Solo, but not really...

I was an IA, or Individual Augmentee. That means that another battalion, one that is not in my chain of command decided to have me mobilized and taken over to the sandbox with them. As I have mentioned before, due my previous affiliation with NMCB and many of its members, this worked in my favor, at least initially. Because of the amount of time that I spend with the detachment out of Everett, Washington, I was able to bypass the “get to know you” period of the mobilization process. That carried over to the first month of my time “in country”. Of course that changed once we, about 30 of us, headed “outside the wire” or the safety of Al Asad and made our way to Rawah.

Although I did know a couple of the guys, many of those that were assigned to this project did not know me and I did not know them. Although 497 of us made the trip to Kuwait and Iraq, I did not know many of them, at least not personally. This was not more evident than the lack of conversation while we waited for the “helo” on the flight line. A part of me knows that it was just the nerves but really we were all strangers. We jumped on the “helo” and headed out. Granted, you can’t have much of conversation with the constant “THWAP, THWAP, THWAP” of the props over head and the air rushing through the cargo area but still, I need to know who I am with, especially if the shit hits the fan, right?