Same As It Ever Was Part II
We had several close ones yesterday. I recall on the first one, which was not very far away, hearing the boom, grabbing the radio and starting to move, saying “that didn’t sound like outgoing…” and when #2 hit in the same general not very far away “twasn’t!” and sprinting for the bunker. #3 hit with an odd extra something to it as we slid into the bunker. We kind of looked around at each other, wondering what that was. Whatever it was, it was really close. I don’t recall anything interesting about #4 though it was still in the vicinity. While Opsguy was taking accountability, I responded for him on one of the subcontractor radios. The subcontractor guy is someone that no one likes, on account of he’s a major weasel. No offense to any weasels, of course. It doesn’t help that his last name is Anal. No, that just doesn’t work out to his benefit at all.
Anyway, he babbles out that one hit the t-wall production area, which is 30m away from the office, and maybe 25ish meters from my container. Thank Jeebus for the t-walls between us and there, huh? I told him to try and get accountability for his people but stay hunkered down. He was a little panicked at the time, but that’s forgivable. Luckily, maybe even amazingly, no one was hurt in this.
We wandered over towards where it happened and watched from near the opening of our series of t-walls. A few things became apparent. The odd noise was 60mm mortar meeting a large rebar pile. Mr. Anal was also trying to move his people around between bunkers instead of just dealing with the dog pile for the closest bunker. Here’s the rule: when you’re getting shot at, everybody can fit! There’s always room for a few more.
We watched as the military folks showed up and did their crater analysis and such. The subcontractors left and would not be back there the rest of the day. Part of the reason for that is that a second round had landed there also, but it was a dud. They’d have to wait another 6 hours or so for EOD to get here and blow it up in spectacular fashion. It also became obvious that (did you just hear a thump?) 30m is a small change in probability. I didn’t like that at all, and it started to bother me, but not near as much as THAT GODDAM WHIZZING THAT’S HEADED OUR WAY!!!
At the base of the t-wall, there is sand laid in to sort of flatten the area. On top of this is laid the ever-present rocks. This cuts down on the dust in a vague sort of fashion. The majority of the rock here is fairly small and round. Some are bigger than others. I’m not sure which size is responsible for the scrape on my knee. I notice these rocks are all quite dusty. I too, am dusty. The rocks fascinate me from this close, and I can see that I have never really stopped to consider them in all their glory. I need to stop and smell the roses every so often. We have no roses of course; but we do have the rocks. The whiz stops, but the world does not; HALLELUJAH for duds! My impromptu amateur geological survey is at an end. Now it’s time to be in the bunker again, which takes me approximately -5 seconds. I moved so fast I went back in time. Security man calls the all clear, however I wait in the bunker until the time for that second round of this salvo to well and truly pass. He’s really blowing the judgment call on this. Sometimes it takes those guys a minute or two to re-adjust positions, you know. It must be the quickest all clear in the history of mankind. Hmm, no. That would be the time the all clear was given over the radio, and was punctuated by a long burst of gunfire. On the other hand though, that was actually kind of funny. This is simply stupid.
So I am a little shaky after this one, I must confess. My knee is not bad, I’ve actually only barely ripped off some skin under my jeans, but not enough to even draw any blood. The main damage is to my nerves and cleanliness, due to the aforementioned rocks and dust. Maybe we could have a detail to dust the rocks. 
Ending score: 4 60mm mortars and 1 107mm rocket on the FOB in addition to 4 60s and a 107 that were duds. That’s right kids, fully half the ordnance they fired at us just went “thump” instead of BOOM! Ok, that’s not true, because it’s a question of time frame. It didn’t go BOOM until those helpful EOD kids stopped by later in the afternoon. These guys must be more conservative than the old guys, because I don’t think they used more than a couple of pounds of C-4 to blow the 60 next door. The old guys would have used at least 4 times that amount I think. They were…thorough. 
I have to shout out to the “FIRE IN THE HOLE!” guy because he could really project. I’m pretty sure they heard him downtown.
It was kind of funny to leave the bunker, and then re-enter it quickly upon realizing we still had rocks and crap raining down. I am not referring to actual crap, by the way. Just generic stuff departing the sky in favor of the ground. We had rainers earlier during the actual attack, but to be honest with you I didn’t notice.
I also should mention that Security man didn’t want it broadcast when we got the “boom 8-10 minutes from now” message from EOD. I swear the bullshit use and misuse of Opsec here is frankly disgusting. There are some clueless damn people making decisions I do not think they are qualified to do. They twig on silly stuff, but let major things slide. Now, they often forget to announce controlled blasts to the general public, but EOD told us about this one, on account of stuff would be falling into our AO. If Abdul is smart enough to listen in on our radios, he’s prolly smart enough to figure out that he only heard 5 of 10 expected explosions. He knows he put out some duds. With the locals and / or a pair of binoculars he knows generally speaking where his rounds hit, though generally speaking… I don’t think he truly cares. Simply hitting in a 1 sq mi area constitutes a victory to celebrate. Oh well, enough of that. Yall have a nice day. I’m going to bed. Mr. Bad Man usually sleeps late, and seems to prefer to terrorize his neighbors at night so he doesn’t have to travel as much. Usually.
