Chris' Deployment Journal

Our Medic, Spc Jared "Doc" MacKenzie, celebrates my having rolled out of the gate (of our patrol base) six times in about 26 hours.

Just as we're about to pack up and leave, we get the call that there's yet another suspected IED for EOD to check out, and they need another escort to the site.

Blissfully, someone somewhere realizes that now, around 9:00, we should be off QRF so that next EOD escort mission falls on another platoon in our company. We roll back to our base, finally off of QRF.

We get back around 9:30 AM. Unfortunately though, because of the guard duty schedule, three guys (Spc Wilson, Spc Timmons and Sgt. Stuart) step off the trucks and immediately walk right onto guard towers for an eight hour, very hot guard duty shift. (Thankfully I wasn't scheduled to be on until the 5:00 PM shift.) While my day was certainly long, theirs became a whole lot longer.