82 is bad. (Kinda lame)

The BBQ Pit
1

Yay! I’m back, and with a new computer too! But, before the party begins, let me tell a story.

So, a few days (or a week, or two, or however long it’s been) ago I posted to the “Fear and Loathing” pit thread (DtC, apology accepted, btw. But I will ruin a few of your days if you EVER call ANYONE a slave again) and then donned my body armor, soft cover, boots, canteen, and ammo pouch and went into my improvised fighting position. I’m waiting for my six hours to be up, so I can go sleep a bit then get back on and wander about the internet for a few before doing it all over again. Anyway, I climb into my hole and an hour passes. Then two. Then three. My buddy takes a nap. Gets up. Four pass. I take a nap. I get up. Five pass. Finally, it’s 1244hrs (local), the sun is beating down (but not badly, it was comfortable) when there is this odd puff of grey-black smoke in the distance.

So I say to myself: “Self, what do you suppose that is?” And I reply myself: “I really don’t know. Let us take a look through the field glasses and figure out what said smokey thing is!” Finally I reply: “Great idea Self! Now I know why we have these stripes!” I grab the hole’s glasses, and what the fuck do I see? Three arab-ish (I’m assuming they were arab, seeing as we were surrounded on all sides by friendly arab and arab-ish persons of the arabic persuasion) standing around a long tubelike structure. Panning around, there are three more tubes set up in a very, very similar fashion around there. They were well over 1000 meters away. There is a whistle overhead. The two combine to bracket the term “Mortar.” I turn and shout “Incoming!” into the compound right as a round of willy-pete (that’s white phosphorus) lands some five meters away from us. A piece landed in our inprovised fighting position, burning a hole in my teammate’s canteen cover. No big loss. Then the tubes start rocking.

These guys must have dumped some twenty to thirty rounds on us. These shells were landing in, on, and around our compound (well, mostly around as aparently the whole WP spotting round went over the other team’s head, even though it was right on…) It lasted all of about two hundered seconds, when the other guys packed it up and started running. Our team’s armored vehicles (I won’t say what they are, but it begins with a “T”, ends with a “K”, and the two middle letters are “You’re all gonna die now!”) and a few hummers take off in persuit but fail to capture or kill anything.

Fortunately, nobody was wounded (except the Navy puke, erhm, I mean, Ensign who is our translator, but only his pride was hurt as he shat himself and soiled his khaki trousers.) We took inventory of all equiptment losses. One GP-Large tent, housing our laundry facilities was hit by shrapnel. And one Temper Tent, set up for three guys was hit dead on. Yes, my friends, it was the tent of SSgt. Mang, SFC Rusty, and SPC4 Dallas. Lost items, five uniform sets (I lost one, Rusty lost three, Dallie lost one), the ONLY bottle of whiskey for twenty-plus miles in any direction, and a goddamned notebook computer. I don’t know whether it was being under fire, or what, but I can’t remember being angry. Hell, I guess those guys were trying to do their job (eg: Kill us and break our shit.) But, I do know that if I ever find out who the mortarmen were, I’ll shake their hands as I beat their faces (I’ll even grow a third arm to accomodate this.)

~Fush J. Mang

PS: Thank God, I’ll be rotating back in a month! Any Dopefests coming up?

2

Glad you’re okay, fush, but please clarify something for me: while I grok most of the lingo (isn’t willy-pete more of a naval term?), what’s the reference to “82” in the title for?

3

Willy Pete is used by all the services.

Does 82 refer to the 82nd Airborne Division?

4

82=82mm Soviet block mortar.

fushj00mang, if they were only 1000 meters away, why didn’t you just shoot the bastids. Your average Marine could have made that shot in his sleep. :wink:

Oh, and mortars suck. Keep your head down.

5

That would make more sense then my answer.

That would depend on what weapon he had at the time, for your standard M16A2 or M4, the Army marksman qualification goes out to 300 meters while the Marine goes out to 500 meters. Beyond that is heavy weapons or sniper domain. Also one has to deal with the rules of engagement for that area, though he could have (and probably did but didn’t include it in his post or didn’t have time) called the activity to the command for action.

no argument there, unless your on the sending end.

Stay safe out there

6

OK, I will admit to having had my doubts about fushj00mang, in the past.

But anyone whose response to a mortar attack is to start a Pit thread about it … is a Doper. No doubt about it.

7

Other people pit about traffic jams or obnoxious reliatives.

Fush pits because he lost his whiskey instead of his life.

“Kinda lame” my ass.

8

.Sig line! :smiley:

9

White phosphorus is used by all branches, usually as a marker (or, if improvising, to lay down a smokescreen). Yes, 82 does mean a Soviet Bloc 82mm medium mortar.

We had a pair of M4 carbines in our hole. Don’t know about you, but I’ve never been able to hit anything beyond 200m with one (although I rated ‘sharpshooter’ on the Marine KD course with the M16A2.) I wish I’d been in the IFP to my left. They had our outfit’s M240, and after a few seconds they did start rocking and rolling…but to no effect.

Sorry 'bout the title. I had an intro paragraph about why the Soviets are fucked up for using 82’s instead of say, NATO Bloc 81’s, but as it rambled I cut it out and forgot to retitle the thread.

And just for the record, I was more concered about my destroyed computer than my shattered whiskey bottle (although, also for the record, I would have probably been a little meaner if I’d known at the time.)

Thanks for the well wishes, but my fun in the sun (and hanging out with this joint forces outfit) will end soon. Back to the states (and maybe requesting another TDY to sunny Iraq? Who knows!)

10

At least I know what TDY means. Rest is pretty greek/geek!

Was in the AF, looonnnnng ago!