by
Nick
It was 0200 in my favorite Serb genocide-having province when my RTO woke me up to answer a radio call from my commander. I hopped out of my cot in the embalming station that my platoon had taken over as our hardsite in Kosovo to see what the shit was going on. The message was “White 1, we need all but essential security personal back at Montieth ASAP, and I need you here in fifteen minutes for your WARNO.”
I grabbed my senior squad leader and had him set everyone into motion as me and seven of my guys raced back to camp in two of our HMMWVs. We made it there in record time and I knew something major was up when I saw that my platoon sergeant already had the other half of my platoon geared up and ready to roll. I ran into my commander’s bunk – the other platoon leaders were already there and everyone had their “it’s ass-kicking time” expression on.
The short version of the story (as my commander relayed it anyway) was that a Special Forces Team had picked up intel that there were a bunch of bad guys holed up in a house off the highway coming from Serbia through Dobracane. Word was that they had amassed a large arms cache there and that this might be “the big one” we needed to stop (or at least slow down) the illegal arms trade through our sector. Initial plan was that Blue platoon, led my red-headed friend who we will call “Ginger”, was going to clear the house, I was going to do the inner cordon, and red platoon was going to do the outer cordon. This was simple enough – we had done it a thousand times before. Ready – break! It was time to get the platoons ready to execute the mission.
I’m sure it was somebody famous that once said an idle Army is a dangerous thing, and I was about to learn firsthand from where that axiom came. When we first arrived in Kosovo, we had a lot of work to do. After three months, however, we had everything under control (unlike those assclowns in the French Sector) and weren’t really earning our hazardous duty pay. The Kosovar people really didn’t want to mess with the U.S. military – they just wanted to kill each other – and once they realized we weren’t going to have that, things quieted right 
down. So there we were, deployed away from home, carrying automatic weapons, dealing with a fairly controlled population. We got bored. The next major “hot point” was going to be the first election under NATO control, and that was still a month and a half off. Basically, there were a whole lot of people doing a whole lot of waiting.
So, my platoon is doing their initial rehearsals and we’re getting ready to kick off a 0430 mission as I walk into the commander’s bunk for the OPORD. The mission had grown. It had grown a lot. The battalion commander wanted to make sure we had enough firepower, so he attached a tank company to the mission. Then, there were concerns about fire support if things really got bad and were mortars really going to be enough if the enemy was willing to fight it out? You can see where this is going.
I could go on for a long, long time with how this played out, but I think the military folks out there will appreciate the fact that a mission that was supposed to be quick and aggressive and comprised of a couple platoons of infantryman humping it in under cover of darkness morphed into something ugly. The mission started several hours later at 0700. There were over 70 vehicles in the “tactical convoy” to the two story house in the middle of butt nowhere, Kosovo. There were over 200 soldiers involved in the mission. We had everything from tanks, artillery, a bunch of supply chain guys to replace anything we broke, a forward support medical team (even though we were minutes from camp where we had state of the art facilities). My Platoon Sergeant and I starting jokingly asking questions about what frequency Naval Gunfire was on if we needed it, and actually sent the FISTer scampering to see if it was necessary and available. There was even a VIP VIEWING AREA for the Brigade Commander and assorted others to watch the mission from a safe distance (this was actually in the f*cking sand table).
So we roll up to this house. The infamous house of massive Serb armaments was standing there…in all of its 2000 square feet of fury. The backs of our Bradley Fighting Vehicles flew down (HMMWVs with 50 cals didn’t pack enough punch for a mission this serious) and our platoons formed up quickly in our respective positions. Ginger’s platoon set up against the wall of leading to the front door where they were going in. My guys and I set up behind him where we were going to follow him in (did I mention that the plan changed and that we were going to now put two platoons in this bad boy?).
So there we are with enough firepower to probably topple the whole f*cking Serbian Army. You can smell the JP8 burning from the tanks and Brads through this surreal and almost gross display of killing power. Rules of Engagement in Kosovo: gotta knock before you just kick the door in and kick ass. Ginger knocks. His front four are ready to go in with the rest of the U.S. Army waiting right behind them…time passes in slow motion, as we all gear up to meet this enemy. And that’s when it happens.
An old woman, who could easily have been my grandmother, opens the door. She has a smile on her face, but when she sees the freakshow of weaponry that is sitting on her front yard, she looks like she is about to piss her pants. Ginger asks her how many people are in the house. She tells him six – her, her husband, her daughter, and their three grandchildren – all girls. Ginger explains we need to clear the house, and that anyone in the house needed to exit immediately. He warned her that the consequences for hiding someone would be severe. Her family of six, just as described – an old man, an old woman, and three teenaged girls came outside scared out of their minds. I asked the man whether he was hiding weapons. He admitted that he was. Score! This boneheaded operation was going to net something! He then told me, with his head hung low, that he was hiding his grandfather’s hunting rifle. He knew it was illegal, but it had been an heirloom, he explained.
S – H – I – T. You have got to be f*cking kidding me.
Obviously, not taking him at his word, we searched the whole house…and found the oldest piece of shit weapon you could possibly imagine. It practically needed a musket loader and powder to fire.
We were giant assholes.
We ended up giving them a shitload of ice cream and free stuff for their trouble, let them sit in the back of a Bradley, and apologized profusely, but everyone, them included, knew that we had just became the frontrunners in the all-time race for the position of Prime Minister of Douchebagistan. We even let the guy keep the rifle.
Copyright of Nick
