Podcast Interview: Story of an army soldier
Transcript:
Hello my name is Mitchel. I graduated high school and joined the army. I was about twenty years old when I enlisted. Joining the arm is something that I wanted to since I was a kid. After basic training I went to Korea for a year. I had a couple katoosa buddies and katoosas are rock soldiers, Korean soldiers that get stationed with U.S. soldiers. They lived with us and everything, even trained with us. Corp. Lee and Private Park, they were very touchy feely people. “Ol Stunky you come here.” They’d be all over my stuff. They didn’t care if they were in their banana hammocks or not man, they’d just walk out in the hallway and start conversing.
When I came back from Korea I was only home for about a week and a half before I left to go down to Fort Campbell. I got stationed there with the 502nd infantry battalion. I was just a regular joe-shmo specialist at that point, mostly maintaining training and maintaining equipment. When I got there, the company I was in was a Delta company. What they did, they ran gun trucks. So, I had to learn all about Humvees. They cool they was they had a 50, and that was fun to play with.
When I first found out I was going to get deployed I was so mad. I remember being mad because I hadn’t been home. I was really pissed. Don’t get me wrong though, there was some fear in there too, cause I didn’t want to go and get shot. I was probably more mad than anything because I was tired of being gone.
We left Kuwait and crossed the “burn” and into Iraq. I don’t think I slept for two weeks, no more than a half hour here and there. The first city we went to was Carvala. It was the first time about 98% of us had been shot at. It was kind of an eye opener. You find out how mortal we really are when bullets are being fired at you. It’s not as cool as it is in the movies I guess. There for awhile if someone was walking down the street wrong you could get them. Now, I’m not saying you could shoot them, don’t get me wrong. And then, right before we left, it was just the opposite. They could walk down the street with an AK-47 which over there is like having a hunting rifle over here, everyone and their brother has one. They’d walk down the street and you couldn’t do anything till they shot at you or, had a car bomb or IED or something like that. I remember after being over there a couple of months they were just like, “Hey guys, the war is over and you can’t do any of this stuff.” I guess the Iraqi insurgents obviously didn’t get the memo that the war was over.
I remember when we first went over there and we went into these school buildings, I have pictures, they had bombs and mortar rounds to the ceilings in schools, school buildings where kids go. There were pictures hanging up that showed Americans, hanging Americans stuff like that, that kids drew. Then there was normal government propaganda that was hung up that said, “screw America.” There was a car bomb, and I was on the gun turret. The car bomb was so big that just the blast of it ripped me out of the Humvee and slammed me against the wall. Me and my buddy Chow were taking turns, because we typically had two people on guard for this reason, because like I said before, we’d go two or three days without sleeping, so when we pulled guard we tried to have two guys up so one guy could kind of nap in and out and the other guy could pull guard. Well, it was my turn to nap and the next thing I know I’m getting ripped out of this fighting position a second before it blows up. Whatever went through his head, he grabbed me and ripped me out of it, and then it blew up and through both of us back. It was an rpg that was fired at it. I saw my best friend Hopkins, saw his Humvee blow up behind me. I could feel the heat on the back of my neck. It wasn’t like when something normally blows up and it hurts your ears because it’s such a rush, but all I felt was the heat. I turned around and I saw him lying on the ground. He was trying to crawl, but he was all jacked up. What happened was they hit a bomb, a roadside bomb. It blew three of the four guys out of the truck. Two of them broke their legs and one broke his jaw. Hopkins got some burns and some shrapnel, but the other guy, Martinez, it was kind of sad. He got pinched in there. He was the driver and the seat got crushed up in on him and 70 to 75 percent of his body got burnt up. He lived, and I guess he was on Opera.
For months we were told, “ok, you guys are going to go back in December” and then,” no you’re not going to now. They just put an extra 18 month extension on top of the ten months that you’ve already been there.” It was a big mind game for a while. This was our company commander telling us so it wasn’t like stuff through the grape vine, because he was pretty well informed. Towards the end of April they were like, “ hey guys, we’re packing up and going home at this date.” We all loaded up, got all of our stuff loaded up. Out of the 101st airborn division we were the very last company to leave Iraq. A whole, 26,000 other people got to go home first.
They were going to recall me, and granted I was a little upset, but I wasn’t trying to woose out of either, but once they found out my child has cystic fibrosis the
Army was just like, nah, we don’t want that bill and they just let me go, so it all worked out for me I guess. I knew when I signed up that it was an eight year enlistment. I knew when I got out of my active duty that I still had time left with them. In fact, my time still doesn’t end until July of next year, July 23rd. That’s when I should be getting my honorable discharge from the army. I get so mad about people, like they made that movie Stop Loss, and that’s just the biggest load of shit that I’ve seen in my life. Because, you know, army or marines or navy, they tell you. I bet I was told eight times the day I was at MEPS signing all the processing paperwork to get into the army, they ran it by me.
I’ve had a lot of mistakes growing up, but I don’t regret anything. Everything’s gotten me to where I’m at now.
Interviewed by David Strunks
Transcript:
Hello my name is Mitchel. I graduated high school and joined the army. I was about twenty years old when I enlisted. Joining the arm is something that I wanted to since I was a kid. After basic training I went to Korea for a year. I had a couple katoosa buddies and katoosas are rock soldiers, Korean soldiers that get stationed with U.S. soldiers. They lived with us and everything, even trained with us. Corp. Lee and Private Park, they were very touchy feely people. “Ol Stunky you come here.” They’d be all over my stuff. They didn’t care if they were in their banana hammocks or not man, they’d just walk out in the hallway and start conversing.
When I came back from Korea I was only home for about a week and a half before I left to go down to Fort Campbell. I got stationed there with the 502nd infantry battalion. I was just a regular joe-shmo specialist at that point, mostly maintaining training and maintaining equipment. When I got there, the company I was in was a Delta company. What they did, they ran gun trucks. So, I had to learn all about Humvees. They cool they was they had a 50, and that was fun to play with.
When I first found out I was going to get deployed I was so mad. I remember being mad because I hadn’t been home. I was really pissed. Don’t get me wrong though, there was some fear in there too, cause I didn’t want to go and get shot. I was probably more mad than anything because I was tired of being gone.
We left Kuwait and crossed the “burn” and into Iraq. I don’t think I slept for two weeks, no more than a half hour here and there. The first city we went to was Carvala. It was the first time about 98% of us had been shot at. It was kind of an eye opener. You find out how mortal we really are when bullets are being fired at you. It’s not as cool as it is in the movies I guess. There for awhile if someone was walking down the street wrong you could get them. Now, I’m not saying you could shoot them, don’t get me wrong. And then, right before we left, it was just the opposite. They could walk down the street with an AK-47 which over there is like having a hunting rifle over here, everyone and their brother has one. They’d walk down the street and you couldn’t do anything till they shot at you or, had a car bomb or IED or something like that. I remember after being over there a couple of months they were just like, “Hey guys, the war is over and you can’t do any of this stuff.” I guess the Iraqi insurgents obviously didn’t get the memo that the war was over.
I remember when we first went over there and we went into these school buildings, I have pictures, they had bombs and mortar rounds to the ceilings in schools, school buildings where kids go. There were pictures hanging up that showed Americans, hanging Americans stuff like that, that kids drew. Then there was normal government propaganda that was hung up that said, “screw America.” There was a car bomb, and I was on the gun turret. The car bomb was so big that just the blast of it ripped me out of the Humvee and slammed me against the wall. Me and my buddy Chow were taking turns, because we typically had two people on guard for this reason, because like I said before, we’d go two or three days without sleeping, so when we pulled guard we tried to have two guys up so one guy could kind of nap in and out and the other guy could pull guard. Well, it was my turn to nap and the next thing I know I’m getting ripped out of this fighting position a second before it blows up. Whatever went through his head, he grabbed me and ripped me out of it, and then it blew up and through both of us back. It was an rpg that was fired at it. I saw my best friend Hopkins, saw his Humvee blow up behind me. I could feel the heat on the back of my neck. It wasn’t like when something normally blows up and it hurts your ears because it’s such a rush, but all I felt was the heat. I turned around and I saw him lying on the ground. He was trying to crawl, but he was all jacked up. What happened was they hit a bomb, a roadside bomb. It blew three of the four guys out of the truck. Two of them broke their legs and one broke his jaw. Hopkins got some burns and some shrapnel, but the other guy, Martinez, it was kind of sad. He got pinched in there. He was the driver and the seat got crushed up in on him and 70 to 75 percent of his body got burnt up. He lived, and I guess he was on Opera.
For months we were told, “ok, you guys are going to go back in December” and then,” no you’re not going to now. They just put an extra 18 month extension on top of the ten months that you’ve already been there.” It was a big mind game for a while. This was our company commander telling us so it wasn’t like stuff through the grape vine, because he was pretty well informed. Towards the end of April they were like, “ hey guys, we’re packing up and going home at this date.” We all loaded up, got all of our stuff loaded up. Out of the 101st airborn division we were the very last company to leave Iraq. A whole, 26,000 other people got to go home first.
They were going to recall me, and granted I was a little upset, but I wasn’t trying to woose out of either, but once they found out my child has cystic fibrosis the
Army was just like, nah, we don’t want that bill and they just let me go, so it all worked out for me I guess. I knew when I signed up that it was an eight year enlistment. I knew when I got out of my active duty that I still had time left with them. In fact, my time still doesn’t end until July of next year, July 23rd. That’s when I should be getting my honorable discharge from the army. I get so mad about people, like they made that movie Stop Loss, and that’s just the biggest load of shit that I’ve seen in my life. Because, you know, army or marines or navy, they tell you. I bet I was told eight times the day I was at MEPS signing all the processing paperwork to get into the army, they ran it by me.
I’ve had a lot of mistakes growing up, but I don’t regret anything. Everything’s gotten me to where I’m at now.
Interviewed by David Strunks
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