A Bandit's Journal
What It Was Like To Go To War
Greetings Fellow Tom Clancy Fans,
Thanks again for subscribing—free or paid—to The Hunt for Tom Clancy. This started as a lark, but I’ve discovered I find it really rewarding and fun to work on, and hope you have as much fun reading it as I do writing it.
Some summer housekeeping before the main meat—which, unfortunately, is going to be behind a paywall for a bit until I get my paid subscribers up a bit more, and then I can start dropping free dispatches again.
To thank the paid subscribers and the people who’ve been here from the start, I’ve been trying to provide more dispatches, with some more variety, and have dipped into my archives a bit for material I find interesting and think you will too.
We’ll continue, of course, to cover a new Tom Clancy property each month (I have to figure out which book I’m doing for July, suggestions are welcome) but I also thought some of this might interest you.
Here are pages ripped straight from my Afghanistan journal about first getting into country. Those of you who fought in Afghanistan will recognize some of this, those of you who didn’t will be able to pick up some absurdity along the way.
I figured rather than edit or polish this down to reflect something I’d write about the experience now, you might want to read something more immediate from the time frame. Please forgive if the writing is rougher below, and if I say something dumb, please remember that at the time I was writing this I was a trained killer who hadn’t started to deprogram from the Army yet.
So, below, you will find the unadulterated thoughts of a Private First Class in 1st Platoon (Bandits!) Delta Company (Destroyers!), 2-87 Infantry (Catamounts!) 3d Brigade Infantry Combat Team (Spartans!), 10th Mountain Division (Climb to Glory) on his way to Afghanistan in 2006. This young man was me, once, and it’s sort of weird to me now.
Thank you all for reading and subscribing to The Hunt for Tom Clancy.
With your help, we’re going on three years now, fifty dispatches for you to read in the archive, and more to come each month—in fact, given the amount of Tom Clancy related material, it would seem there’s no end in sight…and that’s a good thing!
I appreciate having all of you along on the journey. Tell your friends.
V/R,
Mattwell
0310 EEB 3 2006 — DEPLOYING TO AFGHANISTAN
I’m sitting in the terminal at Ft. Drum, NY’s Wheeler Sack Army Airfield, waiting to get on what I suspect will be an absurdly long flight. We came into work at 1600. I had by ridiculously large and decked out assault pack complete with “nerd sustainment” pouches filled with books.
Now the assault pack has my books, my ‘sensitive equipment’ (i.e. night vision goggles, rhino mount for the night vision goggles, iron sight for my M4, and bayonet), laptop, DVDs, miscellaneous gear my Black Hawk pilot brother sent me, a copy of the Atlantic monthly, all the paperwork that says I am a ‘go’ to deploy, my ipod, and a bevy of other random things one would take on a year long deployment.
On my chest I have an M4 carbine equipped with a 40mm M203 grenade launcher, some nomex gloves, and my Private First Class “I’m a bitch, but a first class bitch” rank.
My leg pockets are filled up with various books and shit, a neck gaiter, and my good old hand and foot warmers.
I just went to look at all the religious books the chaplains had laid out. There were Books of Mormon, various versions of the bible, a Talmud, but strangely no Koran. Hmm. Poor James Yee, no wonder he got screwed in that sham investigation of his. My platoon sergeant just looked and me and shook his head.
“Farwell, you’ve always got that shit eating grin on your face.”
“Roger Sergeant.” A smile.