Tuesday - August 02, 2005
 Fishing for Rifles
The 3/25 Communications shop is breaking its arms
to support the Marines in Haditha Dam. First, a corporal supporting us from the
regiment decided to take a short cut down a hill, tripped on the concertina at
the bottom and broke his arm. Then a satellite technician was helping build a
shelter and he fell back and in an odd fluke put a hairline fracture in his
wrist.But the one that takes the cake
for drama is when Sgt M fell down a 65 foot
hole.
Sgt M is one of the 4th Recon Marines like me
that were joined with 3d Battalion, 25th Marines to come out here in Iraq. As
the battalion wire chief sometimes, well, often times it falls on him to run
wire through the huge complex here, running wires under the dam gates, over
cranes, through machinery spaces, and the job never seems to end. But one place
he ran wire he never should have gone, down an access hole that was filled with
25 feet of water.
Sgt M was working with another Marine stringing
wire from the top of the dam to a platform ten stories below, when he stepped
back, tripped on a rock and fell down the
hole.It's a good thing he was running
wire, because he still had the wire in his hands as he fell. This kept him
upright as he plunged 40 feet into the stinking water below. The hole is only
about three feet by ten feet, and he banged his arm on some bars that were
sticking out of the concrete halfway down.
The first I heard of this was when his
work partner stepped breathlessly into the comm shop and announced with the
self-contradictory statement, "Sgt. M is okay, he broke his arm." Luckily it
turned out that he didn't break his arm, but it sure was black and blue. Oh,
and he has wire burns on his hands!So
Sgt M is safe and sound and all parties are happy. Well, not all. You see, Sgt
M, as is the rule here, had his rifle on his shoulder when gravity showed him
who was boss. And his rifle sling snapped and left his rifle at the bottom of
the water. All were not happy because the Marine Corps doesn't like to lose
rifles.Luckily, the battalion staff
learned that the Navy has some divers in the area. Navy divers in the middle of
the Iraqi desert must be really bored because they agreed to travel out to the
dam and retrieve the
rifle. It
only took an hour to get set up, and ten minutes in the water, and Sgt M' rifle
was safely back in the armory, satisfying the Marine Corps and some nervous
armorers. I explained to him that I don't ever want to see him with a rusty
rifle
again.Here's
Sgt M. holding his old rifle, right after the divers pulled it out of the
hole.
Go Back to the Start, Do Not Collect $200 Send me your two cents
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