Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast - 2x21: Tales from the Bottom Part 3 - Let's Not Meet

Episode Date: October 28, 2019

Stories in this episode: Imaginary Masked Man - Lillias Crazy Stalking Jazz Man - Dragonfly_08 The Slave Cemetery - Injunwerks War is Hell - Injunwerks (PTSD trigger warning) Follow Let's Not Meet: Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/433173970399259/  Twitter - https://twitter.com/letsnotmeetcast  Website - http://letsnotmeetpodcast.com  Patreon - http://patreon.com/letsnotmeetpodcast  Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/crypticcounty    

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My name is Andrew Tate and this is season 2 episode 21 of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast. Welcome to the season 2 finale of Let's Not Meet. As promised, I have two brand new stories by Reddit user engineworks that are associated with the details from the bottom. They're a bit different. I think I know why I never got to reading them simply because they're not your traditional Let's Not Meet story. They're very detailed, rather emotional and moving, and not the creepiest stories that I've read on Let's Not Meet. Nonetheless, they are very disturbing, and not the kind of story that you're going to forget

easily. But before we get to that, I have two brand new stories from listeners that I want to get to. So listen now to Imaginary Masked Man by Listener Lilius, followed by Crazy Stalking Jazz Man by Listener Dragonfly08. This only came to light a few months ago. Before that, I thought that it had all been a figment of my imagination. For some context, I'm now 21, but for the majority of my childhood, I lived with my nan because my dad apparently struggles in the role of being a decent human being, let

alone a parent. And my mom at the time was a raging drug addict. My nan is amazing and created such a safe home for my two younger sisters and myself. When this went down I was about eight. My room was in the back of the house with a big window that gives a clear view of our huge backyard. I always slept with my blinds open, as I liked watching the stars before I went to sleep. My mom, at the time, would periodically come back into our lives,

only to pass out at the dinner table and ask for money, or throw a maniacal fit in our front lawn. It's safe to say that she wasn't in a good place, and at that time I didn't know the trouble she was getting me in, as my nan always tried to shelter me from the shitty things that were going on around me. This particular night, I went to sleep as usual. However, I woke up around three a.m. overwhelmed by a crippling feeling of terror. This wasn't unusual as I had extreme anxiety for the most part of my childhood. I did my usual breathing techniques that my therapist had taught me and I looked through my open door to check

that my man was still in bed. I always slept with my door open and had my bed position, so that if I looked out my door I could see my man sleeping and instantly felt safe. I rolled over to have a look at the stars and an attempt to calm myself down. However, when I rolled over, I saw a black shadow directly on my window. After focusing for a few seconds, I realized it was a person, two eyes, peering into my window. Now, I've always loved True Crime. I've read countless books on it. Then Lawn Order SVU was my favorite show, probably not very appropriate for an 8-year-old child, so my mind instantly started racing, thinking about every possible scenario that

could play out. I closed my eyes tightly and held them shut, and focused on my breathing, hoping that this was all just a dream. After what felt like an eternity I slowly opened my eyes to see that the person had gone. I have no idea why I didn't run to wake up my nan or even freak out but I ended up falling back to sleep and not thinking about it again. I had a very active imagination and my nan knew that so I thought it was probably just a dream and not worth mentioning to her.

Fast forward 13 years and I was having coffee with her. The topic of dreams came up and I told her about my quote unquote dream that I had when I was little and how it felt real. My Nan's face shifted. She became serious and questioned me some more about it. I found out that day that the morning after I saw the masked person, my nan woke up to see that the back door was wide open and the

window near the door had been slid open. She said nothing was taken but she knows someone had been in the house. I already felt uneasy knowing that my imagination hadn't conjured up all of this. When my man told me that she was sure whoever it was was looking for my mom. This was truly unnerving. I saw the people my mom was involved with. I knew that they weren't nice people. I'd seen them get angry and hurt people before, so who knows what they wanted to do with my mom. If they came to our house, who else knew where we lived? I'm not naive enough to think that drug dealers wouldn't hurt someone's family members over a debt.

I asked my mom about the whole thing a few weeks ago. I could tell it hurt her to think about it. I saw the guilt pouring out of her as she realized the situation that she'd put it in. She confirmed yes, some bad people were looking for her. She's around five years sober now, it doesn't associate with anyone that she used to. I have no idea what would have happened that night if my mom was at her house, but for the first time I'm grateful that she wasn't. So to the masked man, I thought I'd imagined in my window please let's not meet again.

The names in this story have been changed to protect the crazy, and my friends. I'm a professional massage therapist so I don't do happy endings, but I do deal with a lot of clients. I'm a small female about 5 foot 116 pounds. About two years ago I came across this tall man about 6'4 built and very long dreadlocks maybe passed his waist. We'll call him Jazz. At first, he was friendly and professional. He started off with a 60-minute massage, and then he started asking for 90-minute sessions after that. Which is normal for clients from time to time, until he started asking me to go watch him play Jazz. I told him I could not because it would be unprofessional. He kept insisting every time he came for an appointment. When the ladies at the front desk would ask him if he wanted to see

another therapist due to me being fully booked three weeks out, he said, no, I only want her. The next time I saw him, he was getting a two-hour massage this time, and when I started massaging his forearms and hands he would just stare at me. It was Friday night, and he asked me if I had any plans, and said, you should go see me play jazz. I politely declined again. After work it had been about two hours after his appointment, I asked Greg, a co-worker, who became close friends to me if he wanted

to go with me to Walmart across the street to get popcorn. So we went. As we were in the popcorn section, something caught my eye. Jazz was walking past the aisle. He passed by looking at us while talking on his phone. At least I think he was because he had it to his ear. He stops and takes three steps back, just looking at us. Greg looking to see what I was looking at, as jazz did the,

I'm watching you signal with his fingers. The whole two fingers in his eyes and then pointing at us. Yeah, that one. He simply starts walking off like nothing. Greg asks me what that was about, and I told him. We shook it off, and went on with our night. I went home, making sure nobody was following. I didn't see jazz for two months or so.

Until one day, I came into work to see him on my schedule for two hours that evening. I hated seeing him on my schedule for two hours that evening. I hated seeing him on my schedule. After a session, I had another hour until I was off, and as I'm putting things up, my front desk guy tells me, your client has been waiting outside in his car the whole time. Greg is pretty big, so he suggests to walk me out to try to hide me, and it worked. The next day, I reported it to my manager, and she said that she would note it. The next session, he started asking me to see him play jazz, and after telling him that I couldn't do that, he said, at least come and see me play at church on the other side of town.

I stayed quiet. As I got to his arms, he would just stare at me in that creepy way. When I moved to his other arm, again, he just looked at me and tilted his head. Eyes glued to me. I didn't dare look at him. His session was over and I went home. That about 2 a.m. my phone goes off and it's a friend request from Facebook. It's from jazz. I was shocked because I didn't understand how he found me. We had no mutual friends.

There were many Ashley's in my town. I denied it just to wake up the next morning to find another friend request from him, so I blocked him. I can tell the next session he would be upset. He wasn't actually though, he comes in to the session happy like nothing happened. He was traveling a lot and told me that he would be gone for three months or so and asked me to please come see him at church. I told him I would try just to shut him up already. I didn't go nor did I see him after that. I was so happy

and eventually started forgetting about him until one Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. when I got off of work. Now the clinic I work at is in a plaza type area. We share parking lots with the businesses next to us. There's an entrance and exit from the main road to our parking lot. There's an entrance and exit from the main road to our parking lot. On the left was my car. It's reversed in, and the main road is behind it, which means that the only way out is forward. On the other side, there are more parking spaces. I notice a silver car also reversed, which means that the only space between this car and mine is the entrance slash exit, which means that the only space between this car and mine is the entrance

slash exit which is pretty wide. I noticed the silver car because the hood was up and a man was bending over in front of the hood with a bottle of oil or anifreeze. As I walked to my car, a tall, buffed man with long dreadlocks looks up and turns around looking at me in the distance. My heart sank, it was him, it was Jazz. I put up my phone to my ear to pretend to talk to someone as I heard to my car, locking the doors and trying to drive off quickly. By the time I look up, his car is in front of mine, I was blocked in. I decided to pretend I was angry and yelling at

someone on the phone waving my hands yelling and looking as mad as possible, hoping that this would get him to leave, but he wasn't leaving. I was running out of things to say myself. I could see him waving from the corner of my eye when suddenly I saw him punch his horn. He yelled something and slammed on the gas pedal as he made a screeching sound with his tires. I waited for him to reach the end of the plaza before taking off. I looked in my mirrors the whole way home to make sure that no carts followed me. The next day I told my boss and she banned him from seeing me. make sure that no carts followed me. The next day I told my boss and she banned him from seeing me.

Months passed and I finally was feeling okay. He was nowhere around. It's been a year now and still no sign of jazz. This year, in February, my boyfriend and I decided to take a trip four hours from our hometown. We got there and decided to go to a local bar. We knew we would be drinking so we requested an Uber. As the Uber claimed to be here, we walked down to the van. As the hotel doors swing open, a tall, buff man with really long dreads walks in. Our eyes

meet in my heart sinks. I remember that feeling that rushed through my body. It was jazz. Now let me just say, it looks could kill. I would be dead. I grabbed my boyfriend's arm, squeezed it hard, and hid behind him. Jazz turned around, kept walking. My boyfriend could feel the tension. He asked me what that was all about and I told him everything. He was so mad but we got to the barn. It had a good time.

He took care of me as we both got pretty drunk. What are the odds of him being in the same town? Hotel room on the same weekend getting the same uber with jazz. It's been seven months and I haven't seen jazz since, and I hope this was the last time. So crazy stalking jazz men, let's never be again. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of my life at this point, and she was with me when we found the bones. Besides, I'd like to remember her from time to time. We actually still talk to each other and send emails back and forth. It's been almost 30 years, and she told me that the last story made her cry, so please

bear with me. As you know, from my other stories stories I was raised in a small community of Kenneth Texas. We lived there from the time that I started kindergarten until about 15 in 1984. It was very secluded, literally at the end of the road with state highway 2797 coming to a dead end about half a mile past the south side of our land. At the south side of our land. At the southwest corner of our land, there was an exit. It was called Plaza Drive.

It followed our land from the exit on the southwest corner along the west side of our land to the northwest corner, and then along the north side of our land heading east to the bottom, the bottom was a pretty neat place to grow up. It was home and it was familiar, but at the same time it was creepy and strange and full of surprise and there was even kind of scary. There were insects and animals of every kind, fire ants were a constant threat. Insects and animals of every kind, fire ants were a constant threat. When the floods came every year, the ants would float on the water or cling on through the branches of trees. You haven't known pain until you've walked under a low-hanging branch and had a cluster of fire ants plop down on you.

There were big fat water moccasins, also called cotton mouths because the inside of their mouth is white and smelt of rotting meat. There were to be avoided as well. We also had coons and possums. There were also wolves and bobcats as well as links. And the occasional mountain lion or cougar. Alligators weren't common, but weren't really a surprise to see either. They usually showed up after the floods every year. So you can see that I was about as

country as you can get. Hunting wasn't only a favorite pastime, it was a way of life. I knew how to scan a squirrel in a cone before I knew long division. This was the summer of 1983, just after school had let out for the year. I didn't know it at the time, but my father had applied for a job at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and we'd be moving there the following year in November. I was happier than I had any right to be that year. I was in love for the first time. I don't mean that I was crushing on a girl from math class. I mean, I was in love, capital L and all. I don't know if it was a lack of options or what, but she was way out of my league. I was tall, a clumsy teenager

with feet and hands that were too big for my body and a voice that squeaked when I got excited. I was quiet and probably not as homely as I felt. But then, compared to Heather, I was downright atrocious. Heather lived three houses down for me, and we'd known each other ever since I was in second grade. She was a malady little girl who turned into a snotty little teenager who evolved into something akin to goddess when she turned thirteen the year earlier. We actually hated each other when we first met and she was constantly telling on us for one thing or another. After the Christmas break the previous year she got onto the bus wearing glasses. After the Christmas break the previous year, she got onto the bus wearing glasses. She had braces as well. I don't know why, but from that moment on, she was in my every thought.

For one thing, she wasn't that skinny little girl anymore. She'd gotten curves and was growing new breasts. She was light-skinned, almost pale, and had the prettiest green eyes. She had long, flowing black hair that turned into auburn shade in the sunshine, and she had a way of tossing it over her shoulder that just took my breath. When she got on the bus that day, I realized she was so pretty. She caught me staring at her, probably with my mouth hanging open. And instead of making a smart-ass remark, she smiled at me and went to sit with her friends. I watched her walk by and then she and her friends started giggling, so I turned around.

That afternoon, I made it a point to send closer to the back of the bus where she and all her friends usually sat. I don't know if it was divine intervention or scheming by her friends, but the only seat available that day was with me. At first she sat with her back to me talking to her friends behind her, as I watched the world go by outside of the window. She would flip her hair and I could smell her perfume, even now as I write this I can remember that scent. By the time the bus went through all of the subdivisions and stopped at all of the stops, it took about an hour and a half for us to get home. Our stops were the last on the route because we lived at the end of the highway.

After Candace and Allison got off about halfway home, she turned around and slouched down in the seat, resting her knees on the back of the seat in front of us, with her math book opened. I was too nervous to talk to her, and that probably would have been the closest I ever got to her, but then she asked me if I had Mrs. Williams for math when I was a freshman. I knew Mrs. Williams well. She had a paddle that she had named Channel 26. You never wanted to watch Channel 26. Unfortunately, I had several encounters with Channel 26 myself. I thought of the million witty answers hours later that night, as I lay in my bed thinking about her, but at that moment all I could say was,

yeah, I had her in a second period. Of course, my voice chose to do its chipmunk thing, and I wanted to die. Heather didn't seem to notice, though, and she slid a little closer to me, so she could show me the algebra she was trying to do. It was weird, but at this moment, almost 30 years later, my heart is still beating a little faster with that memory. She smelled so good, and we were actually touching at each other's shoulders. Luckily, I was actually quite good at math. I work as an electronics technician now, and math is a big part of my day. Algebra and geometry geometry as well as trig

all seem to come naturally to me. For the most part there is only one answer to a math problem. It's either the correct or not correct answer. I began to show her how to do the equations and the next thing I knew it was time to get off the bus. As I got up to leave, hating that the ride was already over, I offered to help her before school the next morning. She looked at me with a big smile that melted me to the core and said, would you? That would be so cool. So I helped her the next morning, and that afternoon, she sat with me again. We started sitting together on the bus, and at the end of the week she got an A on her test. I remember standing in line after school waiting for the bus when she came running, up to me with her ponytail, flying from

side to side, waving her papers to show me. She held it out in front of her, with both hands and told me, look, we did it. Then she threw her arms around me and said, thank you so much. To be honest, I don't remember what I said after that. For whatever reason, she continued to sit with me on the bus and before school and during lunch and again on the ride home. She did probably 90% of the talking, but I was elated just to be the one she was talking to. When I finally got the courage up to ask her for the Valentine's Dance, she looked at me with a wrinkled nose and said, really? I suddenly felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach. That look and that word killed me. My heart stopped and I almost wanted to disappear and take it back. Then she said, you want to go with me? Why? I stammered

something about how I thought she was the prettiest girl in school and how I like to hear her laugh and watch her smile. Heather flashed me the biggest, prettiest smile, and again wrinkled her nose, and again asked, really? She told me she'd have to ask her mom if she could go. I reluctantly admitted that I'd have to do the same. My mom would have to drive us to and from the dance. We got on the bus, and Heather sat with me again. She turned to her friends and told them about going to the dance and after a few minutes she turned to me with those big green eyes and smiled.

Looking back now, I think that was the exact moment that I felt for her. As much as a fourteen-year-old can fall, that is. She slouched down into the seat again, propping her knees up in the seat in front of her, and took out another schoolbook. I can't remember what it was because she also reached over and took my hand, and we held hands all the way home. After that, we were pretty much attached at the hip. I don't know what her friends thought about us, but I was a hero with my friends. As I said, she was way out of my league.

I asked her once, a few years ago, what it was, and she jokingly told me that it was only because I was convenient for living so close. Then she admitted that it was because I was so nice and easy to talk to. Over the next year Heather and I became the couple at school. We were inseparable. I don't think that we spent more than 12 hours apart for the next 14 or so months. The time that we weren't together was when we went to bed and we were in different classes at school. We were still in kisses before school at lunch between classes and after work.

Her parents and my parents were very good friends and they seemed to enjoy, or at least tolerate the idea of Heather and me being together. Following summer in 1984, our relationship deepened due to teenage emotions, hormones, and curiosity. We had been swimming in the river. We hadn't planned on swimming. We were talking and walking barefoot in the water when she splashed water on me. It wasn't long before we were both soaked and out in the deeper water. Heather was wearing a white sleeveless shirt and cut off jean shorts. She

tanned quite a bit and had also filled out quite a bit. The water was cold and it turned her shirt kind of transparent. She caught me looking and moved in closer to me. And nature kind of took over. We were together many, many times that summer, sometimes two and three different times a day. Well, one day, shortly after my 15th birthday, she and I decided to go exploring. There was a railroad trussle about a mile and a half from my house. An old construction road had been made where they were building the trestle 20 years earlier and was now mostly overgrown. We thought that it would be a neat idea to have a picnic there, overlooking the river. Of course my hormones thought it'd be a neat idea to do other things, overlooking the river.

We got everything together and started walking. We were holding hands and just enjoying each other's company. It was a nice Saturday afternoon. Birds were singing, the wind was whispering in the trees and life was good. I was in love for real. Men had the prettiest girl in school and love with me for whatever reason. We were walking on a construction road named Prairie 6442 on the Google map if you want to check it out. It ended about 300 yards before the railroad tracks because nature had taken it over. We'd been there the previous summer and had to climb through over and around brushes and brambles, but now it was impassable. We decided to have our lunch and a small clearing near the end of the road, being the innocent teens that we were we talked about

our future and how perfect it was going to be. The clearing was perfect for our little house. There were even remnants of an old barn, basically just a square area that was flatter than the surrounding area. We talked about how we could put a house there, and a swing, and that tree, and a garden over there. And after we ate lunch, it was getting warm, so we decided to sit in the shade under a tree for a while before starting back. We leaned against the tree, and within a few minutes we were lost in kisses and hugs. We laid the tablecloth out, and we're on top of that.

I was lying on my back in Heather, it was set on my chest, and it was trying to pin my arms down to kiss me. I finally let her pin my arms down. She leaned in and planted a wopper on me, and I held her close and began kissing her on the neck because I'd learned that this drove her crazy. She turned her head to one side and then straightened out and was basically laying on top of me when she suddenly stiffened, and yelped, stood up and backed away a few steps. Her eyes wide with fright, thinking that it was a snake or something. I knew better than to make sudden movements, so I asked her what it was. She hugged her arms around me, and she pointed,

And she pointed, there's a skull, she said. My first thought was that it was a cune or a possum, or maybe a dog skull, but when I looked, it was definitely a human skull. Just the nose hole in the eye sockets were showing everything else was buried. When we looked a little closer, we saw the edge of a piece of wood

and decided that it was actually an old coffin. Heather didn't like being here and said she wanted to go, so we packed everything and went back home. That walked her home and decided, on the way, not to say anything about our fine because it might raise questions about why we were out there. We sat together at church the next day in held hands throughout the sermon. After church, she told me that

she and her parents were going to visit a sick relative in humble and that she'd call me when she got home later. And then she gave me a kiss in front of her parents, which made me extremely uncomfortable. For the first time in months, I had an afternoon that wouldn't involve doing something with Heather. I went to Terry's house, I had an afternoon that wouldn't involve doing something with Heather. I went to Terry's house, but his mom said that he was over another friend's house, so I rode my bike over there. A few minutes of talk and tossing a baseball

around and I told them about the skull. They wanted to see it, so we sat on our bikes towards the trestle. When we got to the clearing, I showed them the skull and Bobby grabbed a stick and began to dig it out. He decided that he wanted to take it home. We all started digging, and before long we unearthed most of the outside of an old wooden box. There were more bones inside it, and it smelled horrible. It smelled of earth and rot, about a foot down. The ground was still moist, and the smell got worse. The more we dug, the worse it smelled, and I kept having visions of one of those bony arms reaching out to me. I said something about what we do if that happened and everyone kind of lost

interest. We stopped and were debating about what to do when Terry noticed another mound and then another. The clearing actually seemed to be a graveyard of some sort. We thought we might be going to jail for messing with the graveyard, so we stopped digging and Terry decided that we should tell somebody about this. That evening, his mother called our house and told my mother about the graveyard. Luckily, I'd already told her about it and already had my butt chewed out for being there. She said that the sheriff wanted us to show him where it was. She assured my mom that we weren't in any trouble. However, the sheriff had been insistent

about looking into what we had found. We got to skip school the next day so that we could take the sheriff and the two deputies to our gruesome find. I got to ride in the front seat of the sheriff's car that day. It was pretty cool looking at all the buttons and knobs and switches. There was a big shotgun mounted on a rack between the seats, and the radio would occasionally

spout out something. Terry and Bobby wrote in the back seat behind the middle grating. When we reached the clearing, we had to open the doors for them because the back doors wouldn't open from the inside, obviously. We showed the sheriff the box we'd particularly uncovered, and he sternly asked us why we were digging around it. Bobby admitted that he'd thought about taking the skull home. The sheriff looked at him with an incredulous expression and asked why.

Bobby just shrugged his shoulders and said that he thought it would be cool to have. The sheriff walked around taking notes on a pad and counting the mounds. There were 28 in all. He got back into his car and used the radio for a minute, and then said that there had to be an official investigation and took our names and addresses and phone numbers. I lied about how I had found the clearing. I didn't want Heather's parents to know that we had been this far away from home or what we'd been doing. Over the next several days, we got several calls from the Sheriff's Department and from

the local newspaper. The sheriff showed up one day a few weeks later about an hour after we got on the bus. Heather and I were sitting on the porch, working on her homework and bumping shoulders every now and then. She still had her cheerleader uniform on, and it was driving me crazy. The sheriff told us that the land had been taken from the owner when the railroad had been built there in the early 60s. It was called Eminent Domain. Before then, it had been owned by a family from Louisiana that had a big sugar cane farm and had decided to start one here. The same family had owned the land since the early 1850s. He told us that the bones were all of African-American persuasion. The bones were between 120 and 150 years old. It was impossible to identify them because of the age, and because there were no tombstones. He told us that when the floods came every year, the ground would get

saturated, and the boxes had started to float to the top. They had contacted the previous owner, but he had no knowledge of the graveyard. He did admit that his family had own slaves at the time of the abolishment in the 1860s. The sheriff told us that it was assumed the graves were all the workers who had been brought here to start the sugarcane farm. They tried to farm it close enough to the river to provide easy transportation, but the soil was too harsh or whatever to allow the plants to grow. And after about five years, the farm was abandoned. The flat spot, we thought, was an old barn, had actually been a church.

There was nobody to claim their remains, so the county had exhumed a total of 34 sets of remains. Some of the boxes actually had two bodies in them. They were children. I actually visited this cemetery a few years ago when I was in Houston with my job. The graves are still there, but are unmarked. There is a small memorial plaque that simply states that people were found here in the remains of an old farm across the river in Kenifik.

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The Golf War was a particularly gruesome war, regardless of our personal opinions on the events that transpired. It isn't hard to empathize with the young men and women that fought when we've heard their stories. They've seen worse horrors than we probably ever will ourselves. Keep that in mind during this next and final story by engineworks titled War Is Hell. It's really a true horror story, and some of the elements may be hard for those with certain PTSDs to listen to, so discretion is advised.

If you've read any of my other stories, you'll know that I was raised in Kenneth Texas and that we moved there from Oklahoma in November of 1984. I had to leave the only life I knew behind. Friends that I had known since kindergarten were left. Familiar old stomping grounds that held millions of fond memories were left. Not only the friends from my local community, but my friends at school were left as well. I was a sophomore who had made it to the varsity football team. I was popular in everyone liked me, and I was dating the prettiest girl in school. I had to leave all of that behind.

Thanksgiving Christmas New Years, and especially Valentine's Day were completely horrible and found me miserable in my new home. Looking back, I can say with conviction that this was one of the worst times in my life, except for the story I'm about to share with you. I went from a school that had about 400 students in my graduating class to one near Marla Oklahoma that had 20, including me. I seemed to be the only boy there wearing tennis shoes instead of ropers. I was immediately drafted into both the wrestling team and as a guard in the football team. I can remember my first big hit in my first game. I remember thinking that these Oklahoma farm boys were tougher than they looked.

They hurt too. I attended school that had students from kindergarten age to seniors in a single set of buildings. It wasn't uncommon to eat lunch across the table from a third grader or to walk into the bathroom with journals that hit at knee level. The new school was much more lax than Dayton had been.

Gum was allowed in classes as were soft drinks. Something that truly shocked me was that most of the other boys dipped skull or cupin haggin. While it wasn't actually allowed, it wasn't considered worthy of punishment either. I was put into an agriculture class, but first experience with that was to go to a neighboring farm to ban sheep. Any of you who are familiar with this process are probably reading with your knees squeezed together at the moment.

Banding sheep is a way of neutering them. Instead of actually removing their testicles, there is a special tool shaped like pliers that had four prongs on it that you slipped a big, thick, black rubber band over. Similar to an o-ring. You squeeze the handle shut, the prongs are separated, stretching the band open to about four inches in diameter. This monstrosity was placed over the scrotum of the sheep, and the band was released. It snapped back to its original shape and effectively cut off a circulation to the scrotum.

After a while it simply dried up and fell off. I had sympathy pains for the next two days, but then I got to the hog cutting, with the class about a month later and decided that the banding wasn't too bad after all. Heather and I kept in touch through one hour phone calls on the weekend, usually Sunday nights. We did this for about a year before one or the other of us would have plans and our calls slowed to once a month and then once every other month. We were diligent about writing letters, though, and somehow we had managed to keep in touch since 1984.

We're still a part of each other's lives from a distance. I graduated in 1986 and joined the military in 1988 as a cannon-fire direct specialist in a field artillery unit. In 1989, our unit changed from the old 8-inch howitzers to the new multiple launch rocket system, and I was made a part of the FDC Fire Direction Center. Our new weaponry fired missiles up to 30 kilometers away, And my job as part of the FDC was to ensure that the targeted coordinates didn't violate any no-fire zones or air corridors.

Another part of my job was to drive the FDC armored personnel carrier. It was basically a long box of tracks that carried the command center. I enjoyed what I did and was actually pretty adept to maneuvering that big armored box around trees and other obstacles. It wasn't long before I was moved from B-Battery to Headquarters Battery where all of the officers and important people hung out during field exercises.

In December of 1990, I got a phone call around 3am. Our unit had been put on alert and we were to report for duty immediately. We were going to Saudi Arabia to fight against Hussein. After putting all of our equipment on a train bound for Houston, we got onto an American Airlines jet with all of our weapons and everything, and flew 22 hours to Saudi Arabia. We had a layover in New York to fix the light on one of the wings and had got to see the statue of Liberty for the first time. We had another layover in Rome, Italy, before refueling.

When we were finally in country, it took another 10 days before the ship with our vehicles finally arrived. Being part of the advance party, I was part of the group who boarded the C-130 and flew to the shipping channel to offload our vehicles from the ship. Two days later, our battalion was ready to move to location. There was a huge berm built on the border of Iraq. It was about 15 feet tall and stretched in either direction as far as I could see.

I remember the morning we breached the berm for the rest of my life. I was scared to death, and so excited that my body was twitching and my teeth were chattering. I stood on top of my track, and as far as I could see were military vehicles. I cannot sufficiently describe to you the feeling of duty, bound, honor, or of the apprehension that I felt that morning. Flying around in the air were gunships and the spectacular A-10 wardhawks and a plethora of other aircraft that you couldn't identify. I felt like my heart was going to burst at any moment. Every so often the radios would announce the countdown. Tension and apprehension grew

with each moment. We had no idea what was waiting for us on the other side of that berm. At the two minute warning, someone in a big heavy equipment mover about a half a mile down from us started honking his horn, two short blasts and one long blast, two short blasts and one long blast, two short blasts and one long blast. Then someone from the other side of us started doing the same thing. Behind us, one of the Abrams tank drivers would race his engine and let the tank lurch forward a foot in unison with the horn blasts.

Within a minute, the noise was deafening. We all started our cries, and when the moment came, it was complete and total pandemonium. I drove my track up over the berm, expecting to be face-to-face with missiles and under fire from the much-touted Republican guard. But there was nothing on the other side of that berm for as far as we could see. My orders were to clear the berm and then move to the side to allow the tanks and other close-range weaponry to take the lead.

The Abrams tank came screaming by with the soldiers in the turrets spinning around to watch the air strike. Our MLRS unit was the longest reaching munitions at that time, so we had to wait for the others to engage and identify enemy locations. After a specific target location was identified, we would receive orders to fire along with grid coordinates.

I would verify that there were no aircraft or any other no-fire restrictions in the area and inform my captain who would then relay the order to fire the SPL-Ls, which were self-propelled loader launchers that carried the missiles. When we fired our missiles, we were actually firing over the heads of all of the soldiers who had gone before us. At a predetermined altitude, the missiles would separate, and 644 little bomblets would be released. The little bomblets were shaped charges that would penetrate over an inch of steel. Each launcher carried a total of 12 missiles, and we had 27 launchers in our battalion. The Iraqis coined our munitions as steel rain due to the immense damage that was done

by a barrage. As you all know, the actual war only lasted a few days, however there were numerous skirmishes that went from months afterwards. We were silent from location to location to location for the next four months. We'd pull into a location and set up and wait for orders and then spend the night blowing the hell out of whatever it was and then we'd move to another location and blow the hell out of something else. I never really gave it much thought.

We were just following orders. We were over ten miles away from our targets most of the time. We watched the missiles take flight and would receive orders to move to another location and we'd do it all over again. Time and time again for four months. Then one day we had to drive through an area that we had previously targeted. We'd received information that a unit of T62 and Monster T72 tanks were on the move towards a marine detachment, and we had to intercept and intervene. We pulled into the launch location about 2.30 a.m. one morning, and we got everything set up and sent

a storm of steel rain towards the tanks. We received the mission accomplished message about 30 minutes later, along with orders, to move to another location. Much further inland than before. It would take us more than a day to drive that far. We had everything packed and secured and ready to move just as the sun was coming up. We had driven about two hours when we saw the smoke. Everything packed and secured and ready to move just as the sun was coming up. We had driven about two hours when we saw the smoke.

We finally got close enough to see what it was. We realized that it was the tank battery from the night before. An advanced party was sent in to search for survivors, but it wasn't necessary the tanks where it literally riddled with six inch holes. There were even holes in the big barrels of the tank turrets. I was okay with seeing the vehicles, but it was the bodies that did me in. They were literally in pieces, an arm here, a leg over there, and a boot in another place. You could see where the men had abandoned the tanks to get away from the fire

storm, but it had not been successful. There wasn't a complete body to be seen. Some of our guys got sick while others jumped out and were taking photos of the gruesome scenery. Luckily, we were past it in a few minutes, but at this day I'm still awakened in a cold sweat from seeing that. While I thought that, seeing that was about as bad as it could get, I really wasn't prepared for what was coming. About halfway into the next launch site, we got new orders and had to change directions. We were heading to a small town near Kuwait. If you're curious about seeing this, just search Kuwait Highway of Death in Google and go to Images. This incident happened in late February of 1991. It was now late March or perhaps early April.

Saddam had started lighting the oil refineries on fire and we were to help with guarding some of the remaining few. When we pulled into the Highway 80, the scene of the massacre, we had no idea what had happened. I later learned that this had been done by us, the US. The Marines had blocked the roads with mines and then bombed the end of a huge convoy of tanks and armored vehicles carrying Iraqi soldiers. After the convoy had stalled, the next 8 or 10 hours was spent with air strike after air strike, effectively decimating the entire convoy. The estimated body count was as high as

10,000 people. In order to make the highway serviceable again, bulldozers had basically pushed everything from the road, tanks, armored vehicles, cars, trucks, and bodies. They went through and bulldozed a path in the middle of about a mile, blown up vehicles with a big bulldozer blade, and pushed everything to one side or the other. We had to drive through the middle of all of this insanity. I'd been sickened at the sight of the previous soldiers, so this sort of helped me prepare for what I was seeing now. However, as we drove up to the entrance of the destruction, I could see that

it wasn't only green or tan uniforms that were bloodied and torn apart. There were also civilians mixed with the military personnel. As we started to drive through the center of this, I saw women and children as well. I'll admit that I lost my cool. I'm glad that nobody could see me because I had tears running down my face that weren't just from the dust. Some jackass with CNN stickers all over his camera, equipment ran alongside my track, trying to take photos. I gave it some gas and left it behind as quickly as I noticed him.

About 50 feet in, the smell hit me. Some of you may know what it smells like to be driving along and smell a dead animal, take that and multiply it. So much that when you swallow, you can actually taste it. I had to drive my track, standing up and leaning over the side as I got sick, two different times. The flies were horrible. I had them in my eyes and in my nose. I had headphones to communicate

with the track commander, so my ears were safe, but I had to breathe through my nose in order to keep my mouth shut, and that made me sick a third time. It took the better part of an hour to drive through the nightmare, and at least once every three weeks I'll have a dream about it. To be honest, I believe that I may have gone a little insane that day. It changed me. A very permanent hurt. This is the first time I ever talked about my experience. Even my own wife and Heather will see it here and know for the first time about some of my experiences. I'm sitting here now wiping my eyes and remembering that smell. If I had a cigarette in my house, I'd probably light it up now. Since that time, I've had nightmares that haunt me to this day.

I've been diagnosed with PTSD and what doctors call an extremely exaggerated response reflex way too jumpy. If you were to walk up behind me and poke me there's usually no problem other than I'll jump a little. If you were to walk up behind me and yell or clap your hands I'd probably beat you before you realized what was going on. My worst experience with it so far was once my wife decided to scare me while I was in the shower. I was only saved from hitting her because the shower curtain caught my fist. You cannot imagine how it hurt me to see the fear and her face after that.

It's been over 20 years since that incident, and I still have to deal with it on a daily basis. I'm a disabled veteran now, and I cannot express how proud I am to have served in the military. You've heard that war is hell, and I can vouch for that sentiment personally. It sucks. It blows. I was lucky to have been able to serve, but given the chance to go back to my 20 year old self and do it all again, I wouldn't hesitate.

He was a general service unit that was attached to my unit. Their job was to repair the launchers if there were any problems. I also had two cousins in my unit. My brother also served. We were all proud to have done our part. No guys, I'm sorry this took such a morbid turn. As I said, I've discovered that writing seems to help. In more ways than I can describe, I realize that some of you may think that I'm a bad person for having

been a part of the military and that's okay. We're all entitled to our opinions. I just have to ask that you have decency and respect that I'm also entitled to an opinion. I hated what happened, and it will haunt me in one form or another the rest of my life. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Let's Not Meet, a true horror podcast the season 2 finale and thanks to engine works for those fantastic and moving stories from tales from the bottom. Thanks to listeners Lillius and Dragonfly08 for those listener submitted stories that we heard at the beginning of the show.

I'm going to be taking a break as this is the end of season 2. It's just a weekend, but I'm still going to be uploading an episode next weekend. It'll probably be an older episode from the first run of Let's Not Meet that a lot of listeners maybe haven't heard yet. But I will be back on the weekend of the 10th for a brand new episode in the season 3 premiere of Let's Not Meet. Don't forget to send your stories into Let's Not Meet Stories at gmail.com so that I can get everything ready for season 3. I'm really excited for all the brand new stories. I got a lot planned. I hope that you guys enjoy this little break.

And for my patrons, there will still be a single shot story next weekend. I'm not taking a break from the Patreon. Thank you for all of your support. If you'd like to gain access to those episodes, all the bonus episodes, all the one-shot episodes, go to patreon.com-forward-slash-let's-not-meat-podcast. I'll see you guys in a couple of weeks for a brand new episode of Let's Not Meet in Season 3. save you money off our amazing washes, plus you also get to skip the line and use our Express Lane service. When you're ready to shine, skip the line and save time and money with your online wash code. Find your nearest location at zipscarwash.com,

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