In October 2006, I was with 1st Cavalry Division and had deployed to Iraq. It was my first deploying to a combat zone. We were a fairly new platoon under a new Platoon Sergeant and Platoon leader. The only constant was our senior scout. Even he had only been in the platoon for less than a year. There were few veterans left from the previous tour, even though they contributed greatly to training for this deployment, I couldn’t help but feel an uneasiness when it came time to get on the plane and fly over. Nether the less, here we were. The platoon stayed in Kuwait for a few weeks, and we grew more and more nervous as we could feel the time getting closer to fly north. We had no clue as to where we were going, but we all …show more content…
We had only heard of this and had never seen anything like it before. As deadly as the EFPs were, the most feared course of action from the enemy was snipers. They were heavy in the AO and you never knew when they strike. The platoon Senior Scout, just as always, was the first on the ground. He would tell me from time to time that if anyone were to get hit, he would rather it be him than any us. -3- This was our Senior Scouts third deployment and each time he was on the ground, we all felt feeling of ease. After almost six months of three patrols a days for seven days a week, the platoon started to get a feeling of invincibility. We had had quick a few of near calls with EFPs, but no guntrucks had actually been hit. While we had been engaged quick a lot with small arms and RPGs, we always came out on top with minor or no injuries. While the platoon was on a high, we also started to argue and hold distain for one another. We had began to erode from within. It seemed as if nothing would fix us. It was April and the surge was happening. My platoon had spent months bouncing from location to location, clearing them and establishing security while small COPs would be