23 Examples Of Sleep In A Combat Zone

[longknife]

Geoffrey Ingersoll|Mar. 22, 2013, 1:15 PM|47,166|7

I'd be lying if I said I never snuggled with a dude.

When Marines initially invaded Iraq in 2003, there were no bases or bunks or nice places to sleep. It was the ground, with stars for a blanket.

Read more: 23 Examples Of Sleep In Combat - Business Insider

I can't even begin to remember all the weird places I made my zzzz's while in the military.

 

[Oldguy]

When you've pushed yourself beyond the limits, your body WILL sleep in whatever place it finds itself. This is why people go to sleep behind the wheel of vehicles and get killed. The longest I ever pushed myself was 63 hours without even a nap. By that time, I didn't recognize where I was, didn't know exactly what I was supposed to be doing and had to fight mightily to even keep my eyes open long enough to make to a place to collapse.

In war, a soldier may go for weeks on short naps or precious snatches of sleep wherever the opportunity presents itself. In the end, though, you simply HAVE to "get your nap out" and nothing will prevent it. Not rules, not safety, not some Sergeant yelling at you, not the threat of courts martial or sudden death. When you've gone too far, sleep is automatic. That's how soldiers can sleep in places like you posted. I have literally seen soldiers fall asleep in the middle of a fire fight because they couldn't help themselves.

In my own personal experience, two episodes come to mind.

1. We were well into our third consecutive week of active patrolling in a very dangerous area. We'd been airlifted from an operation in Antenna Valley, Vietnam, straight into another one near Thien Phouc, west of Chu Lai. Both areas were crawling with sinks and we'd made a lot of contact. The psychological and physical pressures were high and unrelenting.

One morning, deep in triple canopy jungle, I awoke in my tent to the sound of someone yelling. As I remember, it went something like this:

"Who the hell is supposed to be on guard? Who was the last one awake?"

Somebody either went to sleep on guard or never got up for his shift. The usual procedure was that when your shift was over, you'd awake the next guy up and hand him the watch.

I found that watch lying on MY chest! I was the one who left the whole platoon unguarded on that side of the perimeter! That's a courts martial offense and rightfully so, but nobody ever discovered it was me and I didn't volunteer the information. My body had just shut down and there was nothing I could have done about it. I have no recollection of being awakened that night, but the guy who preceded me said I sat up, took the watch and responded positively, so he thought I was alright and immediately passed out himself.

2. We were operating in a little circular valley we called "The Punchbowl" in the Que Son Mountains southwest of Danang. The going down in the valley floor was tough, really tough, as it was a massive, overgrown tangle of vines, thickets and heavy brush.

This day, I had been on point nearly the entire day, hacking a path through the tangle with a machete in the dry season heat. I had never been so physically exhausted by the time we reached a bald outcropping of nearly solid rock on the side of the valley which was to be our night position. I've never been that tired since either.

My hootch mate and I, Ching Lau from Theresa, WI, pitched our little tent and I went immediately to sleep. I don't even remember eating.

Sometime during the night, he woke me up for my guard shift and, in doing so, mentioned something about a mortar attack. I had no clue what he was babbling about. Guard duty passed without incident, so I awakened the next guy and went back to sleep.

The next morning, I found out what Ching had been talking about. We had been mortared shortly after sundown. 10 or 12 rounds landed either inside our little perimeter or just outside it. Nobody had been hurt, but a couple of tents were well shredded by shrapnel. At the time, our platoon numbered 12 live bodies, so the perimeter was very small.

I had slept right through it.

How tired do you have to be to sleep through a mortar attack?