dan5050 Thread

This will probably get buried but this is the scariest moment of my life. Here comes a long one

When I was 20 I had taken a college course only to find that it was going to take me nowhere in life. I stuck it out and got my certificate because I'm no quitter but I was heavy in debt and really depressed. I had seen my cousin that summer at his sisters wedding which he flew home from his job in Afghanistan for. We chatted a little bit at the wedding and he told me about his job there. He was making big money doing almost nothing and it was coming in quick. So fast forward 4-5 months. I just graduated, had no clue what I was going to do with my life, and needed money bad. I called my cousin and two weeks later I was flying to Afghanistan. When I got there I stayed with a crew of five guys in a system of shipping containers that were renovated to be lived in on base. My cousin had quit a couple months earlier so I was all on my own. But after a week I found out that a) I'd be moving across base behind a concrete mixing plant along the outside wall of the base by myself and b) the entire crew would be leaving for a week. Leaving me to cover for them. The day they left and the day I moved were one and the same. My 21st birthday. A night to be remembered the rest of my life. In my entire 7 month career there I had never heard so many rockets hit in one night. The elections in kabul were going on and tensions were high. For three hours you could hear explosions. Once every 15 minutes. Getting closer and closer. So there I am huddled up in my container right along the wall of the base freaking out when the sirens suddenly stop and so do the rockets. All was quiet. I turned the lights off and settled into bed, my heart still racing. I was lying there for five minutes before I heard it. A slamming outside my room followed by a howling scream as if a woman was being stabbed repeatedly outside my door. Now I was a civilian so the only thing I had to protect myself was a box cutter. I was imagining ten taliban members waiting to bust my door open as I clutched that box cutter and hid under my sheets. I woke up the next morning box cutter in hand and still very much alive. I found out within the next week that a bunch of stray cats lived around the mixing plant who had a habit of howling late into the night.

Tldr: I was sure I was going to lose my life one late night in Afghanistan