Oftentimes, it is hard for civilians to comprehend the things that we, as soldiers, say in regards to Military Language. Our alphabet is different, for example, ABC = Alpha, Bravo, & Charlie. The way we say things in regard to their meaning is just different. I break down in Chapter 2 of my book, She Went, Too: Diary of a Female Soldier, some terms that I came across a soldier, and broke them down for my readers.
Enjoy the excerpt below!
Just a few weeks later, my world was filled with words and phrases that one who was set to participate in a war fighting for their country would definitely know. Block leave. Conex loading. TA-50 layout. TA-50 layout again. I chose not to participate in traveling out of town back to North Carolina for block leave. Traveling over one thousand miles to get there is expensive, and even though I would be the visitor, many of my family members would act as if they saw me every day, treating my car as their shuttle (taxis get paid), and expecting me to financially fund situations that they happily acquired without my involvement. Besides, I am not yet comfortable to face the obligation of telling my grandparents the gruesome truth that their granddaughter would be among those to occupy one of the places they hear CNN talk about daily.
Block leave was when everyone in your unit was on vacation for a period of time. Some business operations surrounding the military base would cease or slow down during this time, and most soldiers would venture back to their original hometowns before joining the military. Our block leave was for a two-week period. This would be the ideal time to inform your loved ones that you were actually participating in a war, and this information should indeed be afforded the opportunity to be delivered intimately, I suppose.
Another tiny part of me feels, more often than not, that I want to go AWOL the first chance that I get. Going AWOL, or being absent without leave, would fulfill my desire to disappear before that plane took off to Iraq with my able-bodied self on it. I thought about it many days in the month prior; I even thought about it during breakfast this morning. However, I refuse to give people the satisfaction of thinking that is the choice I will make for myself. Besides, if being hunted down while AWOL was as half the pressure of being hunted down by people trying to bomb Americans, I will happily pass. At least, if I was in Iraq, I would be where I was supposed to be. I could not stand even the thought of doing time in the Fort Leavenworth military prison system. I have absolutely no idea where I would go to disappear anyway.
Our entire unit was ordered to go on leave by our battalion commander. Smitty was not going home to Florida, so I knew that we were going to have the best of times eating everything in sight, then lying to each other later saying that we would exercise it off. The sparkle in my eye that only some potato wedges from Jack-in-the-Box covered with extra cheese and bacon bits, with sour cream on the side, could bring, made my mouth water.
“Smitty, what do you think it will be like over there?” I asked.
“T, I have no idea, but I am kinda excited to find out. I mean, I am really just ready to get this over with. Plus, making the extra money will be marvelous. You know we will be promoting to E-4 soon. We are getting on up there!” Smitty said, as she gushed with pride. “And do you wanna know something else? And please don’t get mad, T, when I tell you this.
“What?”
“I honestly do not think that you are going to go to Iraq, T!”
“What? Why do you always go there with me and say that? I am going to Iraq, just like everybody else, Smitty,” I reply.
“That is my point exactly. See, you are not everybody else. You always find a way to get out of things. I guess I feel like I know you all too well, and that just like everything else you get out of doing, Iraq should be no different, T. And on a sensitive note, I really just don’t want you to go over there. One of us has to live to tell the story,” she says casually.
“Smitty, you are being way too sensitive right now,” I say. “And the bottom line is that I will be in the bunk next to you, in Iraq, happily nudging your side because you are snoring too loud!” I say as I hand her back her curling irons she had long ago let me borrow.
“And you know I would not want it any other way!” says Smitty.
After we have dinner that night, and venture off in silence to our respective sides of the room, my thoughts consume me as I lie in bed. I always think of everything as I lie in bed, everything under the sun, but never anything that really has significant meaning. The usual things a twenty-year-old would think about while lying in bed now changed to what a soldier about to go to war in six weeks felt they were up against. ‘One of us has to live to tell the story’? Does Smitty really feel that way? And if she does, why does she feel that way? We are females. We were informed immediately that we were not even allowed to be on the front line to fight and blow the enemy’s head off. We would be doing the exact same thing that we do over here, humping ammo every day, and would be nowhere near Baghdad. My worry is not about if we will make it back; I know that we are coming back.
My worry is about how life will be after we get back.
______________________________________________________________
On all of the days to be outside, I will admit that my platoon sergeant picked a nice, hot one to put his entire platoon to work in. I could hardly blink twice before block leave was over, and we were inside the motor pool loading up our conexes to be shipped to Iraq before us. The motor pool, is where all, or most of, the vehicles used on a daily, or needed for war, were stored and maintained until needed. A conex, or Container Express, is a large, metal cargo container that is used by the Army for shipping materials and supplies overseas. Most of them can hold up to a whopping 9,000 pounds! To sum all of this up, it was the Army’s portable storage unit. Inside our conexes were items such as tarps and extra materials needed to build our tents while in country. When I say ‘in country’, which I will say a lot, I am referring to actually being in the country of Iraq. The use of connexes would be the most resourceful way to ensure that the items that we need to set up operations in Iraq, arrived so we would be able to do so. There was a conex that held my company’s orderly room supplies and equipment as well. The orderly room was like the front receptionist area of 664th Ordnance Company, or for any company, for that matter. Desks, tables, chairs, and back-up computers were items that made an orderly room an area where a soldier could wait peacefully to be called into their superior leaders’ offices, or simply where one could go to take care of their human resources needs, such as updating their marital status. Connexes were also stored with extra duffle bags. Each soldier was informed that we would need to pack an extra duffle bag filled with items that we would not immediately need. We would fill our bags with hygiene extras, underwear, and snacks such as Cup O’ Noodles; Spicy Chicken was my favorite. Technically, we were not supposed to place food into our duffle bags to be placed inside the connexes because of potential rodents that could find them, but I snuck in a couple items anyway. No one knows exactly how long we would be staying in Iraq, and if anyone did know, the message was never delivered to the lower ranking soldiers such as myself. I make sure to pack extra tampons, pads, and panty liners, and in this moment, I decide that I will be the one that supplied those in case a woman would run out. We may never even see those bags again for sure, we were told, and that nothing valuable should be placed inside. Any extra space I had would be filled with snacks to get Smitty and me through those “I miss America” nights.
Loading up a conex to travel anywhere is extremely tedious, and cannot be done without plenty of cigarette breaks for the smokers, a full lunch break, and teamwork. If everyone does not participate in completing this daunting task, what could take a week with hard work, could easily take a month. We do not have a month. Today is Tuesday, and our company’s items were set to ship off on Friday. The conexes need to depart earlier than we do, because they are transported by ship. There are about four soldiers and an NCO assigned to travel on the ship with the connexes. I am so glad that I was not picked for this detail. Hopefully, we, along with our items, will arrive in Iraq together as planned. As the connex bar is pulled opened and unlocked, the smell overtakes me as being ancient. They literally smelled old. Picture the overpowering smell of mothballs that are stale, locked up in a unit with no oxygen circulating inside for years. Yes, these are our mighty war conexes. As I look around inside the conex, I see the obvious lack of care from the last group that loaded them. Things were everywhere. At any other time when I would be assigned to clean and load up connexes, I would absolutely be similar to those who had loaded before me. But a tiny string of consciousness lived inside of me today for some reason, and I knew that these connexes needed to be loaded correctly to ensure that our things were inside them once they reached us.
“Alright everybody, let’s get to work!”
Sergeant Peterkin began to bark out orders to have us all get started. We are instructed to form chain lines, which would allow each person from the end of the line to the front, to participate in loading our items into the connex. This was a surefire way to ensure there would be absolutely no slackers during this exercise. Altogether we had about 36 soldiers, and three lines were formed. Tents, duffle bags, and orderly room equipment were the majority of the items that were to be loaded. I jump into the line that is loading up the duffel bags, partly because the tent equipment looks like it would be heavy, and partly because this is the line that the majority of the females jumped into quickly before Sergeant Peterkin ordered us into one. One by one, each duffel bag is passed from soldier to soldier, and loaded up. I began to wonder if body parts were encased with lead due to how heavy they were. I totally underestimated the weight of these bags. My arms stiffen up from the weight of all the passing; the lines seemed neverending as if the last item to be loaded into the connex was so far out of reach. My sports bra is drenched in sweat at this point, as I feel the drops pour down my sized 32-A cupped chest. I don’t even care about a lunch break at this point. I would just like to be done with this altogether. Around one hundred and forty-two bags and about a full morning’s worth of intense manual labor later, we are all done loading up the connexes.
I collapse on the ground.
“Hey, you guys, go ahead and take fifteen,” Sergeant Peterkin says.
“Fifteen? C’mon, Sarg, you should cut us loose for the day, please!” Someone yells from behind me.
Usually, the someone yelling from the back is me. But not today. Today, I am already tired, and on this short fifteen minute break that was going to seem like five minutes, I planned on doing nothing but baking in this hot sun, while sipping on my Aquafina. Only a short distance away, I could hear Sergeant Peterkin being instructed by our platoon sergeant, SFC Cheff, to have us do our TA-50 layout upon coming back to work after our break.
TA-50 layout. The TA-50 layout was an inspection ran by our squad leaders to basically annoy the hell out of any soldier. If you were late too many times, it was pretty likely that a great leader would cause you to improve your actions by having you do a TA-50 layout instead of writing you up. If you had already been written up, and you still felt like you did not have to adhere to the standards of the Army, a TA-50 layout would show you that the Army has ways to place you back on the right path, whether they be traditional or non-traditional. This was an inspection of nearly everything that the military issued you to help you along the way to become defenders of our country. This layout consisted of items such as ponchos, an entire rain suit, cold weather gear, the thick brown thermals you forgot you had and could have worn last winter, an actual mat that you worked out on, or did what soldiers referred to as PT, or Physical Training on, as well as extra boots that you never shined and had not broken in yet. The layout also includes an assortment of what seems like endless amounts of other useless and outdated items. These endless, useless and outdated items all had to be stuffed, and I mean stuffed, into the rucksack (backpack) that you had not bonded with since your mandatory 10-mile hike to graduate Basic Training.
With every TA-50 inspection, I never, and I mean never, had all of my equipment. A button could be missing from your cold weather jacket, or you may have left your cold weather boots that you have only seen once since you first arrived to your company’s supply room years back. When these things occur, you could actually fail your TA-50 inspection. If a soldier was inspected by an NCO that bled ‘Army Green’, and lived to the standards of the Army by-the-book, this layout could closely resemble a horrible migraine to you because it made your life a living hell.
Each soldier is instructed to lay all items out dress-right-dress, which was usually used as a squad command, and this means that all items would have to be exactly identical to each of your surrounding squad members. Upon first acquiring these items early on into your military career, you are instructed that although one may never use each items, you are responsible for all items at all times. Instructions on how to carry out and complete a passing TA-50 layout is issued to you as well. They are placed on a small, dingy piece of paper that I have always resisted the urge to throw away simply because of days like these. After laying out all of our equipment, each soldier is inspected by their squad leader who would report it to our platoon sergeant as being all there and ready for usage. No one in our platoon was to be dismissed until we were all cleared from our layouts. I held my breath as Sergeant Peterkin approached me. He carefully inspected each item that was laid out for its ability to work properly, as well as their appearance as to how accurately they were placed.
“Good job, soldier.”
“Thank you, Sergeant P,” I reply.
Three hours later, our entire platoon was cleared and we were free to go to lunch. As the days go by, and conversations with friends who convince all of us young soldiers that we still hold the key to the world by saying ‘Fuck Hussain’, my false confidence begins to cast a foggy haze over my fear of actually entering into a war zone. I was more careful about things and it seemed as if I felt I could possibly really be okay about going to Iraq. I trained myself to be more mindful as we went to the arms room to draw our M-16 rifles for cleaning, and held it like this was the weapon that could be used to kill the enemy. This was the weapon that could be used to save one of my friend’s life. This was the weapon that could ultimately help end the war. Yes, I was psyching myself out to cope with my reality that although I hated guns, I was in the Army, and this was not a qualification course where I could practice the majority of the day to ensure I at least earned a marksmanship badge. This would eventually reach the point of being about life or death.
I am having to face a lot of music very quickly.
