[continued]
At this point you can hear your own breathing. About 15 seconds elapsed and I was completely focused on bringing that missile to impact precisely where I wanted it: at the bottom of the turret of a tank 3500m away that looked no bigger than a peppercorn in my night sight. An eternity passed. Then, without any sound, a flash filled my sight where the tank had once been, momentarily blinding the sight. As the glare again faded out of the sight and the picture returned, only a large fire and rising column of smoke existed where moments before there was an enemy tank.
I was ecstatic. My second kill. I was a boot, for sure, but I was fighting like a Marine, and I was damn proud of that.
"Black six, tango eight, hit, kill, catastrophic."
"Roger tango eight. Good shot," LT returned.
"Fuck yeah!!!!" my squad leader said. High fives went around. We were a couple of young, hard-charging Marines. We considered killing our business, and I was very pleased to have just serviced another client. As the minutes ticked by after that shot, I was buzzing with excitement and pride.
Finally, the Task Force was ready to start moving again, and we made the turn to the northeast that put us on the vector to the airport. Because of the turn when we moved out, our LOA was going to take my vehicle to the southeast of the destroyed target by about a kilometer. But other elements of my unit would be passing directly next to it, and as we had done throughout the attack, they would confirm the vehicle type.
Finally as we moved, the radio crackled to life.
"Black six, tango two over." One of CAAT1's TOWs was passing the my target.
"Tango two, black six, go ahead, over," the LT responed.
"Black six, I've got eyes on tango eight's target. [pause] Be advised, that's a negative on that vehicle being enemy armor. [pause] Be advised, that target was a D9 caterpillar, over..... a bulldozer, over."
There was a long pause, it seemed like ten minutes. Everyone in my vehicle was silent, and I went from feeling like Rambo to feeling like one of the Keystone cops. I remember thinking to myself disgustedly, "and you're supposed to be the friggin' armor ID guru."
Finally, the LT broke the silence, "tango eight, you copy tango two's last, over?"
"Roger black six," we replied. I was, to say the least embarrased. Funny thing was also how quickly my squad leader, who was also embarrased, forgot that he had looked at it to. "Fucking boot's shooting fucking bulldozers," he said aloud, with disgust.
LOL, by the time we secured Kuwait City, everyone was joking about it and the nickname Dozer was already being bandied about. I was surprised at one point when the gunny called me aside and told me that they would not be investigating the incident. I was surprised they had even considered it. But in the end, honestly, LOL, IT DID LOOK LIKE A FRIGGIN TANK. One of these days, I'm going to get in photoshop and produce a visual aid, LOL.
So that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Besides, it was probably busy building enemy fighting positions when I nailed it. Hell, the way I see it, they should've given me a medal
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