"If We're Gonna Roll, Then Let's Roll"

I love days where nothing seems to be going right, but everything turns out ok. Or everything doesn't turn out right really, but it doesn't get me down.

Today was a day like that. Just another dumb mission driving all around Sector, preping for Elections and playing nice with Iraqi Police in the rain. (Even though one of our "Iraqi Partners" put a bullet into Sgt. ____ last week.) We get back to base three hours late just in time for the shit they sling in the DFAC and next thing we know we're back in the trucks covering down for another platoon. This time its going to sit in the dark and rain looking for the motha licka's that've been lobbing rockets into the FOB thrice weekly.

I get in the gun turrent and we get out into the fields, next thing you know the dirt canal road we're on starts to go and over goes the truck. Sideways stuck in the mud as deep as you can get it. We get out just fine, bumps and bruises and "I told you so's" but no worse for the wear. It takes a good three hours to get the wrecker out there, another hour and the wrecker's winch is broken, another hour getting the wrecker fixed and finally we're right-side up. The truck is hemorrhaging fuel and someone claims to see sparks coming out the back and we make the call to head for home.

We pull in and park the trucks, I check the time to find it's damn near 2am. But before bed we have to prep the trucks for the morning's mission, now a solid 6 hours away. Of course my truck is too fucked to roll in the AM so we get to prep a cold truck. Before we do that we have to find the key. Then empty out the back, which someone has used to store soccer balls and Barbie backpacks for the kids we hope grow up not hating the US of A. Good luck with that... All of this is happening of couse piece-meal because no one is communicating and half the platoon is already in bed. And of course its still raining and the ground is the stickiest, thickest mud in the world.

Finally I get to bed and I find out we have to remain in uniform and ready to roll out to support other night opperations in our sector until we leave for morning mission, now 3-ish hours from now. Glorious.

And yet I still feel ok. I feel fine. I'm irrationally happy in spite of my day. All the mud and rollovers and bullshit missions and crooked IP in the world can't touch me. I have no clue why, but I know better than to question it.