Private Jake Robinson KIA: A Short Story

The story that this book tells is the personal story of the deployment of Nicholas Irving aka ‘The Reaper’ a Ranger sniper during a 100 day deployment to Afghanistan, during which this sniper has 33 confirmed kills. The author tells us of his feelings and his actions during the various encounters, and while he does not tell the story of each and every one of his kills, it shows stories of how the modern battlefield works in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.

An explosion rocked the town, widows shattered and cars alarms wailed, A line of twenty Abram tanks rolled side by side on parallel roads, through the town of Mesa Grande, but, all heading the same direction, to the west. Boom, boom , boom-boom, as the Abrams fired their 120mm M256 smoothbore guns in a hellish symphony toward their targets, the Heat rounds strike time and again on target, plumes of fire, smoke, and sand leapt in the sky, forming craters across the desert to the west of town.

Their leader lowered his head in defeat. He knew Hank was right. Reluctantly, he swung back into the drivers seat. His truck backed up, no longer barring our way. Scott started slowly, not wanting to startle our former foes. As we passed, I kept the barrel of the M60 trained on their leader's position. I wanted to maintain the feeling of superiority we had over them. I wanted them intimidated.

He arrived after Lieutenant Hunt’s injury, and while he hasn’t looked back, his men have done so longingly. As the Battle of May 15th approached, two brave men of the 1st Platoon brought their fears to Captain Larson. Lieutenant Thompson was unfit to lead men into battle, and more importantly was brash and unknowing of his incompetence. Alas, the Captain was only able to tell his men that their situation was temporary and would be changed as soon as Lieutenant Hunt was fit to return to the field.

The M-107 rang out loudly hitting one of the Soldiers in the head. They kept coming, SSG Wo fired again and again, they kept coming. Major Wakowski and Ramirez repositioned the M-249 and opened up on the approaching Soldiers mowing them down. They were dropping by the tens, eventually they stopped and stood where they had halted. SSG Bell came running out of the Gettysburg firing his M-4 at the Soldiers dropping even more of them. To the PJ’s it was surreal, why weren’t they getting to cover, they were now halted and in the open. SSG Wo, we have them forward

“Keep your guns close,” said Lt. Bird, “and wait for the convoy.” Grunts and muttered “aye”s were all in response as they turned in for the night. They slowly closed their eyes, when a flare flew into the air, illuminating everyone below.

Shells exploded all around us, peppering us with shrapnel. Over the past months, I’d watched friends, enemies, and innocent bystanders die. Every time someone fell, I felt the briefest flicker of guilt. Had it been my bullet? Was more blood on my hands? Some nights I yelled, hoping more than just God and the stars would hear me; some nights I cried, praying no one was listening. Around me, I saw grown men falling to bits, their nightmares screaming them back to reality as they echoed through the trenches. Reality was no better than their nightmares.

Just then the plane takes a nose dive, one the men quickly goes to check on the pilots, when he didn’t respond, well we started jumping. We were trained to avoid turret fire and mortar shells but we weren’t told about the real horrors of war, as I looked down I could see the plane just as it crashed, into another plane. At first I thought I could hear the screams of the men who went down, who we left in our plane only to crash, but it couldn’t have been that the mortar shells had already made me deaf. When I look to my left all I see is chutes and planes and then I spot him, my wingman, Jimmy Wrangler. We were lucky enough to be deployed from the same plane, but when our plane went down I didn’t have enough time to see if he made it. It was the best thing I saw all day, I almost shed tears I was so

“Ah you’re finally back” he was greeted by two friendly faces John and Kyle, they were a few years both older and more experienced than him. “You took your time down there. Get scared or something?" Andrew was the newest guard squad here as he had just come of age to join them, never having done anything like this before as he had only been on the job for around two weeks. Before this, he was working as a waiter at the local bar lounge area. His friends found it amusing to tease him about not being as good or as fast as the others yet.

By 0430 the attack by the Marines had stalled, this wasn’t good, if the Marines couldn’t break through the entire plan would fail. General Lane and his staff quickly analyzed the situation, called for a shift in artillery strikes to the center, they would sent two companies in a feint to the east. Where the artillery had softened up the line. The artillery would continue in the area until the two companies had moved and were ready to advance.

It was March 23rd, 2013 when I was boarding the plane that would take me to Afghanistan on my first deployment. I only remember the date because on my birthday, two days later, I would be sitting in a V-22 Osprey flying into the volatile city of Sangin, a known Taliban hot spot. It was during one of my first few days there, that I found myself guarding the sole entrance to my company’s operating base. Suddenly a van, old and rusting, turned the corner and came screaming towards my position. Wary of a vehicle-borne suicide bomb, I quickly raised my rifle and began a slow, steady squeeze on the trigger, as I’d been trained to. Just before the hammer would fall, sending bullets racing to end the driver’s life, the van screeched to a halt. A

Our commander brought us into a room and said a small group of us was going to get redirected to a base by the name of Al Assad completely separated from the Unit for the duration of the deployment. I sat there in this aid station we had stood up and cared for just like the bonds that we had made with each other hoping and praying that my name was not called. Then the name fell from his mouth “PFC Baena you are going”. I walked back to my room thinking about how I could deal with this dwelling on the bad. I snapped out of it and told myself “You have to let go of things in life and take a step into the unknown”. So once again I packed up and moved out to another unfamiliar place.

Exactly 4 years and 3 weeks ago today, I was on a plane to Afghanistan. I remember the very long flight from Fort Hood, Texas with a stop in Kyrgyzstan. During our last few days of preparation for our final flight, I took in the very crisp air that emanated from the snow-capped mountains; surrounding the base in the distance. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of adventure despite my destination of war. The vivid moments within the many memories of such small wonders have continued to bless me with a peaceful acceptance; of not only my combat experience, but of my experiences prior to war.

A month after graduating high school, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. In less than a year after that, I found myself speeding in a Humvee on a dirt road in Habbiniyah, Iraq, just a mile of the Euphrates River. Our mission was to assist a Marine Reconnaissance unit in securing insurgent weapon caches. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins, as I was ready to tackle my first major op. My truck, along with another, responded to the recon unit when they radioed for help to load a weapons cache. As we sped over to the site, an IED exploded and ripped apart the engine of the following truck. The vehicle contained my squad leader, two marines, and our squad’s only medic. As a combat lifesaver (CLS), my secondary mission kicked in. My instincts were to assess the casualties, triage, and treat the wounded. We were fortunate they only suffered concussions, with the gunner having minor lacerations to the face. After dressing the wound, a MEDEVAC was secured to transport them back to base. Within minutes of the helicopter leaving, another explosion was heard where the cache was located. We rushed to the scene, only to see a truck engulfed in flames.

It was patrolling a nearby town and surrounding valley for suspected terrorists. This meant we got to pack up all of our things again to move off of the main base to small forward operating base or FOB all on our own. We loaded our things into an up armored truck known as a MRAP and got ourselves seated to start this journey away from the safety of the main base. As I sat in the gunners turret I looked around at the fields and mud buildings that speckle the surrounding area as we drive down a highway filled with scars from war. Forty minutes down the road we come up on a small town bursting with local people going about their everyday business like nothing has changed. We slow down to a crawl as we make our way through the main street passed the market places alive with smells and sounds so hard to describe to our small FOB tucked away by a local Afghan military