Let's Roll

Just like every other little boy growing up I thought it would be really cool to be a fireman. To slide down the pole pull on my gear and race off to save the world or whatever kitten might be stuck in a tree.

While doing our usual rotations out at the patrol base the action has it’s high and low points. That can actually be said about this whole tour. It is never ending series of moments of the most agonizing boredom followed by absolute unfiltered chaos. You will be sound asleep in a bunk at the patrol base when someone swings open the doors and says the almost famous line of “Lets Roll! We are going REDCON1!”

[Military Jargon Training: REDCON is the Army way of deciding what kind of waiting posture you will be waiting at. There are different degrees of REDCON. You have one, then one point five, then two and so on. I don’t know what the all are. I just know 1 and 1.5. “One point five” not “one and a half” is for everyone to be standing by their vehicles (which are off) with their gear on or right there ready. REDCON 1 is just a step up from that, everything on, everyone in the vehicle, vehicle running, waiting to move. Class complete. You get an A.]

When this happens it is followed by everyone in the CHU’s scrambling to get their gear, lace up their boots, wipe the sleep from their eyes and head out the door and on to the vehicles.

We have to go REDCON 1 for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes a helicopter will see something they want us to check out, sometime a helicopter will “light someone up” and all we are doing is picking up body parts or in the worse case scenario’s a patrol passing through will take a catastrophic hit from an IED and we will head out to provide support. It’s always something different; it’s always exciting, half the time you don’t even know why you are running around getting ready until you are headed out the gate. I wouldn’t say it’s something that I look forward too, but it is not something I cringe at the thought of either. Its part of my job and it’s as close as being a fireman and racing off the save a kitten in a tree as I will get.