A RI Soldier’s Life: Life in the Tower
Monday, July 19, 2010
PFC Joshua Boccanfuso, a RI soldier stationed in Afghanistan, has shared a series of images and stories with GoLocalProv. See the war through his eyes and read what he has to tell. And come back tomorrow for the next installment.
This picture is me scanning my sector in a guard tower just after being attacked.
We just took some mortar rounds... and we knew it came from the mountain in front of me.
What do I feel like at that moment, after the attack? Focused and alert. You scan, because if you can kill the mortar team, you win that day.
I always get this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach at these moments, but it's not fear, it's anticipation. You wait for the next round to see how good they bracket their rounds... Sometimes they hit the base; we have lost a lot of equipment to their rockets and a few mortarmen have purple hearts because they hit our one of our mortar pits, when we were counterfiring.
For a while, we were doing six hours in the tower, then six hours off, then six on.
Joshua Boccanfuso grew up in Warwick and Cranston, went to Cranston West HS and the culinary program at the Cranston Area Career and Technical Center. He enrolled in the Army in October of 2008. He is currently stationed at combat outpost Zerok in Afghanistan, and endures regular mortar attacks. In special correspondence with GoLocalProv's Tracey Minkin, he shares his images and experiences with GoLocalProv readers. His fifth photo will appear on Tuesday.
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