Most Memorable Experience

Contributed by SK2 Martha Allen.

My most memorable experience was at the beginning of my deployment, sometime in February. It was just after midnight and the camp was buzzing with the sound of one of many 1st AD convoys that had just rolled into Arifjan from up north. The one-way street was packed; trucks lined up as far as the eye could see. You could barely hear the camp generators over the still-running convoy engines! Yet the soldiers, packed into LMTVs, lying on top of their gear…were sleeping… PEACEFULLY! Not a sound, a light, or a movement could wake them. The soldiers, their gear, and their vehicles were almost undistinguishable. They were so covered in dirt and dust, you could hardly tell where one ended and the other began…. This was the most poignant, poetic, amazing sight… It brought tears to my eyes! And I realized, at that moment… the work we do here, no matter how small…is for the infantry men, the war fighter, the hero… our heroes!