I am okay, . Just with everything happening I just needed to type this. If this upsets people I do not know what to tell you instead of getting upset, if you went through this type your story. It has all been for nothing, it is up too us to always remember. This is worse than Vietnam, we knew better, we were not drafted.
On this date, our LT died . He was killed by a car bomb on route Santa Fe in Mosul Iraq, it was a convoy of four PLS gun trucks. We were carrying humanitarian, medical supplies, they always hit our convoys when we had a load like that. Never when we had ammo, water, or that fucking Haji milk you remember those milks?Only when we had , mail, medical supplies, or when we were escorting local nationals.

I was in the rear of the convoy the car they used was a ford pinto, I mean if you want dark humor how many people can say they were almost blown up by a fucking blue ford pinto.

Had it just been the blast that mission would have been a rad mission huge VBIED, like that we would have all had a great laugh. My unit would not fight so much. we fight so much, we did not fight as much when he was alive ,we picked on each other, never fought, his death killed our spirit.

That summer there was a funeral every other day. If you were not on mission it was mandatory that we went. a month before we had our first casualty a Sgt in 5th platoon. I think it would be better I do not mention names. He was killed by an anti tank mine buried in tire tracks out side of this base called FOB Hershey. It happened on ASR Hershey.

That day, I screamed I cried, like you ever read or see the show "Band of Brothers?" The episode the last patrol, there is a mail clerk invited on the last patrol, one of easy companies Soldiers gets killed, the mail clerk loses his shit and screams and cries, almost kills the prisoners. That was me.

That day. I almost killed two civilians, another specialist who was in the truck with LT, he grabbed the barrel of rifle and shoved it down, and screamed "Valdez put your fucking weapon down," like I had moved my switch to burst. I pointed it at the 10 years old's head first. then I was going to take out his dad. Honestly who the fuck speeds up on an American convoy that just got hit with a VBIED while our LT hangs out the window they could clearly see him dead, he was bleeding from his neck, his face, etc. I think they the insurgents forced them to drive into our convoy, or they were scouting.

We pulled LT out and he landed on me I kept screaming. The medic released me of my duty about 5 minutes after the Strykers showed up we were very lucky.

Like I said I had to type this, I changed my profile picture to his as I do every year on Facebook. However I stayed of of FB. I figured if I type this here it would be okay.

This is better than the VA, they only know by the book.

Even though I have yelled at the Afghan war vets, I hope you are all okay.

Take care.