'm glad I was wearing sunglasses....

        Socioeconomic status or war is something children don't fully understand. Sports transcends those things. Children are pure and innocent in any culture or country.

      That moment changed my life in many ways, still to this day. I was 29 at that time. With a wife and 14 month old at home when I left for war. Now, I'm 42 with two beautiful daughters 15 and 12 (My youngest plays Soccer!!) who are lucky (as we all are) to have the opportunities we have in this wonderful country.

     I would love and appreciate these tickets to see Michigan take on Army. I'm an Army Vet. Always will be.....But I bleed blue!!! 

Thanks for reading my story and thank you for giving somebody an awesome experience.

(Thank you to all the served!!!)

Go Blue!!

Air Force, 2003, Iraq.  I flew over from Jordan to work for a few days at BIAP (Baghdad International Airport).  I slept in a circular house on a tiny island in the middle of this lake in Baghdad.  I was told that this was one of Saddam's "love shacks".  All of the walls in the house had murals of Saddam slaying lions and just basically dominating life.  I also toured some of his son's palaces and saw the pits where they fed members of the losing Olympic teams to their pet lions and tigers.  

This isn't my story, but a friend's. (Despite the TV show, JAGCs tend not to have really interesting sea stories.)

Jim was in the Navy  as an undesignated seaman assigned to be the helmsman (i.e. the guy who actually turns the wheel to steer the ship) on one of the bridge watch sections.  A typical watch for these folks is 4 hours standing or sitting in place on the bridge of the ship, observing the ocean and, if any are present, other ships or landmasses to be avoided. Steaming through a busy shipping channel, or entering a port can be fairly exciting. However, there were also time periods when the ship was steaming by itself through empty ocean between two points a couple thousand miles apart. An entire 4 hour watch might have no changes in speed or direction and encounter nothing of note.

The effect of these conditions was somewhat... soporific. Jim told us that sometimes he might doze of on his feet for a minute or so, and no one would notice. He said he'd come to, and notice the ship had deviated ever so slightly from the course he was supposed to maintain. He then tried to ever so slightly correct course, but in a way that no one would realize what he was doing. He also said there were a couple of instances when he came to after a momentary doze, and he noticed the entire bridge crew from the Officer of the Deck down to every single person on watch was unconscious.

Jim was medically retired as a fairly young sailor, and I got to know him as a brand new Officer at the local hobby store. Good guy.

Not in it to win it, but have a lot of sea stories.

This is no shit:  In 1979 I as on a destroyer in WestPac, not long before the Iranian embassy seizure (which we would respond to and establish what was later Gonzo Station), I was the Shore Patrol Officer in Hong Kong (still under the Brits at the time).  Each ship in port sent 4 guys for Shore Patrol, and I then teamed them up and assigned their patrol areas (bar strips).  

One of the guys is BM1 Dewey, from my ship.  A real character.  Anyway, the method of teaming them up was to allow the senior man to pick his partner, then the next-senior, etc.  BM1 Dewey was the senior guy so got first pick.

Everyone expected him to pick this massive (I'd guess 6'4" 280 lbs, no fact) second class machinist mate  from the Hepburn.  I mean, if you are going on shore duty, you want the biggest bodyguard you can get, right?  I'm shocked when Dewey (maybe 5"8, 150# himself) picks a guy even smaller than himself.  The next senior guy picks the giant, and the pairing goes on until complete.

I assign the teams to their patrols, and as everyone leaves, I call BM1 Dewey over, and ask him why he took the small guy and not the giant.  His response was one of those things that really let a junior officer in on the wisdom of the salts: "Sir, when some guy in a bar gets shitfaced and decides to beat up a shore patrol, and two SPs walk in, which one us he going to jump, the big one, or the little one?  I plan to be the SP on top beating the crap out of that guy to get him off my partner, not the SP on the bottom getting smacked by him."

BM1 Dewey was also the most inventive user of curse words I ran across in 26 years in the Navy.  He seldom used the F-word because, as he said, "it's not strong enough."

Not a lot of good happened on my deployment. Kandahar area in Afghanistan in 2009 to 2010. I've posted this article here before but I'll post it again if anybody wants to check it out. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/world/asia/18afghan.html

I guess the cool things would be pooping with a mountain view and seeing wild porcupines.

I served as a Crypto Tech in the Navy for 5 years.

Had some very interesting missions,  that while probably now unclassified, will remain with me, as I've always adhered to the standards that we were asked to uphold, even after leaving the service.

However,  one of my more interesting stories actually revolves around the annual Army-Navy football game.

I was serving with a Navy Crypto unit that was stationed in Augsburg,  Germany. We were a fairly small group, give or take 50 personell. Our unit worked out of a large Comm facility run by the Army, and also had Air Force, and units from various NATO countries. 

As you can imagine, the Augsburg base was 95% Army, also containing artillery and armored brigades.

Our duty section decided to step it up a notch for the upcoming game.

The night before, as we finished our evening shift, we took bedsheets and painted in huge letters, "Go NAVY- Beat ARMY". Myself and our maintenance tech then climbed the base water tower , which was located near the PX and Commissary,  and mounted our banner across the face of the water tower. Forgot to mention that our maintenance tech had brought bolt cutters, as the fence around the tower had a gate that was locked.

While we took care of this, others in our group raised a similar,  but smaller banner, onto the flagpole of the base commanders personal residence,  as well as the Army 7th Corps HQ building. 

How we didn't get caught by patrolling MPs I'll never know. Maybe it was our "stealthy " ways....

Well, the next morning as the sun rose across the base, there was the banner in all its glory, and everyone headed to the PX and Commissary were all looking up, pointing,  and wondering, how the hell did that happen?

Our CO received a visit from the base commander, demanding that the perpetrators be identified,  and that we needed to take the banners and flags down. Our CO, asked, but everyone was sworn to secrecy by our very jobs, and no one spilled the beans. Our peers in the other duty section didn't even know it was us. They all suspected of course, but our lips were sealed. 

Even better, we shut Army out, 28-0.

Would love to see history repeat itself at the Bighouse.

Go Blue - Beat Army!

Like others have said, I don't want the tickets, and please consider one of the many heroes that have shared their stories...

I consider myself very lucky to have served with the Rangers of Operation Red Wings, and as the famous quote goes, I'm not a hero, but I served in the company of heroes. 

Thank you to all those who have shared their stories. 

I wasn't going to post on this because I don't often talk about my time in the late unpleasantness, but I was inspired by some of the really candid and great stories. I should probably lead with the time Michigan athletics helped to capture a HVT (high value target for you LS&A students). 

We were in Iraq towards the end of 2006 and into 2007 a bit during the height of the sectarian violence, and I think for Christmas my wife had shipped me a Michigan block M shirt that was done in a cammo black, on a standard sand issue t-shirt. (It was actually pretty great as a recruitment tool for our unit). If we arrived at a FOB or someplace where there might be rangers guarding the perimeter or running local patrols, more often than not there'd be some fairly large and motivated soldier in the regiment there with ties to SEC country. Eating at their chow place or lifting weights to relax during down time, I got more than a handful of "aw hell no's" followed by the big guy swaggering over to inquire on how he could make the jump to our selection, and that if a "northern boy" or usually "Carr kid" or something else you've never heard used anywhere in B1G country could do it, he sure as heck could. 

One morning we found ourselves miles out in nowhere, having spent the night on a fairly coordinated raid that originated in Sadr City (a section of Baghdad controlled by the Shiites), and had done our best to follow the target's hasty trail out of the city, made as we entered. We had found that their communication networks were pretty good about knowing when we were coming, and the fact that they controlled the city made jumping in an option with its own set of problems. Our HVT was a bomber type, one each. He seemed to get some joy out of targeting innocents, and maintained his grasp within his organization/community by fear of his ruthlessness, and connections. Since it was a larger raid, we were in our normal gear using normal HMVEEs with air and the usual support. I had started wearing the block M shirt under my body armor for good luck. This fine morning the warlord we found ourselves visiting had never really (to my knowledge) helped us with anything. I'd consider him more the "will take your cash and give you enough to not be sure I'm lying to you" type, but like most of the local warlords in the area, consolidating his own power base was important to him, so he dealt with both sides. 

When we went to his gate (asking nicely, as we were fairly sure our HVT had moved on), he let the team in his courtyard and I went inside with a few others to meet him. I had met him once before, and was expecting him to be dressed in traditional garb, however he had gone somewhat western on me, wearing jeans and a Michigan hat. He started to gesture us to tea and the song and dance that I had been familiar with by then, meaning we were going to get an hour of pleasantries and not much else. I don't know if it was just the reaction to a strong symbol from my roots, or the slap happy I sometimes get having been planning and then up all night searching and into the next day or what, but i took off my vest and put down my primary weapon and started jumping up and down like my soccer team had just scored a goal, shouting Michigan a few times and trying to get him to hi five me. Whatever it was, it was an emotion that transcended any language, and he got it, and suddenly I was cool (or at least human). He told us he'd love to have tea but there was a devil we needed to get and he knew where he was. He made us promise to not release him (we were having some issues with the Iraqi courts at the time), and to come back for better tea at a later date, and then we got where our HVT was, and where he was going. It was far enough away that someone else scooped him up, but we did come back for the tea, left a gift, and formed a relationship. (As an aside I've found people in crazy countries wearing the Block M. This warlord actually watched Michigan football on vhs, though.)

The only other Michigan connection story I can recall was simple, but probably one of the things that kept me the most sane. My personal opinion is that war changes everyone, and if it doesn't change you, its because you were predisposed to be a ruthless, cold, killer. The point is, I was in deep and even though I could call home on a GSM phone any time we weren't out doing something, Ann Arbor wasn't even in the same world I was in. We had been having some com issues of a sort, so I and a coms guy headed down in plainclothes and a sidearm (green zone again) to talk to the guys running the sciff. The captain wasn't there but I think the Sgt on duty gave us enough to know that nobody appreciated when we just showed up without warning and by the way it was a weapons free facility. I was getting ready to have one of those mostly rare partial dress downs where the smartest captain they have (running the sciff) has grabbed his LTC or full bird and I'm getting a lesson in how the rules do apply to me. So Captain "Ryan" comes around the corner and we have this, no, what, OMG moment, where we realize who we are talking to. And then we are laughing and telling stories about Running track together at Huron for Overby, or North campus and $1 late night Backroom Pizza and just cannot believe we are there, in that time, half a dozen years later. I don't know what happened to Captain "Ryan" as Facebook was not encouraged for my group, but I wouldn't be surprised if he reads this blog. He was always the smartest guy in the room, and when I needed it, his presence helped to bring me back.

The only other story I can tell and think of to add was when we were visiting our compound in the green zone. It was pretty well known that militia had been pilfering the weapons stockpiles that the initial invasion had made of many questionable Iraqi weapons, bombs and missiles.  I was walking outside from the pool to the kitchen, when I heard this screaming, and saw a fairly large 1980's ish rocket careen down and embed itself in the lawn one compound over, right in the CIA's front yard. No time to really think or react other than to realize it's game over when that goes off. It was big enough that had it done so, the one thing everyone would have remembered from those several years would have been how the CIA compound (and ours) were destroyed (and some of you would have a given a few less neg's over the past few years). As I always tell people who ask me if it's okay to hire an Ohio State lawyer. You get what you pay for.

As far as the tickets, I do not want to be in the running. Michigan has given me quite enough (the only top tier school to offer to cover the difference between what the gov was willing to pay and what my MBA was going to cost). Thanks for all the stories guys and girls.

Thanks, Regent Acker, for the gesture. I won't be able to use the package but I'd like to share a memory of something that didn't happen.

It was a hot day in July when the MPs got back to the post, Valley Forge Hospital, west of Philadelphia. It was the only time all year we were all together, for annual qualifying with the .45. Then we heard the guy was on post, in the PX parking lot.

The post had one of the few PXs for hundreds of miles, so veterans young and old showed up daily, but this guy, recently discharged, had been barred because he was a Philly drug dealer. Pot was not unknown in the Army, and MPs rarely hurried to chase down dudes holding cigarette lighters and headed behind the bowling alley or to the weeds by the back gate but dealing was different. This guy was a bad guy. Anyway, it was our job.

When we turned the corner, there he was in the parking lot with his posse, all in leather jackets despite the heat. When they saw us, a few hands crept inside jackets and around to the back. Just where you might stick a pistol, hidden by a heavy jacket in the heat.

Our CO told them to leave. The guy said he had a right to be there, and the rest of them moved hands behind them. The CO repeated they were leaving.

A bunch of guys with .45s strapped on, seeing ourselves in charge, and bad ass too. A bunch of guys presumably armed, and determined they were bad ass. And a bunch of civilians, edging away but sticking around to watch. Part of me was watching as if it were a movie, and part of me was thinking this could be bad. I didn't know if any of them were idiot enough to start things. I DID know one or two of the MPs might start things.

After what may have only been half a minute but felt like fifteen, the guy and his pals did some macho huffing and puffing, then left.

As I said, nothing happened.

Best nothing happened that ever happened to me.

Ohio Nice?

Seeing others writing about Michigan connections reminds me of another Army story, or rather an observation. When Uncle Sam invited me to join his Tea Party and Marching Society, the only people I knew from Ohio were OSU fans at football games. Naturally that gave me a poor idea of the state. (I'm sure I had plenty of classmates from Ohio but they didn't broadcast it.)

So I was AMAZED that the nicest guys I met in the Army were from Ohio! One of them, who become a cop in Cincinnati, is still a best friend.

Here two quick humorous stories: 

It was Summer 2009, and we had just made movement into Taliban controlled territory near Khan Neshin in Southern Afghanistan.  As we were operating so far south there wasn’t any of the creature comforts within 50 miles.  The only connection we had to home was a satellite phone that rotated through our company.  Time on the phone was in high demand as Marines would make phone calls home to their mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, etc.  Well the Taliban weren’t too pleased with our presence and they would frequently launch 107mm rockets and 82mm mortars at our position in the morning and in the evening.  

One morning, while my Gunner was using the sat phone, we had two 107mms and an 82mm fired at us.  The mortar fell way short, but the rockets went over right over with the tell-tale scream and impact.  My Gunner, who was on the phone with his wife, tried to delicately extricate himself from the conversation with his wife without letting her know that we had just received indirect fire.  Meanwhile, his wife was incredibly upset with him that he was abruptly ending the conversation after only being on the phone with her for a one-to-two minutes.  Poor guy was in the dog house for two weeks afterwards.

The second story is also from that same deployment.  This one involves an IED, some Marines, and a goat. It all starts out with an IED strike in the middle of our platoon coil (a 360-degree security perimeter). 

I was about 500 meters away and came rolling back into the coil, to thankfully find that no one was injured.  However, as I rolled up to the position there was the goat we had purchased the night prior for a platoon cookout running around crazed from the explosion with three Marines following it trying to tackle it and ensure it didn’t set off any secondaries.

A short time after we “secured” the goat, the Company First Sergeant, EOD, and Company Commander arrived.  The entire time while they were at our position the goat could be heard baying in the background.  The First Sergeant gave me a knowing smile and then rolled off and away from our positions with the destroyed vehicle and routine casualties in tow.

I had to order the Marines not to cook use the IED blast crater to cook goat meat, (the Marines argued that the blast crater had  been cleared by EOD) but the goat served its purpose later that day and helped boost the platoon’s spirits.