Word: platooner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sergeant!" he yelled at Platoon Sergeant Tom Abbott, his second-in-command. "They're getting close. We need to get out of here...
...explosion had taken out the leaders of the 1st Platoon. With both the lieutenant and sergeant out of commission, command fell on the shoulders of Perez, the senior soldier left standing. "Sergeant Perez!" Kraft yelled over the roar of war to Perez, around 75 yards away. "You're now the platoon leader...
...month later, Perez's platoon was ordered into northern Afghanistan to help quell a prison riot. His unit guarded John Walker Lindh, the so-called American Taliban, and protected the body of Johnny (Mike) Spann, the cia operative who was killed in the uprising and was the first American to die in the conflict. The contrast between the two Americans struck Perez. "It was tough to look at Walker, knowing he is an American and fighting for the other side and that he was the reason Mike Spann--a great American...
Barely two months later, following the mortar blast in the Shah-i-Kot, Perez found himself in charge of his platoon. With nine of his 26 men wounded, his immediate concern was getting them to safety without making a bad situation worse. "I'm the quarterback now," Perez thought. "Whatever I decide, I'm going to have to live with it, right or wrong." His wounded comrades knew they had to move. "We just needed to get the hell away from where we were," Maroyka says. "Even those of us with leg injuries had a simple choice...
Thirty minutes after the devastating mortar blast, with the sun rising overhead, 1st Platoon's wounded had taken cover in what some called Hell's Half Pipe, a natural trench, already protecting the command post, that shielded them from al-Qaeda's eyes. By chance, the enemy fire kept them where they wanted to be, guarding the escape paths from the southern end of the valley that al-Qaeda might want to use. But the Afghans, repelled by rocket and mortar attacks elsewhere in the valley, never showed. All the searching and destroying would have to be done...