GO! GO! GO! Everything Comes in Threes

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The command to execute a breach, mission, or takedown of anything in the Military is always given in threes.

In 2003, Iraq, just outside of Baghdad I sat in a trash collection area with my mortar team waiting to rain fire on the enemy to support my fellow Marines breaching an intel compound and prison where political prisoners were hunted, jailed, and torched. Our intelligence was thin at best, so we had no idea what we would find. Which was just another day for us after spending the last 22 days pushing through Iraq from Kuwait.

I remember hearing the go signal to breach the wall of the compound and laughing when they used the wrong rocket launcher to make the hole. The line platoon (basic infantry) used an AT4 anti-tank weapon and blew a 1 foot perfectly round hole in the cinderblock wall. Marines in full battle rattle would not fit. So they backed up and hit it with the right weapon system and made a hole the size a truck could drive through.

Marines poured into the 1-mile square compound to clear it. It was a mess and took forever going from building to building looking for bad guys and intelligence to collect.

I sat in this trash collection area waiting on the go signal for my mortar section to either fire a mission or run to consolidate with our company. In combat, everything always seems like an eternity especially sitting in the open with multiple buildings looking down at us. At the time I wanted to be in any position other than where we sat.

But it was the only clearing we could work from inside the city. The mortar system has to be in the open for the rounds to clear the buildings. Cover isn’t really something a mortarman gets. So we waited.

We finally got the word over the radio to displace and consolidate on the second objective, a UN Compound another mile up from the Intel Compound.

“CSMO! CSMO! CSMO!” I shouted to my team and they shouted back ”Grab your shit and go!” It was an inside joke that we used for the last year of training knowing that this was going to have to be fast or suck a lot. My Marines packed up their mortar systems and rounds and were prepared to go in less than a minute. At the time we were the best in the business.

After packing up, we headed toward our company to link up. Our security is in our speed, so we ran the mile or two with full gear, packs, and weapon systems.

My combat loadout was about 80 pounds of ammo, grenades, and everything else a modern Marine carries to do battle. In my pack were 4 mortar rounds, food, clothing, water, more ammo, more grenades, and a bunch of other stuff totaling about 60 pounds. Every one of my 20 Marines had about the same load. And we ran for our lives.

Nothing like running over the bodies of dead Red Cresent workers to motivate you to run faster. We ran the couple miles. When one of my Marines faltered with some of the gear I picked that up. By the time I had to stop and shoot at a couple of guys that tried to run up behind us, I had two ammo cans full of mortar rounds. I had to drop those and grab my rifle off the sling, shoulder it, fire a couple of rounds to keep them back, and then push on.

We made it to the relative safety of our lines without much incident. We were spent but had to go again to set up our weapon systems. And then about half an hour later we were attacked by a squad and fought to a stalemate. Never a dull moment in Baghdad, Iraq 2003.

How do you prepare for something like that? How do you prepare for life? You know when things happen they happen in threes. I should have known we would be attacked after we reached ”safety” because things always happen together.

When you are training, working, preparing, or just living life, You have to be prepared for things to happen one after another. I know my story is in the extreme and I hope you don’t have challenges like that in your life. It sucks to have someone trying to take your life.

But right now you have things that are trying to do it slowly to you. The TV is probably trying to kill you over the next 20 to 40 years. The internet is trying to do it a little faster with all the crap. Like most tools, the internet can be used for bad or good. Make sure it isn’t killing you.

Take on challenges one right after another. Make them hard for you. And just keep going. It is how life is. It’s how to move forward. It is how to win.

If you get used to doing challenges one right after another you will be able to handle life when it throws things at you one right after another.

If you do hard things now, back to back, and harder and harder, by the time life throws crap your way, it will be easier for you.

Running through the streets of Baghdad with my own bodyweight of gear was something we had prepared for a little at a time, with challenge after challenge, each harder than the last. We made everything a challenge.

What are you doing to challenge yourself now so when times get hard you can handle things back to back?

I’m doing a bike race next month and then going to run a 5k with my wife and her friend the next month. That may not sound tough for you, but it’s been almost 15 years since I’ve run more than around the block. I’ll have to work on it to survive the 5K. It’s going to suck a lot. But I’m going to get the challenge done.

I’ll ask you again, what are you doing to prepare yourself for life? What hard thing are you doing now to make the impossible easier? It may not be someone actively trying to kill you, but cancer may try just as hard to kill you as Saddam’s soldiers had tried to kill me in Iraq.

Prepare now. Do hard things

Ben Branam