Looking back on it I guess so, but I was mostly numb through the whole thing since I was so damn depressed. My team leader was a fucking psycho and I was just a high IQ lackey who didn't give a shit about dying. We ended up getting attached to a recon unit and went through all sorts of shit. Him and I ended up becoming the mos thighly decorated marines in our company because of those shennanigans. Also made the top brass reframe our MOS and highly discourage commanders from sending us out in combat, lol.
Here is one war story of mine:
My first mission outside of the wire started late at night and went early into the next morning. We were supposed to fly out to some farm to determine of some rando afghan dude had fertilizer that was capable of building IEDs. We went into his compound and sure enough he had a huge ass room filled with fertilizer that tested positive for ammonium nitrate. I remember sitting inside of the house feeling useless as all fuck, watching our local interrogator questing the guy while the owner literally just squatted down in the middle of his house and took a shit. The Lt. was busy writing up some sort of war check to compensate this Taliban sympathizer for the inconvenience.
Some time passed and then mortars started raining down on the compound and the snipers on the roof said there was movement. 1st Sgt said he knew this was going to happen and told everyone to run inside. My teram leader ran up to me with my rifle, giving me the most disappointing stare. I was green as fuck but it is like the ultimate sin for a Marine to part with his rifle. We literally are supposed to sleep with them and my dumbass left it leaning up against a wall in his house. Last time that happened.
Anyway I stopped being useless and pulled out a scanner from my backpack to see if I could do my job and try to see if I could catch anything on the airwaves. Managed to find something that had some primitive af encryption (if you could even call it that, they were using an old, early, WWII technique) and turned to my terp translate their comms for me. At this point I realized I was in the middle of his little crop field, way the fuck out in the open, ready to get my brains blown out. The recon first sgt was yellign at me and I just said I had to be out there to get the best reception. He just shrugged and let me do my thing. I managed to find some cover and my badass terp ran over to me to translate what was incoming over the radio. I relayed the frequencies to my team leader who then was able to tell where the signal was coming from, which helped the snipers eliminate the mortar team that they couldn't find. A small team of Recon Marines were sent out to verify the kill and later on the day we were on a helicopter back home. My team leader kept praising me on how I saved the day but I really felt nothing.
One one of the first of quite a few of our wacky adventures, I guess. Crazy thing is you come home and no one gives a shit. My team leader jsut went from asian brothel to asian brothel. He invited me, but I was a bluepilled retard back then who didn't want to fuck whores. smh
