War Diary VII - Atonement

“God's not giving me up,

no I'm just fine.

It's just a matter of time,

though I don't feel my sadness."

-I'm Still Fine by The Red Clay Strays.

Atonement - The act of making amends for a wrongdoing. We use this in Ukraine to refer to paying for "sins," which in turn refers to tactical mistakes.

Hello friends. I'm currently recovering in the hospital. This article will probably take me a few days to write because of the bad TBI I got but I will persevere. My wounds have left me bed ridden as neither of my legs are able to carry weight. My right leg has a 8in by 3in hole & the bones were completely shattered. It's painful but manageable. The mental strain has been much worse, having probably 5 dozen FPVs detonate within 5m of me. My memory is spotty & thoughts cloudy. I've also been suffering from bad panic attacks & flashbacks. I will carry on regardless, as always.

Anyway, on to the mission from hell. Our infil was fucked from the beginning. We had to go through an anti-tank ditch consisting of 3 trenches & 9 rows of concertina wire. This took about 45 minutes & was done in the open. Fortunately, the weather was shit so drones couldn't really fly & lacked visibility. All in all, it went surprisingly smoothly.I definitely wouldn't try that shit again though. We were the second echolon to do this, I think the first team got spotted because there was a waiter drone sitting directly in our path near the entrance point. Thankfully, the operator wasn't paying attention & we managed to shoot it before it wound up.

The rest of the infil was uneventful, stepped around a couple mines but otherwise pretty smooth. The position we were meant to occupy was very suboptimal so we decided to cram 8 niggers into an 4 man fighting position for a week or so. Our original mission entailed clearing a treeline where over a dozen mobniks got killed a few days prior, mostly by drones. Russians likely took the opportunity to occupy some positions in the treeline with 3-5 people. We assumed that the conscripts pretty much got themselves killed by being lazy/stupid but in retrospect this was an omen for things to come.

Our mission got aborted because Russian infiltration groups started pushing deeper into the grey zone to occupy positions. We decided to cut our losses on that treeline & try to clear out the area instead.

Our first task was hunting down a lone Russian that managed to evade our drones. We were looking for blood but it turns out he was completely naked, as in no armor, weapons, nothing. Just the clothes on his back. He was shell shocked to hell so he came easy & wasn't any trouble. We named him Niggerino. He kept saying the word "Shum" which means noise, but can be used in a way similar to the English phrase "the voices" if the subject is shell shocked. I made him sieg heil for a picture & he didn't seem too upset about it. We ended up handing him off to the local grunts to send back to the detention centers.

Our drone company completely dropped the ball for resupply this mission, virtually none of the food & water they dropped survived the landing. Eventually the Brigade support battalion took over resupply & things went pretty smooth after that. A friend of our company in the FPV teams flew an FPV with Monsters & cigarettes into our position, which was pretty funny & much appreciated.

The next bad omen came during a position reconnaissance mission in the village we were staged near, just a matter of checking out the position & it's viability. Everything went fine until our walk back. We saw a Mavic drone appear & start watching us. After a minute or so, 152mm rounds started impacting around us. Shrapnel was fly over heads & smoke engulfing us. Fortunately, we weren't terribly far from a wooded area that provided decent cover. As we entered the treeline, FPVs started appearing & hunting us. We knew we shook the Mavic because the FPVs didn't know our exact location. They just patrolled around until their battery was about to die & then flew into a random spot in the treeline. When the Mavic observing us was changed out, they sent an FPV to cover the changeover so we couldn't take advantage of it.

One of the FPVs did see us. It was a fiber optic drone with a nasty payload. As it looked for a hole in the canopy to hit us we started shooting. This motherfucker used a tree as cover, moving behind it so we couldn't shoot it as it approached. Never thought I'd see a drone operator smart enough to use cover. When it popped back out I managed to clip the fiber optic cable, it drifted off to the left & exploded on the ground while we booked it to another part of the wooded area. This was odd. FPVs don't generally hover like other drones, you have to keep the throttle going manually. If they lose connection they typically just drop straight down. Maybe there was an input glitch, but I also haven't seen a drone of this type before so maybe it runs different software.

We managed to shake our pursuers, the treeline we were in before was getting nailed with arty & more FOVs but we were already a good 500m away. Once the Mavic did another changeover with the covering FPV in the wrong place, we booked it into our position & called it a day. During our excursion, the enemy fired a total of 34 152mm shells & 12 FPVs trying to get us. The intelligence of the the drone operator was disturbing, it definitely wasn't the organic drone unit of the local Russian mobniks brigades we fought on the ground. This & later incidents lead me to believe an elite drone unit, likely Rubicon, were operating in the AO.

The next week or so was fairly uneventful, we were sent to clear a few areas but didn't end up fighting anyone. We used a satchel charge to destroy a position, which was cool but some shrapnel hit a vein on my arm & caused a frankly unreasonable amount of bleeding. This was the picture I shared with blood on my pants in notes.

Eventually, we got the order to clear the village. It was a simple task, only about 20 buildings & handful of bunkers to clear & assess viability for occupation. We were told there's no evidence of Russians in the town but maybe some Ukrainians with poor communication, so hold fire unless you get engaged or have PID. As we cleared the house on the northern end of the street, we came across two dudes set up inside, trying to get a radio transmission out. We caught them by surprise, but one spoke English & assures us he was Ukrainian. We radioed it up & crossed the street. Not 3 minutes later we get a call that command intercepted a radio transmission of Russians asking for resupply in the northern section of the town. We immediately turned around & assaulted the house & took both of the Russians prisoner. It was too late, the shells started landing all around us. The Russian commander decided it was worth killing his own guys to get us too.

With the prisoners in tow, we started booking it back towards our position. Unfortunately, we were moving south which was also the direction of the frontline, meaning we were running towards the enemy drones. About half way through the village I looked up & saw 3 FPVs circling in the air like vultures. We managed to find a basement, the only hard cover we could find at all. We all ran in, & we saw a little tunnel dug into the wall. I told G & T to get down there because the basement was not adequate at all. They weren't prior military & I wanted them to be safe if nothing else. They yelled that there was space for all of us in the tunnel & I started to get up.

It was too late, an FPV flew down the staircase & exploded. The shrapnel destroyed my legs & immobilized me. M was next to me & had similar injures. About a minute later, another FPV detonated by the stairs. I couldn't move at all, I couldn't see through the dust, I was so dazed. I just remember screaming that we had wounded. Alfred, the Russian prisoner who spoke English, grabbed me & dragged me to the "safe" corner of the bunker, against the staircase but opposite of the bottom. He helped me tighten my tourniquet. The other Russian, Volvo, also tried pulling in M.

G & T tried to come treat me but I told them to get comms first, which took almost 30 minutes to get our location information out because we couldn't leave the bunker. We got hit by another FPV every 2 minutes or so. One of them crashed & got stuck but maintained connection. The operator kept revving the motors for probably 5 minutes straight. I hated it. Every time I heard that whining of an FPV going for the kill I just closed by eyes & covered my ears. Alfred held my hand as I bled out & kept telling me it will be fine. Eventually, two brothers from our primary position came to our aid with a medic bag.

They tried grabbing me but I pushed them away to help M, he didn't deserve to die like this. At some point I just made my peace & decided to call it. M was brought down into the tunnel but soon after pronounced dead. I remember hearing the radio transmission that we had a "200." After that, the other guys grabbed me & pulled me down. They had to inject me with ketamin so I wouldn't fight them.

My tourniquet was ineffective, there was a radio battery in my pants pocket blocking it so they put another one on. Because of the tight space, my head was propped up on M's corpse. As the ketamin wore off I decided that my team would never make it out with a casualty but they're too good to not try. After I got covered with a blanket, I loosened the tourniquet. I decided I would drift away & stay with M, give the others a better shot at getting out of this hell.

I guess blood had already coagulated a bit, they noticed the tourniquet was loose about 2 hours later. I was still kicking. They packed the wound with gauss. Funnily enough, my attempted suicide actually saved me from getting an amputation. My left leg had a big hole going through the bones & muscle. My right leg has a giant 8in by 3in hole going through it. It's absolutely mangled. We only had about 4 doses of ketamin, so while we trapped in position I had no pain meds available & just had to raw dog it.

3 times we got hit with gas FPVs, the doctors tell me it was chlorine gas. It dissolved the lining of my asophogus & wind pipe. I couldn't eat or drink anything, I couldn't sleep, for the entire 3 days we were trapped in that hole. Our drone operators did their best to get us supplies. I didn't know this at the time, but the entire Brigade was freaking out trying to figure out how to get us out. Friends in the other companies were volunteering every day to run a rescue mission. After 3 days, we got a decent rain storm that cut the FPV range enough to attempt an escape. They shot me up with the last dose of ketamin & everyone sprinted out of the town & into a treeline leading back towards friendlies. Volvo, the Russian, dragged me in a skedco.

Alfred gave us the location of the drone units headquarters, he spoke to our commander & guided him onto potential targets. During the whole exfil, I head thousands of artillery rounds firing from both directions, counter battery to cover our movement.

It felt like an eternity, crawling through the treeline. FPVs periodically showed up & forced everyone into cover. I couldn't move, just stare at the sky & wait for the buzzing to turn into a fireball. At one point, a Molniya drone hit us. Molniyas are fixed wing drones typically guided by GPS, this is the first I've seen with a camera & direct control. It had a TM-62 mine as a warhead & damn near wiped us out. Eventually we made it to a hand off point, it was the volunteers from our Heavy Weapons company. I recognized all of them as friends from training or the medic course. Unfortunately, my team went back into the maw to recover M's body. I wasn't happy about this but the HW guys shot me up with ketamin so I couldn't do much.

Eventually I got put into the trailer of an ATV & driven away. Bouncing around in that trailer is the most painful thing I've ever experienced. They took me to a stabilization point several kilometers away from the front. Getting dragged down the stairs hurt like hell but they had more pain meds which they gave me, along with a cigarette. After a few minutes they dragged me back upstairs & threw me in an MRAP. A Ukie was in the back, he put his leg on my chest & held my hand to stop me from bouncing & sliding so much. He kept trying to keep my conscious because I was drifting in & out.

We made it to the Brigade hospital. They weren't happy to see a fellow medic come through the door but they did well at keeping me alive & calm. They used a magnet to remove most of the shrapnel in my body & put a metal brace on my worse leg to immobilize it. I remember one of them was wearing a M8L8TH shirt, which was somewhat comforting. I bounced around intensive care units until I made it to Kyiv. I'm stable & managed to eat & drink for the first time in 5 days. A few friends that are still recovering from previous wounds have popped in to visit & make sure I'm alright. Apparently they were all also freaking out about the whole situation. My friends dropped off some clothes, documents, etc. The Brigade medical service gave me a temporary phone to use until I get mine back, which is actually what I’m writing this on.

My team recently exfiled without much more trouble, which has cooled my nerves a ton. They're organizing a trip to come visit, & put down a memorial plaque for M in Maidan Square. I'm looking at a few months of recovery until I can go back on mission, so I'll probably focus on hobbies for a while. The pain is pretty bad but my mental wounds are worse. I'm having awful flashbacks & panic attacks. I'll likely get put on Xanax soon because the current antipsychotics aren't working. Once I was fully conscious I listened to the album Tickets to my Downfall by MGK. This album was very important to me back when it came out, so it's a comfort track. Zach Bryan & Whiskey Meyers are helping too. My cellphone is still with my team leader, once I get it I'll post some pictures, I think I have at least one of my right leg after the explosion.

I haven't called my family yet, but probably will soon. I'm not really sure what to say to them. I did call my old squad leader from the USMC, which was comforting. It's hard to even write down how I feel right now. As usual, I will use music to convey this. During the event, Eyes of the Insane by Slayer. Now, in the hospital on the mend, god I'm sad as shit by comehelpglo.

I'm not sure what else to say. I'm still going back into fray once I'm able. I may take leave & visit home during my recovery, & maybe get lasik while I'm already out of action. Otherwise, I'm just taking it day by day until I can go back out with my team. I will avenge my fallen brothers. My kit was mostly destroyed so I guess I'll be trying out some new pieces. If anyone has a recommendation for a war belt similar to the USMC standard issue one, please let me know.

The fact that I'm alive & in one piece is nothing short of a miracle, made possible only be the unbelievable bravery of my brothers in arms. It feels so weird knowing there's people out there that will gladly walk into hell just for the chance to help you. Not hypothetically, but literally see it happen.

I feel bad about Alfred & Volvo. They got sent on a meat wave mission to occupy a position without support. When they came across us, their commander decided to just kill them as well. I never would've expected a Russian to drag me out of a kill zone, but we became blood brothers in that tunnel. I hope they're treated well in captivity, I expect they will become defectors.

During an examination, a doctor asked me why I was here. I was still dazed & just said "I'm a soldier." He asked me what I was in America, & I gave home the same answer. Bakers make bread, prostitutes fuck, soldier's fight. The day I arrived in Kyiv, Russia launched a giant air raid. The sounds of it sent me into a panic attack, which led to me being sedated by a nurse. I found out the next day that the target was just a random apartment building & all of the casualties were regular civilians. This put me into an awful mood but was a harsh reminder of why I'm here.

To M, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I decided to keep T & G safe while we lifelong soldier's stayed in the killzone. I'm sorry I couldn't move to help you. I'm sorry I didn't ignore the doubts & just kill those guys on sight. If I could trade places with you, I would in a heartbeat. You faced death without fear, like a good soldier, to the bitter end. You made the RAF proud, you made the Brigade proud. I'll see you in Valhalla, brother.

"All that shimmers in this world is sure to fade away."

---

I'm sorry if this was disjointed or poorly written, I'm still under a few meds & the shell shock is cooling down. I wrote this all in one go because I couldn't sleep last night & needed to do something about my thoughts. Writing this all down was somewhat cathartic & helped me make sense of the whole ordeal. I apologize I won't be able to jot down any cool war stories for a couple months but I may try to write more regular articles in the meantime.

A few people asked to support me, which I will not accept. The Brigade is taking good care of me & so are local volunteer groups, they always drop off snacks & such. I'm also getting hospital pay now, which is a little higher than combat pay so I won't be hurting for cash. I do appreciate the gesture, however.

I’ll be back at it again as soon as I can walk. This experience has been crazy & I feel like I can finally confidently count myself as a combat veteran, not the random grunts that pulled a few patrols in Afghan, but like those old timers who have all these crazy stories from Iwo Jima or Hue City. I can't wait to tell my nieces & nephews these stories, & hopefully my own kids one day. It feels odd, I used to listen to my family tell stories about Fallujah & Sangin with wide eyes.

“The sharpest lives are the deadliest to lead.” - My Chemical Romance

Hail Victory