I’m on a world tour with Mohammad my man

by ezy at 10:39 AM on December 08, 2003

I haven’t posted anything about my military travels but I talked with one of my friends I was deployed with the other night and he reminded me of the following. I believe it’s time for a short story about Bosnia-Herzegovina.

I deployed to this wonderful country in late 1995. The situation there was horrible and it was decided that the presence of American troops was the only way to stem the bloodshed. Fine with me, I had been back in the US for about six months and was getting a bit antsy to leave again. We set up camp in a farmer’s field, after it had been cleared for mines, and set about doing our jobs. We ran a radio station called Radio IFOR to get information out to the civilians in the area so there would be, hopefully, no misunderstandings of why we were there and to provide them with information. After about six weeks the 1st Armored Division finally made it over the Sava River and into the Tuzla area. With the 1st Armored came luxuries like a mess tent and showers. We had gone about eight weeks or so washing out of our canteens and eating MREs so we welcomed the change. Another thing came with the building of Steel Castle Camp, Bosnian women. These women were absolutely gorgeous. Before long one was taken with me and life was a bit better. Her name was Svetlana and she had long dark hair, dark eyes and a body to kill for. This woman could’ve been a model in any other setting and I was amazed she wanted anything to do with me. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth I gladly accepted her advances. I met a guy there, from the 1st Armored named, no shit, Hercules. Herc was a cool guy and we got along famously. He hooked up with Svetlana’s best friend, who also worked at the camp, and all was well. A few months into this Svetlana came up with a plan for us to sneak out and join them for a night of wild fornication at a luxury hotel a few kilometers away. We didn’t accept right away and told them we’d have to think about it. Getting caught outside the gate, in civilian clothes, would get us both Article 15s, at the least, with a lot of extra duty tacked on. I mean, these girls were hot but that was a lot of trouble and things that could go wrong to risk. Well, after much deliberation we decided to do it. The concertina wire surrounding our camp was three deep, two high and had motion flares attached to it to alert for intruders. There were, also, two gates manned 24/7. This seemed pretty daunting to me but Herc had helped string the concertina wire and set the trip flares so he knew of a place where it would be possible to get out. This bothered me for a while afterward because if we could get out then someone could get in. Anyway, the appointed date arrived, we dressed in civvies and, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, walked to the point Herc thought we could sneak out of with little or no problem. We, sure enough, were able to escape without drawing any attention.

The ladies were supposed to meet us on the road at 8pm and we weren’t disappointed. They were right on time. I thought one of them owned a car but they had talked one of their friends into giving us all a ride to our destination. We arrived at the resort and I was surprised to see so many, obviously military, guys in there seemingly doing the same thing we were. We all smiled and nodded at each other like the co-conspirators we were, ordered up drinks and set about getting wasted. The ladies’ friend was supposed to come back and pick us up at 3am or so, so we decided to retire to our rooms and release the hounds. Well, 3am rolled around and guess what? No friend. It’s not like everyone and their Mother carries cell phones over there either so they couldn’t call to find out the deal. We were effectively screwed. We had no idea of how we were going to get back by the time everyone else got up and we were reported missing so we did the only thing we could think of. We started walking. Now I wasn’t really paying extremely close attention on the drive over but knew it was one fuck of a long walk. Action seemed more favorable than inaction so we decided to give it a try. About an hour and quite a few miles into the death march a bus came lumbering up the road. We flagged it down, explained that we were American soldiers trying to get back to our camp, and asked the driver if he would be willing to take us there. He seemed a little hesitant so I pulled out all of the money I had left which was about $100 American. Herc also pulled out about $70 and we handed it off to the driver. I’m not sure how many days pay that might have been for the guy but he said ok and off we went. Whew! We had a ride back but our enemy now was the sun which was already lightening the sky. We snuck out in the dark and, with the location of the guard gate, I didn’t think we’d be able to get back in the same way during daylight. That bothered me quite a bit. I really didn’t want to have to explain why we were in civilian clothes, sneaking in and setting off trip flares on the perimeter. Things weren’t looking great for us but we had to try. The bus driver dropped Herc and I off on the main road and we started down the secondary road that would take us to great relief or great troubles depending on if we got caught. We were halfway there when I heard engines coming toward us. We slipped into someone’s back yard and hid until the convoy passed. We decided to take the back yards and the fields to get back to our entry point. This makes my blood run cold to this day thinking about it. The amount of mines buried in that area were numerous and there seemed to be a story, in the paper, every day about some kid getting a leg blown off. I, needless to say, was not very happy about having to traverse territory that hadn’t been cleared for mines. I definitely preferred getting caught to losing a limb but just kept a close watch and trudged on. We finally got back to the point we left from and it was truth time. This was the last bet for all of the marbles. We checked the guard shack and there didn’t seem to be anybody there. They were probably huddled around the heater because it was cold as hell. I went first and got through with no trouble. Herc came next with the same result. We were almost home free. All we had to do was walk through the camp in civilian clothes, which weren’t authorized, without running into an officer or higher ranking NCO. There was no way to sneak through the camp so we walked right through the center. Nobody said a word to us. We went to our tents, got our uniforms on, and prepared to face the day hung-over with no sleep. We both got through the day and never found out why Svetlana’s friend didn’t show. I never snuck out again and thanked the Gods that I didn’t lose a leg or get an Article 15. Damn I was stupid when I was younger.