We had an artillery unit of paladins on the base. They would fire outbound a good bit. Some of it was counter battery fire; some of it was indirect fire mission supporting our guys. Sometimes they were shooting illumination rounds around our base to help base security detect people setting up mortars or sneaking close to the perimeter. The base would get shelled a fair amount but until your ear gets finely tuned its hard to tell whether or not a round is coming in are going out. Both are extremely loud. The UAV runway strip was right next to where we slept, and that created a lot of noise as well. It was a hot refuel point for helicopters too. It was very loud.
One night I was in my trailer winding down. We had just finished planning a mission for the next day. My roommate and I were sitting in our trailer talking. Suddenly there was a large boom. My roommate joked with me as he saw me flinch. He asked, “Don’t you know what a paladin sounds like by now?” I had come out of my seat and gone down to one knee. He said, “Graves, come on man, that’s the paladin shooting.” I told him he was right and started to return to my seat, feeling embarrassed, when shrapnel started raining down on the roof of our trailer. I looked at my roommate and said, “When a paladin shoots, stuff doesn’t land on our roof.”
Then we heard screaming. A mortar round hit a trailer three buildings down and one over from us. We had sandbags all around our trailers about waist high to limit indirect fire casualties. This round landed about chest high through the wall and into a young man’s bunk bed. Just before the round landed, the soldier had gotten out of bed to go and use the bathroom. He was sixty-five feet away using the bathroom when the round came in. His roommate was sleeping in the bed on the other side of the trailer and he was peppered by shrapnel. It didn’t kill him, but it wounded him pretty bad. He was the one doing the screaming.
It was weird to think that the soldier’s life was saved because of the nature call. It seemed entirely random.
Dear God, my life and the length of my days are in your hands. Please continue to keep those I know and love safe whenever they’re in harm’s way.
“You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.” (Job 10:12)