Well, It IS a Combat Zone

Well, last night was interesting.

I took two of our Soldiers over to the our PAX Terminal around 2130 (9:30 p.m. for those who don't know the 24-hour clock) so they could start heading home for their 15 day R&R. Soldiers can take a shuttle bus, but I try to be available to guys and girls who would rather go in my humvee; after all there is a lot of gear involved since we must travel with body armor, helmets, plus whatever we're taking home. I dropped them off, wished them well, and headed out to go back to the West Side and grab something from Burger King since I hadn't eaten yet. As I exited the parking area onto the loop road that would lead me back to my hootch I heard a loud whirring and chattering sound and thought, "Heavens to Betsy, something's wrong with the Humvee, I hope I can make it back to the other side." OK, maybe that wasn't exactly what I said, but the gist is the same. Then there was the explosion. "Heavens to Betsy, that was close!" I thought. Then I heard the whirring again, only louder. "Okay, louder means closer, that can't be good". Another "whump!" and I felt another concussion. I hunkered down over the steering wheel until I thought, "This is a soft sided humvee; hunkering down is not going to do much good!" Then the C-RAM (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-15.htm) goes off and I'm watching red tracers going downrange over my humvee. "Let's see, speed limit's 20? (It was a construction zone) FORGET THAT!" I floored it (as if you can floor a humvee that runs on JP-8 and does zero to sixty in ninety minutes) and got the heck out of there. There were about 8-9 impacts behind and around me and I felt each one. I drove through clouds of debris, prayed I was still on the road, and remembered my training to get out of the kill zone as quickly as possible; or as we put it "Drive it like you stole it!"

I did manage to stop by Burger King and got a whopper.

A few hours before the attack I had spoken with my bishop, Lindsey Davis, by phone and he had prayed with me. Coincidence? Anyway, I'm listening a little more closely to the bishop - he's got some good connections!

By the way - they killed the bad guys.