Page 84 - 100 Hours to Destiny

breaches through the minefield. I swallowed nervously as I had just
witnessed an explosion that would have sank a battleship and sent it
splintering into a million pieces. To put it mildly it was bewildering. The blast
wave continued to detonate mines as the shock wave pressed down
detonators meant for us, and I said to myself, “get ‘em all. Get every one of
those rotten bastards.”
I watched through my periscopes as the 3rd Tanks engineers moved
quickly into the area recently upturned and devastated by the line charge.
Tanks with serrated bulldozer blades began to quickly level the ground,
creating a hasty, make-shift road across the minefield. After about 3 and a
half minutes of this diligent work and leveling, Captain Roger “Rock” Pollard
broke over the net, “Alright Delta, it’s Go Time. Good luck Marines. Stay in
your lanes, I say again… do not leave the flagged area for any reason, or you
will die… Let’s roll, I’ll see you on the other side,” and with that the signal
was given to go by white flares shot into the air by the combat engineers. My
friend and LAV school classmate, Marcus Mitchell the driver of American
Hero hit the gas. With that Delta Company became the tip of the spear
st
….leading Task Force Ripper of the 1 Marine Division into the gates of hell.
And not to be left behind, the sequential order of the rest of Delta Company
eagerly got on the heels of the Captains’ Hogg.
“Witcher hit it! Hammer down, let’s go. Give her all she’s got.”
“I’m on it Gunny.”
“Witcher, you heard the Captain, stay in your lane. Stay in the tracks
of the other vehicles. Do not get out of the tracks of the XO. We never know
if one of those mines survived that blast, and we don’t want to find out.
Those mines could blow a battle tank up, it would surely send us to the
moon.”
“Gunny, I won’t let you down. I won’t let us down. I’m going to stay
glued to those tracks.”

Listen: Going Through
the Minefield

My focus became tunnel-like. I became one with my LAV and
thought about the wheels turning underneath us, and mechanically like a
shogun warrior in a trance, I was able to envision the exact placement of my
spinning tires as they mimicked the tracks laid down by Delta 5. My knuckles
were turning white as I gripped the steering wheel and began to go numb in