The Chronicles of Red Platoon

Read the stories of various members of Red Platoon.

Red platoon. One of three line platoons in a company in a mechanized reconnaissance battalion in the Marine Corps. The story will consist of not only my own experiences but of others in my platoon as well. For their own privacy, I will change their last names to protect their identities. If the story is not my own, I will simply put their last name next to the date of the story.

March 2016-

We had been in the field for a day, and we were preparing to conduct platoon attacks in the 29 Palms training area "Lavic Lake". It was late at night, around 10pm, and the watch roster was called out. My squad leader, Cpl Joseph, calls out the roster, "We'll be doing turret watch for each vehicle, so for Red One, it'll be Tenner from 10-11pm, Torres from 11pm-midnight, Salgado from midnight-1am," and as he finished calling the roster, I remember thinking about how angry and how much trouble I would be in if Salgado fell asleep in the turret of the LAV. Something similar ALMOST happened a year before but didn't cause I made sure to be properly relieved from watch, but Salgado was a solid guy so I didn't care. We rack-out in our sleeping systems, which is pretty much a sleeping bag inside a waterproof bag, and before I know it Tenner is waking me up. "Torres. Torres. Torres, you got watch man." Tired from spending the day do dry runs and various other white space, blank time filling activities, I sat up, got dressed, and hopped in the turret with him. "Dude its so f*****g cold. The range card is right here, we're doing radio checks every hour with Black 6 (call sign for our company commander's vehicle), and that's it dude." I nod my head, repeat it all back, and tell Tenner to catch some sleep. Instead of traversing the turret back and forth and staying alert, I decide since we're not in Afghanistan or Iraq or any even remotely dangerous, and after the past three years of being a good boy and taking watch and everything regarding my job extra serious, I pull out my phone. Lucky me, I had signal. I shifted around the seat to get comfortable, but I accidentally knocked over a canteen, and instead of hearing it clang on metal, I heard, "Ah b***h what the f**k, who is that? Torres? My bad." I apologize for the severe sin of waking him up by mistake in the field. Now that I think about it, I should've been executed for such a crime. I spend my hour of watch on various social media apps, and eventually, my hour is up. I turn around in the turret and I start nudging Salgado. I start by tapping his foot. Once. Twice. "Salgado. Wake up, you got watch man." I grab his foot and lightly shake it, "Salgado you got turret watch dude." He springs up and appears to be wide awake. "Alright I'm awake." "Are you sure?" "Yeah man I'm awake." "... 2+2." "What?" "What's 2+2?" "Four? Why?" "Nothing man," I grin in the dark, "I was just seeing if you're up. Hey I'm really tired so I'm like, not wait for you to relieve me in place, is that cool?" "Yeah man that's cool, go to bed." I climbed out of and down from the LAV as quickly as I could, and slid into my sleeping bag. I woke up some time later, to this day I am not sure how long it was, but I woke up to the back hatch of the vehicle crashing open. I hear my platoon commanders voice, "Who's on turret watch?", to which Salgado responds, "I am sir." "If you're on turret watch," at this point I can hear the anger built up in his voice, but was being held in, "why the f**k isn't anyone answering the radio? Why aren't you on the gun? Who was on watch before you?" My heart sank. I remember feeling panicked and thinking 'oh f**k f**k F**K, that stupid s**t is about to get me FUCKED up'. So instead of getting up, I lay down and act like I'm asleep. "Um..." He pauses for a moment, "Torres was sir." Without saying a word, I hear him tell Salgado to get in the turret and closes the back hatch, and I hear him walk over to out sleeping systems. He'd take a few steps and stop. Take a few more, stop. Then he nudges me, "Torres, are you supposed to be on turret watch?" "No sir, I woke up Salgado, he's on watch." "Really? Cause He's sleeping in the back of the vic." "Sir I woke him up." "Don't worry about it Torres go back to sleep." He walked away and I followed his lawful order and my a*s went back to sleep. The next morning and for the most part, the next day went just fine. We conducted some more non-line fire runs for our attacks, and proceeded to night training. Instead of patrolling, our platoon commander, Lieutenant Lane and our platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Teal, decided that we would all do some map work, which would consist of us finding out how fast enemy vehicles were moving and how long it was going to take them to get from point A to point B. We start practicing blah blah, and then we get a call on the radio to send four guys with our water jugs to the combat operations center (COC) so we could get them refilled. Ignoring the call and concentrating on the task I had at had, which was finding out how long it was going to take a BMP-3 to travel about 20 kilometers at its current speed, and then I heard SSgt Teal say, "Torres can go by himself cause he didn't wanna complete changeover for turret watch the right way. Go get all 8 jugs and take them to be filled. Nobody is going with you so hurry up and go before Master Sergeant Smitt gets mad at you for taking too long. I'd run. Oh don't forget your PPE (personal protective equipment, consists of helmet and plate carrier vest)." So there I am, running at around 9pm with all my gear and a bunch of water jugs. I get to the COC and our company gunnery sergeant, who is in charge of getting us supplies like food, water, batteries, etc,. is standing there and says, "You're alone? Damn that sucks. Hop in the LOG (Logistics variant of an LAV)." So I hop in and I start telling the other guys in the back about how much bullshit I'm putting up with and how SSgt Teal is a huge a*****e. Eventually, we fill the jugs at a supply depot about 2 miles from where we were, and upon returning, I realize all other platoons, 2nd, 3rd, Weapons, and Headquarters platoon sent guys to help with the jugs, everyone had help, except me. 1st Platoon didn't send anybody, or at least SSgt Teal didn't allow anyone to come help. So just to spite them or at least I thought I was, I picked up four jugs, and ran them about 300 meters back to my platoon. When I ran up with the jugs, I dropped them, and ran back for the last four. About halfway back, two guys from my platoon, Vern and Teller bump into me, "Hey SSgt said for us to help-" I cut them off right away, "Nah man f**k that guy, you guys are good, I'll run these back alone." They asked me again and again, I told them no. Upon returning back to the platoon, I dropped the jugs. SSgt Teal decides to pipe up, "Did you have fun Torres?" "Yeah I had fun SSgt." I could feel his glare through the darkness of night. "Sit down and continue learning," he got up, walked over, and kneeled next to me, "maybe next time you'll think twice before trusting some kid." I still trusted Salgado, although I was kinda upset, I realized we all make dumb mistakes. He was kind of right however, since that night I always made sure to do changeover the right way. F**k you SSgt.