Found some buried treasure today!

Well, not exactly buried treasure, more like war trophies. They may be worth something on Ebay too, I don’t know. It sure was like a buried treasure to me. Early this morning, while waiting for some of our trucks, Socks and me decided to check out the ‘Tomb Of The Unknown Solider’. I would’ve taken photos but I didn’t have my camera with me. We walked up to the top of the monument where all of central Baghdad could be seen. It was a remarkable site but I’ve heard of better view that I have access to.

There were stairs at the top that lead downstairs to what looked like an empty tomb. It was sort of scary at first, being completely dark inside with no one around. I started getting worried myself. It would be a good place for a kidnapping or for us to get killed. It was dark, secluded, and there were a lot of places to hide. Once I got downstairs I had the urge to wait for Socks to finish walking downstairs. I wasn’t going to enter that chamber all alone, not into a dark place like that. I couldn’t even see inside from where I was standing outside. I had my pistol ready. I asked Socks if he had his. “Nope” he said. “No! Where did you leave it?” “In the truck.” Man, that’s just great, I thought. Fuck! What if shit happens? This doesn’t look good. What the hell are we gonna do? I’d be all alone in a gunfight. Good luck to him!

I’m really glad I bought a sheath for my Surefire the other day. I can’t believe I was second guessing on buying it. I didn’t want to spend the money when all it cost was $5. It’s come in very, very handy. I’ve hooked it up to my pistol belt and now I have it everywhere I go. It’s been there when I’ve needed it so far and it came in handy again today.

Socks didn’t have a flashlight either. What gives with this dude! I know I love the man but come on! If your going to walk around in strange places at least go prepared! I at least had a buddy and wasn’t alone. It’s just that that buddy didn’t have a weapon or a flashlight, unless you consider a knife as a weapon. But then again, I don’t think he’s an expert with a knife either. If he were I wouldn’t have a problem with it. If it came down to he would have to stab people with his knife while I shot them with my M9. What fun that would be!

So we entered the room and I had the feeling that he had a little bit of fear in him too. I sure did. I couldn’t see anything in there but I was curious to check it out. So I flashed my Surefire in the back corner as soon as we entered the room and started scanning the room from one corner to the center, to the other corner. It made me wish that he had a flash light too so I wouldn’t be the only one scanning the room, flashing my light everywhere! It would’ve been better had he been scanning one side of the room for anything suspicious while I scanned the other half.

Well, the place had an eerie feeling. There was no lighting and we were in a complete dark room with lots of hiding spots. I opened up my ears to listen for any movements that might have come from inside. Now that I go back to think about it, I wish I had my pistol drawn, in case something came down. At least then would I have been ready. But that might have shown some overreaction on my part and I didn’t want to lose any bit of respect to my comrade from my show of fear. Had shit come down, I don’t think we would’ve been ready.

Inside the huge circular room were glass caskets all around. There were some on the walls and in a circular pattern all along the floor. What made it freakier was the fact that they resembled coffins made of glass, some being open. Those zombie movies got the best of me when I started thinking of the worst. Perhaps the doors would automatically shut on us and zombies would appear everywhere out of nowhere. I had my pistol and my flashlight so I was ready. Is it like those zombie movies when you have to shot them in the head? Does that really kill them? I had these freaking thoughts of zombies attacking us in my head. I don’t know about Socks, I had my flashlight, cross, and pistol ready for a fight with the Iraqi Soldier undead. Would they come back to haunt US GIs from the dead to get their revenge?

We looked around real quick while I told Socks what I was thinking. It was too dark and creepy in there for me. He didn’t have a pistol or a flashlight and I didn’t like the idea of being in there any longer than I had to. We did our looking around and GTFO (Got The Fuck Out). It would be safer outside, where we could at least see.

We went outside the monument when we linked up with ‘Daddy’, another Sergeant, and ‘BJ’ our interpreter. I’ve changed their names to protect their identities. There was another monument nearby that got my interest as well. I asked them if they wanted to check it out and they agreed. Inside is where we found the treasure. I’m not going to mention if we got it or not. We’re not allowed to collect ‘War Trophies’. We could get into serious trouble if caught with them. It’s nothing of significant value but it was of value to us. It may not even be of value to the local Iraqis, but to us, they’re War Trophies.

There’s one other thing I’d like to post and I’ll try to keep it short. This post is starting to get awfully long. In fact, I’ll just post photos here and describe a little what happened. This Humvee was driving along side our vehicles when all of a sudden it slid in the mud right into a ditch. I saw the whole event take place. At first I was a little worried that someone may have got hurt and by the significance of the accident. After I found out that no one got hurt I was amused by what had happened. I guess the driver got too close to that ditch. We were going to toe him out but found that impossible. He eventually got a crane to get his Humvee lifted out of the ditch and onto the road. The whole thing was funny, looking back at it! Everyone was capturing photos of it. I’m sure that driver was embarrassed and will hear about it for the next week. What makes it worse is that he’s a Staff Sergeant. Rarely see Staff Sergeants make mistakes like this one! Funny!!!