In 2004, TikToker @coachvigil was stationed in Ramadi, Iraq, with the 2nd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, an artillery unit based out of Camp Pendleton in California.
His unit served as convoy security from Ramadi all the way to Baghdad. They were sent to an Army, Marine, and Navy compound called Junction City that was across the river from the city of Ramadi.
The compound used to be an Iraqi police compound until they took it over. It spanned several miles and was surrounded by tall fences topped with razor wire. In April 2004, there was a big battle in Ramadi, and in December 2004, the United States took the city of Fallujah.
Back then, if soldiers wanted to call home, they had to go to a phone center, which consisted of rooms with about 20 phones. People would sign up and wait in line to use the phone. Each phone call typically lasted 15 minutes.
“I had made a routine that at two a.m., I would go and make my phone calls because two a.m. Iraqi time was like five p.m. back home,” said @coachvigil.
“So, I wasn’t waking anybody up. Also, at the base, everyone was sleeping at night, so those phone centers were much less busy.”
At the time, he had a one-year-old son, so he wanted to call home as often as possible. So, he woke up at 2 a.m. every day, grabbed his rifle, and walked the short path to the army phone center.
On this walk, he had to cross an open field. The only light illuminating his way was from the moon.
One night, he was making the walk from the barracks to the phone center, staring at the ground, lost in thought, when he ran into someone halfway there.
Their shoulders crashed into each other, and @coachvigil was knocked back. He started to apologize and reached for the other person’s uniform to grab hold of them, but realized no one was there.
He froze, listening for someone rustling around in the grass, but all was silent. Finally, he continued walking until he arrived at the phone center. The door was padlocked, and a sign on the door informed him that the phone center was out of service until further notice.
“For those who don’t know, when that happened, it was typically because there were casualties on the base that particular day or the day prior or recently,” explained @coachvigil.
“And they shut the phone centers down as a way to make sure the news of the fallen soldiers or the Marines doesn’t get back to the next of kin before they could do it properly.”
As he walked back to the barracks, he began to wonder if the person he ran into was a spirit who was still going through their routine of calling home because they hadn’t realized they had passed away.
To this day, the thought of that encounter still gives @coachvigil the chills.
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By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
