Camp Slayer (where I was stationed) is on the south side of the BIAP (Baghdad International Airport (Formerly Saddam Int’l Airport)) highway, next to BIAP and across the highway from Camp Victory South & Victory North. This is the highway you heard so much about as being the most dangerous highway in the world!
Now a great deal of our training prior to going over to Iraq was concentrated on personal safety. We were taught how to respond if we were cornered or trapped by locals, which was basically keep swinging until you were pretty sure they’d never get up again, the run like hell!
Another bit of important information was that those of us that got to drive vehicles were to stop for nobody, at no time, no how! And ANYTHING that didn’t normally belong on a roadway was to be avoided at all costs. Most IED’s were hidden under what appeared as trash, like boxes and cans, etc.
Now in order to get to Victory from Slayer, you have to drive out to “The Highway”, make a right, go down a ways, make a U-Turn, go back towards the BIAP, but not all the way there, and turn right into the check point at the Victory South Main Gate. After getting clearance you drive through a mini-maze of barracades, then on to where you need to go.
Well I made it out to the Slayer check point and was waiting on some traffic to my left before making my right turn on to the highway. I’m watching this vehicle flying up the way for a few seconds, then I realized it was an M1 Abrahms tank! All 62 TONS of it, (yes, 124,000 pounds!) coming down the highway at over 50 mhp! As it zoomed by me, I jumped out behind it. I’m going 50+ mph, and I’m barely keeping up with it.
Then, I decided to look in my rear view mirror. Guess what I saw back there? ANOTHER 62 ton M1 right behind me! I start chuckling to myself. I’m thinking here I am in a Toyota SUV, going down “The Highway” at over 50mph, cozied up between these two behemoths! I’m either the safest guy in Iraq, or I’m going to be a wet spot on the asphalt if the guy up front decides to stop and the guy behind me doesn’t! Needless to say, nobody messed with us (I bet my Toyota scared them off), and there weren’t any boom-booms.
Still makes me laugh today.
IT-EZ
