#17 - 2003 (Part 2) - First Days of the Invasion into Iraq: It Was Not a Fuel Leak

It is March 20, 2003. A company commander is trying to sleep on the hood of his Humvee when missiles rip into the sky less than a kilometer away. By that afternoon he is standing on the same Humvee giving his company the speech, then leading them through a cleared lane in the minefield at the Iraq border. What's waiting on the other side isn't the enemy. It's the desert: a hard crust over powder as fine as talcum, and once you stop, you're stuck. This is 2003, Part 2. The march north. In the dark he marks Bedouin trails with chem lights and drives straight into a camp full of camels, hanging glow sticks on the tent lines while the family comes out to watch. A yellow light blinks on and off in the distance: two young soldiers alone with a broken-down heavy hauler, waiting for somebody to come along. A box truck packed front to back with bags of ice gets stuck for good, and somewhere out there a Bedouin family woke up to a running freezer. He hasn't slept in days, and he looks at his own driver and asks, "Who are you?" Then a fuel leak that turns out to be something else entirely. A sandstorm that comes in like a wall ten stories high with lightning inside it, turns 4:30 in the afternoon pitch black, and leaves the world looking like Mars. His supply sergeant crawls along the commo wire to find a tent. And on the morning of March 23, at the head of a traffic jam thousands of vehicles long, someone tells him happy anniversary. It's his first. He closes with the advice a battalion commander gave his leaders at RAMS: things are going to go wrong. Stop, take a deep breath, say a prayer, and then go do what you've got to do. Also this week: Sally the tortoise breaks through the barricade, Terry's fishing trip comes home with 15 perch (and a bag somebody else left in the freezer), and the mailbag has an Alomar ball signed in purple ink, a referee from the college boxing match, and a review from a soldier who served with Jeremy in 2003. Audio note: you'll hear a burst of static a couple of times in this episode. It's in the recording, not your speakers. Sorry about that. Comment on YouTube or message us on Instagram. We read them on the show. Watch the full video episode: https://youtube.com/@amostunpredictablelife Website: https://amostunpredictablelife.com Follow @amostunpredictablelife on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook A Most Unpredictable Life: Jeremy Lewis and Terry Lewis. We're not brothers. We might be related.