The air resonated with the sound of about a hundred engines starting up. Dust filled the sky as the vehicles started to move about. This is it, I thought. This is what I have been training for. I could only imagine what lay ahead.

I looked down through my hatch into the scout compartment to ensure all my men were good to go. Lance Corporal Shearer was standing up through his hatch taking in the scene. Corporal Forsyth was sitting in my side of the scout compartment with the PRC-119 (man-pack radio with a handset) strapped to his back and the handset in his ear. He kept giving me updates of what was going on over the net. Lance Corporal Herman was on Shearer’s side of the compartment with his rifle between his legs.

I stood back up and donned my CVC (communications) helmet to listen in on the net and receive any further word from Sergeant Krall. Lance Corporal John “Ski” Martuszewski, our vehicle gunner, clicked over to the vehicle intercom and started repeating some joke that someone had told over the platoon net. He then went on to tease our driver, Lance Corporal Tyler Tracy.

Tracy sat quiet in his driver’s compartment and sweat like a pig. All the guy did was eat, sweat, and sleep. During our whole deployment, I don’t believe I ever once saw him not soaked in sweat. However, it was understandable because he sat right next to the engine block, he was completely shut in, and he had no ventilation. But we had to tease him because that was how we showed our friendship for one another.

“Tracy, how you doing down there?” Ski asked.

Tracy, never one to say much, remained silent. 

Ski wasn’t one to let someone ignore him so he continued. “Tracy, if you don’t crack open your driver’s hatch, you may drown in your own sweat.”

I let out a little chuckle and I could hear Krall do the same. But still, Tracy didn’t respond. He was probably cussing Ski under his breath.

“Tracy, what the fuck did you eat man?  I can smell that shit from up here! You must be sweatin’ whatever you ate out of your pores dude. Damn that shit stinks!” Ski continued, doing his best to get a reaction.

“Ski, you’re soooo funny,” Tracy sarcastically said. He had enough of Ski at this point so, to shut him up, he had to respond or else risk hearing Ski talk shit for another hour.

A little while later, Sergeant Krall clicked onto the vehicle intercom and told us the convoy was beginning to move. Since we were in the middle, it took a few minutes before the domino effect kicked in. I looked behind us to watch as the long line of vehicles began to move and spit up dust into the air. We looked like one hell of a formidable fighting force.

The first half of the trip seemed to take the longest. After we had departed, we took a couple of turns before we got onto the main road. Each vehicle was keeping about thirty meters dispersion and varied its speed to avoid being hit by any improvised explosive devices.

From Camp Victory to the border of Kuwait and Iraq took about an hour. Kuwaitis drove by the convoy and waved. Some gave blank stares. The main thing I noticed was that almost everyone drove either a BMW or Mercedes, and they looked to be pretty new models too. Another thing that shocked me was that women were driving. During my first deployment to Iraq, I had never seen a woman drive a car. We were informed it was strictly forbidden in Iraqi culture. Seeing women driving in plain clothes took me by surprise.

The scenery wasn’t much, but it was more pleasing to the eye than Iraq. From time to time, a small city would pop out of the desert. It seemed so odd to have countless miles of sand, and then suddenly a city with huge skyscrapers, and then nothing again. It wasn’t as if there were surrounding suburbs.

The border was a sight to behold. At the crossing, there was a small building that held Kuwaiti and American soldiers. For miles on each side, there was concertina wire two wide and stacked two high to try to prevent any insurgents from crossing. In the front and back of the concertina-wire fence were large ditches.

The difference between the Iraqi side and the Kuwaiti side was very noticeable. The Kuwaiti side was very clean and orderly. On the Iraqi side, the charred remains of Iraqi military vehicles from the war were scattered about. There were even some abandoned vehicles that seemed as if nothing was wrong with them. Garbage was strewn about everywhere. Whereas Kuwaitis were driving brand-new Mercedes and BMWs, Iraqis were driving ragtag cars, trucks, and vans with the occasional antique Mercedes thrown in. To me, the difference was like night and day. Chills ran down my spine. Great, I thought, seven months in hell, and it begins now.

The guard at the border stopped the convoy to talk to the convoy commander. After words were exchanged, the convoy resumed its direction. The border guards gave us nods as each vehicle passed by as if to say, “Good luck out there.” We needed as much of it as we could get.

I loved road marches back in the States because they were always nice and easy. As a scout, all I had to do was stand up and watch as cars drove by and people waved. However, Iraq was a different ballgame. Every hour, we would stop to conduct vehicle checks to ensure the vehicles could continue. During that time, the scouts had to dismount and provide security for the convoy. After about ten minutes, the scouts would remount the vehicles and resume the journey. This continued for about eight hours—eight long, boring, monotonous hours of standing. Sometimes we wouldn’t even have time to go to the bathroom, so we had to use our empty water bottles to relieve ourselves, or if we were really bored and wanted to mess around, we’d open the back hatch of the vehicle slightly and piss through the crack onto the street as we drove. We would take turns standing up through the scout hatch so we could go to the bathroom. After a while, my legs ached and my skin felt as if it were roasting under the desert sun.

The sight of Camp Scania was like seeing Disney World for the first time. It seemed as if nothing had ever looked so good. We pulled the vehicles in to get refueled and then parked them at the staging point. Once the whole convoy had settled in and gotten to their correct positions, the vehicle commanders went to have a quick meeting with the convoy commander. In the meantime, everyone seemed to loosen up. People took out chairs and footballs. Some guys lit up cigarettes, and others put in a dip. The nervousness seemed to vanish for a bit.

Sergeant Krall came back about ten minutes later with the word. We were going to stay at Camp Scania for about two hours. During that time we needed to set up a fire watch (guard) on the vehicle. Once everyone was designated a time for fire watch, we set out to wreak havoc on Scania’s chow hall and PX.

The thing about Army bases is that they are so much better than Marine Corps bases (unless it’s an air base). Army bases have the best food, the best stores, and the best recreation centers. I met up with Corporal Jason “Tex” Sprenger, Sergeant Travis Madden, and a few others to go have chow. When we entered the chow hall building, we got the best food we could find, grabbed a soda and a bag of chips, and sat down to eat. The Army personnel looked at the whole group of Marines eating as if we were scavengers. We were nasty looking. We hadn’t showered in days, we were covered in dust from the road march and, to top it all off, we were tearing into our food as if it were our last meal. I didn’t care; I just wanted to fill up on some good food.

After we finished eating, we went our separate ways to find the PX, phones, or whatever else would occupy our time before we had to leave. I went back to my vehicle stuffed and happy and lay down by the tires to catch a quick nap.

Finally, everyone got the call to mount up. I checked to ensure all my team members were back and accounted for, and Sergeant Krall did the same with the crew. Once the convoy completed their radio checks, the convoy was on the move again.

Day turned to night. All vehicles were ordered to turn on their blackout lights. We continued to stop every hour to conduct vehicle checks. I donned my NVGs (night vision goggles) so I could get a better view of the surrounding area. The scenery was the same the whole way: garbage, broken-down vehicles, dead animals. It was such a sad sight to take in, especially knowing how privileged we are in the United States and how much we take it for granted.

Eventually, I switched positions with Forsyth, and I had Shearer do the same so we could rest our eyes. However, it wasn’t much better sitting down than standing up.  The scout compartment in the back of an LAV is approximately six feet wide and six feet long. It has two vertical doors on the back of the vehicle to let the scouts out and two horizontal hatches on top of the compartment for the scouts to stand up through. Running down the middle of it is a bench that faces both ways and takes up about two feet. So this leaves about two feet on either side of the bench for rifles, ammunition, gear, and legroom. I am six feet tall, and there is probably enough legroom, with everything else taken into account, for someone who is five feet tall. When all the gear and sea bags crammed into the scout compartment were taken into consideration, that room was cut in half. So it was an extremely uncomfortable sleep. My knees were up by my head. I was using my flak jacket as a headrest. My Kevlar helmet straps kept choking me. I was sweating profusely. I would have given anything at that moment for a nice feather pillow and a comfortable mattress.

After what seemed like an eternity, I was awakened by Forsyth asking to sit down. I got myself in order, grabbed my rifle, and let Forsyth take a nap. I looked over to Herman, who was still standing up, and I swear it seemed as if he was enjoying himself. I called over to him, and he turned around and gave me a big shit-eatin’ grin and a thumbs-up. Good ol’ Herman. He never seemed to care about anything; he just wanted to do his job and be done with it.

Around midnight, we met up with a few Army military police Humvees around the intersection of MSR Tampa and Mobile. They were assigned to escort us to Camp Baharia. Lucky them. A couple of the Humvees took up point, and the rest took rear security. The guys looked as if they were experienced. The gunners were low in their turrets, and they were constantly scanning. We new guys were exposing more than half of our bodies by standing up in the back and in the turrets. If an IED had exploded, it would have killed a whole crew.

It wasn’t long before we passed the now-infamous Abu Ghraib prison. At night it was the most visible structure standing. It was lit up by a few floodlights. Concertina fences surrounded the whole encampment. Dirt mounds had been built to ward off any vehicle suicide bombers. To enter the compound, one had to go through a maze of obstacles that were placed to repel car bomb attacks. Guard towers were placed strategically around the base to provide the most protection. It was a virtual fortress, but one that was prone to many attacks.

From Abu Ghraib to Camp Baharia was only about eight miles, but it took us nearly thirty minutes to get there because of the slow speed at which we were traveling. Once we arrived at the road leading to the base, the Army MPs separated from our convoy, and we headed toward the base. Camp Baharia was adjacent to Camp Fallujah, the main Marine Corps stronghold in Fallujah. Both bases were less than a mile away from Fallujah, which was a major advantage for the insurgents.

As we approached our new home, the moon lit up the walls of the base. It looked completely deserted compared to Camp Fallujah. The only thing I noticed were a couple of Marines posted in the guard towers with their thermal sights scanning for any insurgents who were crazy enough to attack the base.

Great, I thought. Here we are stuck at the worst base in all of Iraq. Nothing that we had been told of the base was true. No place to sleep, no Burger King, no PX. Typical. What else did I expect? I was a Marine Corps grunt; we always got the short end of the stick.