Jun 3, 2019
About one month prior to this day I set foot on FOB Gardez for the first time. It was the middle of the night, cold, drizzling, and pitch black. All of our duffel bags were unloaded and left on the dark flight line, so using only my headlamp, I attempted to sift through the bags all the while getting soaked and trying to not fall over from the wind caused by the helicopter taking off over me. Then it hit me: I can’t find my bag.
I panicked. I must have left it at FOB Salerno somewhere.
Who knows when I’d get it back as Salerno was a 30 minute helicopter ride away. All I had was a backpack, so that would have to make do until I could get my duffel. Now to figure out where the heck I was going because I’m on a new base in the middle of the night and have no clue how to get off the flight line let alone get to the operations center or my room.
Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Justin.
Through the noise of the helicopter, he shouted, “I got your bag!”. He had come out to the flight line in the rain, gotten my duffel in the dark, put it in the back of a golf cart, and was prepared to give me a ride to my room.
Justin and I worked side by side for the next month until he got the opportunity to become a platoon leader. I’ll never forget him coming back to Gardez a few days before he was killed, and the ear to ear smile on his face when he talked about his platoon and finally leading a group of Soldiers is something I’ll never forget.
1st LT Tina Turner