SpunOutWarrior's blog: "Purple Fuckin' Heart"

On April 10,2004 Lt. Col. Rosbau stood like only a commander of a battalion of highly motivated,highly pissed combat Marines can....his left foot perched atop his ALICE pack striking what would commonly be referred to as the "Capt. Morgan pose" in later daze....his lower jaw jutting slightly forward...not enough to strike him as goofy or freakish, but more of a sign of resolve. My heart was pounding in my chest....reverberating all the way to the tympanic membrane of my inner ear. So while I can't necessarily quote our awesome leader of warriors, I can tell you ALMOST verbatim what was said: "The dogs of Fallujah will eat well soon. They will feast heartily on the entrails of ALL who dare not heed the knell of the death bells.(Two weeks prior, CENTCOM had issued an evacuation order to all non-combatants:Get out or die.No prisoners will be taken.)You Marines are about to undertake a mission that Our Beloved Corps has not accomplished in 46 years(Hue,Vietnam).I have no doubt that you all will be victorious, but not all of you will survive the battle whole... some will not survive at all..........." And the dogs did,indeed ,eat well. The siege of Fallujah turned out to be the biggest and blood- iest Marine battle since the siege of Hue in Vietnam in 1968, the year of my birth. There were nearly 1,000 insurgents dead and 83 of our Brothers dead. Now , while our pice of shit Humvee sustained a direct hit from a then unheard of IED, we suffered no fatalities. The radio operator sitting in the front passenger seat had a NICE chunk of his shoulder taken off(see my pics). I was the up-gunner...the crazy fucker ridin' in the turret atop said piece of shit Humvee manning the M-72 7.62 machine gun. Being so exposed, I had my Kevlar double strapped . I took a chunk of SOMETHING to my jaw...losing 3 teeth right there on the spot and suffering what came to be known as TBI(Tramatic Brain Injury....a concussion from HELL,basically AND literally). There was no outer tissue tear and other than spitting blood for 2 days I was no the worse for wear.....so I never reported it or sought dental aid at the moment for fear of being withdrawn from the fight. That's not Billy Bad-ass syndrome or any shit like dat.....NO Marine wants to be parted from from his buds when all their asses were on the line. So....there went my Purple Heart......not that I would want it....I wasn't there for the medals....I wasn't there for God, country OR l;ittle Mary Rottencrotch back home....I was there for the heros on either side of me. Present day: Those scars of war still linger....see, not only did I lose 3 fuggin teeth that day...it seems that the force of the blast had been SOO fucking hard that I suffered a hairline fracture of my right lower mandible....and the actual fuckin' enamel of my fuckin' teeth was compromised. So I had to go to the dentist today to get the last of my bottom teeth('cept for the fronts,top & bottom...their still holdin on,Thank God) yanked out....So those fucking scars run sooo deep and sooo pwerful in my life....and they certainly will till the day I die....PEACE,YA'LL>>>JEFF