Free Carnivore by Dillard Johnson Page A

You’re just mistaken.”
    â€œIt was a can. And don’t tell me that bottle fell there, it can’t even fit through that gap.”
    We went back and forth, and finally I just got tired of arguing. I said, “Fine. I’ve got a Mountain Dew. We’re good to go. Just leave it at that. Put the shovels back.”
    I n mid-March 2003, a sandstorm started to kick up. It didn’t last as long as some, but it was still bad. We had to close all the hatches. The sandstorms are crazy: you can barely talk on the radio and you can’t see 10 feet.
    We spent the night all buttoned up inside the vehicle. The next morning was a nice sunny day. There was really nothing going on outside and we were on the very end of our desert laager, so we were as close to Iraq and the berm as we could get. Everybody else was in line with us.
    Sully came in and said, “Hey, they’re doing an NBC drill.” (NBC stands for nuclear, biological, and chemical.) We were in the back of the Bradley playing Nintendo and lounging around. I looked out and could see everybody down the line running around in MOPP 4 gear and closing the hatches on their vehicles.
    One big worry we had was Saddam shooting missiles loaded with anthrax or sarin gas or chicken pox or whatever at us, so we did all sorts of NBC drills where we got into our protective gear as fast as possible. MOPP stands for mission-oriented protective posture, and the number afterward indicates the level of protection. MOPP 4 was the highest level of protection. In addition to a gas mask we had to put on gloves, overboots, and a protective suit. If you think it gets hot in the desert, try standing around in a uniform covered by a full-body protective suit.
    I said, “Hell. Sucks to be them.” Since we were all the way at the end of the line, no one would notice if we didn’t play along.
    We finished the game and we shut the Bradley off. I was just getting ready to lie back and stretch out on the TOW missile boxes (because there was nowhere else to lie; we’d packed the Brad to the hatch with ammunition) when I heard on the radio, “All clear. All clear.”
    I said, “Looks like the training drill’s over with.”
    And then I heard the Commander come across and say, “Roger, just got a call from Squadron Fox and they confirm that the missile that landed did not have chemical agents in it.”
    Um, wait, what?
    Our Fox group responded to any biological or WMD (weapons of mass destruction) attacks. They rolled out in big six-wheeled vehicles that have all sorts of seals and protections. Officially the German-designed vehicles are called M93 CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) reconnaissance vehicles. Turns out Saddam had launched a SCUD missile and it went right over the top of our site and landed a mile or so to our south; that’s why everybody went to MOPP 4 protective gear.
    With the Bradley running and the video game going, we didn’t hear anything because the missile’s rockets weren’t running. It was just the whoosh of it coming over. We didn’t hear the explosion when it landed either; the desert is so wide open that sound really disperses.
    At that point we dug around to find our masks and MOPP gear. Better late than never, right? I think mine was under a bunch of 25 mm ammo in the back.
    That rocket going over apparently jarred command, because for the next three days they had us moving. Continual movement, so we were harder to hit, I guess. Between that movement and the sandstorms, we barely slept for three days. And I mean barely —10 minutes here, half an hour there.
    So of course that’s when command decided we should start the invasion.

CHAPTER 7
D EATHTRAP
    O ur first objective once we rolled through the berm and into Iraq was supposed to be a chemical manufacturing site, used in the creation of WMDs.
    The 3/15th Infantry cut the holes in the berm, and while they were