During my four years in the Army I developed some very close bonds with the guys that I served with. While you are always at the Army’s mercy and have to go wherever they want to send you I was fortunate enough to spend most of my 4 years with the same core group of guys. I think the fact that we all went through some extremely uncomfortable and dangerous situations together only strengthens that bond. When I was in the Army, both on deployment and in garrison it was just like any other situation in life. There were people that you liked and didn’t like, but whether you liked them or not you always knew that you could count on them if you needed to, and they knew they could count on me if they needed to.
During my fifteen month deployment I was a machine gunner. I carried the M240-B, which was a 30 pound machine gun that could be mounted on our Stryker vehicle, or could be dismounted and carried with me when we went on patrols. A majority of our time was spent outside the base and in the city. Much of that time was spent patrolling the city on foot, or in our vehicles. The uncomfortable quarters we were constantly in is part of the reason why I became so close with the guys I was with. In retrospect, it’s also probably the reason why I grew to dislike some people.
When we spent nights in the city we would usually either spend the night in a random house or in our vehicles. When we spent the night in a house it wasn’t a night in a hotel. It was usually a house with three beds for 25 guys and a pissed off family that didn’t really want you to be there. When we stayed in a house I usually decided to sleep on the roof with my mosquito net as a blanket. You had to live and sleep in very confined spaces with your buddies at all times.
The other option was sleeping in our vehicles. This was another story all together. Our Strykers were fairly large vehicles. Typically we had a driver, a vehicle commander, and then 7-9 guys that would sit on benches in the back of the vehicle. The back was about 5 feet wide, 10 feet long, and maybe a little more than 4 feet high. When riding in them there were benches on each side of it with a smashed pad to sit on that wasn’t much more comfortable then setting a piece of cardboard on a steel bench. When spending a day or more in our vehicles with 7 or more guys it was typically not in a friendly place. There was no getting out to stretch your legs, there was no laying down to get some sleep, and most unfortunately, there were no bathrooms inside or outside the vehicle that could be used. There is no need to get into the bathroom habits of soldiers, but over the course of 24 hours or more you can use your imagination to figure out how that worked.
Naturally such things forced the issue when it came to getting to know the guys you were with. It forced you to be close which in some weird way helped to bring everyone closer together.