A time when you were truly scared?

Somalia, 1992... flying along in brand new UH60, all is well, the pilots are enjoying the ride as I was in the jump seat just behind their console... When all of the sudden, all of these lights on the dash start flashing... "Master Caution" etc... They start scrambling, flipping switches.... and then call in the ICOM to hold on, and then on the radio we are going down... Hard landing, but those dudes knew how to do it... Climb to Glory!

I have been in plenty of ground combat scenarios, and at least there, I feel like I get a vote... Flying, as a non-aviator... passenger... is very helpless feeling... and I have done it a lot...

SFC Mark Merino you can probably relate.

I met my son after my first deployment. He was 6 months old. I was shaking...could barely talk. Thought if I held him I would break him. Little did I know at 6 months he was like a grown man...lol...I can say I have never been more scared and happy at the same time. It was a weird feeling.

This will be a long one so here it goes....

On August 24, 2013 my platoon was conducting route clearance in Afghanistan. We were about 3km outside the wire when the biggest explosion I have ever seen went off three vehicles in front of mine. Upon the dust settling and calling IED on the radio I called our dismount teams back to the vehicle that was hit. After sending up the initial report I asked my PL for a sitrep and he responded that it didn't look good. He told me that the gunner had been ejected and that the driver wasn't moving. Upon hearing this I sent up a sitrep to the TOC I got a call on the platoon net that we had two Heros (code word for KIA). After the MEDEVAC took the two Heros out and after spending hours recovering the destroyed vehicle we went back to the FOB. Once we arrived I was approached by my 1SG and he told me that not everyone in the platoon knew that two Soldiers had just died. I instantly teared up and confronted my guys.

After this event my chain of command made the call to fly us to our home FOB to get some R&R time to get our heads back on straight and fly back up to get our vehicles three days later and clear the roads back. Well, Mr. Taliban had other plans as they attacked our FOB with a 3,000lb VBIED and about 100 fighters, needless to say all the Taliban died in their effort.

A day after the FOB attack we flew back to the FOB where our vehicles were and started prepping for our long journey back. As we were clearing very deliberately we found some copper wire, a cache with some IEDs, and a recoiless rifle. Upon our confidence being boosted we continued clearing. About 10kms from our battle space a buffalo that we were escorting was struck by a VBIED. The VBIED destroyed the buffalo (not an easy feat) and severely injured the six Soldiers inside (all of the Soldiers survived). 24 hours after we departed the FOB we arrived at our home FOB.

After this week of hell I was scared out of my mind. I told my PL, who was scared out his mind as well, I don't know how much more I or the guys could take. We took this opportunity to tell the guys how afraid we were of losing anymore guys and that they needed to let us know how they felt. They responded with the same feeling.

I have never been so scared in my life as Inwas during that week and the following weeks after that hellish week. How me and my guys held it together is beyond me.

Sorry for the long post.....