What's it like to be in the presence of explosions while on patrol?
Iraq/Afghanistan vets, care to chime in?
What's it like to be in the presence of explosions while on patrol?
Landon Lewis
Julian Price
You quickly come to the realization that you should have went to college and not deal with this bullsbit for ZOG
Ryan Price
I remember my first SVest. I thought it was indirect fire coming down.
The first time my truck hit an IED was so loud. I remember a heat flash coming over me. Then my ears ringing. I prefer a firefight. IEDs are shitty way to go.
Angel Rogers
Loud.
Zachary Baker
You are not even placing any real effort in trolling
>been through four IEDs
>the first was intended, get us desesentived
>was nothing, just a harassment blast
>most were
>realized the point of my otherwise suicidal NCOs
>there were "cato-kills" ( deep-bury IEDS where everyone dies)
>and "party-poppers" (get your attention, but little more than damage your truck)
Actual blast?
>partially gray-out in your head (like being slapped with a phone-book)
>wall of sand & rock envelopes your truck
>see nothing in front of you immediately
>all the while your TC (done it already), screaming to push through the kill zone
>just shakes your cage, but can have a real effect
>had one NCO that took three significant blasts in one week
>he was drooling on himself and unable to speak by the point of MedEvac
>He is one of the guys in the Wounded Warrior Project commercials.
>Blast envelopes you, somewhat similar to a splash mountain theme park ride
You can't spell your name in the moment afterward, and it can take a couple days to get your shit together.
After awhile though, you start to memorize the post-blast questionnaire. Drunk right now, but a mixture of fruits and shapes that you are expected to name correctly. They used the same terminology in the test throughout my deployment.
Pic related was not my truck, but the point remains valid.
Nolan Jenkins
I'm sometimes glad i didn't get a CENTCOM deployment for this reason only. My DS was in during your time and he got whatever it's called when explosions mess with your brain chemistry. He didn't tell us that but we could tell. Mean SOB.
Joshua Diaz
>Mean SOB.
One of the guys in our unit was in seven IED explosions. Was a nice guy at the start of the deployment, but at the end he had mood swings and was outright violent on occasion.
Shit messes with your head if your brain has too many concussions
Connor Nguyen
Had an NCO that reached that zone before deployment.
>Domestic issues
>Self-harm issues
Guy had been through the thick of it, he was just a broken man afterward. Took our CoC, to call him out to be medically retired.
I was very judgemental of him immediately after, but I get where he was coming from now.
My largests regret is pursuing a combat MOS before I was emotionally mature to experience such events.
.
Nolan Peterson
Before....
& after.
Jace Sullivan
>Tfw my Dad got hit by an IED and his LAV’s driver died and he got smoked unconscious
>Came back, an RPG hit the dirt wall he was hiding behind, concussion #2
>Then got bit by one of those fucking big black vipers Afghanistan has because fuck you
I’m so proud of the man, and he’s one of the finest NCOs the CAF has, but I’m glad I didn’t get deployed to that hot mess.
Brody Cruz
You're proud of what exactly? For getting fucked up and watching someone die?
Did he actually get some himself or just get Cucked by terrorists
Xavier Rivera
He got some, but I’m proud of him for dusting himself off, making it back, and going on to be successful even with the blatant PTSD/brain damage. And that’s all on top of the times he did rad shit in his career.
I dunno, I’m fucked on cheap whiskey. I’m just rambling. :/
Juan Flores
There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your father.
William Johnson
Why are you so bitter, dude?
Samuel Bell
Baraka Allah IEDs
Joseph Butler
>c-can some iraqi or afghanistan foblets ch-chime in?
lmao
Kayden Stewart
2 tour muhreen grunt here. I did my deployments to Helmand province during the deadliest years of the war(2009-2011). I witnessed a combat engineer attached to my squad get blown in half by a 45 lb IED about 30 meters in front of me. It blew me backwards off my feet. I will never forget that image from the split second after the device detonated before I felt the shockwave, seeing his legs fly away from his body in opposite directions, and the upper half of his body propelled up in the air like a champagne cork. I carried one of his legs back to our patrol base in my daypack. RIP Cpl Whitehead.
Another instance a team leader stepped on a IED and lost both his legs above the knee. About 10 seconds later we were ambushed by 2 RPGs and accurate fire from at least 2 different automatic weapons while trying to deal with the casualty. That was probably the most scared I ever was in my entire life. I legitimately believed I was going to die for about 30 seconds and came to peace with my mortality. Fortunately our SMAW team was on point and put a rocket directly into one of the firing points on a compound about 200 meters across a field and the enemy fire immediately stopped.
We found 2 IEDs offset about 10 meters from each other on the bank of a ridge. We were set in a perimeter around the IEDs and got a bit complacent after a few hours of waiting for EOD. just as we made visual contact with the EOD patrol sent out to rendezvous with us, a rocket was shot at us from a town about 800m away. I saw the thing coming nearly the entire way and was frozen. It probably took like 1-1.5 seconds for it to reach us but it felt like 15-20 seconds in my mind as I watched it traveling towards me. That's another image that is permanently burned into my brain It went about 5-10 feet over my head and impacted the ridge about 20m behind me. A guy who was even further away from the impact than i was took a piece of shrapnel through his calf.
Jackson Johnson
Damn, dude. How are you holding up?
Nicholas Kelly
bump
Eli Johnson
>calls EOD
faggot you just put a block of c4 on it, blow it and roll out. what kinda cherry shit unit were you in?
Ayden Long
Had a friend that I joined up with killed around that time in Helmand, ever knew a Cpl. Max Donuhue (USMC, K-9 Handler)?
BTW, I am this user.
Nicholas Sanders
Question to armchair generals and the like. If we were to send enough troops into A-stan or really any place that requires counter insurgency, if we sent enough troops in to maintain constant presence everywhere. I mean like at least a platoon for each village everywhere and squads to platoons making constant patrols to and from these outposts next to or within said villages, wouldn't IED's become a thing of the past? How could haji build and place his IED when there is always a soldier/marine nearby?
I'm pretty sure the Marine Corps had some pretty good success in Nam against the VC because back then they were less mechanized than the Army so they had to send in more grunts and build more patrol bases in outposts everywhere. Or am I just full of shit?
Henry Diaz
Where are IEDs usually placed? Are they random? like in the middle of fields or are they predictable?
Nicholas Russell
Just speaking from my mounted perspective and experience. Have no real perspective on IEDs experienced by dismounted troops.
There is a real tendency to use them where they have used before (already have a crater, just shove another device in it) .
Party-poppers tend to be on MSRs (the routes most traveled). Traffic-circles for some reason where they placed a lot.
Cato-kills (deep-bury IEDs) have been in or on secondary routes, where hajj has the time and opportunity to lay in thousands of pounds of boom.
The thing that sucks the most is "mobile IEDs" (VBIEDS). For several months we were skittish around any LN ambulances since two were stolen previously, and most likely converted to VBIEDs.
Equally every vehicle around you is a potential SVBIED, and it is impossible to keep all vehicles away from your patrol in a congested city.
There is some Jow Forums photo from Chechnya where "everything is bomb". That is absolutely the case with IEDs, everything is potentially a bomb. Don't fuck with anything unless forced to.
You know where they likely are, but never know where they all are.
The only way you can do your job is to accept that you will get blown up, sooner or later. Not if, but when.
Carson Watson
Bummer