My first narrative essay

By Chad L. Ries

 

It was a day in Iraq that I will never forget. My fellow soldier, Specialist Moore, was in the driver's seat of our HUMVEE as we were headed north to Baghdad on a supply run for our communications unit. As usual, we left our base just as it was getting dark and we had been on the road for over an hour. It was a clear night and a mostly full moon, so I was doing my duty as a passenger of the vehicle and I was looking out my window and door for any possible threats. Although, with the humming of the engine and Iraq's blatant lack of appealing scenery to keep my mind occupied, the thing I found myself doing the most, was trying to keep myself awake. All of the sudden time seemed to flash by and then drastically slow down as an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) detonated just in front of our vehicle on the driver's side.

As I now think back and try to slow down those first few seconds, I can see the bright flash erupting from the corner of my eye and all of the debris flying toward our windshield as the loudest "BOOM" I could ever imagine pulsed through the air. My eyes went black and although I was wearing my earplugs, my ears went silent. The next thing I remember was trying to push myself off of the passenger side door so that I could unbuckle my seatbelt, while I was screaming at the top of my lungs for SPC Moore to keep his head down. At this point, it was as if I was watching a movie and hearing the clock tick in the background, but every supposed second of the clock's ticking was delayed.

TICK!

I'm yelling at SPC Moore to stay down almost subconsciously while my mind tries to identify the situation. As I look around my mind begins to race: "We ran into a ditch. I need to check to see if anyone is hurt. I need to check if I am hurt. Is the vehicle on fire? Is the rest of the convoy going to stop for us or are they going to back off and take positions? Does anyone even know that we were hit? Are we about to get attacked?"

At about this time, for some reason, the scene from the movie Black Hawk Down appears in my head where the Somalis over run the helicopter and then drag the bodies of the American soldiers through the street. I quickly snap back to the situation and my brain continues to make its assessment.

"I need to get my seatbelt off and get us out of the vehicle! Moore looks like he is in shock and doesn't know what to do! My seatbelt is caught on my body armor! I need to get him moving and get us both out of this vehicle! My seatbelt won't come undone!"

TOCK!

I manage to get my seatbelt undone by loosening my body armor and relieving the tension on the belt. I then crawl over to SPC Moore's side and start immediately hitting him to ask if he is O. K. I then start pointing to the passenger's side rear door while repeatedly yelling, "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!" as I make my way to the door my mind takes over again.

"We need to get out of this death trap! I need to make sure that we have our weapons in case we are taking fire! The Army needs to do something about these heavy ass doors; they are too hard to open! It looks safe out there. There is another HUMVEE right behind us upside down in the ditch. Moore needs to get his butt out here; he doesn't look fazed at all anymore. Oh no, he does have something coming from his ears! He wasn't wearing ear plugs, that idiot! Hurry up Moore! I'm glad I had my ear plugs in this time, even if it was only because of the engine noise. Is someone moving in that upside down HUMVEE? Oh my God! They are in the water! Moore can handle himself, I need to help the other truck!"

TICK!

I run up to the other vehicle and begin trying to open the driver's side door; because the vehicle was at such an angle in the ditch, I knew I couldn't open the passenger's side door. As I start opening the door I can see the driver pressing on it from the inside and that the vehicle is taking on water. As I'm forcing the door all of the way open, I start pulling the driver out of the vehicle when someone else runs up next to me and begins to help. We keep pulling on the driver, but he keeps getting caught on the steering wheel. So as I try to reach in to unsnap the driver's body armor at the same time the guy next to me give one huge tug on the driver, smashing my head up against the truck. However, despite my now throbbing head, the driver is being pulled free. All of the while my mind continues to process thoughts at an almost alarming rate.

"The Army really needs to lighten these damn doors! This driver wouldn't hurt to drop a couple of pounds either! Oh great, someone else is here to help! The passenger isn't moving! This guy's body armor is a pain in the ass. His ammunition keeps getting caught on the steering wheel. Maybe if I reach down and push .. OUCH! That piece of crap about knocked me out again trying to pull out the driver! I need to get in here and get the passenger out. Wow, this truck stinks. This guy is out cold. This guy might be dead! He's not responding to anything I do! I need to start getting him out! Who the hell is pulling on me?"

TOCK!

As I turn around I see two other soldiers. The one closest to me has a knife and is yelling something at me that I can't understand. However, by the hand motions, I can tell that he wants me out of the way. So with the help of somebody behind me pulling, I work my way back out of the truck to give the other two soldiers room. They almost immediately began pushing the passenger out of the same door that I was just pulled from. However, the guy that pulled me out was in the way of the passenger because he was trying to see if I was O.K. I barked at him, "GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY YOU IDIOT, I'M FINE! GET THIS GUY OUT!"

We managed to get the passenger to the ground just as some of the medics in the convoy pulled up. This is where time and my heart rate started to come back to a more regular pace as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do next. I knew that I probably had a concussion and was in a decent state of shock, but I also knew that the guy on the ground in front of me was our only priority at the moment. I did a quick scan of the area to make sure I didn't need to help anyone else and then I headed back to my truck to retrieve SPC Moore and figure out what the status was with the situation.

Once all of this was said and done I reflected on it constantly over the next couple of weeks. I always second guessed myself, my actions, and my thoughts. I would run over everything in my head time and time again trying to figure out what I could have done better or what I should have been thinking. But it wasn't until I finally talked to one of my friends that I started to be a little more at ease. He had heard the story several times from both myself and other members of the convoy, and he told me that I can't change the past but I can affect the future. He also told me that if I wanted any future at all that I need to stop thinking about the past so much and just accept that I'm a hero and move on.

Now it might sound obvious as a reader, but until this point I had never considered myself a hero. I am also a very modest person and find this accusation rather hard to handle. However, after I sat down for a while and thought about it, I knew my friend was right. It was somewhere about that same time that I remembered myself having that thought about the Somalis over running the helicopter. Reflecting on that memory, a quote from the movie popped into my head that I don't think I can every forget, "Nobody asks to be a hero, it just sometimes turns out that way." (Scott, 2001)

 

Bibliography

Scott, R. (Director). (2001). Black Hawk Down [Motion Picture].