by MasterChief

As the title says it was just another day, except for the fact that we were in Saudi Arabia and it was something like 125 degrees in the shade. These were the days of "Desert Shield" it was an anxious time, none of us knew what to expect from the enemy so we were a little bit edgy.

One of the things that irritated us most is that we had enlisted in the Navy. That in itself was not so upsetting but when you go into the Navy, you enlist under the impression that in return for months and months at sea, you will get to sleep in a bed in a climate controlled ship. That illusion ended for us all during BUDS, but we thought the trade off would be that we would get laid all of the time for being in Spe-Ops.

Yeah, that didn't pan out either.

First of all we were in the middle of the desert. No girls anywhere, not even bedoiuns. Second, being able to swim long distances and kill people with an assortment of weapons, including your bare hands, is no competition compared to a six figure salary (at least in the Gas Lamp district of San Diego) so we really didn't get laid much except for in Tijuana--but that's a whole other story.

Back to the Saudi desert. The sun was going down and the temperature was dropping, it was during the 15 minutes or so of comfortable temps that our XO came out and told us we were on patrol that night. All of us were pretty pissed off at this because we figured that there were thousands of Marines out here that could have been taking care of something as mundane as a night patrol. But we are supposed to be hard as nails spec-ops guys, so none of us complained as we got our gear prepped and readied ourselves for the evening's activities.

We were all experienced operators, recently coming off of that whole Panama\Noriega thing so we packed pretty light, only bringing what we needed: rifle, ammo, night vision, boots, flak jacket, etc". As it got dark, the kind of dark you rarely see if you live in the U.S, 1100 hours comes and we go out.

The first part of the patrol is pretty boring, just walking, Petty Officer "Blitzkrieg" is on point.

Now I should take this time to mention that Blitz was\is one funny mother fucker. He doesn't try to be funny but things always happen to him. The day before this, he was kicked in the nuts by a camel, some time prior to that, he was thrown overboard by the thrust of a jet taking off from a carrier, unintentional but always made us laugh.

The reason why Blitz was on point was two fold: 1. he had the best vision I have ever even heard of in a human being, day or night he could spot movement from over a mile, 2. He had an almost ESP like sense when it came to knowing if something was out of place.

At about the halfway point of the patrol, Blitz gives a hand signal to let us know to stop and he needed to take a closer look at something. No one really thought much of this because it was pretty normal. There was a water tower less than 100 yards from us and Blitz spotted someone on the tower. We were not notified that there would be someone on the tower and therefore this person was a threat to us (poison, bomb, god only knows what).

Blitz "You on the tower, climb down slowly keep your hands where I can see them."

Translator [behind Blitz in the line] "blah blah blah scream maleka."

The guy on the tower gave no response. He just kept on doing what he was doing.

Blitz "You on the tower, I will open fire if you do not comply, climb down slowly keep your hands where I can see them."

Translator "blah blah blah scream maleka."

The guy on the tower gave no response at all. He just kept doing what he was doing.

At this point Blitz fires a warning shot about a foot away from his head. Close enough to get this guys attention but not hitting him. The guy swatted like a mosquito just landed on his neck but kept going about his business.

At this point Blitz looked back at us with a "what the fuck" kind of look on his face, we all stared back blankly. He took that as a signal to shoot the guy.

BANG

The guy on the tower takes the round right inhis back, drops from the tower and hits the ground. We immediately call it in and keep moving.

Minutes later there is a swarm of activity in the previously quiet area. We're not sure what is going on, so we high tail it the fuck out of there.

When we get back to base, the XO is waiting for us.

XO "What the fuck happened out there?"

We tell him what happened, and he shakes his head and stares at us in disbelief.

XO "That's fucking great. Do you know who you shot? THAT WAS A DEAF SAUDI PLUMBER!"

Whoops.