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War stories from a snowmobiler

Editor's Note: Chris Hogan, a Thief River Falls and Arctic Cat guy, wrote to us recently from his camp in Iraq. He has been serving overseas for the better part of 3 years with his Minnesota National Guard unit. His initial letter to us was about missing snowmobiling, but after exchaging several emails, Chris offered up a few tales from the war zone.

This has nothing to do with snowmobiling, but we thought you'd find it interesting. Note too that Chris has recently returned to Minnesota from Iraq.

Dear AmSnow,

I know I'm a little long winded, but I sure love telling stories. This is my "War Story," I hope you enjoy it.

I'm with 2-136 CAB 34th ID Minnesota National Guard. We mobilized in Sept. 2005, spent 6 months in Camp Shelby, Miss. By March 2006, we were in Iraq. At the time we mobilized, we were told that this was the largest National Guard troop movement since WW2. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but we did mobilize something like 4,200 troops. When we got to Iraq, we ended up spread out all over the country. Bco. ended up in Fallujah, and my squad followed as we are the part of Eco., that does Bco. maint.

Iraq, day 1: I get off the plane in T.Q. and spend a rather uneventful day in a tent waiting for the chopper to take me to Fallujah. I spend most of the day in the air conditioned tent because us Minnesota boys think 80 is sweltering, and I don't even dare to guess the temp here. That evening, we shuffle down to the flight line and wait our turn to get on board a chopper to Fallujah. I've felt nervous before, but never like this. You don't really know what nervous is until you sit down in a Porta John and realize the hole in the door is a shrapnel hole, and there's a corresponding hole in the wall behind you.

After waiting just shy of forever on the flight line, we board a CH46 bound for Fallujah. We're greeted by a Lieutenant who instructs us to follow him, and we're given a brief tour that leads almost directly to our tent for the night. The first thing the Lt. tells us is "Don't freak out because you're in Iraq, yes it's a combat zone, but as long as you're on the base you're safe." I can't help thinking at this point that safe is a relative term, like hot or fast. Safe compared to what? I sure wish he hadn't neglected to mention the outgoing artillery.

That night I woke up to the world coming to an end, or so I thought. There's nothing quite like being just about to sleep, then being jolted awake by the thunderous roar of Howitzers. After that, when I was just about sleeping again, it sounded like a Blackhawk pilot was trying to land on our tent. It didn't take me long to give up on trying to sleep.

Iraq, day 2: I spend most of the morning moving gear around, getting settled in the building I'll call home for the next year. Each of us has a rucksack, big plastic tote and 3 duffel bags of issued gear. I move all my gear into a walk-in closet sized room that I'm sharing with two other guys. It's a good thing I'm only 5'7", 150 lbs., too bad my roommates are both over 6'2".

Around 1100 or so, we head to chow, but we have to wait in line outside the chow hall. While waiting in line, I think of what the Lieutenant said about being "safe." I'm trying to figure out just exactly how "safe" I am here, when I got shot. After I got shot I thought "This must be some definition of safe I was previously unaware of." It was a ricochet, came out of nowhere and slammed into my right kidney. The bullet bounced off and landed on the boot of a Marine standing in line behind me. I turned around just in time to see the bullet spin a couple of times then come to a stop. The Marine and I just stood there looking at the bullet, then we looked up at each other. He had the same look on his face that I'm sure I did. The look that says "did that really just happen?"

The Marine reached down and picked up the bullet and immediately dropped it. It was too hot to touch. The bullet fell into a space in the boardwalk we were standing on, too bad, that would have been a cool trophy. The bullet looked to be a 7.62mm full metal jacket, bent like a banana. The bullet was tumbling when it hit me, I know this because it hit me sideways. I know it hit me sideways because of the bullet shaped bruise it left on my back. When bullets tumble, they loose velocity pretty fast, good thing for me, otherwise it would have very forcibly removed a kidney from my body. Removing internal organs in a brutal military manner was NOT on my "things to do today" list.

The rest of the year went pretty uneventfully, as far as combat zones go. The military is so cheap, we were given beds made for kids. When my roommate we call Shreck sat on his, it turned into a giant bear trap and closed up on him. There was a lot of shouting, a little shooting and things were blowing up all the time. Every time I saw anything on TV about Iraq, they were talking about the Anbar Province, or the Sunni Triangle. Well, Fallujah is in the Anbar Province, in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. By my calculations, that puts us at Hell squared.

Our 12 months got changed to 16 by G.W.'s troop surge. Now it's all winding down and we're getting ready to go home. As the saying goes, "All gave some, and some gave all." We've had lots of laughs and good times, but it wasn't all smiles and sunshine. A few got wounded, and way too many got killed. In the end, though, I like to think we fought the good fight.

"When he gets to heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell. Just another soldier reporting, Sir. I've already served my time in hell."

Chris Hogan
Thief River Falls, Minn.