Tanker Bob

It was supposed to be a pretty low key day. In the morning a bunch of us suited up, and drove outside the gates to a neighboring Iraqi Army compound to get in a little target practice. It turns out that the most noteworthy event dropped into our laps accidentally as I was pulled into a hallway conversation at the battalion TOC (Tactical Operations Center).

I thought it would be an awesome Hoo-AH! opportunity for Bob. I thought it would be fun. Well, I was right on the first count, but way wrong on the second. Command dangled an mission in front of me and I eagerly snapped it up. We'd been working with infantry since entering the country, and now here was mission that was all heavy armor. So, in the dead of night a patrol of M1A2 Abrams tanks clanked through the gates and into the streets of Baghdad with Bob wedged into one of the gunners' seats. I thought it was only going to be a patrol for a couple of hours. It turned into eight tortuous hours of nearly unbearable heat in claustrophobic confines. By the time Bob dragged himself back to our room at about 6:30 AM, he was thoroughly drained. It turns out that tanks are much smaller on the inside than you might think, and Bob is a big fellow. It also turns out that tanks are not air conditioned, so the heat generated by all their systems as well as their turbine engines can be murderous - especially in the Iraqi summer. At the end of the day, however, Bob did get a figuratively very cool tank mission through the streets of Baghdad under his belt. An ancillary benefit to the mission was that the patrol found a very large IED that easily would have increased the casualty figures of which the press is so fond had it detonated according to the terrorists' intent.