Checking more Boxes -- FOB Defense and other Fun stuff

Another week down here at Shelby.  I have been training my ass of doing all kinds of interesting and fun things.  But just like a few years ago, I am not sure I will ever really use any of the stuff in real life...but it better than just sitting around and doing nothing all day.  Last Saturday we went to a secret briefing on how to survive being held captive as a pow...scary shit but it's all secret so don't ask me what I learned in that meeting.  The next day, we did our two day FOB (Forward Operating Base) defense exercise.  I was with 4 other guys in a hummer as the rear rifleman dismount in the QRF (quick response force).  Sound important, but really I just hung out with the other guys waiting for higher headquarters to call us up to respond to some crisis.  The first day was kind of quite...just hung in the truck and waited.  The next day was busier and we had to go to the ECP (entry control point) to quell some disturbances between our guys who were working the ECP and third country nationals who marched on our location shouting "death to America" and telling us we shouldn't haven't burned their korans.  All of a sudden one of the Afghans pulled out a pistol and shot and killed three of our soldiers and all hell broke loose as the mortars starting coming in.  I ran from barrier to barrier, ducking and cover the whole time and then ran up to the ECP to try to calm people down.  Our surviving guys were trying to keep the civilians back while our medics were tending to the wounded.  The civilians were not moving back.  One Sergeant was trying to be good cop and be all nice and shit.  It was not working.  I raised my weapon eye level to one of the civilians and took my hand and forcefully pushed him back and told him that if he didn't sit the hell down and shut the eff up I was gonna shoot his ass.  That worked.  For a moment.  Than the mortars came again and we all had to find cover.  The mortars scared the civilians and they all ran back to their village.  With order restored, we mounted up in our vehicle and headed back to the safety of the FOB.  Or that's what we thought.  But soon mortars starting popping into the FOB and our vehicle was hit on the passenger side, killing our TC (truck commander) and the rear passenger side dismount.  I was on the other side and survived but our vehicle was trashed and that was that.  Like magic though, the powers to be brought to life all our dead and our vehicle was fixed and the game began again.  Fun stuff really.  Playing war games and shooting guns and blowing shit up.  Now who needs video games when you get to do what we are doing?  America...thank you for letting us play soldier down here on your dime.  Hopefully none of us ever have to use this training for real anytime soon.  SSG Read, over and out.