Alright, my first blog since I used Xanga.com
during Operation Iraqi Freedom II (March 2004 - March 2005). It's kind of
ironic that I'm here in Iraq again, but this time it's Operation New Dawn and
it's October 2011. My previous blogs were mainly a dream log, and it's
fitting that my first entry is about the first dream I remember having here in
COS Kalsu (about 25 miles south of Baghdad).
I should give some background information
first before going into my dream. I'm a Staff Sergeant in the Virginia
Army National Guard, and I'm a vehicle commander of an M-RAP. My unit's
main focus is providing security for convoys in preparation of Coalition Forces
finally leaving Iraq in the hands of its government. My last deployment 7
years ago was filled with extravagant dreams that could each be turned into a
novel or movie. This time, I've been deployed in the Middle East since
July 2011, but this is my first recollection of dreaming.
I woke up today to my
alarm fervently trying to get me to rise. I go outside of my
living quarters and smoke an Ishtar cigarette. I still had a couple of
hours before I had to report to work, so I decided to catch a nap before I had
to leave the comfort of my room. I set my alarm, and went back to sleep.
I'm really not a morning person, and when I get cozy in my bed, it's hell
trying to get me up. I hit snooze more than a couple of times, I even
reset my alarm for a later time when I had enough - all just to squeeze in
another minute. Unfortunately, I didn't wake up at the time I had planned.
This is where my dream comes into play.
We're driving down an Iraqi road with the sun brightly illuminating the
sand and vegetation around us. I notice that I'm not in my usual position
in the convoy, and that my usual convoy commander is in the vehicle behind us.
I find that very strange... As we're driving along, I notice that
we start taking fire from behind us. I look in
my side-view mirror and realize that the vehicle is shooting at us!
The odd thing about it is that they're not shooting bullets, they're
shooting red lasers! In my dream, I really felt like Luke Skywalker
piloting his X-Wing along the Death Star with Darth Vader hot on our tails in
his TIE Fighter. I tell my driver to perform evasive actions, and I was
surprised to see that our clumsy vehicle was swaying back and forth like a
suspended roller-coaster car and not rolling over! My driver
is swerving crazily dodging the laser beams, and I even yell at him
to watch out for the palm trees. The vehicle behind us fails to shoot us,
and we finally reach base.
When we pull in, the convoy commander for that
mission pulls us all in for a briefing. He asks one Soldier a general
question, which is answered fairly easily. Then he asks me, "SSG
Parinas, where do you sleep?" I respond with my room number here at my
home base. Then he says, "No. How do you know where to sleep
when we get to the bases we're convoying to?" I start to feel like
they're all out to get me, and I have a strong urge to rat on the vehicle
commander behind us about shooting lasers at us and trying to blow us up on the
road. At that point, I wake up and realize that I overslept, but still
had just enough time to get some food to go and make it to work! Good
thing that I had that jarring dream - or nightmare - to pull me out of bed!
