Eighteen years to the day and i remember everything like it was yesterday. I'm pretty sure i can describe the sounds if i had to retell this story to someone on the street. One thing i will do is never foget and appreciate those that gave the ultimate sacrifice that any American can give.
Here i go another year of sharing this story to friends and family that don't know what i and others go through every year around the holidays. This is why so many of us try to be to ourselves and think of those that are no longer with us.
Tuesday December 21, 2004
This morning at the end of my guard duty i came back to the room and immediately i crashed from being so tired. I don’t know what time it was but i remember Spc. Mason being in the room and we are being woke up by Spc. Ruhren banging on the door asking are we going to eat??? I can hear Nick getting dressed and rushing out the door. David then asks, “Hey motherfucker are you going to eat???” Of course i usually go and eat with these guys but today i had a strange feeling and decide on not going. So i tell Spc. Ruhren that I’m not going and responds back “Alright see you when we get back” I never thought about how important those words would be but i fell back asleep because I literally got two or three hours of sleep so far and I’m sure there will be some other bullshit I will have to do later today.
I remember being woke up to the sound of my door getting slammed and this time its Spc. Crippen in the room in tears saying “They are gone. They are all gone”. I’m still waking up looking at him rubbing my eyes because of the direct sunlight coming through the window. Still half confused i’m staring at Crippen and I’m thinking that maybe he missed the convoy over to the PX on Diamond? I’m trying to calm Crippen down by asking him what’s going on. He slowly tells me that he was walking up to the chow hall which is common that we will walk and sometimes catch the shuttle or catch a ride with someone because it’s like a mile to our chow hall. While he was walking up to the chow hall, he sees the tent explode and he tries to look for the guys in our platoon. At the time Spc. Crippen and I are thinking it’s a rocket that hits the chow hall. I’m still waking up and getting dressed and as i step outside that’s when reality hits me I see people from our battalion and other units running around and i see both Ssg. Rossin and Spc. Vitola is covered in blood with a blank stare and couple of other people i know crying and some people trying to get accountability of everyone and sensitive items. Ssg. Miller walks over to me shaking his head and tells me “Sgt. Swales a rocket hit the chow hall and Spc. Mason is dead, and no one can find Spc. Ruhren and i need you to go up to the chow hall and find their weapons and sensitive items and see if you can get a location on Spc. Ruhren”. Of course the reality of everything happening is still hitting me that something this crazy is happening. I see Cpl. Bell, Spc. Vitola and Spc. Scolari again and they tell me they were the last ones to see both guys. But no one knows where Spc. Ruhren is. I go to the Battalion TOC (Tactical Operations Center) to see if their sensitive items are turned in but the only thing i see is more of this reality i really don’t want to be in.
The TOC has a tracking list of names of those either KIA (Killed in Action), MIA (Missing in Action) or WIA (Wounded in Action) and i see Spc. Mason’s name on the KIA list and currently Spc. Ruhren is MIA status but no one has turned in their weapons or sensitive items. So I’m back out the door looking for Spc. Ruhren. Thousands of thoughts are running through my head about the whole incident and where could Spc. Ruhren be? That’s when Sgt. Byler who’s covered in blood smoking a cigarette sees me wandering around and he tells me that they took Spc. Ruhren to the CSH (Combat Support Hospital). So i have a sigh of relief that he will be ok. I’m still walking around just trying to process what has happened today. Spc. Russell from HHC sees me and is trying to talk to me to ensure that I’m ok but I’m just trying to process what has just happened and I barely notice her talking to me and now I’m thinking what is everyone at home hearing about? I already know i can’t call home because anytime something tragic happens all communication goes black which means all phones and internet is shut down. Now the entire Battalion is trying to comfort each other. Plus we still have to get ready for this mission tomorrow. The whole fact that we still have to get ready for a mission when one of ours is gone and we don’t know what happened to Spc. Ruhren is pissing me off.
For the longest time no one knew where Spc. Ruhren was or his status. Anyways it’s almost time to go out on mission and Chaplin Barnett gathered up the whole platoon for a word of prayer. As the platoon gathered in the TOC we all saw Lt. Lewis as he walked into the TOC and his face showed the bad news. That’s when he told us Spc. Ruhren died of his injuries. Literally that’s when all of us broke down. Spc. Hill snapped and was cursing about the whole situation “This is Bullshit, Why the fuck are we out here doing this shit” we all understand what Hill is saying and where he’s coming from. For once we were all in unison on something. I remember hugging Spc. Crippen when we got the bad news. Plus we still have to go on this mission for some fucked up reason. I can say that thank god we had Sfc. Krause and he gave us a good speech but for now no one is probably listening because of raw emotions right now. Apparently, we are going back to the Al Shahaddah Bridge and they are expecting us to have some action and right now i don’t think that’s a good idea for the bad guys to try to come fuck with us. Anyways it’s going to be a night operation and they want us to try to get some sleep before we go on mission. There’s so much going through my mind right now.
Today is my mom’s birthday and i don’t know how the family is reacting to this news back home. No one knows if I’m ok or not. Shit Nick and David’s family haven’t gotten the bad news yet and now I’m the primary .50 Cal gunner until I’m dead or someone else wants the job. All i want to do is go home and get away from this craziness and now we are down two of our best soldiers in the platoon. Plus Cpl. Hursh is at the CSH as well because he was injured in the bombing as well. Come to find out it wasn’t a rocket that hit the chow hall, but it was a suicide bomber that somehow made it onto base to do the damage. Now i have questions about that because i told the Mayor cell that i got Intel that there were bad guys on the base from the Iraqis that we were training to be EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) but they didn’t want to listen to me because I’m National Guard. If they listened to me maybe Nick and David would be here, and this bombing would never have happened. There are so many people that were injured in this bombing that i don’t see how we can still be going on mission and functioning as a Battalion. Even then where was the base security to keep shit like this from happening? This is something that has me asking more questions than answers and I don’t have time to try to figure all this out. Now i just need to get some sleep for this mission and try to focus on getting home in one piece. All I can do now is pray for Mason’s and Ruhren’s family. It’s fucked up that this had to happen today.
