TjRubley.com

The weekend before last, I went out to see Mom and Dad in Indianapolis. It was Mother’s day and it seemed like a perfect time for a nice little getaway. Treated to great food, drink and company made the weekend a perfect success! Click the picture for the gallery:

And this past weekend, Shana and I were talking under the influence on Friday night and playfully suggested to each other that we should go back up the coast and finish our trip to Seaside. When I woke up Saturday I didn’t think we were going and Shana surprised me and insisted we go! We stayed the night in Seaside and then went to Astoria Sunday morning. Astoria is definitely where we should’ve stayed though, a very cool town with lots to do downtown. We’ll be back Click the pic for the gallery… And who knows, maybe I’ll actually get some links into the gallery section as well…

dc

Here’s our conversation:

[13:04] rubleytj: Hey Scott, what’s up?
[13:04] bojodaddy: not much
[13:04] bojodaddy: how are you
[13:04] bojodaddy: well i shouldnt say not much
[13:04] bojodaddy: my stryker got blown up by a car bomb today
[13:04] rubleytj: holy shit, how are you?
[13:04] bojodaddy: luckily all my guys are ok
[13:05] bojodaddy: im fine
[13:05] bojodaddy: just a bad headache and earache
[13:05] rubleytj: jesus, do these guys know you only have a few months left or what??
[13:05] bojodaddy: i dont think they care
[13:05] bojodaddy: its was in a residental area too
[13:05] bojodaddy: killed at least 10 kids
[13:06] rubleytj: oh man, that’s terrible. Is the armour on the Stryker not up to snuff, or are the bombs getting bigger and bigger?
[13:06] bojodaddy: the bombs are getting bigger and better
[13:06] bojodaddy: the stryker is ready to roll again
[13:07] bojodaddy: it blew up 5 tires, our drivers thermal camera, a periscope in the drivers hatch and a headlamp
[13:07] rubleytj: the cabin wasn’t ruptured then I take it?
[13:07] bojodaddy: no
[13:07] rubleytj: well that’s good I guess. Probably couldn’t drive though
[13:07] bojodaddy: in the last month our battalion has been hit by about 15 car bombs
[13:08] rubleytj: how many strykers were on with you?
[13:08] bojodaddy: it drove back to our FOB
[13:08] bojodaddy: we roll out with 4
[13:08] bojodaddy: 4 in one platoon
[13:08] rubleytj: sorry, still learning! Are they suicide bombers, or remote detonated bombs that happen to be in cars?
[13:09] bojodaddy: when we first got here, it was just bombs made out of artillery shells, that they layed on the side of the road
[13:09] bojodaddy: those are called IED’s
[13:09] bojodaddy: improvised explosive devices
[13:10] bojodaddy: then they graduated to what we call VBIED’s vehicular born IED;s
[13:10] bojodaddy: where theyed park them on the side of the road and detonate them as we drove by
[13:10] bojodaddy: now its gone to suicide VBIED’s where they drive them into us
[13:11] rubleytj: damn, that is fucked
[13:11] bojodaddy: yeah
[13:11] rubleytj: do you get some downtime now?
[13:11] bojodaddy: umm
[13:11] bojodaddy: no
[13:11] rubleytj: this is just routine now, huh?
[13:11] bojodaddy: that happend at 1145 this morning, we went back out at 7pm tonight
[13:12] bojodaddy: and we go out again tommorrow
[13:12] bojodaddy: luckily, only 2 guys were wounded
[13:12] bojodaddy: one of them, my vehicle commander, or vc for short
[13:12] bojodaddy: was knocked out, got a pretty good concusiojn
[13:12] bojodaddy: the blast hit right below the side of my hatch, it knocked me down into the stryker, and him at the same time
[13:13] bojodaddy: it took me a second to realize i was still alive, then i grabbed my vc, and saw that he was unconcious
[13:13] bojodaddy: luckily my platoon medic was riding on my stryker today
[13:13] bojodaddy: so he started helping him
[13:14] bojodaddy: i thought he was hurt bad at first, but there was no blood, and doc got a pulse right away, so i knew he was just unconcious
[13:14] bojodaddy: the other guy, was in the stryker in front of mine and caught some shrapnel in the back of the neck
[13:15] bojodaddy: we rushed them to the hospital, chris, my vc was back with us about 2 hours later, he had a cat scan
[13:15] bojodaddy: and gabe, had surgery to have the piece of shrapnel removed, missed his spinal cord by an inch
[13:15] rubleytj: thank god
[13:15] bojodaddy: hell be back with us tommorros
[13:15] bojodaddy: tommorrow
[13:16] bojodaddy: this last month has been pretty bad
[13:16] bojodaddy: lots of ieds, and suicide vbieds
[13:16] bojodaddy: yeah
[13:16] bojodaddy: im ready to get the fuck out of here
[13:16] bojodaddy: you can only take so much of getting blown up

Just a few more months buddy, hang tight!

dc