Speeding

We came upon a cordon on our route today. It sucked. At least it wasn’t during the afternoon or it could’ve been worse. I knew it was going to suck because they always do. We sit around and wait forever until the area is clear. I almost had to nerve to say, I’ll go check it out. Well, this time we weren’t going to wait for the bomb squad to come to the scene. We had one of our teams send out the robot, Johnny 5. That’s when we came upon another problem. The team that takes care of Johnny 5 didn’t bother checking his batteries before we left this morning.

They sent him out to check out the suspected IED. He got there and had no problem checking it out. His camera was all over the scene. Problem was he got stuck. His batteries started dying on him. He was lucky he made it back on the pavement and off the dirt down slope. Then he started having problems making it back to the Humvee. He wasn’t going to make it. We were a little worried about him. We thought that he might blow up with the IED. Luckily the IED turned out to be nothing and the area was cleared. Finally we were able to pass and move on through.

Well, we got into trouble today. Not me personally but The Colonel and Doc Ock. Doc Ock was driving for us today. Well, supposedly some Corps Command Sergeant Major pulled over one of our Humvees behind us. They were following us back to the pad and were going about the same speed we were. Well, when he pulled him over he busted them for speeding and not wearing their seatbelts. He took SGT M.’s name tape off his uniform and told him that he could get it from his Brigade Command Sergeant Major. Since we were together he didn’t have to pull us over. We didn’t find out about it until later in the day.

The PL came up to me and asked about The Colonel. I told him, “He’s probably in his room, why?” He said, “We have to see the 1st Sergeant because we were speeding.” Anyway, he said I had to go too. I couldn’t understand why, I was just a passenger. In fact, if the 1st Sergeant even asked me anything I’d probably tell him, “I didn’t know we were going that fast 1st Sergeant. I was sitting in the back, reading.” I was in the back seat and didn’t care to see how Doc Ock was driving anyway. I just couldn’t understand how I would be in trouble. Well, when we went to the 1st Sergeant’s office the first thing he said was, “Sergeant Puebla, you could go.” I was very relieved and got the hell out of Dodge. I didn’t want any of the wraths that were to come upon them.