Stories from Drill (#2-Sgt Barrier)

OK, so Sgt Barrier isn't actually in the National Guard, he's a Reservist who works in the ADA County Sheriff's Office where I worked until just recently until their budget ran out. It's still a good story though.

So, first off, to me Sgt Barrier is Johnny so I'll just refer to him as that from now on since my foremost relationship with him is not military and we're not in the same branch. He has two stories that I thought were shareable on the blog.

The first was of the very beginning of his deployment to Iraq. He was a mechanic and was in Iraq a couple years back. He said the first few days they were really freaked out a few times when mortars hit the compound and they thought it was weird that they didn't really scare the guys who were already there. A few days in Johnny got called into his CO's office and while he was waiting he notice a pegboard on the wall with a map of the base on it. It was completely covered in little red thumbtacks. He asked his CO what they meant and was informed the little read tacks indicated all of the places where a mortar had hit in the last year. That freaked him out a bit.

Luckily though, the Iraqi's can't aim. Despite being there during a period where they had dozens and dozens of mortars hit his base the only had one casualty- another soldiers X Box. He said after a while you learned really well where the things would hit and they weren't really a problem although they were pretty ticked about the X Box.

He also told a story about an awesome picture they had in their shop. In it was a Talibani man on a camel. This man's eyes were all bug-eyed and he was obviously beating the camel trying to go faster. Right behind him, was an American F-16. Kinda reminds me of the saying they have about the Apache's, "Never run from an Apache, it just makes you die tired." I have to say, I'm glad to be on our side.