Had any close calls during your deployment?

2016-03-01T05:48:37-05:00

My most recent close call. A rocket blasts through my room
in Afghanistan right after I left for the bathroom. Good thing I decided not to hold it.

Response by PO1 William "Chip" Nagel made Mar 1 at 2016 5:52 AM

2016-03-01T05:52:07-05:00

Front Row for Mt Pinatubo Count? Or watching a SM-2 Surface to Air Missile get Homesick and try and come back home. I think Yours is a riot!

Response by LCDR Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 8:21 AM

2016-03-01T08:21:55-05:00

A few..

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 9:02 AM

2016-03-01T09:02:59-05:00

More than I can count.
Both my armor and my vehicle took several hits.

Response by SSgt Dan Montague made Mar 1 at 2016 10:07 AM

2016-03-01T10:07:23-05:00

Had a few. This is a bit weird. We were ashore firing artillery in Kuwait and our ship was cutting gator squares in the Persian Gulf. Our last day there as we were embarking onto the ship we got hit with a massive sandstorm. Our ship got underway off the coast of Kuwait and was doing gator squares. The storm had blown out to sea. It looked as if we were going through really thick fog. The sand was doing a number on the ship. The air intakes were getting clogged with sand it was so thick. I was below decks when over the 1MC there is yelling. "CAPTAIN TO THE BRIDGE! CAPTAIN TO THE BRIDGE! CAPTIAN TO THE BRIDGE!" An alarm sounded and the entire ship shuttered as we sped up. Come to find out a massive tanker came out of the storm heading straight for our starboard side. We sped up and they went hard to starboard. When we where out of danger the other ship was parallel to us a bit closer than a resupply ship would be for an unrep.

Response by SFC Tyrone Almendarez made Mar 1 at 2016 10:12 AM

2016-03-01T10:12:02-05:00

This was my TOC in FOB Shkin 03'. A 107mm rocket landed right on it. I had just left a briefing 5 min before.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 10:39 AM

2016-03-01T10:39:36-05:00

Sir, I had some close ones, BUT NOTHING like yours. You had a SERIOUSLY golden horse shoe working for you.

Response by CPT Aaron Kletzing made Mar 1 at 2016 11:16 AM

2016-03-01T11:16:29-05:00

wow, glad you're safe!

Response by SN Greg Wright made Mar 1 at 2016 3:12 PM

2016-03-01T15:12:04-05:00

Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member I was on board the USS Wichita during an UNREP with the Enterprise (Carrier) alongside to port, and the Long Beach (Nuclear-powered Cruiser) alongside to starboard. If you've never seen an UNREP, there's 2 or 3 ships travelling alongside one another on the same course (obviously, and hopefully!) at about 12 knots, approximately 60' apart. I was standing on the deck talking to a chief who stopped mid-sentence (he was facing the Long Beach, I had my back to her) and said, 'What the fuck?!' and started running down the deck towards the deck officer, yelling. Of course, by that time, he wasn't the only one yelling, and by time I turned around and figured out what was going on, the klaxons were screaming and they were calling for emergency breakaway over the 1MC -- the Long Beach had lost rudder control and was drifting towards us. Remember, we couldn't just turn away because 1. We were physically attached to both other ships and 2. we had to wait for the Big E to accomplish her own emergency breakaway. By time it was all said and done and we'd finally turned away, you could literally have jumped from my ship to the Long Beach. No big deal, you say? Consider: 8 reactors on the Big E, 2 on the LB, thousands of tons of ammo and thousands of barrels of jp5 jet fuel on the Witchita. So a collision, even a glancing one, had catastrophic potential. My guess is there were a lot of pairs of skivvies changed early that day. I know at least one pair was!

Response by SN Greg Wright made Mar 1 at 2016 3:13 PM

2016-03-01T15:13:53-05:00

Damn if I make fun of Air Force types ever again lol! (Ok, I will, but yeesh!)

Response by CPO Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 1 at 2016 4:53 PM

2016-03-01T16:53:36-05:00

which time? Have had so many.
Desert Strom, attached to I MEF TASK Force Troy deception task force. We were up on the border covering for the rest of the I MEF to pull around for left hook and breach. The third night we were placing the fake tanks that we had prefab and now we had to place them up front so Iraqis would think we were coming in at that side of the berm. We would roll around and make noise trying to lure them in and non of the other units knew we were operating in their area so someone called for fire support on that grid. Covering use was a Recon unit and they had some LAVs they were using as a TOC. Luckily SOME SHARP Cpl. was on watch and paying attention to the NET- freqs and herd that grid get called out and he stopped them right away and said " we have friendly working in that grid do not fire". We didn't know and the next day at mission brief the TOP told us that we came close to getting rained on and not the wet kind.

The other real close was my Vehicle rolled over an IED and we took some damage to the right rear of the MRAP. We had a duel PMC security team that was MRAP quailed and also drove the armed SUVs that all the other teams drove. Early that morning Paul the Team lead had to change from SUV's to the MRAPS because they had engine problems with one of the SUV's. So any way we were traveling on MSR brewers and predators and got hit on the off ramp. We had cameras in all the vehicles because it was a civilian PSD and that was mandatory after the Black Water Hit. The IED task force did a forensic investigation of the video and said the bad guy placed it to deep placed it around 12" and should have been 6" so it was a delay of the signal getting to the device and also delayed the blast so we past a little bit. All of those things factored into a small hit when it could have worse and if we were in the SUV would have been all bad.

Have many others like the invasion 2003 bridge site into Baghdad, we had to repair before all the troops went in, we had a small camp site and somebody through a hand grenade at us but it was a dud.

Response by Oliver Ognjenovski made Mar 2 at 2016 3:51 PM

2016-03-02T15:51:52-05:00

Yes I had a few of close calls in Kandahar(especially on Friday evening) and FOB Shank - Afghanistan.Very interesting thing no one close call during working in F2 Liberty base complex in Baghdad.