What are the most common mistakes soldiers make during their first combat experience?

 We heard the distinctive whistle of mortars overhead. Whistle then bang.

Our combat outpost was pretty small, situated inside of an Afghan National Army compound. We weren’t a big target, so the Taliban missed us often, usually hitting outside of the base. But still, pretty close.

We got accustomed to this.

What we were supposed to do was haul ass to these little concrete bunkers at certain locations on the base. In theory, if a mortar hit, we’d just probably get concussions (or something) from the bang atop the bunkers, as opposed to shrapnel shredding up our insides.

I made a habit of dropping everything I was doing, sprinting to the bunkers, and huddling as close to the center of the bunker as possible, in case a mortar landed near either entrance on the far sides of the bunker.

Other soldiers got cocky. They’d meander on over to the bunkers, and hang out by the entrances.

Whistle then bang, but too far away.

But not this time. The shrapnel made its way into the entrance of the bunker, and unfortunately for one solider, made its way into his abdomen.

He was MEDEVAC’ed to a nearby larger base where he could receive proper medical attention.

There’s sort of a curve of cockiness and complacency. It starts low, where soldiers in combat for the first time are hyper vigilant.

Then, as time progresses for a while, they feel invincible. They are high up on the curve.

Until they see someone shot or mangled, and they become hyper vigilant again, back to the low end of the curve of cockiness and complacency.

This is one of the biggest mistakes soldiers make during their first time in combat. Believing for a time that they are invincible.

As the saying goes: complacency kills.