War is Hell.
Personally, this one was probably the worst day I had while in Afghanistan. One of the worst days of my life if the recurring nightmares mean anything. Now, this happened back in 2012, and it still crosses my mind often. It rarely pops up in my dreams, but damned if a week goes by where I don't think of it. This is a little story about Travis "BotBot" Botkin.
We were on a fairly routine kind of mission. Basically just be a military presence in our local area so that the Taliban knew we were still active and patrolling, as well as show the locals that we were still there and getting shit done.We did happen to take a new route, which lead us past some new farming fields we hadn't had a chance to visit previously. For most of this patrol things were pretty tame. I was up front with the minesweeper, my shitty place of honour. Dill was behind me, then SGT Krisch (our team leader), behind him was Purk carrying the Thor (Metal box with electronics capable of jamming wireless symbols sent to Improvised Explosive Devices i.e. IED), and then Botkin, our SAW gunner (light machine gun). That was Alpha Team, 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, et al.
We were walking down hard dirt path, a dried mud wall to our right with bushes/small trees lining it. To our right was smaller wall made of the same material. Maybe two feet tall. Past the wall were fields used for farming. Whatever the fields were used for I couldn't tell you. At that time of year it was mostly dirt with almost no green things growing. Poppy season was about over, and marijuana was already well under way. Definitely wasn't grapes, those areas are easily distinguishable. Outside of those three things I can't recall a single other plant that was farmed in our area.
We passed a small break in the wall, marking the entrance in between two fields. As the minesweeper I checked the immediate opening plus a little ways beyond. Chokepoints like that are likely areas for IED's to be placed. It's a natural chokepoint for people to move through. I swept it, and from the readings I got from my Minehound (Type of minesweeper I used) it was safe, so we kept going down the road. I made it about 20m further before we were called to a halt. I don't know why we stopped.
I was sitting since the edge of the road was raised slightly. We were halted for awhile, something like 5-10 minutes. Basically just enjoying the chance to rest while whoever called the halt figured something out. That's when it happened. There was an explosion. Something close to 20-25m behind me. Now, in addition to being point man and carrying the Minehound, I had the highest medical training outside the medic and quite possibly Dill. I also carried our team's medical kit. The moment the explosion registered in my mind I started running back to it's source, dispatching my Minehound in the form of chucking it at SGT Krisch's head.
The air was full of dust from the explosion. The air from an IED explosion tastes terrible. It's not just dirt and dust. The explosive they use is homemade from fertilizer. It's hard to describe. It's fucking foul. Like piss. And dirt. It tastes acidic. You would honestly have to experience it to understand completely. I'll never forget that fucking smell.
Even though I could barely see through the haze it wasn't hard to find him. It's not hard to find the only person making that fucking sound. He was laying on the ground a few meters into that break in the wall. His right fucking leg was gone. His left leg was still there, but bleeding. A lot. Now, thank God for all of the training I did. Live tissue training. EMT. Even the CLS (Combat Life Saver) courses. Especially the live tissue training. If it weren't for all of that I just might have froze, and he could be dead.
First priority was the amputation. It was bleeding more than anything. An arterial bleed, particularly from the femoral artery, can drain a person in under a minute. Thank God we all carried tourniquets. I put that thing on as fast as I possibly could. While I was taking care of that Dill arrived and started putting a tourniquet on his other leg. Honestly, I had never been more scared at any other fucking point in my life. It wasn't the missing leg or bleeding that did it to me. I had been trained for that. I know what to do and I got it done. It was him. It was the groaning, and the moaning, but more than that, his fucking eyes. I thought he was going to die. He got really quiet and his eyes glassed over. I started to think that we were actually going to fucking lose him. Up until that point I was all training and all action. I knew what needed to be done. But when I saw that, I was fucking scared. I was scared shitless. There's nothing you can see that's like that.
By the time we both finished our tourniquets our medic arrived. He gave Botkin something nicknamed a "Lollipop." Basically a concentrated painkiller you put in their mouth, as well as applied an IV. That fucking lollipop and IV worked wonders. Between the pain, trauma, and blood loss he was going deep into shock, but Doc brought him back. By the time the helicopter came to rush him to a hospital he was even starting to talk. That was a huge, God damn, fucking relief.
After we had put him on the bird and had taken account of all sensitive items, weapons, NOD's, etc, we made our way back to Ghariban, the name of the FOB/COP we were stationed at. When we walked in through the gate 1st Platoon had several guys waiting there to hand us Gatorades as we walked in. It might seem like nothing, but when you're in some Third World war zone it literally means everything. I got one from McBride. It was purple. I love the purple. We did a little post-mission brief. I dropped my rifle, magazines and NOD's off on my cot and then went to stand in the shower. I don't really know how long I stayed there. When I got back to Ghariban I was covered in blood. My gloves. My armoured vest. My pants. Everything was covered in blood. I wore it all to the shower. And you know what? When we finally turned in all of our deployment gear there was still blood caked in underneath my magazine pouches.
At this time Dill and I were about a month or two into a bet we made to quit smoking cigarettes. First one to smoke a cig owed the other $50. We agreed that we could each have a smoke that day. Neither of us did.
According to Purk's eye witness statement, Botkin had taken a knee since we were halted. He was fine for a few minutes, but when he shifted a bit to get more comfortable he triggered the IED. It was a pressure plate. His weight pushed down on it, causing two pieces of metal to touch which completed the electrical circuit and detonating the bomb.
Now, at no point did anyone blame me. The guy with the Minehound. The minesweeper. The guy whose job it was to find those damn things. If they do blame me they've never said it. Not that I've heard. I don't understand it. It was my job to make sure that doesn't happen. I've felt guilty since this happened. While I was still at Bragg a group of guys took a weekend to go visit Botkin at the hospital here in the States while Bot's family was there. I didn't go. Awhile back after deployment I was at a friend's party and had something of a breakdown. I cried. A lot. It was my fault. I cried for a long time. Then I lashed out. Spit in one of my best friend's face. Got the shit punched out of me by him while my other best friend held me down. It wasn't until a few months ago that I even spoke to Botkin on the phone. He called me out of nowhere. He thanked me. We bullshitted and spoke about what all we've been up to. It was great to hear from him, but I don't deserve his thanks. It's why I didn't go see him with everyone else.
You shouldn't thank the guy that let it happen.
We were on a fairly routine kind of mission. Basically just be a military presence in our local area so that the Taliban knew we were still active and patrolling, as well as show the locals that we were still there and getting shit done.We did happen to take a new route, which lead us past some new farming fields we hadn't had a chance to visit previously. For most of this patrol things were pretty tame. I was up front with the minesweeper, my shitty place of honour. Dill was behind me, then SGT Krisch (our team leader), behind him was Purk carrying the Thor (Metal box with electronics capable of jamming wireless symbols sent to Improvised Explosive Devices i.e. IED), and then Botkin, our SAW gunner (light machine gun). That was Alpha Team, 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, et al.
We were walking down hard dirt path, a dried mud wall to our right with bushes/small trees lining it. To our right was smaller wall made of the same material. Maybe two feet tall. Past the wall were fields used for farming. Whatever the fields were used for I couldn't tell you. At that time of year it was mostly dirt with almost no green things growing. Poppy season was about over, and marijuana was already well under way. Definitely wasn't grapes, those areas are easily distinguishable. Outside of those three things I can't recall a single other plant that was farmed in our area.
We passed a small break in the wall, marking the entrance in between two fields. As the minesweeper I checked the immediate opening plus a little ways beyond. Chokepoints like that are likely areas for IED's to be placed. It's a natural chokepoint for people to move through. I swept it, and from the readings I got from my Minehound (Type of minesweeper I used) it was safe, so we kept going down the road. I made it about 20m further before we were called to a halt. I don't know why we stopped.
I was sitting since the edge of the road was raised slightly. We were halted for awhile, something like 5-10 minutes. Basically just enjoying the chance to rest while whoever called the halt figured something out. That's when it happened. There was an explosion. Something close to 20-25m behind me. Now, in addition to being point man and carrying the Minehound, I had the highest medical training outside the medic and quite possibly Dill. I also carried our team's medical kit. The moment the explosion registered in my mind I started running back to it's source, dispatching my Minehound in the form of chucking it at SGT Krisch's head.
The air was full of dust from the explosion. The air from an IED explosion tastes terrible. It's not just dirt and dust. The explosive they use is homemade from fertilizer. It's hard to describe. It's fucking foul. Like piss. And dirt. It tastes acidic. You would honestly have to experience it to understand completely. I'll never forget that fucking smell.
Even though I could barely see through the haze it wasn't hard to find him. It's not hard to find the only person making that fucking sound. He was laying on the ground a few meters into that break in the wall. His right fucking leg was gone. His left leg was still there, but bleeding. A lot. Now, thank God for all of the training I did. Live tissue training. EMT. Even the CLS (Combat Life Saver) courses. Especially the live tissue training. If it weren't for all of that I just might have froze, and he could be dead.
First priority was the amputation. It was bleeding more than anything. An arterial bleed, particularly from the femoral artery, can drain a person in under a minute. Thank God we all carried tourniquets. I put that thing on as fast as I possibly could. While I was taking care of that Dill arrived and started putting a tourniquet on his other leg. Honestly, I had never been more scared at any other fucking point in my life. It wasn't the missing leg or bleeding that did it to me. I had been trained for that. I know what to do and I got it done. It was him. It was the groaning, and the moaning, but more than that, his fucking eyes. I thought he was going to die. He got really quiet and his eyes glassed over. I started to think that we were actually going to fucking lose him. Up until that point I was all training and all action. I knew what needed to be done. But when I saw that, I was fucking scared. I was scared shitless. There's nothing you can see that's like that.
By the time we both finished our tourniquets our medic arrived. He gave Botkin something nicknamed a "Lollipop." Basically a concentrated painkiller you put in their mouth, as well as applied an IV. That fucking lollipop and IV worked wonders. Between the pain, trauma, and blood loss he was going deep into shock, but Doc brought him back. By the time the helicopter came to rush him to a hospital he was even starting to talk. That was a huge, God damn, fucking relief.
After we had put him on the bird and had taken account of all sensitive items, weapons, NOD's, etc, we made our way back to Ghariban, the name of the FOB/COP we were stationed at. When we walked in through the gate 1st Platoon had several guys waiting there to hand us Gatorades as we walked in. It might seem like nothing, but when you're in some Third World war zone it literally means everything. I got one from McBride. It was purple. I love the purple. We did a little post-mission brief. I dropped my rifle, magazines and NOD's off on my cot and then went to stand in the shower. I don't really know how long I stayed there. When I got back to Ghariban I was covered in blood. My gloves. My armoured vest. My pants. Everything was covered in blood. I wore it all to the shower. And you know what? When we finally turned in all of our deployment gear there was still blood caked in underneath my magazine pouches.
At this time Dill and I were about a month or two into a bet we made to quit smoking cigarettes. First one to smoke a cig owed the other $50. We agreed that we could each have a smoke that day. Neither of us did.
According to Purk's eye witness statement, Botkin had taken a knee since we were halted. He was fine for a few minutes, but when he shifted a bit to get more comfortable he triggered the IED. It was a pressure plate. His weight pushed down on it, causing two pieces of metal to touch which completed the electrical circuit and detonating the bomb.
Now, at no point did anyone blame me. The guy with the Minehound. The minesweeper. The guy whose job it was to find those damn things. If they do blame me they've never said it. Not that I've heard. I don't understand it. It was my job to make sure that doesn't happen. I've felt guilty since this happened. While I was still at Bragg a group of guys took a weekend to go visit Botkin at the hospital here in the States while Bot's family was there. I didn't go. Awhile back after deployment I was at a friend's party and had something of a breakdown. I cried. A lot. It was my fault. I cried for a long time. Then I lashed out. Spit in one of my best friend's face. Got the shit punched out of me by him while my other best friend held me down. It wasn't until a few months ago that I even spoke to Botkin on the phone. He called me out of nowhere. He thanked me. We bullshitted and spoke about what all we've been up to. It was great to hear from him, but I don't deserve his thanks. It's why I didn't go see him with everyone else.
You shouldn't thank the guy that let it happen.
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