land navigation

so it was several months into the war. we'd already tore into baghdad with a vengance, blowing and bombing shit up. the local yocals were all very friendly; smiling and waving whenever we passed by. the masterguns (mastergunnery sargeant), told me i needed to run the gunner (this old fat blowhard of a guy who now sells used Fords in San Clemente) to a position on the outskirts of the city. 7th marines, I believe. so i gathered a few fuckheads together, explained we were tasked on a vital mission; get ready for confirmed kills, got a 240 Golf with a shit load of ammo, and the coordinates of 7th. we use grid coordinates with a no-shit map and compass. its kinda complicated and i wondered why we didnt just have mapquest or some shit, but we didnt-we had grid squares and these old ass "pluggers"(picture a cinderblock sized apple 2 computer that doubled as a compass) and thats how we got place to place. anyways, i get a 4 digit grid; thinking i was a master of land navigation and an all around bad ass type marine grunt. 10 minutes later we pick up the fat ass gunner and he blows a bunch of smoke up my ass and i laugh, because i like the fat bastard a little, and we go up to 7th marines pos. apparently it wasn't a vital mission. in short, the fat ass gunner wanted to talk to his buddy-who was also a fat ass gunner. they drank some illegal hooch hustled from the local yocals and reminisced about who blew up the most shit on the march up. so, i had assembled three HUMMVE's full of trigger happy jarheads, pumped them up that they may get some action, and we ended up driving that fat ass to his buddy's place to get blotto. it gets late. dark. and he decides he wants to stay. fine. great. i wouldn’t mind a night somewhere different. maybe they had better chow, i dunno. but as things happen, a fuck head pog major wanted to go to our position. "motherfucker," i say. so i get the guys back in the vehicles, tell them the situation and roll out. the fuck head pog major is in the back of the Hummer, fiddling with his iPod or palm pilot or electronic fuck stick, and we-young dumb leathernecks are up in front ready for battle. literally itching for a fire fight. being dark and all, the terrain looked oddly unfamiliar-my bad ass nav skills were slowly evaporating into oh-shit-we're-lost skills. i tried to keep this a secret from my marines. but guys get smart. they know. they know when their leader is a fucktard, and thats what seemed to be tattooed across my forehead that night. "CPL MANDIA IS A FUCKTARD." eventually the fuck face pog major got wind of this hairy situation and called me into the back of the truck. i go. he says, "cpl mandia, what the fuck is going on?" I say, "i think we're fucking lost, sir." he shakes his head and calls me a piece of shit NCO and i had to agree with him. see, a 4 digit grid gets you within a 1000 meters of your target position-in the raucous insanity of baghdad, 1000 meters was like a 1000 miles. now add in darkness. triply screwed. gunfire sporadically shot over our heads. fires burned on every street corner. explosions. random hadji's darting in and out of alleyways-it was down right scary. sweat poured into my eyes. the men began asking questions. my throat raw. my pores filled with grease. my feet and crotch crackling with fungi. this was all compounded by the situation. and i started to think: oh shit mandia, you could be responsible for the deaths of these men. no more jokes. no more laughing. no more shitty chow. no more breasts jiggling in your face or the smell of a woman's hair as she lays next to you on rainy summer night. NOTHING. this is real, dumbass. and you really fucked up. i wanted to cry. I just wanted to stop the goddamn trucks and get out and huddle in some corner and wait for morning and call my mom and dad up and ask them to pick me up. then something big exploded very close. dust flooded my Hummer. i gagged. i almost prayed to god or something like that. but he hadn’t done anything for me in a while, so I counted him out. although i sure as hell crossed my fingers we would accidentally run into our base camp. one hour later, we did. turns out the fuck faced pog major wasnt so fuck faced after all. that electronic fuck stick he was dicking with in the back was in fact a GPS and he; with all his college learning, triangulated our position. so we get back to base. im figuring a big time ass reaming. possible demotion. we get out-the guys are smoking and joking about their almost ill-fated mission, and the major walks up to me. "dumbfuck," he says. and walks off. disappears into the dark with his electronic fuckstick. never saw him again. later that night the masterguns asked how it went; any problems? waste anybody? throw any grenades? they have better chow than us? i sat down and lit up a marlboro light. "no," i said. "their chow fucking sucked too."