First off, let me say that this has occurred in a couple of places, not just Missouri. What I'm telling you today, I've told to only a handful of people due to scrutiny, but it's true.
Everyone talks about guardian angels. How they help you when you're in trouble, if you're sick, etc... I just refer to mine as a guardian. Gives it more of a masculine feel, lol.
My first encounter with the guardian happened to me when my unit was deployed. As a turret gunner in a HUMVEE, I was pretty exposed to the elements. The new versions have the crown on the top to help prevent problems like I experienced, but at the time, all we had were the gunner shields.
We were travelling down the MSR and had to slow way down due to the marchers on Ramadan. Both sides of the road were occupied with the marchers so we went extra slow to make sure there were no incidents. Any veteran of the current Iraq conflict can probably relate to this type of experience. The area I was in was fairly safe. We had a good rapport with the LN's and the sheik of the area. Still, all of the marchers carrying flags and the singing all get a little distracting.
As I was trying to keep an eye out for any problems, I caught something out of my peripheral vision. It appeared to be an old man walking with a cane. He wasn't dressed like everyone else. It was so brief, I don't remember exactly what it was, but he was different. I swung my turret around for a better look and heard an awful "SMACK". I didn't realize at the moment what it was, but a broken half brick smacked into my gunners shield. If I hadn't spun around to see the old man, the brick would've smashed me in the head. We didn't have to catch the guy; the marchers did that for us. Our interpreter told us he was a 13 year old kid. He was detained, questioned and later released. It still scares me to this day.
Number #2. I was on my way back from a month long school. It was a 22-hour drive home and I decided to try and make it in one trip. Flame that if you want, I don't care. Anyway, I was on the interstate and was pretty much alone. I hadn't seen a car in quite awhile, so I say alone. In my rear view mirror, I saw a set of headlights coming up behind me. No big deal, I was actually going about 5-10 miles UNDER the speed limit so I can safely assume that a driver would overtake me quickly. The driver got closer than farther, closer than farther. I don't know if they were intoxicated, tired or what, but it weirded me out a little. Finally the driver pulled up beside me and stayed there a bit and began to speed up. Again, out of the corner of my eye, I saw what appeared to be the old man again flagging me down. I turned my head to follow him and applied the brakes. As I applied the brakes, the car that was next to me zipped into my lane.
I bet he didn't miss the front-end of my vehicle by more than a few inches.
I finally pulled over and tried to find the old man, but he was nowhere to be found. No vehicles off the road, nothing. No responses to my calls. I got back in my vehicle and finished my journey home.
Regardless, I know there was someone (thing) out there looking out for me. The weird part to me is, I don't remember anything like this as a kid. It just seems to have happened in my adulthood. Nothing has happened for about 3 years since, but I figured something like that would've followed me as a child.
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