Free The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team THREE Sniper's True Account of the Battle of Ramadi by Kevin Lacz, Ethan E. Rocke, Lindsey Lacz Page B
up to the chow hall.
----
By 2300, I was loaded up and ready to go. I wore my tricolor BDUs with my black parachute rigger’s belt and Oakley assault boots. In my right breast pocket, I had my blood chit and rosary beads. In my other chest pocket, I kept two hundred dollars cash in case I ever got separated from my platoon and had to barter with the locals for my freedom. After Operation Redwings, escape and evasion were given more attention in training, and carrying cash into combat became standard procedure. Fortunately, in an urban environment, your area of operation is finite and there’s an Abrams tank on every street corner.
In my right shoulder pocket, I had a tourniquet. In the left cargo pocket of my trousers, I had a blowout kit: three compressed Kerlix field dressings, a 14-gauge needle, an Asherman chest seal, and a couple of ACE wraps. Each of us carried one in order to hastily treat a gunshot wound until more help could be summoned. I carried a CRKJ folding utility knife, which could come in handy if I needed to dig some brass out of a badly jammed gun or as a last-resort weapon. Under my web gear, I wore a set of low-pro body armor with an American flag folded up with the ceramic plates inside. I carried Old Glory with me at all times, a reminder of the liberty for which we fought.
I carried seven mags, two frags, a smoke grenade, an IR strobe, three sets of flex-cuffs, a battle map inside a Rhodesian officer pouch, pen, and paper. On my wrist I wore a Garmin Foretrex GPS and G-Shock watch. My M4 with EOTech was optimized for close-quarters battle and had a 10-inch barrel with a 6-inch suppressor and Surefire flashlight attached to the rail system. I had it rigged with the old Vietnam-style shortened buttstock and metal handgrip. In a leather Galco holster on my hip, I wore my sidearm: a SIG Sauer P226 pistol with a 15-round magazine. I carried two spare mags on mybelt. On my Modular Integrated Communications Helmet (MICH), I mounted my AN/PVS-15 night-vision goggles. Last but not least, I carried my med bag, fully outfitted with hemorrhage control measures, advanced airway surgical tools, needle decompression, bag valve masks, and pulse oximetry. I was wearing fifty pounds of gear, but it didn’t feel cumbersome. You get used to wearing combat gear, and it becomes a sort of extension of your body. I felt like I carried no excess, like everything on my person was a completely vital item. I genuinely felt swift, silent, deadly.
I loaded into the back of Big Zev, our hulking beast of a flatbed stake truck, which we named after an old Vietnam-era truck that appeared in Tour of Duty, the classic 1980s show about Vietnam. We would binge-watch the show during off hours on Sharkbase, and in one episode, the crew had painted the name Big Zev on the truck’s door—a pop culture Easter egg and nod to Zev Braun, the show’s executive producer. Big Zev was an ambling beast and sat in the middle of our convoy of four armored Humvees, and as we wound our way through Camp Ramadi, I noted again the half-inch steel walls and sandbags lining the floor. I thought about my beloved balls and wondered to what extent the sandbags could keep them intact in the event of an IED blast.
We were on our way from Sharkbase to pick up our Jundis. Jundi (“Jundee”) is the Arabic word for soldier, and is what we called the members of the Iraqi Security Forces our team was tasked with training. My platoon was divided into four groups, and each group was given a set of Jundis to work with. My group was assigned the Jundi Special Missions Platoon (SMP). The SMP was theoretically a step up in tactical proficiency compared to the regular-army guys, but a real soup sandwich nonetheless when we first got them. Completely lacking in most military discipline, they were mostly young, skinny Iraqis who played a lot of soccer and smoked a lot of cigarettes. They were in pretty decent shape for Iraqi standards and had been selected for theSMP
----
By 2300, I was loaded up and ready to go. I wore my tricolor BDUs with my black parachute rigger’s belt and Oakley assault boots. In my right breast pocket, I had my blood chit and rosary beads. In my other chest pocket, I kept two hundred dollars cash in case I ever got separated from my platoon and had to barter with the locals for my freedom. After Operation Redwings, escape and evasion were given more attention in training, and carrying cash into combat became standard procedure. Fortunately, in an urban environment, your area of operation is finite and there’s an Abrams tank on every street corner.
In my right shoulder pocket, I had a tourniquet. In the left cargo pocket of my trousers, I had a blowout kit: three compressed Kerlix field dressings, a 14-gauge needle, an Asherman chest seal, and a couple of ACE wraps. Each of us carried one in order to hastily treat a gunshot wound until more help could be summoned. I carried a CRKJ folding utility knife, which could come in handy if I needed to dig some brass out of a badly jammed gun or as a last-resort weapon. Under my web gear, I wore a set of low-pro body armor with an American flag folded up with the ceramic plates inside. I carried Old Glory with me at all times, a reminder of the liberty for which we fought.
I carried seven mags, two frags, a smoke grenade, an IR strobe, three sets of flex-cuffs, a battle map inside a Rhodesian officer pouch, pen, and paper. On my wrist I wore a Garmin Foretrex GPS and G-Shock watch. My M4 with EOTech was optimized for close-quarters battle and had a 10-inch barrel with a 6-inch suppressor and Surefire flashlight attached to the rail system. I had it rigged with the old Vietnam-style shortened buttstock and metal handgrip. In a leather Galco holster on my hip, I wore my sidearm: a SIG Sauer P226 pistol with a 15-round magazine. I carried two spare mags on mybelt. On my Modular Integrated Communications Helmet (MICH), I mounted my AN/PVS-15 night-vision goggles. Last but not least, I carried my med bag, fully outfitted with hemorrhage control measures, advanced airway surgical tools, needle decompression, bag valve masks, and pulse oximetry. I was wearing fifty pounds of gear, but it didn’t feel cumbersome. You get used to wearing combat gear, and it becomes a sort of extension of your body. I felt like I carried no excess, like everything on my person was a completely vital item. I genuinely felt swift, silent, deadly.
I loaded into the back of Big Zev, our hulking beast of a flatbed stake truck, which we named after an old Vietnam-era truck that appeared in Tour of Duty, the classic 1980s show about Vietnam. We would binge-watch the show during off hours on Sharkbase, and in one episode, the crew had painted the name Big Zev on the truck’s door—a pop culture Easter egg and nod to Zev Braun, the show’s executive producer. Big Zev was an ambling beast and sat in the middle of our convoy of four armored Humvees, and as we wound our way through Camp Ramadi, I noted again the half-inch steel walls and sandbags lining the floor. I thought about my beloved balls and wondered to what extent the sandbags could keep them intact in the event of an IED blast.
We were on our way from Sharkbase to pick up our Jundis. Jundi (“Jundee”) is the Arabic word for soldier, and is what we called the members of the Iraqi Security Forces our team was tasked with training. My platoon was divided into four groups, and each group was given a set of Jundis to work with. My group was assigned the Jundi Special Missions Platoon (SMP). The SMP was theoretically a step up in tactical proficiency compared to the regular-army guys, but a real soup sandwich nonetheless when we first got them. Completely lacking in most military discipline, they were mostly young, skinny Iraqis who played a lot of soccer and smoked a lot of cigarettes. They were in pretty decent shape for Iraqi standards and had been selected for theSMP
Similar Books
Torchworld: Outsiders Collection
Dannielle Levan
Losing Faith
Scotty Cade
The Midnight Hour
Neil Davies
The Willard
LeAnne Burnett Morse
Green Ace
Stuart Palmer
Seven Kisses: A Beauty and the Beast Dark Romance
Giselle Renarde
Noble Destiny
Katie MacAlister
Daniel
Henning Mankell
Bringing Down the Krays
Bobby Teale