I was on my first trip outside the wire. My nerves were a little jumpy as I scanned the surrounding area for threats and decent picture subjects. I figured I could take some shots, review them later for anything that might be worth handing over to intel, and then keep the rest to show the family once I got home. The hard drive that contained the pictures later crashed and with it went the pictures.

My driver, Cpl C, and another Marine, Sgt J, were pretty quiet for the first part of the ride one we left the safety of base. We were taking heavy equipment and other supplies out so my unit could build COPs for surge units that would soon take up some battle space outside of TQ. Our truck was hauling thousands of gallons of fuel for the heavy equipment and generators. We had joked prior to leaving that we were so lucky to be riding in front of a giant bomb waiting to go off. None of us actually thought we would have any worries, though. We were a little wrong.

We had been driving for what felt like forever. Time seemed to drag as I looked out the front of the truck wondering how much further we had to go and if we could drive any slower. We passed a few Army humvees and soldiers were standing outside of them. As we passed, they looked up from what they were doing and quickly looked back down. Suddenly, the convoy came to a halt.

“What is going on,” I asked.

Cpl C replied, “Not sure yet. Lot of chatter on the radio.” Cpl C had a radio with a headset so she could drive and not have to occupy one hand.

I noticed the trucks in front of us had moved up about 50 meters and then once again halted. Cpl C mumbled something under her breath as she shifted into reverse and started backing up. We couldn’t back up much due to the trailer we were hauling. It attempted to jack-knife and we couldn’t see around the fuel on the back of the truck to keep the jack knife from happening so we had to sit there. I’ll never forget the words I heard next.

“That is an IED in front of us. Great.”

“Whoa, IED?! You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“I really wish I was,” Cpl C said. “Those Army guys back there are EOD. They’ve been here for a few and have gotten it safe to move past, but they want us to wait just in case.”

I couldn’t have been sitting more than 200 feet from the thing. We couldn’t tell how big it was, but we all thought of the fuel behind us. If it blew, it could have been bad news. After what seemed like hours but couldn’t have been more than 10 minutes or so, we started moving again. The Army EOD guys decided it was safe to pass so the rest of the convoy caught up to the front and on we went.

We got to the location for the new COP not too long after moving again and I was relieved my trip was mostly uneventful. About 10 minutes after we stopped, there was a loud explosion back in the direction we came from. EOD had blown the IED in place sending some black smoke in the air. I was very happy the IED didn’t go off with me anywhere close.