The Blog of Photographer Jacob Vorpahl.
Well… it was one of those weeks. The ones that had so much wrong with it you wished it just had never existed. Since it is very possible people from my command could possibly see this, I won’t mention any names or say anything that could get me in trouble, but, wow…. some people just shouldn’t do certain things, like lead Marines into combat.
We have one person in particular that everytime we do a mission or train for something, manages to mess it up. Everytime we did urban combat ops this past week, on EVERY mission, he managed to get atleast 4 Marines killed, everytime. He will undoubtedly get Marines killed in Iraq. It’s too disheartening. How can they expect us to keep morale up and stay focused when we’re being led by someone who obviously doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing beyond a very rudimentary, basic understanding of combat. Heck, he doesn’t even display common sense. Anyway, can’t mention anything particular because of the situation, but, it’s bad. Real bad. You can’t even tell him things while on a mission that you notice that might be dangerous that might alter his plan because he’ll yell and curse at you and tell you to shut up, he’s a … higher ranking individual than I am and we better listen. That’s a big no-no in combat. We all have eyes and ears and if he doesn’t utilize all of them, we’re dead.
I in turn had a bad attitude and am disappointed in myself. It got to the point where I just shut up and didn’t talk to no one. Didn’t smile, was short with everyone when speaking to them, and was generally, overall bitter and angry. I’d hit my peak so to speak. We’d been in Combat Town for three days and I hadn’t cleared a single room. The guy was so unorganized he never rotated the teams through training and the same teams did the same thing. We missed training completely except the last house we went in to on the last day we were there. And, of course, the door we chose to breach was booby trapped and I was the lead man, so I was dead on arrival. That was the extent of my training out there.
I evaluated my demeaner and tried to have a better attitude yesterday, after three days of that and I did better. I got a little goofy again. Yesterday was the grenade range (I’ll be putting up videos) and a certain someone wasn’t there, so, it was ok, except it being cold.
But, that was my week. This post may not have been too cohesive and may not be understandable, but, I needed to vent. I just feel disappointed spiritually that I was so bitter. Some people generally tried to cheer my up and forget about it but I was so consumed by it that I wouldn’t have it. But, I’m coming out of it. Just wanted to be honest with you guys and girls out there. Love you all very much. Oh, we also had our service this morning, only three people there. Disaab is saved now, he belives he got saved a couple years back, but, now he’s aware of it I think. Thank God for that.
But, I appreciate your prayers for the situation and if anyone sent anything recently, I haven’t gotten it because mail has been real sketchly lately since we’ve been gone soo much. But, I’ll respond and thank everyone though for their letters and packages. Thanks especially to Mrs. Jerris for writing so much, she’s so sweet, and for Angela for the excellent package and scrumptious cookies she sent.
Love all of you. Later.
Error: Twitter did not respond. Please wait a few minutes and refresh this page.
