Sweeping
An excerpt from a rough draft of my book.
The above photo was taken by a member of our platoon during this deployment. I’m unsure if this was the same patrol detailed below. I don’t think it is.
Below is an excerpt from a book that I’m working on. It will most definitely be adjusted for the final edit (which is a loooong way away). This particular excerpt is from a patrol we did out of PB Regay in the Sangin Wadi. I was point on this patrol, and we were going to a potential IED maker’s home. I remember being told halfway through the patrol that there was a confirmed IED somewhere between us and the house we were going to.
Below is as best as I can recall. I do plan on confirming a lot of these events. For example, I’m still unsure if the IED mentioned below turned out to be the one we ended up doing a controlled det on in the wadi (which was nowhere near me at the time).
Additionally, I remember initially patrolling through the field itself, but also remember patrolling through the trail I mentioned below. We never used trails because of how dangerous they were, but I remember using one. Talking with others who were there will sort out these details.
This excerpt is meant to capture what it’s like to deal with the unknown threat of IEDs
Note: A CMD is a metal detector we used to find IED’s. It squealed for metal and beeped for copper. The Taliban made pressure plates out of wood, so the only way to detect them was to identify copper (which they used because traditional metal detectors didn’t pick them up). The two copper rods connected when stepped on and detonated the IED.
Colton leaned in his head to me, “Ski, we need to keep pushing. We can’t stop at every indicator.”
I rogered up and we pushed down the dirt road. We crested the brown hill, and below, a sea of green corn shimmered in the heat. The sun reflected off green leaves like sparkling waves. I looked behind me and observed Colton scanning the compounds on the horizon. I felt safe.
We patrolled down the hill, ranger file. I approached the field of waist-high corn. There was a goat trail leading into the rippling ocean of green leaves. I had been trained not to use the most obvious path. This was as obvious as it got, and somewhere between us and that compound, there was an IED.
It waited for me.
I raised my hand to halt the patrol and probed for an entry into the field. Humidity radiated outward. It was hotter than hell in there.
Colton approached me, “What’s up?” He asked.
“I’m going to sweep the entry. There’s nowhere else we can go except that trail,” I said in a low voice.
Colton stared at the trail, his searching eyes hidden behind dark eyepro.
He nodded, “Roger.”
I approached the opening, swinging my CMD like a metronome of death, and looked down the path. I felt like Moses parting the Red Sea, except instead of a Biblical sea, two walls of green corn invited me down a beaten dirt path. Leaves from the vegetation leaned in, watching me.
My heart pounded.
Trust your eyes.
I swept the entryway, looked for the signs: disturbed earth, patches of grass, lines of rock. Gooseflesh rippled my skin, and a subtle breeze tickled the back of my neck, even though the leaves were perfectly still below the Sangin heat.
Yet, I gave the signal to move on and walked in anyway, not stopping until I heard a subtle beep from my CMD.
Leaves slapped at my legs, taunting me, grabbing my CMD head and preventing it from getting a clean and level sweep. Sweat poured from the heat, the field’s humidity, and now the intense fear that embedded itself in my belly like a parasite biting into its host.
The trail was slightly raised above the level field, a dirt burm bordered by low grass before it plunged into the emerald sea. The vegetation pressed up to the trail just enough so that I couldn’t sweep completely across the trail. The noise of the leaves sloshing my pants and wacking the CMD made it hard to listen for that telltale sign of beeping.
I focused on sweeping step by step, taking my time and ensuring that the path was cleared for the Marines behind me. Above all else, I greatly feared missing an IED and hearing a thunderclap explosion that would announce one of my friends getting blown up. I would rather be enveloped by sudden numb blackness than listen to my friends die.
This gave me the courage to keep sweeping.
I looked up and found that I was closer to the compound than I thought. Standing outside, I saw four kids watching us approach their home. They stood in the dark shade of their pomegranate trees like small sentinels. Hope you’re happy I’m not stomping through your field, fuckers.