There Was a Fire Fight!

Spent 7.62 Brass
Originally uploaded by nukeit1.

My title comes from a line from the movie, Boondock Saints, when Willem DaFoe's character describes a crime scene. I just love the way he says it and I think it is appropriate for what my week was like. It goes something like this...

My platoon, by itself, was on a civil affairs mission to a town we recently been to and made use of their schools. It was going good and somewhat fast. On the way out of the town, we dismounted our AAVs and walked alongside them down a street. We were checking on some graffiti that we marked out on a previous mission. There were a good number of kids and adults in the street. I was even giving some candy to the kids.

My platoon was in the process of loading back on the AAVs to head back home. 3rd squad was the lead element with 2nd, my squad, in the middle, and 1st squad last. As we were loading up, a Marine in 3rd squad saw a guy quickly approach a man standing along the street. This man whispered briefly into the other man's ear and within seconds, he had the children run into their houses.

Right when my squad was all loaded in the AAV and 3rd squad was in the process, they (3rd) saw a man run across the street carrying a RPG. I heard this sent over the radio and we immediately disembarked and ran to an abandoned police station that was right next to our vehicle. As my team was running up the stairs to the roof that's when I heard it all begin.

The rapid fire of a RPK machine gun followed by returning fire from 3rd squad. As I got to the roof, I tried to locate where this was all coming from. At this point, I still didn't know where we were taking fire from. I knew it was directed at 3rd squad, but I couldn't see any of it due to the numerous trees nearby. The whole fire fight lasted about a minute or two. After a few minutes of being on the roof, my team then returned to the street to provide security for the AAVs while the other squads attempted to push forward to flank the enemy. We were unable to catch or kill any of the enemy fighters.

My platoon secured the area and begun questioning the locals about the enemy fighters. Later find out that there were four armed men carrying 3 RPKs and 1 RPG. The fire fight was started with the RPG, but luckily the round bounced off the street and did not detonate. 3rd squad immediately took cover from the fire, but due to the well placed firing positions of the enemy, 3rd could not return accurate fire without losing their cover. The 4 armed men took off right away in a car and crossed the bridge to another town. No casualties for either side.

During this whole thing I never got scared or anything like that. I was mostly curious on who was shooting at us and where were they at. I definitely got excited as I thought this was the moment I have trained and waited for 3 years, but still to this date, I have yet to fire my rifle. Not even a warning shot! One of the Marines in my team thought it was funny when this whole thing started how I was just up and walking around on the rooftop carrying my rifle in one hand and had a small snack of trail mix in my other hand; occasionally eating it while trying to figure out where the firing was coming from. What can I say; I'm not going to let the insurgents interfere with my snack time.