"Woah" (mimicking Joey from Blossom)

It has been a crazy two nights. It's 7:44 PM on Wednesday May 8th. Two nights ago I could hardly sleep. The sound of .50 cal machine guns rang throughout the night. They sounded as though they were only a few blocks away although I am guess they were about 1000 meters. Somewhere between 3 and 5 AM a loud explosion rocked BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) where I was staying until I can get a flight to Taji. The explosion happened at just the right time. It was as if the insurgents knew right when I was about to fall asleep and decided to let one off. Strange as it was. The .50 cal fireing continued all morning and I finally passed out around 0600.

I was awoken sudenly about 0720 from a voice over a loud speaker. It was very mumbled to me but I thought I heard "there will be head count in 5 minutes at the mall". I thought, "at the mall? How come the Major that explained where everything was, never explained this. Somethiing must have really gone down" I see Cross over on his bunk with one head phone out of his ear listening to the same loud speaker.

"What did he say" I asked.
"I am not sure, I think we have to meet somewhere" he replied.

Shortly after, 3 very loud explosions go off very close to the tent. It seemed as though there were 3 blocks away.

Hastely I took out my electric razor and started shaving and dressing at the same time. Cross gathered some socks, put his boots on and gathered his weapons.

I put my ACU pants on and socks, and was thinking to myself "shit should I wear my kevlar?" As I buckle my belt I look up and I see Cross walking out with his kevlar.

"I'm going to poke my head out and see what's going on"

I strapped my boots on and ACU top. I buckle my 9 mil holster to my hip and Cross comes rushing back in.

"What's going on out there?" I asked.

"Nothing, everyone is walking around like nothing is going on"

WHAT THE FUCK? How could everyone be just walking around like nothing is going on? How can they just be moeseeing around like this? Cross and I then decided to go brush our teeth and see what was said.

As it turns out what was said over the loud speaker was "detonation will begin in 5 min". So where I got my intel from I have no clue. My guess is, they had found an IED outside of the gates and had it detonated.

Last night we boarded a Chinook for our flight from Baghdad to Taji. It was my first time and it was pretty damn exciting. We carried our luggage onto the chopper. You can barely breath from the amount of air being forced to the ground when we boarded from the rear. The flight was only about 20 minutes long but it is, so far, the coolest vehicle I have been in. We flew in complete black out and I noticed the piolots wearing some sort of NVG's. Suh-weet.