Off Topic but I could use someone

[zieglerj-pdm-specialist]

I am an 12th year Army Ranger 31 years old who is going back on tour in 31 days on my fifth tour. I am on the blaster Team which disarm and destroy IED's within our soldiers way. My first year in Iraq I was the call out Seargant for my Blaster one who went into to disarm the IEDS and my Captain requested tools so I ran them down to him and was on my way running back and the IED detonated killing my commanding officer to nothing and giving me shrapnel on my back and left side of my body and face leaving shrapnel and rock embedded into my flesh. It to took me a month and 1/2 to recover and then I went back out into the field. I did this for 3 years and then requested to be on the front line Blaster, I took courses how to disconnect bombs and beware of my surroundings,

I made a bad call my first day in the suit I seen a Hodgy five stories up on a side building 45 degree's in correlation to the IED out of the blast radius , he looked like he was using a cell phone to detonate but all he was doing was playing Tetris on a Gameboy, I was in full blast gear not knowing if he was sending a signal to blow, definitely killing me and possibly a couple of my specialists so I took him out with out hesitating with a 9mm the only gun allowed with me in a blast suit. I was cleared as a good decision to shoot.

When I got back I took this Forum to take my mind off of the war but reality is reality. 30 days after today I leave for fort Benning, they may call me sooner they are the time table of my life I will be going back to take command of blast unit of the 145th. 360 days until I have the option to come home or if I request for 720. I don't feel like I belong State Side. My Yukon XL took the thoughts away for minutes at a time. I cant sleep so if a couple of my posts may not make any sense and I apologize. My wife is having a hard time living with me because I'm up all our of the night and I sleep in a tent some nights if I want a good night sleep. The most I've slept is 4 hours a night. When I first got back I always had my .45 Glock 21 always on my hip of 4,000 people which was uncalled for. I never thought war would take your mind to a different place but I can say it definitely does and no matter the medication you take it doesn't take away the dreams and the cold sweat terrors at night. Knowing that you killed more than how many toes and fingers you have really harms the mental state of a person takes a toll on you and your soul. I tried to hide myself in this forum. Is there any other active duty soldiers on this forum I could maybe talk to because I cant talk about what happened with my wife or the shrinks that are here for us to talk to but they have no clue what we have been through and I just need to help before I venture back. Please if there are any soldiers I would appreciate a write back here or at my email [email protected]. May God Take care of our troops and keep them strong to help the people who cant help themselves. Captain Ziegler Leader of the 75th Ranger Regiment, I've been in the blast suit for 4 years and I wont change my duties even though they want to promote me to a desk and I will not agree to that, My specialty is to disarm bombs and saving lives, there is no other life for me. God Bless and please reach out with your email or send a message to my email if anyone wants to talk to a soldier who needs a hand. Sorry I took this forum to reach out to talk about my deployment but I'm a US Citizen who needs someone to help me through a tough time. Please have a heart and please let people if there is anyone I can talk to via email. Take Care.

 

[Pachanga02]

Sorry I can't help in the sense that I don't know anything about the battlefield but THANKS a million for everything you and your family have done to keep us safe.

 

[NathanJax]

Sorry I can't help in the sense that I don't know anything about the battlefield but THANKS a million for everything you and your family have done to keep us safe.

x2

 

[JochenWoern]

x2

X3

 

[Regency]

Thanks for everything you do man. Being on the front line of dis-arming IED's would be very stressful I can only imagine. Thanks again for everything you do.

 

[Goodinblack]

X100000000

 

[Donnie Yukonie]

Sending you a PM now! I am Active duty

 

[zieglerj-pdm-specialist]

Thanks 380 days, My brother will be working on my Denali while Im on tour

When I was 6th or 7th grader I hated fights. I cried after my first fist fight I watched. Then when I started to get picked on I had no choice. Over the next 5 years and developed leather skin and fear of no one. I took upon myself to learn to fight big guys, knees are there weak point and Boxers are quick but they all drop the same. Wrestlers rely on the ground game but I taught myself to sprawl and ground and pound. I only fought the guys who were picking on smaller guys or just being assholes, I never once started a fight. They always thought since I was only 5'11 and 190 pounds I couldn't fight. I lost a few but I won a lot. So I joined the Rangers and worked myself up through the ranks. Thank you for reaching out, people don't understand what we go through across seas the limits we stretch to help the people out over there who are actually disrespect us and are trying to kill us.. I don't understand the purpose of war over there. They are killing themselves and why do we need to intervene. This war is like a drug to me. I feel more comfortable in a blast suit standing over 5 IED's pulling the detonation plugs out so that cant hurt anyone. This battle is a non stop no win battle. If we are there for ten more years or leave tomorrow things wont change. They keep everything the same day in day out. IED's deaths non stop!! There was a group of innocents who turned out to be insurgents trying to invade our camps. We had 20 of them trying to get into our camp asking for help. Using Infrared we seen one of them hidden in the pack had suicide bombs all over his body and my officers were not stopping them so I waited until the line was clear and no one was around and I took and RPG and Aimed it at the Hodgy Wired and blew up the crowd. I explained to my commanding officer and he wanted to write me up but the Guys with me said I made the right choice or we would have had a suicide Bomber getting closer and closer each second we let them walk closer and closer and its hard at night to see what exactly is going on. Even every spotlight was on them. Without Infrared they would have made it to the gates and blew our entry point wide open. I question myself daily if the crew with him knew he was strapped or were they innocent? It hurts not knowing I May have killed 19 innocent people, or I saved thousands by taking them out. Its a total mind **** over there. I need to get ice running through my veins and do my job and look at every Hodgy as an enemy. I board soon so I thank you so much for writing. God Bless and Rangers can be slowed down but cannot be stopped. Ill be a Ranger until I die. I have been through more than 50 hand to hand combats and my knife has soaked with 50+ Hodgy blood. Close quarters my shotgun has and unknown amount. I have been a sniper in 20 or more missions. My Longest shot was at 2200 feet While a guy was video taping a Team of my going in deep and I had an experienced leader as my spotter and I scanned the roof tops and was ordered to take out any Hodgy holding an electrical device. We took down 15 that day. Still Unknown bad or good. I need to look at them all as enemies because they act like they know you and want to help and they detonate while talking to you. In my experience I don't trust anyone except for the ones patched with an American Flag. All others are potential threats and why do we let them be potential threats why don't we treat them as threats if they watch us from high altitudes with camera's. They have no reason to be watching and all of them that are should have a warning shot fired at them to move inside and if they don't they don't move should be shot onsite because one of them heartless ******* could be holding my life in his hands while I'm disarming an IED. I want to be safe doing it and Zero Hodgy's watching me trying to save lives is one less potential remote det waiting to happen. When I'm in the field on this tour I'm going to recommend to my Team that I will be the Commanding Officer is to keep as many non US infantry will be warned with a warning shot and if they don't comply they will be shot on site. My life and my Teams life are in anyone's hands watching with a camera.On my last tour their was a guy running a Camera watching me going towards the IED and he was signaling with another ******* across the compound I ordered my Team to shoot them both. They never felt comfortable doing it to innocent people and I felt threatened so I went back and Got my gun and shot a warning shot and waved them to move inside they didn't comply so I shot them both and it kept me more calm disabling the IED. They do not need to be filming anything. They don't care for us over there so if I need to shoot two potential life takers for me to do my job it has to be done. I debriefed the situation and they agreed that my shots were justified but that's is not my job. Your Team needs to comply with your orders. I have killed more people than I want to know. A Couple IED's Blew up as I was running away from the bomb set to a timer, I tried my hardest to get through the barrier they had over the IED but it was impossible. I stayed longer than I should but I learn from my mistakes, I got knocked off my feet from the bomb behind me and that makes every muscle and bone hurt in your body for the next week shaking you to the core. I got my Team behind Jersey Barriers and outside the blast radius saving there lives. That is a good day for me. I would rather be the one getting hurt than any other person on my Team or the Team reporting the bomb. God Speed and Ill be stateside in the next 380 days and counting. Wish me luck that one of them Hodgy ***** don't get me with one of there IEDs. Take Care and God Bless America. My wife and kids are hurting for money and it would be nice if the Army would set up a Fund Raiser for my Wife and 4 girls because I may or may not come back and it would be great to get help from anyone willing to help my family. The Army takes care of my time in Iraq and give me enough to send home to get my family enough to scrape by. They would get paid more if I die, I care for my family enough to take that chance everyday. I don't want to die but people die over their daily why not me. I'm in harms way on every mission. I have disarmed 461 IED's to date and counting. May you all Take Care and give a prayer out to the soldiers fighting over their right now. May God be with us and with you during this war that I hope ends someday soon. My brother lives two houses down with his wife and kids and I do this for my family and his. He will be taking care of my Denali While I'm Gone and he may even post on here if he needs help because I told him without you guys my Denali wouldn't be in the shape its in. God Speed and take care.

 

[zieglerj-pdm-specialist]

My ship date is For August Second to a location in the states to prepare myself for the sandbox but I went through everything all I need to know so I'm going to try and push my extraction Date to get my numbers running for my date back to the states. I have been ranked up in my division and one more bar and I'm at the top of the IED Command but I will not be removed from the field even if it costs me a rank which is frowned upon in the military but I do is what I do best in the field not giving orders and making calls for the other Blast masters in the field. My position is over the IED.. The only three departments I'm good at and that's not dying, disarming IED's and Sniper. They try to take me away from those two departments I will be sent home with a dishonorable discharge and I have made that known to my supervisors. They know my attitude and don't like it but they admit that I'm not replaceable with my skill set. I try not to be a dick I just want to do the jobs where I feel are most comfortable with me and they happen to be the most dangerous jobs anyone can enroll in. Sniper can be a week or two moving slowly daily to get in the position to get a shot on the mark. We can drink 4 onces of water every four hours to keep our reserve full and we wont dehydrate. Going to the bathroom is where you lie but with the amount of water taken in and the heat I haven't pissed at all on a couple week long missions. Its so damn hard to visualize the target so we have American or even hodgies who mark the bastard while we are aiming in the vicinity. its a invisible lazer that we can only see through our scopes, once he is marked he has 1 minutes at the most in order to live. My spotter is my eyes he tells me the wind speed, the humidity, the day time on where the position of the sun is in relation to the mark so I know the trajectory of the bullet. a Bullet Travelling 1000 yards has so many factors that can cause the bullet to move and an inch at the beginning of the flight pattern if I'm off by .0025 inch when it leaves the barrel I would be off 5 feet when it reaches its target . I need everything perfect to pull off a perfect shot that you only have one chance at. I usually Take a couple ****** 1 hour or 2 before I know I have to make the shot to slow my heart rate down and relax me so I don't make a major or minor error. People don't say drugs are over here, Im not surprised when vets go home they aren't addicted to pain medications. They say you will not be on pain meds when you go out on a mission but people find a way to get their hands on a couple Vicoden-Hydrocodone and when they show signs of addiction to those drugs they put them on a methadone regimen which is 20 times worse because methadone is harder to kick that Hydro's. You don't get the high like the hydro's give you but it gives you the sense a major relaxation and I admit its great to take the pain away. But its like giving you soldiers a low grade ****** hit. The first thing I do when I get to my crew is have them all take a piss test and if they don't pass they are reported and I'm reassigned a new specialist. My first tour I got addicted to Hydrocodone for the Shrapnel I took and gravel buried in my skin. I told my commanding officer I want off these meds and they took me off and I went into a state of depression and it took me 3 weeks in the barracks breaking the habit. My arms, legs and hands would jump uncontrollably and my mind state was not even 50% I drank water in very high doses to get that shit out of my system and once I was off completely clear. I requested 2 weeks off to work in the shooting range and mental tests of disarming not live IED's and mortars to make 100% sure my mind was in the right place. If they would have put me in the field hopped up on that shit I could have got my crew hurt possibly killed along with myself. I saw a head Doctor throughout this all and he recommended methadone to get me through the rough patches and I passed because of the stories I heard of soldiers coming off methadone killing themselves. So if your loved one comes home not right or feeling good about his tour he is more than likely under the influence of either or drug and he needs to get clean at a Veteran facility ASAP. Or suicide maybe a couple weeks away once he runs out or the Dr. wont prescribe them anymore. For how many dollars we spend on this ******* war they need to get these soldiers coming home the right treatment and make sure they are 100% ready for civilian life. I shouldn't be sharing this but if I can help one of your loved ones or a friend or a friend of a friend this Intel was a success. God Bless you all and the fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.


god bless all who have fallen in the call of duty

 

[zieglerj-pdm-specialist]

My ship date is For August Second to a location in the states to prepare myself for the sandbox but I went through everything all I need to know so I'm going to try and push my extraction Date to get my numbers running for my date back to the states. I have been ranked up in my division and one more bar and I'm at the top of the IED Command but I will not be removed from the field even if it costs me a rank which is frowned upon in the military but I do is what I do best in the field not giving orders and making calls for the other Blast masters in the field. My position is over the IED.. The only three departments I'm good at and that's not dying, disarming IED's and Sniper. They try to take me away from those two departments I will be sent home with a dishonorable discharge and I have made that known to my supervisors. They know my attitude and don't like it but they admit that I'm not replaceable with my skill set. I try not to be a dick I just want to do the jobs where I feel are most comfortable with me and they happen to be the most dangerous jobs anyone can enroll in. Sniper can be a week or two moving slowly daily to get in the position to get a shot on the mark. We can drink 4 onces of water every four hours to keep our reserve full and we wont dehydrate. Going to the bathroom is where you lie but with the amount of water taken in and the heat I haven't pissed at all on a couple week long missions. Its so damn hard to visualize the target so we have American or even hodgies who mark the bastard while we are aiming in the vicinity. its a invisible lazer that we can only see through our scopes, once he is marked he has 1 minutes at the most in order to live. My spotter is my eyes he tells me the wind speed, the humidity, the day time on where the position of the sun is in relation to the mark so I know the trajectory of the bullet. a Bullet Travelling 1000 yards has so many factors that can cause the bullet to move and an inch at the beginning of the flight pattern if I'm off by .0025 inch when it leaves the barrel I would be off 5 feet when it reaches its target . I need everything perfect to pull off a perfect shot that you only have one chance at. I usually Take a couple ****** 1 hour or 2 before I know I have to make the shot to slow my heart rate down and relax me so I don't make a major or minor error. People don't say drugs are over here, Im not surprised when vets go home they aren't addicted to pain medications. They say you will not be on pain meds when you go out on a mission but people find a way to get their hands on a couple Vicoden-Hydrocodone and when they show signs of addiction to those drugs they put them on a methadone regimen which is 20 times worse because methadone is harder to kick that Hydro's. You don't get the high like the hydro's give you but it gives you the sense a major relaxation and I admit its great to take the pain away. But its like giving you soldiers a low grade ****** hit. The first thing I do when I get to my crew is have them all take a piss test and if they don't pass they are reported and I'm reassigned a new specialist. My first tour I got addicted to Hydrocodone for the Shrapnel I took and gravel buried in my skin. I told my commanding officer I want off these meds and they took me off and I went into a state of depression and it took me 3 weeks in the barracks breaking the habit. My arms, legs and hands would jump uncontrollably and my mind state was not even 50% I drank water in very high doses to get that shit out of my system and once I was off completely clear. I requested 2 weeks off to work in the shooting range and mental tests of disarming not live IED's and mortars to make 100% sure my mind was in the right place. If they would have put me in the field hopped up on that shit I could have got my crew hurt possibly killed along with myself. I saw a head Doctor throughout this all and he recommended methadone to get me through the rough patches and I passed because of the stories I heard of soldiers coming off methadone killing themselves. So if your loved one comes home not right or feeling good about his tour he is more than likely under the influence of either or drug and he needs to get clean at a Veteran facility ASAP. Or suicide maybe a couple weeks away once he runs out or the Dr. wont prescribe them anymore. For how many dollars we spend on this ******* war they need to get these soldiers coming home the right treatment and make sure they are 100% ready for civilian life. I shouldn't be sharing this but if I can help one of your loved ones or a friend or a friend of a friend this Intel was a success. God Bless you all and the fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan.


god bless all who have fallen in the call of duty

I know have of you probably didn't read this or didn't want anything to do with it but it helped me let some of my demons out that needed to go and I thank you.