Hello all. I’m Major Leonard Gruppo. You’re probably wondering why I haven’t been to any meetings for a few months. Well, I’m a student at the U.S. Army, Command and General Staff College, U.S. Army Logistics Management College, Fort Lee, Virginia. I’m learning plenty of great things to help keep our Army rolling along. Nevertheless, I thought I’d take a few minutes and relate a story about one time when I was on patrol in Baghdad. I was riding shotgun in one of a group of HUMVEEs, on patrol in the streets of Baghdad, with the infantry unit to which I was attached. The sun was shining and by all accounts, the day was going well. We had not encountered any enemy activity. We stopped a few times to talk with the locals. I’m a physician assistant, and our translator relayed that to the locals when they asked him some medical questions. I wasn’t prepared to treat them during this particular patrol, carrying only supplies for emergencies and trauma, but I examined some of them and gave them some advice through the translator. One older woman had some advanced tumors on her neck, shoulder and axillae (arm pit). Her breast was deformed on that side of her body as well. I suspect she had metastatic breast cancer with significant lymph involvement and told her she needed to see a cancer specialist as soon as possible. She said she would but was in terrible pain and asked for something to help ease it. I can appreciate what she was going through but there wasn’t much I could do. I dug around in my medical pack and found some Motrin. I give her a few days supply realizing it wasn’t going to help much but she was immensely pleased that the American “doctor” had helped her.
Well, some time later that day we were driving down a broad side street when the patrol leader decided to turn around and head back the other way. That seemed like a simple enough task on this wide road. A “U” turn should be easy enough to execute, just drive to the shoulder, swing the HUMVEE around and head back the other way. I was in the second HUMVEE, right behind the patrol leader’s vehicle. His driver initiated a wide turn, swinging the big, heavy, armored truck to the right, onto the shoulder, to facilitate the turn, but nothing is easy in Baghdad.
In an instant, the truck was laid almost completely on it’s right side, buried half way in a mess of sludge that a moment ago had appeared to be just some damp dirt on the shoulder of the road. Instead, it was a five or six foot deep trench, filled with muddy quicksand in which the HUMVEE became firmly stuck. There were still two tires on the pavement though. With the engine screaming and the left side tires spinning, the driver tried to get out, but his efforts were to no avail. Worse still, the truck was teetering on its side seemingly ready to continue its slide into the quicksand and drown the two soldiers on that side of the vehicle.
I sprung into action organizing everyone by directing a security perimeter, simultaneously getting everyone out of the stuck truck and hooking up another HUMVEE to the buried HUMVEE’s industrial strength front bull-bar, a bar that would be the envy of any off-roader! We used our kinetic towrope to attach the two vehicles, got the driver back in, and on three, tried to pull the truck out. Again, this was to no avail. We tried a couple more times, changing the angle of pull, but it didn’t matter. By now, we were getting a little nervous, being out in the open as this street bordered a field of sorts on one side with houses on the side of the buried truck. It doesn’t take long for snipers to move in on a vulnerable group and we knew we had to hurry. We considered a few options, but then decided to attach a second HUMVEE and give it one more try.
This time it worked! We pulled the half buried HUMVEE out and it seemed no worse for wear. We unhooked our military strength shackles, stowed our fine kinetic towropes and got back on patrol. It was fun exercising extraction techniques and I was glad for the practice I had on the trails back home. I must say though, I never had to worry about being taken out by a sniper during a trail ride in Texas. Still things could always have turned out worse; thank God they didn’t this time.
Well, some time later that day we were driving down a broad side street when the patrol leader decided to turn around and head back the other way. That seemed like a simple enough task on this wide road. A “U” turn should be easy enough to execute, just drive to the shoulder, swing the HUMVEE around and head back the other way. I was in the second HUMVEE, right behind the patrol leader’s vehicle. His driver initiated a wide turn, swinging the big, heavy, armored truck to the right, onto the shoulder, to facilitate the turn, but nothing is easy in Baghdad.
In an instant, the truck was laid almost completely on it’s right side, buried half way in a mess of sludge that a moment ago had appeared to be just some damp dirt on the shoulder of the road. Instead, it was a five or six foot deep trench, filled with muddy quicksand in which the HUMVEE became firmly stuck. There were still two tires on the pavement though. With the engine screaming and the left side tires spinning, the driver tried to get out, but his efforts were to no avail. Worse still, the truck was teetering on its side seemingly ready to continue its slide into the quicksand and drown the two soldiers on that side of the vehicle.
I sprung into action organizing everyone by directing a security perimeter, simultaneously getting everyone out of the stuck truck and hooking up another HUMVEE to the buried HUMVEE’s industrial strength front bull-bar, a bar that would be the envy of any off-roader! We used our kinetic towrope to attach the two vehicles, got the driver back in, and on three, tried to pull the truck out. Again, this was to no avail. We tried a couple more times, changing the angle of pull, but it didn’t matter. By now, we were getting a little nervous, being out in the open as this street bordered a field of sorts on one side with houses on the side of the buried truck. It doesn’t take long for snipers to move in on a vulnerable group and we knew we had to hurry. We considered a few options, but then decided to attach a second HUMVEE and give it one more try.
This time it worked! We pulled the half buried HUMVEE out and it seemed no worse for wear. We unhooked our military strength shackles, stowed our fine kinetic towropes and got back on patrol. It was fun exercising extraction techniques and I was glad for the practice I had on the trails back home. I must say though, I never had to worry about being taken out by a sniper during a trail ride in Texas. Still things could always have turned out worse; thank God they didn’t this time.
