Welcome to the smoke pit.

In the military, a smoke pit is obviously where troops go to feed their nicotine addictions,

but also it's a place to swap stories, funny, tragic, and most certainly bizarre.

The kinds of stories that aren't usually welcome in a professional

work environment, where soldiers are meant to remain serious and focused on their work.

The telling of such unbelievable stories is thus relegated to the smoke pit.

In this episode, we will be hearing from three former service members, Chris, a veteran of the Canadian Army,

a U.S. soldier who we will refer to by his YouTube handle, S.O.S., and Uriah, a U.S. Marine.

I'm Luke Lamanah, and this is wartime stories.

My name is Chris.

I'm ex-Canadian Army. This happened in Afghanistan, Operation Athena,

the Canadian contingent to ISAF. It was during winter, late 2000s, Kandahar Province.

Our company group comprised of mechanized inventory mounted in lab 3s and some leopard tanks,

engineers, combat service support.

We deployed for a four or five day operation to sweep some villages along the Argyndab River.

On the first night, we halted in the middle of the riverbed, which was dry at this time of the year.

It's about a half a kilometer wide, so if you park in the middle of it, you'd get a clear view for a couple hundred meters on either side, making it impossible for any bad guys to

sneak up on you in the night.

For these kinds of overnight halts, we'd stop in a big circle with the fighting vehicles,

tanks and lav-3s, around the perimeter, facing out, while the support vehicles parked in the

middle. The vehicles on the perimeter would take turns being while the support vehicles parked in the middle.

The vehicles on the perimeter would take turns being up, providing security for their part of the ring. Picture 20 vehicles in a circle, with the ones at 12, 3, 6, and 9 o'clock being up,

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