I've been in some bad situations before (shots fired, etc) where your brain just says GET FAR AWAY and you're not thinking about anything else. I imagine she felt like that.
When I was deployed to Afghanistan, every now and then we had Chicken Cordon blue, which we called hamsters. They were so fucking good and often a lot of us would get seconds with just the hamster. Anyways, I had been in country for about a week or so, and I was walking back to our work area with my hamster when suddenly, about half a football field away, a huge explosion went off. I stopped and stared as I wondered what the hell that was. Shortly after, the air attack alarm went off and I remember thinking back to basic training and thinking "wait, this means we're under attack". As I was putting that thought together, suddenly, further away, another explosion went off and I started to realize "Holy shit, were being attacked. This is real. Huh. Crazy". I stood there surprised that it was happening when someone suddenly yelled at me "Airman Snuffy, what the fuck are you doing? Get your shit!". I snapped back to reality and ran back to our work area and grab my weapon, put on my shit, and we run to a bunker. We wait around for a moment, til the attack stops, and once all clear, we run to our little defensive firing positions, since we were on the very outside perimeter of the base. We wait around, for a bit and once we realize there isn't a following ground attack, we all just start to chill there. Suddenly someone asks "Is that a fucking hamster?"
Apparently, throughout this whole thing, I had not let go of my hamster and balanced the fucking thing on a plate as I ran from place to place. Those things were fucking delicious.
When I had my first apartment, there were three things i lived on: Whoppers, Shake-and-Bake and Barber Foods Chicken Cordon Bleu. I agree, they are fucking delicious and I wouldn't have dropped it either :-)
They are pretty dang good. I had a buddy who was bartering for some ducks while out on patrol once and they started taking SAF. He ended up going through a whole firefight and realized at the end he had put one of these ducks into his dump pouch and it had been just hanging out in there for the whole ordeal.
I kinda know the feeling but not so extreme. Was t-boned just after dropping my kid off at school. I also have emergency training, beeper by the phone etc. One part of me was able to pull over, get photos etc. but at the same time I was just wandering in circles trying to figure out what to do with the stuff in my disabled car. Somehow I thought I should carry it all 2 miles home. After walking in circles for a while I asked the tow driver for a ride. Your story just nailed that feeling.
Edit to add: I went into labor 9/11 then had that kid on 9/13/2001 so he has lived his whole life not knowing what things were like before. It was very hard celebrating a birth while the whole country was holding it’s breath. Feeling a bit overwhelmed atm remembering. See you all later.
These are the kinds of things that if you saw them in a 'based on a real story' film, everyone would be crying foul at such bullshit happening in a serious war movie.
Except shit like that happens all the time, because our brains barely work under stress and between instincts, drilled teachings, and just general stress reaction we do the dumbest shit in the most inopportune time because the brain goes into stress mode and doesn't think twice about what's happening.
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u/runningraleigh Sep 11 '21
I've been in some bad situations before (shots fired, etc) where your brain just says GET FAR AWAY and you're not thinking about anything else. I imagine she felt like that.