This time 20 years ago, I was in the Iraqi desert, north of Al Nasiriyah. I still remember the details to that mission. There are times when my wife would hear about the battles as I slept. Souvenirs from the war, itself.
Anyway today on our campaign anniversary, I write about the Renegades. An Unofficial Mixed Section from 2nd and 3rd Platoon, HHB 82nd Airborne Division Artillery. We did things that you'll never read about in historical books. Back then we didn't have embedded news reporters. IMHO, that is a good thing. For some reason, we became the Gophers for the unit. When our commander wanted something, It was up to the Renegades to get it. Our unofficial motto: "Ask us no questions, we tell you no lies".
During the early days of Desert Shield, the 24th Mechanized Infantry was making its way into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. By that time, many units in the 82nd Airborne (Forward) was low or out of our basic combat load of batteries for our communications equipment. Well members of the Renegades got in our Humvees and drove down the road to the 24th ID's Supply depot. In not so many words, we relieved them of their combat load of batteries. We collected enough for all of 82nd Airborne Divarty's Gun Batteries (similar to Companies).
Another acquisition was at, what we called, "Superleg City". The 18th Airborne Corps Logistic Base. The Renegades had just gone to Kentucky Fried Chicken downtown and ordered 3 buckets of fried chicken for the platoon back at base camp. We were at the Logistic warehouse trying to get some supplies. The female NCOIC, a Master Sergeant, somehow smelled our fried chicken in our Humvee. She offered a trade of whatever we wanted for our 3 buckets of chicken. My Platoon Sergeant agreed. We acquired lots of new camo nets, and other needed equipment for our regiment. We went into that warehouse empty, we left with our Humvees full to the brim. We had to ride on top of all our new equipment back to our base camp.
Just before Christmas 1990, the Renegades relieved several cases of socks from a supply depot. Our battery had enough pairs of socks for every member of our battery.
When we deployed forward to our staging area at the Saudi-Iraqi border. The renegades continued its black ops acquisitions. Log Base Charlie refused to send us a water tanker to replenish our unit with potable water. Undaunted the Renegades acquired a huge water tanker at the Log Base and parked it a couple of Klicks (Kilometers) from our base camp in the staging area. Our supply guys came out and refilled our water buffaloes and water containers full of water. We had enough water for everyone to take a shower for the next couple of days. After we were done with that tanker, we parked it along the major highway heading to the Log Base.
During the Ground War, the Renegades were still doing its Black Ops. But we were no longer targeting friendly units. We were going after Iraqi Units. We acquired several Iraqi infantry vehicles on several of our excursions. Those were easy to find. They were abandoned all over the Iraqi Desert. We were trading with Bedouins for real food like chicken and lamb. You can only eat MRE's for so long. This was done in between battles like Talil Airbase and Al Nasiriyah. Our biggest find was finding cases of mint condition Russian made AK-47 rifles and ammunition for every member of our battery. I was upset when we had to turn-in our AK-47's before we got on the plane heading back to the world after our mission was accomplished.
That was the fun part of war. I don't like writing about the other stuff.
Is it all true? "Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies".
HOOAH RENEGADES!
No comments:
Post a Comment