Eighty Deuce on the Loose in Iraq

A project underway...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Well after all this time of waiting and deciding how and what to do, I have begun the early steps to putting together a book! I will keep updates coming, but everything is in the begining stages right now. Wish me luck!

A free man!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:42:00 +0000

Well my 4th of July celebrations just ended yesterday when I returned from the lake where I spent a few days with my girl and her family, just enjoying the fresh air and beautiful scenery. The city we were in put on a fireworks show over the lake, which I didn't hold much hope for, but it turned out to be pretty damn good. They even had a band playing, that was rocking out and had so many people up there dancing, to include the 2 of us! :)

So anyways, to make a real quick post for now, I returned yesterday, and after a 2 1/2 hour drive I made it back to Ft Bragg/Fayetteville, but instead of going straight to my house, I had to make a quick detour. I entered Ft Bragg, with my soon to be expired ID card, and made the short little drive to my Battalion head quarters so that I could officially sign out of the Army! It was a great feeling and I had the biggest smile on my face as I was walking out of there, knowing that after all these years, my time is finally up.

Today was the 1st day that I've woken up in a long time as a free man. My sentance has been served and now I'm out on parole. My unit is just begining to get back from a month of leave, and its crazy to think that they will be going back to work, yet I wont be. In a way its kind of sad, because for the last 3 1/2 years, the Army, NC and these friends I've made have been my life. Its never easy to just give up something you've held on to for so long, but in many ways I'm excited to be getting back to Phoenix and seeing my friends and family back there.

This isn't the end of me and the Army tho, because as one sentance ends, another is soon to begin, this one being a 6-year enlistment in the National Guard. I wanted to join an Infantry unit back home in AZ, but unfortunatly they did not have positions open yet, and even when some would open soon, they may not of been slots that would of paid an enlistment bonus. Because of this I opted to join the California National Guard, with an Infantry unit based out of San Diego, CA. Its about a 5 hour drive from Phoenix, but it will be worth it. I mean, shoot, this gives me an excuse to take a vacation to San Diego every month, and my how I love it there! Also, not only was the slot that I am going in to a bonus paying slot, but it is in a priority unit, which means I will receive my $20,000 bonus in one lump sum, minus taxes of course. But that will still be a nice deposit in the bank, so I'm stoked about that too.

Thats about all for now. Next weekend I will begin my drive back to Phoenix as I spend a little bit more time with some of my friends who have been gone on leave over the last month, and then, finally, will this chapter of my life be complete. But as one chapter ends, so begins the next! :)

Coming to an end...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:13:00 +0000

Well, for a little update on where I am today, let me start by saying that I have less than 2 weeks until I sign out on terminal leave. Basically this is like regular leave, where you're not at work or anything, except this is tacked on to the end of your enlistment. Basically I'm taking a month of terminal leave, which means, I "leave" the Army and I still get paid for one for month, until I'm officially release from the Army.

So right now I've been staying pretty busy with doing all the crap required to get out of the Army. Theres tons of briefs and this you need and that you have to do, plus I still have the worst part, which is the turn in of all my equipment. Doesn't sound so bad, but when for the last 3 1/2 years and a deployment later, all my stuff has been here and there and back again, and now I have to try and piece together everything that I have to turn back in. It doesn't help when they give you a list of stuff with names that give you NO clue as to what it actually is. Should be fun. Anyways, all this process has been going smoothly so far and I should be done with this "headache" soon. Besides the headache is well worth it since it means Im finally done!

I recently have finished up my CV/Resume and got that sent out the other day to a bunch of contract companies, so hopefully soon I should hear back from them, some whom I've already spoken with people via telephone. I've pretty much decided that I'm going to go back overseas for a year (usual minimum contract length) to stash some more cash away in the bank and then come back and do college. So I'm excited about getting the ball rolling on that.

Other than that, I've been pretty good. Trying to get out and away from this house I spend WAY too much time in lately. Been hiking, indoor skydiving, the beach, amusment parks, all sorts of stuff, just trying to keep busy. I've been taking Charlie along for the ride for a lot of this and he seems to be enjoying it. Every day I end up loving that dog more and more. He's such an amazing guy. Too bad he doesn't know we're about to make a LONG drive across country to wind up back in a place just as hot as the hell hole he came from. Maybe he wouldn't be so cool then.

Anyways, thats about it for the updates for now, so like I said I'm going to try and keep posting on here more often so, just know that I'm doing good and really looking forward to leaving the Army and going back home!

I've been horrible...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 20:56:00 +0000

OK, well its obvious by the last post date on here, but I have been horrible about keeping this up to date on the latest and greatest of the life back in the states. I do appologize for that, and I just want everyone to know that I am doing good. A lot has been going on lately and for some reason I just could not find the motivation to get on here and write anything. The purpose of my blog was to tell my story of being in Iraq, and I guess to idea of telling my story now that I'm not seems even less interesting. But I'm seriously going to put forth and effort. This is just going to be a quick post to let everyone know that I'm alive and well, but I will be posting again soon to give yall an update on much of what has been going on in my life and will be going on in my life soon.

Today is Friday the 13th, a day that will always hold a very significant meaning for me. Those of you that have read my blogs from the begining will know what I'm talking about. Those of you that haven't if you simply look up "Friday the 13th" or go under the month of April 2007, you will see what it is Im talking about. It is what drove me to read my own blog today and what has made me realize that I need to post on here again. So again, I appologize for the long break in posts, but know I am going to make a concious effort to keep posting more regularly. Thanks for your understanding.

Reunited!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 12:27:00 +0000

Well this past week has been pretty awesome. The main reason for that is because of a cute little 4 legged friend that I have been able to spend time with again, CHARLIE! Last weekend, I finally was able to make the trip up to Washington DC to reunite with our dog that we had brought back from Iraq. He had been in the States since Feb 14th, and it had been almost a month and a half since I had seen him and was anxiously awaiting this day.

When I finally got to the house and started to go around back to see him, he was already waiting by the fence. I had left Thursday immediatly after work so I was still in my ACUs, and when I got close enough for him to see my face, he stopped, looked up at me and if for a minute he had this look on his face like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. After a couple seconds of him taking it all in, he went crazy! Once I got in through the gate and was able to be next to him, he was SO excited. I had never seen him this excited ever before. He was flying through the air over and over again, to jump on me and lick my furiously. He would run away, then come flying back at me time and time again. It was awesome to see him so excited. I took the time to try and wear him out and we played with many toys in the backyard until he used up all of his energy and I could pet him and hug him like I wanted to. It was very surreal seeing him clean and in America. He was so clean it was unbelivable. The only Charlie I had known was the one that lived outdoors at the outpost and was usually covered in a good amount of dirt and typical Iraqi Muhallah filth. So to see him clean, with his white fur, brillantly white was a shock. But I took it all in and was just so happy to be back with him again.

I ended up staying the night there just outside of DC and the next morning I decided to take Charlie on a walk around all the monuments before we headed back to Ft Bragg. We wern't able to go right up to a few of them, but it was definatly cool to be able to see them and I can only imagine what was going through his head seeing such amazing monuments after most of all he has know was the slums of Baghdad. We had a great time and many people stopped to comment on how cute he was and to pet and play with him. He is amazing with other dogs and other people and he loves all the attention. He also walks perfectly on a leash which is mind boggeling. After a couple hours, we piled in to the car to begin the 6 hour journey back home. For the most part he slept in the back seat, only to get up every rest stop so we could walk around and drink some water.

Once I got back there were several people that immediatly wanted to see him. It was great being able to reunite the guys with our companion, but the greatest reunion came from a guy who was not expecting to see him. Back in October, in a situation that I had blogged slightly about, his platoon was part of a semi-large mission in to the bad Sunni area by our AO durring Ramadan, the largest Muslim holiday, also known for the most violence. He was a part of a dismounted squad that ended up walking in to an ambush, where many of the guys were injuried. He was one of the more severe injuries, and had taken a round through his knee. It was the type of injury that took him out of the game and he had been sent back here to Bragg. So he had no clue that Charlie was coming home or anything and had pretty much expected that he was never going to see him again. It must have been tough because he definatly loved and cared for that dog with the best of us.

I had taken Charlie back to the barracks to reunite with another guy and we were talking about how this guy would be happy to see him and literally at that moment he was walking from the parking lot. I yelled for him to come over and he took one look at Charlie and couldn't belive his eyes. The amazing thing is that after all that time, Charlie remebered him like it was just yesterday and he was acking just as crazy as when I had first seen him in DC. It was awesome seeing how happy the 2 of them were to see each other again and I can only imagine the suprise going through his head to see Charlie, the dog from Iraq, back in America.

Other than that we have been doing pretty good. A lot of people have had the chance to see him and Im sure over time more and more will eventually do so. We are doing great and somehow Charlie is already house-broken. He hasn't had a single incident as far as that goes. He is truly an amazing dog in so many ways and its awesome to have him back again!

How to Write a Book 101...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:57:00 +0000

Too bad I never attended that class, other wise I might have an idea of what the hell I'm doing. HA! I did have a job once, just after I graduated High School where I worked for an independant book publisher (nothing big time) formatting work given to us in a Word document so that it would fit on to a normal printed book page. It wasn't a bad job, but because of how young I was, I was not getting paid what I should. It was my first tech type of job and in many was I wish I would of stuck with it a bit and continued with that skill set.

So for those of you who know me, or those of you who have corresponded with me, you probably already know what I'm about to say, but I'll go ahead and tell everyone else the story behind my blog. Bare with me...

My blog was initially started on my MySpace Page. (feel free to add me if you have MySpace as well! :D ) In the past I have always wanted to write a book, but never had anything good to write about. Once I learned of our deployment, I realized that I would have an event in my life which actually might make an interesting story, so in an effort to inform my family and friends of what I was doing (saving me from telling the same story over and over), and more so as a way to keep record of what I experienced and to not forget the little details over time, I started keeping blogs on MySpace. They started out simple, but as we began doing missions I started trying to write down as much info as I could remember, within the limits of OPSEC of course. Over the course of 3 months I had several posts on there, detailing the begining of my 15-month deployment. At some point I began noticing that a handful of people were reading my blogs on there, and some of them were people that I had no clue who they were. I began formatting the blog page there, coming up with the origional layout of what would eventually involve in to the look of my blog today. I was getting frustrated with the lack of options for the formatting of my MySpace blog, so after some time, I decided to move over to Blogspot to continue my blog. I copied over all the entries from just before we left until that time, and put them on to my Blogger account, which they are still accessable there today. On April 8th, everything was copied over and I was happy with the way the blog looked, so I added a counter and linked to the new blog site, from my MySpace blog. And from there, the rest is history... haha I've always wanted to say that.

Fast foward to now. 15 months later, 113 (published) posts later and I'm stuck trying to figure out what I need to do in order to make the initial dream a reality. I guess I probably need to contact publishers and see if they would be interested, or whatever. If anyone has any advice for me in this department I am open ears. Until that day comes, I will continue to take my posts and put them in to Word, and format them and spell/grammer check (yes BrianFH, when I have the time I do know how to do that! :D ) and try and save any (hopefully) future editors a little bit of time and headache editing through my stories. Ideally, I would like to keep my old posts intact and then after selected posts I put in a book, Id like to tell more to the story than I was able to do at the time while in Iraq. Maybe include some additional pictures. Theres many ideas in my head, but again, no real plan of action at this point. Not to mention I do also want to write a book about getting Charlie out of Iraq and back to the States. (Oh and those of you asking about Charlie updates, I will have a post here soon dedicated to that... so stay tuned!)

I think I have babbled on enough for now. That is really about all that I have right now. Like I said if you have any advice or can point me in the right direction for this, leave me a comment or send me out an email. I greatly appreciate any help, and thanks in advance.

Being home...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:18:00 +0000

is great!

It is the most amazing feeling in the world to be back in the States after so long in Iraq. While over there, it seemed like this day would never come, but finally it did. The flight back was full of anticipation as we all just wanted to end our long journey and be back with the ones we love and care about. For myself, from the time I was last walking around the streets of Baghdad until I landed back in the United States, it was only 4 days. Mind blowing really. One we arrived at Ft Bragg, there were so many friends, family, whatever there, that it was a HUGE crowd. We formed up and marched in while everyone was screaming and cheering, and it was so hard to not break out with a huge smile across my face. The shivers ran throughout my body, and even a little bit right now just thinking about it. It was amazing and I couldn't of asked for much more. We headed back to the company, turned in our weapons and got released for 6 hours until we had to come back to receive our safety brief to go in to our 3-day weekend that we had.

That weekend was a good time of just relaxing and enjoying being back. Of course the alcohol consumption was a necessity, but fortunatly everyone drank responsibly and had a plan for being out there. No one fucked up, no one got a DUI. So far so good. Hopefully everyone continue to do the right thing and no one ruins it for everyone. Right now for the next 5 or 6 weekends we will be having 3 and 4 day weekends every weekend. The days that we do work right now are 1/2 days, so by 12:00 we are done for the day. Its nice I'm not even going to lie. We started doing typical PT, and I am hurting. Although I was going to the gym in Iraq, I really did run all that much, and being back running hills and fire breaks in the woods has taken its toll on my legs and by the end of the 3rd day of PT, I was officially broken off and walking a little funny. Guess its going to take a little time.

One thing that was a little unsetteling while we were back was that somewhere out at some range on Ft Bragg there were launching mortars or artillery or blowing up something really big and often. There was one day where the explosions were so loud, it was shaking the barracks and could be heard AND felt throughout both adjacent cities of Fayetteville and Spring Lake. I was at the car stereo place dropping of my car to get my new system installed, when I walked outside and heard an earth shaking explosion. It didn't startle me, but it sounded like how an IED sounded if it went off just outside the gates of the FOB, and I just remeber thinking to myself, "I thought I was getting away from this crap!" Hahaha. I've gotten used to hearing them back here, but I surely didn't expect to continue to have to hear explosions. Fortunatnly I only have a couple more months left in the Army and then I shouldn't have to hear them again.

This weekend I decided to take a last minute trip back home to Phoenix for our 4-day weekend. I didn't let my mom know that I was coming and totally suprised her when I showed up at her place. Its been good to see her as well as my friends. I'm having a blast here and I'm really enjoying my insanly low alcohol tolerence! I went all out on the car rental too and decided to drive around a brand new Infinity G35. It is a sweet car and I really really REALLY don't want to have to take it back. Its amazing how the weather is totally different here than back in NC. In NC I was freezing, especially in the morning and its been incredibly windy all week. Here in Phoenix it is a completly different story. The temperatures are near perfect, the beautiful blue skies are amazing and the sun beams down brightly and full of warmth. We were at the pool the other day for only a couple hours, and now as a result of not applying any sunblock, I have an attractive redness to my skin. Hopefully it turns in to a nice tan and doesn't peal away.

So that is about all for now. Like I said I am loving every minute of being back. In many ways its so surreal, but I'm taking it all in slowing and experiencing many things that I had missed out on over the last 15 months. It truly is so amazing to be back and I'm so happy that I am able to experience this amazing place again!

Mission Accomplished!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:22:00 +0000

It is over. The words I have been waiting to say for so long while doing this blog, I AM DONE! And a job well done. I know back in the day when President Bush made his whole Mission Accomplished speech from the Navy aircraft carrier, the mission that most Americans assumed he was talking about was the Iraq War, which at the time was no where near done. There was and still is much controversey over his decision to make such a statement. My statement is a little less bold. I don't refer to accomplished as in the war is over, send the troops home kind of accomplished. I am referring to the work that we have done, ourselves and the job we have done.

Our mission is accomplished. We received word of our deployment a few days after Christmas. We were on the deployment ready cycle at Ft Bragg where we could potentially deploy anywhere in the world on a moments notice, so it was no real suprise, at least to me, that when the murmors of a possible troop surge began rumbling, that we were probably going to be caught up in it. Sure enough we were. We would come to learn shortly after hearing about our deployment that just 2 days after New Years we would be heading for Kuwait. We hurried to rush out of there and get going on what was to be a 6 month deployment as the Iraq Theaters strategic reserve. By the time we were wheels up, it had been 6 days since we had received notification of our deployment. Soon after arriving in Kuwait, the decision was finalized to mobilize 10s of thousands of troops and flood them in to Baghdad and other parts of Iraq as a part of a new change in strategy. When the boots of our unit touched the dirty ground of Iraq, the "Surge" had begun.

It was a volitile time for Baghdad and Iraq when we began. Sectarian killing between Shiites and Sunnis was spirialing out of control. Sadr's militia was terrorize and killing Sunnis while Sunni snipers and bomb makers mutilated Shiites in ungodly numbers. They hated each other, but they both hated us. The Spring of 2007 brought some of the bloodiest months of this War. May 2007 was the 2nd bloodiest month of this conflict, followed with April and June as the 5th and 6th. The year 2007 would turn in to the single deadliest year for US troops since the begining of the War. The initial push of the Surge was in to Baghdad and the fighting between Sadr's militia, the Sunni Militia and Al-Qaeda in Iraq against the US Military was fierce. But our resolve and will did not faulter and our advantage in warfighting proved once again that they stood no chance. They began to flee the Baghdad area and push to the outskirts, where the new Surge troops would soon follow and continue to give them the crushing defeat they were sustaining in Baghdad.

With the focus no longer on gunbattles and firefights, we began going after the leaders of the militias that operated in our sector and began rolling them up one after another, after another, until the picture became clear to them. Quit, leave or get caught. Our final task was to protect the economically important markets which were in our area, and were constantly the target of massive carbombs killings hundreads of people with some of the blasts. The most economically important and largest market in Baghdad was in our sector, but between our constant presence and pressure on the militias, the attacks dwindled in size and frequency. With the militas weakened, the civilian casulties at an all time low due to a lack of car bombs and sniper attacks, the confidence of the people began to rise and their trust and appreciation of us did as well. The last vitial step was to get the Iraqis to begin to take over for themselves and our assistance in the creation of the CLC (Concerned Local Citizen) groups have done just that.

The situation in our area had taken a complete 180 from where it was when we began. The Sunnis and the Shiites began to trust one another. Killings were almost non-existant. Attacks in the markets were so rare and weak, that the resolve of the Iraqi civilians was no shaken. People were no long so fearful of working with the Americans and giving us intel. And in some areas, you could tell the people really loved us being there. I wouldn't go so far as saying it was completely safe in our area, but its getting damn close. Its amazing to think how much of a differnece 15 months had made. And it shows in the level of attacks on our troops. Dec 2007 was the 2nd lowest death toll since the start of the war, with the 3rd lowest being Feb 2008. Sadr, the leader of the Jeish Al Mehdi Army, has even noticed the change and no longer feels the need for his militia to fight and has stated himself that what the Americans have done has been good. As tough as it was for us to deploy here on 6 days notice and to deal with our deployment getting extended from 6 months to a year and then a year to 15-months, I believe it has been worthwhile and has such a profound impact on this area, that only time can truly show. I hope the trend continues with the new units that begin to replace the Surge troops and I hope peace will one day take over in this land. I want to be able to come back when I'm 50 and 60 and walk the same streets with my Kids and Grandchildern. I only pray that this may one day be possible.

So for now my time is done. I am done with missions and very shortly will be heading out of this place I called home for so long. The next time I post I will be back in the United States. Thank you to all who have read my blog, offered adivce, support or just an encouraging word through the comments and emails. I appreciated it all and I hope that you were able to get a little better picture of what life was like here in Iraq for an average American ground soldier, in the middle of the Surge! I will continue to blog once I return for some time, so don't think this is the end. Its just the end of a long long long long loooooong Chapter! :)

One last CIB...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:13:00 +0000

I want to start off by once again stating that whoever runs the Firewall for the computers that we have at the outpost are truly bi-polar. Because once again I am able to log on to blogger from the outpost, a change for like the 12th time! AHH! Also I lied in my last post. I have not begun my slow voyage home, but here I am posting again, but thats only because I wanted to get this story out there.

The other night, the CLC (Concerned Local Citizens) Group swung by the outpost with a guy that they had detained. Apparently they found this guy out walking around and he had what looked to be a homemade gernade. I had never seen a gernade like this. It had a plastic body and just looked fashioned. Over the past week or so there have been a few incidents with some people throwing gernades at IA (Iraqi Army) and IP (Iraqi Police) checkpoints, so I can only imagine that this is what this guy was going to do. So far they haven't targeted any US personnel with these gernades. Once we had this guy in our custody, they began questioning him and apparently at some point he stated that he would take us and show us where some more stuff was.

A group of our guys headed out to go hit this target building, while myself and the rest of the guys of my squad continued to pull our guard shift, knowing that we were probably going to be extended because the guys going out were the ones that were to relieve us. Time goes on and eventually we start getting word that they had found quite the little cache of more gernades and other stuff. The platoon that was out on patrol that day, sent out a dismounted element to link up with our guys. Shortly after they had left we heard some shooting off in the alleyways a little bit, but we didn't think too much of it. It wasn't until a pretty loud burst that we wonder, especially when the call came up to us in the towers asking if we heard any gunshots. They usually don't do this without a reason, and we later found out that was the CLC guys who had come in contact with a couple guys shooting at them. Nothing major though.

Some more time passed, a we were well in to the next guard shift when we heard a couple bursts of AK fire a couple hundread meters down the road from the outpost. I stood up and headed outside the tower I was in as all hell broke loose for about a minute or so. There were a couple explosions that I could see and of course here and we called those up. Thats when we learned that it was our guys that were in contact. Sons of bitches! I was officially jelous at this point. While standing on the roof scanning around from off to the side of the outpost a shot rang out that flew overhead, coming from an area a good distance away from where our guys were in contact. After a minute from that origional shot, there was a short burst again fired from the same area directed in our direction. The thing was that since I really didn't know the locations of our guys, I couldn't just indiscriminantly fire in the area that I heard the shot. Oh well, its not like they were hitting close to me, just definatly shooting in our direction.

After a little while the guys returned back to the outpost and of course the rest of us that were there were eager to learn what had happened. Apparently while they were on the roof of the place where the cache was, a couple guys a couple rooftoops over began shooting at them so they of course returned fire, launching a couple high-explosive gernade rounds from the gernade launchers, which explained the explosions we heard. The other platoons guys went to maneauver on them and I guess at some point they were shot at as well and returned fire. All in all it was a pretty quick little engagemnet. The one thing of note was that the last guy in our platoon that had not received his CIB (Combat Infantrymans Badge) was out there that night! So he now officially qualifies for his CIB and at the very tail end of our deployment and running combat missions, he finally earned his. How crazy!

I'm going CRAZZZZZYY!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:52:00 +0000

Ok so this is just going to be a quick update post since I am getting ready to head out and probably will be away from the computers for a little bit. But know that the next time I am able to get on and post, that I will most likely be on my journey out of this country already! :)

The past couple days have brought some big changes. There were a few incidents around here, that have cause our upper level chain of command to get all Nazified with some stupid rules. They probably wouldn't be so bad if it wern't for the fact that I stay back for a few days from going to the outpost with my platoon as a part of an agreement with my Plt Sgt since I'm doing the 'left seat right seat rides' I talked about in the last post. Well now this origionally seemed like a good idea to me. A few days back, all by myself, do whatever I want. Sounded good. Now because of these new rules I can't do anything. The big one is that you have to walk around in groups of 3 or more. Seeing as how there is only me and one other guy here, that kind of screws us. We have to either be sneaky or find someone to go with us, neither being an easy task. In fact I even missed out on a meal yesterday because I didn't have anyone to go with me. Its got me quite pissed.

The other thing is that since I'm basically on house arrest, along with the rest of our battalion, for some bullshit that I had no part of, I have been limited on what I can do. Pretty much I have been relying on watching movies, but after the 4th or 5th movie of the day I'm going fucking crazy. Everything is packed, so I don't have crap to do and no one around and I'm loosing it. I'm actually looking forward to leaving here soon and getting out there with my guys and away from all the stupid crap around here.

Well that is about all that I have for now, I will keep yall post the best I can here in the coming weeks, but know that I'm almost done!!!!!

The Charlie Company Surge...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:46:00 +0000

[blah]

One last bit of excitment? I think not...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:38:00 +0000

The last patrol that I went on was one exhausting patrol. We ended up dismounting quite a bit. It wasn't so much that over the course of the day we walked a whole lot, but it wasn't a short walk or anything like that either. Pretty much it was just not stop, continious dismounting that just seemed as if thats all I did all day. I don't recall spending too much time inside the truck. Fortunatly the wheater was just about perfect for the amount of walking we ended up doing and I even had to shed the little bit of 'snivel' gear that i had one once the afternoon hit.

So for the dismounts we really didn't do much that was really noteworthy. At one point we were out walking around looking for some random donkey cart pulling a bunch of propane tanks. Now, we wernt looking for a specific one, or it wasnt because one was rigged to blow up, but because they needed to talk with someone who sold propane. OK.... not sure what for really, but we never ended up finding one. We did end up finding out that it was a holiday, and if I am correct I believe this is the same holiday that was going on when we first got here last year. The significance of this holiday to me, is that at the end of the month long holiday, the very next day one of our platoons came in contact for the first time. The day after the next platoon that went out came in contact, and finally the day after that when we finally went out we got in our first firefight as well. Now this year will probably be different seeing as how I hopefully shouldnt come to see the end of this holiday, but who knows.

There was a little bit of 'excitment' towards the end of the day. While taking a break at the outpost, we got a call that there was shooting going on in one of the neighborhoods in our sector. We all got ready, loaded up and headed out. The adrenneline was going slightly and I was anxious to get there in hopes that maybe one last time, I might finally be able to perform my real job as an Infantryman. But as expected by the time we got there, it was quiet. We dismounted and walked around and talked to some people and I did notice that the neighborhood was DEAD! This is usually a good sign that something just happened or is about to happen, so apparently we just missed out. Some people think I'm too 'huah' for wanting to get in to it this close to going home, but whatever. I always loved being in contact with the enemy and Im sorry but I miss it. Oh well.

That night we got a little more excitment when we were told that we were going to be setting up an ambush. This was a little odd considering that we've NEVER done one before. We almost did one to ambush some mortar team that mortared our outpost, but nothing came of that. Now Im not sure if this ambush was to be a shoot'em up amush or just wait for them to get somewhere and detain them, but either way it ended up getting canceled and once again we were let down.

The nice thing about this patrol and the cancellation of that night ambush is that there was nothing else for us to do and so the we ended up heading back in to base about 2 1/2 hours earlier that expected. That was a nice treat, and although the day really wasn't all that bad, it was good to be back and to be done. Time is nearing very soon in which the day will be here, when my coming back to base will be the last time and I cannot wait!

Some GREAT News!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 07:12:00 +0000

Ok well it has definatly been a little bit since I posted last. Theres several factors that have played in to this. Part of it is from my time spent out at the outpost where once again Blogger is blocked. No suprise there tho. Also as I'm sure many of you all have probably heard, there was some communications cable that was cut in the Mediterranian Sea (I believe?) that has severly affected our communications. The internet at the cafes have been ridiculously slow and the phones have had a horrible connection. Also the internet has been down in my building for several weeks and with our re-deployment nearing, I decided to not worry about it and just wont have internet in my room for the rest of my time here. This means I am forced to use the SLOW internet cafes. I have been to the computers a LOT in the last week, but I've been primarily dealing with one thing; Bringing Charlie (our dog)home!

Well again if you check my other site dedicated to Charlie I will have more in depth details, but basically as of right now, Charlie has been picked up from the outpost, transported to BIAP, flown to Kuwait and has been on his 13 hour non-stop flight to America for almost 12 hours now. So here very shortly, he should be finally landing in the good old USA!! I can't believe that it has finally happened and I'm so excited that he's about to be back and I can't wait to see him again back home. Pretty cool to think his little paws will touch American soil for the first time on Valentines day!!

So with that said, there has been much going on around here lately. Not so much mission wise and out in sector, but with our re-deployment. We are VERY VERY close to getting out of here and so things are being taken care of and preped and getting ready to go home. It almost doesn't feel real. After 14 months of being here, the time to go home is SO close, but it still doesn't feel like its happening, despite all the work that we are doing to get ready to go. I wish I could tell yall when, but for the sake of OPSEC you'll just have to wait to find out. :)

One thing that was notable that happened about a week or so ago was that in one of the markets in our sector a female suicide bomber was blown up killing dozens of people. It has been very rare to have an incident take place in the markets anymore and I hope it does not shake the Iraqi people feeling of security and their resolve to go about their lives. From what I had heard of it, the lady was mentally handicapped and that she was unknowingly strapped with explosives and then detonated by someone else. How cowardly and pathetic is that, for them to exploit someone who has no clue whats going on. It sickens me to think they would do something like that, and I feel for that woman and her family, as well as those who were killed in the blast. I can only hope that this is a very isolate incident and that this does not turn in to a trend.

Lately we have been doing a lot of work with the CLC (Concerned Local Citizens) group with getting them prepared to handle things on their own. I don't think we've officially told them that we're going, but they all know. All the IP (Iraqi Police) and IA (Iraqi Army) know and I'm sure most people out there know. We've been here for a while and I'm sure they catch the news about 15 months and all that, so I'm sure it's no suprise that we are going to be going. But like I said, we've been working very closely with the CLC to help train them. We have had them come to the outpost and we give them clases on basic stuff like searching vechicles and the very basics of patrolling. Not to mention that we have done a whole slew of combined dismounted patrols with them. I think they have the potential to go good things for the area and I hope that after we leave that they continue to work with the new unit and the IP and IAs to ensure that this little slice of Baghdad stays safe. They have been a big help and I hope they help to ease the transition to the Iraqi security control.

Well that is about all for now. I am going to try and update more often, considering the last couple posts have been spread out, but if I can't as often as I like, know that I am doing good, and probably busy getting ready to finally leave this country and return the good and wonderful USA!!

March of the Iman...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 15:47:00 +0000

Well, I'm going back in time a little bit to talk about a few events that happened several patrols ago. The reason for this is the damn internet is down in my building again, and ever since I got internet in my room it is almost like getting the motivation to go to the dentist when it comes to heading down to the MWR computers. But now the internet has been down for a while and I have no clue when it will be getting fixed so I'm finally putting together a post to take down to the computers and upload. From what I hear the computers are running really slow so I may or may not get to put up pictures that I am wanting to include with this. Guess we'll see.

The first significant event deals with the CLC or civilian armed guards that we have in some of the neighborhoods in our sector. I've talked about them many times, especially when it deals with running in to one of their armed dismount patrols at night or the weapons caches that these guys find for us from time to time. Although I disagree with the decision to allow them to have free roam, especially with weapons, they have actually proven to be a big help in assisting us in finding these caches and catching some of the bad guys around the area.

What basically happened, in a brief, as much as I know telling of this, there was some argument between two of the guys over some shooting incident that they were involved in and one was demanding the arrest of another. I don't know what escalated the situation but in the end the guy who was wanting to other arrested was not getting his way, so he let loose with his AK-47. He ended up shooting the leader, his son and I believe another person before he was shot and detained. I don't believe he was killed, but the wounds that the leader of the group sustained proved to be fatal. It's kind of weird because we have worked with them many times and I have met and talked with the leader of this group on many occassions. Again, although I do not agree with his group running around with guns, I did think that he was a genuinly good guy and it sucks to think that he's dead now. And it wasn't even a member of the local militia that did it. Now I guess we will see how these guys end up doing with a new leader.

The next event was a pretty big one to be a part of. There was a Muslim religious holiday recently, and infact it may even still be going on, in honor of a fallen Iman, Hussein. One of the days, was the biggest celebration days and apparently on that day, the people come to the streets by the thousands and parade around and punish themselves by whipping themselves in the back with these chain whip type of things. We knew they were going to be going on, but we wern't really sure where. Also, during these kinds of celebrations we try to keep our distance and not interfere with what they are doing. At one point we had turned on to this street and started heading down it, when we noticed a HUGE procession of people coming down the road. We couldn't turn around and so in an attempt to stay out of the way as best as possible, we pulled off to the side of the road and waited for them to pass.

There were thousands of men, women and childern that were marching, some of them playing music, some dancing and signing, others dressed up in costume and the rest just walking along with it all. We all locked our doors because we were in a situation that was not the best of ones to be in. We were surrounded big thousands of people and in the event they wanted to get to us, it would of been a lot easier than any other time without all those people. It took almost 30-40 minutes for the procession to pass and the whole time we just sat in our seats and watched the people go by, ocassionally waving to the people when they waved at us. It was pretty surreal because normally we try to keep people away from our trucks as best we can when we are out there. Every now and again a group of kids will form by one of the windows but even they aren't right up on the vehicle. But with the huge amounts of people out there, there was nothing we could do and our trucks were completly surrounded with people putting their faces right up to the windows. Once the crowd thinned and we could drive off without interfering we did so.

We had a basic idea of what the holiday was about, but we wanted to know more so I went to our interperator and asked him. I guess the story behind it deals with the split between the Shiite and Sunni sects of Islam, and this was a Shiite holiday. There was an Iman, Hussein, who a big group of the Muslims felt should be the next to run all of Islam, but on his way to Iraq from Mecca in Saudia Arabia, in which he was to talk with the people who were calling for him to be in charge, an Army was sent out after his caravan to kill him. His caravan consisted of mostly women and childer so he did not have much of a fighting force. When he learned of this, he went in to the nearby city and called out for people to join him and help him fight, but no one came out and in the end he was slaughtered, had his head cut off and brough back to the king to prove he was dead. This is why the Iraqi people come out in the steets and whip themselves, to show their support now which they did not do before and to punish themselves for what they had done to him. I find it pretty interesting to learn about these holidays and to learn about the Muslim religion, but one thing I have noticed is that there seems to be much violence in the history and holidays of their religion. Maybe that is why, things are the way they are for us in that region.

Lastly I had hoped on Google the other day and looked up the area of Baghdad that we are in and was learning about the history of this area. Basically the area we are in is the oldest part of Baghdad, and when Baghdad was initially founded, many many years BC, where our sector is, thats where Baghdad began. Its kind of crazy to know that probably some of the same streets and alleyways that I patrol around, have been some of the some paths people have taken for thousands of years.

So thats about all for now. I have some more I want to talk about but I will get to that with another post. Hopefully it won't be as long for the next one, but the way the internet is going around here, you never know.

I didn't know it got THIS cold here...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 16:56:00 +0000

Alright, well it has been a little bit since my last post and that is partially due to a little bit of laziness on my part compounded with the inability to access my Blogger account from the outpost. I was going to put a post up right before I left, but I figured, no I'll just do it once I get to the outpost. Well, as I've talked about before the people who control the firewall that prevents us from going to many websites, I have noticed are very bi-polar when it comes to allowing/denying access to Blogger. Sometimes they do and others they dont. One day I may be able to get on and the next I wont and then the next day again I can't. It's pretty crazy and it can get quite annoying sometimes. Gets my hopes up.

The first thing that I wanted to post about was some updates on our situation with our adopted dog at the outpost, Charlie. As many of you know that have been reading my blog for a while, or even those of you that have noticed the sidebar link to a website I have up dedicated to this cause, is that I have been working my ass off trying to take care of things and figured things out as for a way to get Charlie back to the US. Myself along with many others have gotten attached to him and the thought of leaving him behind when we re-deploy makes my stomach turn. He's such an awesome dog, and so began my mission of trying to get him home.

I won't break it all down here (just visit Charlie site or read the first post about Charlie to learn more) but basically I've gotten him shots here in Iraq, food, a travel cage as well as coordinated everything for his travel and return home, all except how to get him out of Iraq. With the end of our deployment approaching, I was begining to worry as a few options that I was working had not worked out. Fortunatly just about a week and a half ago I received some additional help in this area, and was put in touch with someone that will be able to get him out of Iraq and on his way home to the US! I had to talk with some other people to work out some minor details and some coordination stuff, but at this point just about everything is in place to make this happen, just waiting on an exact date!! Hopefully should be happening within the next couple of weeks. It still doesn't seem real, but I'm so excited that this will be finally happening. I can't wait for his journey to begin!

This latest rotation out to the outpost wasn't quite as bad as the last one I talked about. Of course, being deeper in to the winter, the average temperatures were lower, but this time both the heaters in the guard towers were working, although one much better than the other. Our shack thing that we chill in while working the gate didn't have heat most of the time, but towards the end guys came in fixing and adding heaters all over the place so we got a semi-functial one out there. Overall, it wasn't all that bad, despite still have a cold shift. I ended up getting decently sick for a couple days, but fortunatly that was it. I still have a lagging cough, but for the most part I'm over it. I hate being sick and lately I seem to be getting at least a little sick each time we head out there. Quite unusual considering that I normally get sick maybe once or twice a year.

Speaking of the cold, a story of amazement needs to be told. I wish I was telling this from a first hand experience but I can't say that I was there. It ended up happening while I was a asleep and I'm a little bummed that I wasn't woken up. Anyways, the day before we headed out to the outpost it had been raining. Nothing crazy, just a slow steady rain, which in its own part sucked because it turned pretty much most of our base and a lot of Baghdad in to a giant mudpit. Anyways, the temperatures had been dropping and apparently in the night the temps dropped below freezing and coming early morning, the steady slight rain turned to snow!!

I know it sounds crazy, and I didn't believe it at first. I had to get a 2nd person to verify this story and sure enough. My first reaction was, "Since when does it snow in hell?!?" I then realized how much more it sucked here than Phoenix. Not only does it get slighly hotter in the summer but even colder in the winter. I have NEVER seen snow in Phoenix and it blows my mind to think that it happened here in Baghdad.

Thats about all for now. I have a couple more stories I want to tell but I'm tired and I'll just wait until tomorrow and put them in another posting. Plus theres a couple pictures I wan't to throw up for that, so I need to get those as well. Maybe give me 2 days, knowing my level of laziness on my days off! :)

"Laughter is an instant vacation." -Milton Berle

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 01:01:00 +0000

Theres many things that we have experienced here, some of them good, some of them bad and some of them, well, just there. But theres one thing about being with a group of guys that have become like brothers to you, and thats the ability to just have a good time despite the situation that you find yourself in. That is one of the greatest things I've noticed durring this deployment, is that we can be in a horrible situation (combat related or not) and just make the best of it. The last 2 days, I can honestly say I have had some of the best times here in Iraq, not by anything that we have done mission wise, but just having a good laugh at the expense of myself and others in our platoon.

It all started on the last patrol that I went on. We had our First Sergeant that headed out with us, and his driver, a mortar guy, used to go out with our platoon alot back in the day. He's a great guy and a part of me misses the good times when he was along! *tear* Hahah. Anyways, he's a smoker and normally smokes Marlboro #27 cigarettes. I smoke Marlboro Lights and while we were smoking he gave me a pack saying he didn't like smoking lights. I thought it was an awesome gesture, and of course I took the free pack! I lit up a cigarette from the pack and immediatly there was a semi-loud snap as the end of my cigarette exploded. I'm not going to lie, it scared the piss out of me for a second, and for some stupid reason the first thought in my head was sniper. I know, its dumb, but thats what I thought, but that passed quickly. After everyone got their laugh, he proceeded to tell me that every single cigarette in there has been rigged to explode. Alright, well now IM going to have some fun with this.

It became my personal mission to get as many people with one of the exploding cigarettes as I could. I managed to get a few people while we were still at the outpost but eventually everyone knew that I had them, so I couldn't give them away. Thats when I decided to give one to one of the Iraqi Army guys. It was pretty funny and he refused to smoke the rest of it! It was in good fun, so dont worry. We both were having a good laugh from it. Later while out on a dismounted patrol, when we finished up we were waiting around for the trucks to come back and pick us up when one of the guys in my squad wanted a smoke, but left his in the truck. Here ya go, I've got one for ya! He totally forgot I had those, and when he lit it up, he was startled by the pop like everyone else. The best part was there were about 15 Iraqi kids that were around us. All of us start laughing and pointing and ALL the kids start doing the same. He must of felt like an ass! Always great to see others suffer! I can't recall how many people I got, but it was pretty close to every one that was in the pack. And just now as I'm writing this, my grenadier finally smoked the one I snuck in to his pack on a cigarette break we just took. GOOD TIMES!!

Once we finally came back in, I was viewing a video in a bulletin sent to me on MySpace and it was one of those that out of nowhere this Exorcist looking chic pops out and theres a loud screeching and it scares the piss out of you. I showed it to my good buddy, but before doing so I hooked up my sound system and cranked it up. Lets just say it scared the piss out of him. He yelled and jumped up punching in front of him. Another guy introduced me to this maze, that as you go through it, it gets hard and you really have to concentrate and then out of nowhere that Exorcist creature scares you. Well, we then began tricking everyone telling them that we'd give them $20 if they could beat this certin level and talk it up and it was just hilarious. We ended up getting 4 or 5 people good and the last one was my grenadier in my team and there was probably about 15 people around him watching him. Again, another great laugh at someone elses expense! I can honestly say I haven't laughed that hard in a long while.

The last bit of fun has come from something that we have come up with now refered to as the "Cornbread Challenge." It started off as a punishment from my grenadier to my automatic rifleman because he had secretly ashed a whole cigarette on his head. To make up for it, he had to eat 5 pieces of cornbread from the chowhall. Well I figured that he couldn't do it and so he bet me he could. We gave him 20 mins to do so, and he couldn't throw up until it was all down. He could drink or do whatever he wanted to the pieces tho. On the day of, he ended up making another $20 bet with another guy so we started the challenge. He almost made it, 4 1/2 pieces but he finally ended up running out of the chowhall puking as he barely made it out of the door!! After that, people began saying they could do it and the Cornbread Challenge was born. For the next contestant we changed the rules a little and if he could do it in 10 minutes my grenadier would give him $60. This was a big guy and I actually thought he'd do it, but at 4 1/4 the cornbread got the best of him and he went to the trash can and began regurgatating the cornbread through his mouth and nose! He had done this on a non-empty stomach so we amended a final change to the challenge. 6 pieces in 11 minutes, $60. We wrote the challenge up on our platoon board, and listed the failures so far and put up a signup list. We had our first taker that night.

Given the popularity of the challenge now, people were beginging to want to watch in hopes of seeing someone fail and puke their guts out. Our in house video guru was around for the next challenger, along with 8 of us that were not on patrol. We were now going to video record each attempt in hopes of catching more and more desctructive failures! The next participant was someone that was going to give this challenge a run for its money (literally... $60) and we were a little worried he might do it. He went to town, but again just like the rest, just after finishing the 5th piece and with 1 minute left on the clock he couldn't handle it anymore and the cornbread came back up! The best part was another guy made a $10 bet with me that he would do it and of course he lost. So this is now $30 I've made off side bets due to the Cornbread Challenge. As it stands, 3 men have entered, and none have come out a victor. The challenge still stands, and we may have contestant #4 tomorrow. Hopefully loser number 4!!!

The last bit of hilarity came while we were eating at the chowhall. Just before we were about to finish up, the warning sirens came on for incoming mortar rounds/rockets. Well, we have this new unit that is here in large numbers and I don't know if its what they've been told or trained on, but when that siren went off 1/2 the chowhall dove for the ground and were laying on the ground and hiding under tables. The rest of us just kind of sat there. This was my cue to get up and casually walk over to where the togo boxes were and grab one to put the rest of my food up so I could take it back with me. As Im walking there, people are diving in the front door hitting the ground as I'm trying to step over and around those huddled on the floor. I got a good kick out of it. Afterwords we headed out and back to our rooms laughing most of the way at what we had just experienced.

One year anniversary...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 22:28:00 +0000

Today is Jan 3rd, 2008. It is a significant milestone for us today. Exactly 1 year ago, 365 days ago, 8760 hours ago, 525600 minutes ago and 31536000 seconds ago (wow) we left American soil to begin our journey to Iraq, not knowing what exactly we would be doing, where we were going to be going, and when we would do it. All we knew was that President Bush was getting ready to "officially" announce the troop surge and that we were the 1st ones to deploy as a part of this new change in strategy in Iraq.

The best part about all of this was that we had just finished up Christmas of 2006. We had not been given leave due to a certin readiness cycle we were on at Ft Bragg, being Americas Strategic Reserve Force, the 82nd Airborne. 4 days later, they brought rumors began circling of a deployment. No one believe it until later that day our CO brought us in to officially announce our upcoming deployment. There was a mix of excitment, worry and a few people that just did not want to do it. Most of us were eager to go and all we wanted to know is when.... well.... 6 DAYS!! Wow, you have got to be kidding me?! Happy New Years, good bye America! And just like that we left. We were under the impression that this was to be a 6 month deployment, but once in country we began to learn that wasn't going to be the case. We just didn't know exactly how long. I really don't remeber when exactly we found out, but after a while we learned that we had been scooped up in to this 15 month tour extension thing. So just like that, people left loved ones, families and friends for almost a year and a half, on 6 days notice.

So with that all said, it has now been one full year. Had this been a "normal" deployment. We would be back in America soil. Shoot had this been what we expected, we would of been back a LONG time ago. Could of even done 2 of those in this time. But, this is no problem now because we have known about 15 months for a while and mentally prepared ourselves. The nice thing is that we are entering the final streach of this deployment. It seriously felt like this time would never come, but we are coming so close to being done with this hellish nightmare of a deployment. I along with many others, cannot WAIT for this to be done. Again I'm glad that I came, but Im ready to finish up, get the t-shirt and go home.

So being 3 days in to the new year of 2008, I have started a new program. It really wasn't a "New Years Resolution" because it all just has to do with the timinig of the deployment, but it has worked out that this began on Jan 1st for me. For most of the deployment, since we had been working our asses off, I had decided to take it easy on working out. I agreed with myself that I would take it easy and then the last 3 months I would hit the gym hard and get well in to shape. Well, I'm on day 3 now, and I'm not going to lie, Im hurting! But its my own damn fault, and it should only be temporary. As soon as I get in to the swing of things, it should be fine. But one interesting suprise is that I figured over the past year of not eating a lot and not working out all that much, that I would of lost a good amount of weight, but in fact I had actually gained weight! Not much, but it was a nice suprise. So I'm already ahead of the game. I'll keep yall posted on future gains and goals achieved!

Goodbye 2007!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 12:37:00 +0000

Today is Dec 31st, the last day of the year 2007. This year has brought many memories, experiences and friendships and one big event in my life, that will forever be with me. On Jan 3rd of this year, we deployed to Kuwait and then finally up in to Baghdad, Iraq. Most of this year has been spent deployed, running missions, fighting a war within a concrete jungle, and just plain being bored out of my mind. But if theres one thing that this year has brought me, it would be the friends and brothers that I have been with and have come to think of as family. We have been through it all together and Im sure we will remain together for the rest of our lives.

Of all the years in my life, this will be one that I will remeber more than any. The memories I have from this place over the past year will be with me forever, and I will look back with both joy and sorrow. In the past year we have lost 2 great men from our company, men whos families did not get to spend this holiday season with the ones they love. These men made a sacrifice that no one could have asked them to make, and we will always remeber and tell the stories of these great men.

With a little time left, we will continue to make memories in this place through part of 2008, but the experiences of this year have been wide and numerous. In a land, far away from home, in a place much different than anything we have ever experienced before, we had made a life. Not the best of lives that could be lived, but we have made the best of what we have had. We will continue to do so until the day arrives that we are able to leave here, to finish our work in this land, and to head home to be with those that we love that we left behind.

For this New Years I have ended up with a nice suprise. Due to the rotations of our days off, I am ending up getting quite a few days off this time and will enjoy all of it. I plan on using this time to start packing things up and to start sending some boxes home. My goal is to minimize what I have to actually carry back with me, because the experience of carry all the gear at one time on our way here absolutely sucked ass and I will not go through that again if I don't have to. I have quite a bit of stuff that I bought here and I need to really assess what I want to keep and whats just not worth taking back. Probably over the next week I am going to get a bunch of stuff to send back and will buy a tuffbox to mail it back in.

Lastly things around here have been getting gayer and gayer by the day. There are so many stupid rules being put in place and they are enforcing them with vengence. Both of the other platoons in our company in the time that we were at the outpost ended up getting caught for "infractions" and having to post NCOs and infractors in front of the chow hall to check for other infractions. How stupid and what a way to boost the morale of the troops which has already dropped significantly after spending 12 months in this hell hole. There are so many new stupid rules and dumb shit that its not even worth listing, but it makes me wonder what they are thinking. Who in their right mind at this point in the game would want to make things even worse on us. Again I say "And they wonder why no one wants to re-enlist."

Merry COLD Christmas!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 20:57:00 +0000

Just a quick update, I managed to avoid the pink belley and I am offically safe now! :) I know some people wondered why I would post it here when anyone can read it, but the people in my platoon DON'T read my blog, because well, they'd be reading their own lives. So yeah. Also I noticed this is my 100th post!! Wow, I can't believe I have managed that many things to say about this place. Well still should be a few more coming before I head home...

Alright well Christmas is just about finishing up in this part of the world but I wanted to give a quick update. I figured that this Christmas, being that I was in Iraq, was not going to be the best of them, but it has turned out to be much worse than I would have expected.

Our rotation out to the outpost was working out so that I was going to be out here, away from the comforts of the home FOB. I was ok with that. I was also ok with not having a good Christmas meal or anything. I was fine. I was also accepting of the fact that I would usher the transition from Christmas eve to Christmas in a guard tower, probably cold as hell. Again no problems there.

A little divergence here for a minute. Let me tell you how damn cold it has been lately. If theres one thing that I cannot stand it is the cold. I know I had talked about this before and how I was dreading the winter approaching, but now that it is actually getting cold, I realize how much I truly hate it. The thing is, its not really all that cold. Its probably dropping down in to the upper 30's at night, but after going through a 120+ degree summer, thats a huge temperature difference. Add to the fact that this rotation my squads manning the guard positions durring the coldest part of the night. It probably wouldn't be all that bad if it wern't for the simple fact that the Army is great about not allowing you to be warm, despite the fact that they issue you all these different types of cold weather gear. But God forbid that you try and keep warm you know?!?

Well we've managed to make use of what items we are allowed to wear and I guess it hasn't been THAT bad. About a month ago or so I had order some skin tight winter underarmor pants and shirt which are great for keeping you warm. On top of that I wear this thick cotton shirt all under my uniform which together makes it not too bad. Ive got my gloves and a fleece cap that I wear under my helmet and late at night I use my issued poncho liner blanket and half ass wrap up in an attempt to keep warm. Normally our guard towers have these AC/Heater units in there, that last time we were here, they were functional, but somehow in the last 2 weeks that we were gone, they ALL ended up breaking. Fabulous. Also within the places we stay at the outpost, it is cold as shit, and it has been made clear that we must maintain the "standard" appearance, so no wearing jackets around or the fleece cap when not on guard. How retard!?! Theres hardly anyone here of any significance and for Christ sake were living out in the middle of Baghdad. Is this really necessary??

So enough of my bitching and complaining about the cold. Back to Christmas. So we started off on guard, cold, but anyways time passed and finally we were done. Immediately afterwords, our squad drew names for the Secret Santa that we were doing. We all bought gifts in the $10 to $20 range and drew random names and got whatever gift that person bought. Following that, we had our "Christmas Dinner" which conisted of some smoked sausage and pepperoni with some cheese and crackers. It actually wasn't too bad. Following that several of us light up some cigars and celebrate the day of Christ's birth. It wasn't turning out to be all that bad of a Christmas, until we found out that they were planning on having another platoon relieve us for a bit so we could travel to a nearby base and get some real Christmas dinner.

This doesn't sound like a bad idea right? Well you have to figure all the time of getting everything ready, getting the handover going, heading out, getting back blah blah blah. Nobody in our entire platoon wanted to do this, but we were being forced. How joyful! To make it even better for us, the time we were going to be heading out was going to be smack dab in the middle of my squads sleep time. Awesome, now we are giving up sleep to do something that we don't even want to do in the first place.

Well seeing as how we had no choice, we were woken up got ready, and then headed out. Once we got there we receieve a speech that basically stated the time that we had, and that everyone was being forced to go in to the chow hall, to grab a plate of food, sit down and eat it and enjoy it and be Merry. Wow, I'm now being ordered to have a Merry Christmas in a manner in which I don't even want to do. And they wonder why a 26 year old who doesn't like to have his life run like he's 12 doesn't want to re-enlist!! HA! The food was actually pretty good, but all we could think about was how we didn't want to be doing this in the first place. Oh well, its the Army. What can you do? And of course leave it up to them to take something and ruin it. Well thats about all that I have for now. Hope everyone back home has had a good Christmas, or whatever you celebrate!

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 21:18:00 +0000

Lately there have been some changes. Some changes from the squad level all the way up to the company. And with all these changes, come new ways of doing things. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. It seems with all of this new stuff, there have been many changes, and the way things are today are much different than how they were just a couple months ago. With all the changes that have been going on, the best phrase that comes to mind and had been said by many people is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Its pretty simple I think. If you come in to a system that has been working and working well, wouldn't it seem best to try and change as little as possible. Thats what you'd think but apparently that doesn't seem to be the case, and as a consequence, we suffer and things in certin ways have made a turn for the worse. I won't mention specifics but its kind of sad to see how things have changed. Several months ago when we got a new platoon leader, the guys working at the batallion headquarters told him he was taking over the best platoon in the batallion. Its just sad to know that the platoon they talked about isn't the same.

So on a lighter note, today is my 26th birthday. Exiciting I know. What a better way to spend your birthday than in a 3rd world war torn country. Awesome. Well at least I ended up having the day off simply by luck. I wasn't about to let anyone know it was my birthday (except those close to me) because my platoon has a tradition of holding down the birthday boy and pulling up their shirt and slapping the shit out of their stomach, giving you what has been referred to as a "pink belly." I don't plan on telling anyone until after New Years so I'm past the official statute of limitations for receiving a pink belly. Its the unwritten rule that if you sneak by for at least a week your officially safe. So far, 1 day down! :)

Well its been a little bit since I've posted and I've been pretty busy to be honest. We've been doing quite a bit and I probably could talk about a lot more but its late and I have to be up early so I'm just going to talk about an incident from the last patrol I went on. It was another long one, and we had our company commander out there with us so we had plenty of things to do.

The 2nd day that we were out, we ended up linking up with this guy at night that they wanted to talk to and see about maybe using him for some information. We ended up linking up with him but there were some people around so we went to move out to a more secluded location. I took my team, which was a total mix matched team. It was me, our medic, a forward observer, and squad leader from Scouts who was out with us. Anyways, we started walking along and all of a sudden these 2 kids took off running away down the alley. I thought to myself "What the hell?!" when all of a sudden 3 more came running out of a side alley I was coming up on and ran the same way the first 2 kids went. I was just coming up on the alley when this happened so I looked down the alley and thats when I saw this huge crowd of 40 people yelling and screaming!

Oh shit, whats going on now. Thats when the sound of what I figured to be a small caliber pistol rang out and some people started scattering. I immediatly stopped in place taking cover slighly behind a wall, shouldered my rifle and turned my night vision laser on to start scanning the people. Without skipping a beat the Scouts squad leader had moved up right next to me behind a car, and did the same thing. At this point people started rushing out of the homes with all sorts of stuff in their hands. Some people had boards, pipes and other things. This was getting bad when all of a sudden the Scout squad leader called out that one of them had an AK-47. This just got worse. This all happened in a matter of seconds and I yell out for everyone to stop as I begin to have my team advance on the crowd.

We were moving fast and I'm not going to lie I was a little worried about running in to a crowd full of angry people with all sorts of weapons ranging up to a pistol and a rifle. As we came running forward the crowd began to desperse and take off running. It was chaotic as we tried chasing people down and find those with weapons. We ended up losing the guys with weapons so we hearded up everyone that was left and began searching and talking to them. I'm not real sure what started this or why, but 2 of the fueding groups were there and even when we had them "contained" they were still arguing and yelling and getting physical. Thats where we had to step in and step up our level of agression to quell the situation and prevent it from getting out of hand. While we were dealing with all of that one of the guys pulling security noticed 2 guys dressed in all black come in to his alleyway and began walking away. Right before they turned off he noticed they had an AK-47 with them. When it was called up over the radio my awareness level went up 1000% anticipating things to go down or at least some pursuit after them, but for some reason still unknown to me now, we did no go after them.

We finally ended up calimg everything down and finsihing up what we were doing so we headed on back to link up with the rest of our guys and began telling the story of the craziness that just happened. It was pretty exciting and crazy to think about how close things had come to being really bad and getting really out of hand. The thing that worried me was if whoever had that AK within the crowd had started shooting at us, it would of been a hell of a time trying to shoot back at them without hitting all the people that were around. So what do you do in that situation?!? Hope I never find out.

Making up for lost time...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:46:00 +0000

In the past few months, I can honesty say that I have not been on any raids. It has been quite a while. Now, this is not saying that raids were not happening, it just worked out to where I didn't end up on any for quite some time. It seemed as if for me there was going to be no more kicking in doors, rushing in to homes/businesses and all the craziness and excitment that comes with them. Since it has been so long since the last time I had engaged a known enemy, raids were the last form of a rush and excitment that was left.

Well that all changed over this last week. In one of my previous posts I talked about the night time raid with the masked and armed local guards. Apparently that was to be the first in a series of raids for me and the others of my squad. The next raid was to go after some guys that we wouldn't mind capturing. These were to be the snap raids, or the ones where we get info at the last minute and head out to the target location without any real plan. This isn't a bad thing because we have been doing these for a while and everyone knows what to do as far as the little stuff. Just the major stuff usually gets hashed out between to squad leader, myself and the other team leader quick like and then we roll from there. We've gotten quite good at this and has allowed our reaction time to such info to be quick. So the first place we ended up going to was a bust so we headed out to our next location.

The next location was located in a "business" type of section and the place we entered was pretty big for the amount of guys we had. Nothing new and we quickly cleared the floors and rooms but no luck again. The roof eaisly connected to many other same level or close to the same level roofs of the adjacent buildings. There was only one occupant but there were some cups of Chai Tea (the typical Iraqi tea drink) that were out that were still warm, leading us to believe they had escaped as we were got there or just before. We wern't going to call this one quits just yet and began searching around to try and find them. While searching the home we found some vests with bodyarmor and ammunition vests. Now we really wanted these guys. At one point while searching adjacent roof tops the other team awoke a family living below and out of fear they fired a couple warning shots from their AK rifle. The sounds of the shots ringing out had us on high alert and they began carefully going in to that home. Like I said tho, it just turned out to be a man trying to protect his big family from unknown invaders. We never ended up finding the guys we were looking for, but it was good to get out there as a squad and to conduct these raids and get back in to the swing of things.

Another day we had some good info on a meeting that was taking place for some of the local militia and we decided to act on this quick. We headed out with a good amount of people for this raid and my team was to be the lead team. We ended up linking up with the leader of the local armed security guys and they went with us to the location. As we started getting close these guys began running and then sprinting around trying to get there as quick as possible and of course we had to keep up with them. The thing is I'm not sure the guys up with me knew where they were going and we began running all around this one neighborhood, but not towards the area we were supposed to go to. It was exhausting and to make matters worse, no one really brought any water because we figured this was going to be quick, in and out. Now we were echausted from sprint around all over the place and had almost no water to replenish. This was begining to suck.

We finally made it to where we were going and it ended up being a HUGE area. With the help of the security guys we secured the area and rounded up all the people that were around there for identification. This was where it got crazy because there had to of been over 100 people there and we hearded them all tightly together and begin the long process of identification. I can't recall how many we ended up getting but it turned out to be a good amount. The crazy thing was how many of these local security guards had showed up to help us out. It had to of been over 30 of them, which in many ways helps make our job easier. Like when we were on the way back with the detainees they had gotten some word from someone along the way about a possible weapons cache, so we stopped real quick and my team along with several of these guys went in to this "yard" thing and immediatly they went to working searching around like crazy and we pretty much just sat back and let them do the work. It was pretty nice, Im not even going to lie. We didn't find anything and so we headed on back finally after many hours of being out. We were all exhausted and thirsty and it was nice to finally chug a good bottle of water.

So that just about covers the major stuff out there. Its been good getting out there and doing these raids again, especially when they yeild the positive results. Hopefully this trend will continue and we can continue to be as proactive as possible until we leave here.

Well yesterday was the memorial ceremony for Reece. We had ourselves looking our best as we prepared to give our final respects to another brother, another great man. The service was done very well and it was good to be able to share in the memories of the guys that got up there to speak. I can tell it was tough for them. Its tough for everyone, even those of us who did not know him too well. Hearning about him I wish I would of had a chance to get to of known him better. In the end the memorial was a good thing, despite the rough feelings that came along with it. I know after attending Tolletts memorial that it had been a good thing to be able to express the feelings and emotions that you can't always express with one another when you are expected to pick up and continue on with your mission. I hope everyone was able to walk away from this memorial with a greater appreciation of the man Kyle Reece was and to be at peace with knowing he is in Heaven now, wathing down Im sure over all of us.

Never forget SPC Matthew Kyle Reece...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:33:00 +0000

http://www.wral.com/news/state/story/2119198/

A soldier based at Fort Bragg has been killed in Iraq. The military confirmed Monday that Army Spc. Matthew K. Reece of Harrison, Ark., died Saturday from wounds sustained when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

Reece was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg. He joined the Army in 2005 and arrived at the 82nd Airborne the following year.

The military says Reece is survived by his wife, two children and his parents. A memorial service will be held in Iraq.

-----

It is another trying time for the soldiers of our company as another one of our brothers made the ultimate sacrafice, trying to bring peace and freedom to a nation that has not seen such a thing. His platoon was attacked by a faceless, cowardly enemy who will do anything to prevent such a bright future for their country.

I was a part of the QRF (Quick Reaction Force) that was called up immediatly after the attack. It was chaos getting up, ready and out to do what we could to help our fellow soldiers and friends. There was no hesitation, and the words struck deep in to us as we were told "They've been hit by an IED! They have casulties!"; We were in such a mode that got things happening FAST, despite the chaos, confusion and worries.

By the time we got to the scene, another unit was there and had secured the area. Our guys had already rushed off with the wounded soldiers, so we went to recover the vehicle. Once we had the truck back, myself and a couple other team leaders made sure to keep the soldiers away and began to sort through everything and recover important equipment that was left behind.

From the sight of the vehicle and the way things looked inside, I can only imagine the chaos that had fallen upon the guys in that convoy. One of my friends was the TC (Truck Commander) of that vehcile and he suffered some minor injuries. My heart goes out to him, the other guys in the truck that were hurt, as well as all the guys in that convoy and our company. We learned not too long after we had the vehicle back that SPC Reece had been killed. There was utter disbelief. Another soldier in the truck we were told they wern't sure if he was going to make it or not. Thanks to the great job of the soldiers and their medic that day, he will live.

It seemed things had been going well lately, and with the end of our deployment nearing, a lot of us had felt that we would ride the rest of the deployment out without incident. But just like that everything changed, and once again the true nature of this war and our enemy came back to haunt us. The men of Charlie company would have to endure the pain and emotions of another lost soldier. Although he may no longer be with us here physically, Reece will live on in the hearts and minds of the soldiers who were lucky enough to serve with him. May God watch over you and your family and know we are thinking of you and your sacrifice down here.

The patrol from hell...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 22:52:00 +0000

It is good to be back at the FOB, let me tell you. The last venture out in to the city was another long one, lasting a couple days, and my God did it suck ass. Time dragged on for what seemed like an eternity, and it was a tester on the moral of the soldier. To make matters worse, my understanding of the deployments of Vietnam have changed. I had always thought that deployments were 2 years, but apparently it was 1. The whole time I had it in my head that if they did 2 back then, well 15 months isn't bad. Now that bubble has been burst.

The patrol started off normal. Things were going alright during the day, and nothing really exciting or special had happened. After our break for a lunch MRE, we got word that the security force that we've hired and are working with in our area had found yet another weapons cache, so we moved out to their location to secure it. When we got there they had most of it uncovered and we basically set up security around the house that it was found in. Looking over at the pile of explosives they had was astonishing. I had never seen so many rounds. Shoot this was only the 2nd cache I had ever seen and this was turning out to be a big one.

A lot of the rounds were rusted and just looked unstable and to add to the fact that there were just so damn many of them, we called up the bomb guys to come check things out for us. We ended up having to wait a couple hours for them to show up and during that time I ended up going inside the hose and seeing more of what they had in this cache. Theres was ever MORE stuff inside the house. Once I came back out in to the street we had a lot of time on our hands and there were a ton of these armed security guys around so we started talking with them. Many of them were pretty cool and I no longer believe that they are former militia guys that converted to what they are doing now. Many of them had bad things to say about JAM (the Shiite Militia) which used to have a big presence in the area.

So EOD (the bomb guys) finally showed up and came and checked the rounds and layed them all out to get a count and take some pictures. I couldn't tell you how many rounds there were, but it was a LOT!! They had mortars of all sized, from 60mm all the way to the big bad boys, the 120mm. They had RPGs and some other explosive stuff. There were weapons, tons of ammunition and wiring and all sorts of stuff to create IEDs. This was a HUGE find, and it was awesome being a part of getting this stuff off the streets. After almost 4 hours at this cahce we finally were able to get out of there. The EOD guys were probably going to be busy for quite some once they got back and got to work on all those rounds.

Later that evening we ended up swing back my the FOB for something. My squads truck had been having some power issues due to a bad pulley for the alternator and at one point we had lost power to everything electical in the truck. I'm suprised the truck was even still running. We ended up trading out and getting another truck so ours could get dropped off with the mechanics. On the way out, almost everything was going wrong with getting off the FOB. I won't go in to the details, because it makes us look fucked up, but thats not the case. It was just one of those days. Once off the FOB we started rolling down the road, when all of a sudden inside of our truck we hear as loud 'whoosh' sound that isn't stopping. My grenadier who was driving started yelling "What the hell is that? Whats going on?!?" I told him I didn't know just as smoke begins to fill the truck. I took a deep breath and was unable to breathe. I thought it was this fire suppression system we have in our truck and I started yelling "I can't breath! Its the fire supression system sucking the oxygen out! AHHH!!!" I flung the truck door open as we are still driving down the road. At this point, everyone is partially freaking out and the driver stops the truck and we all come running out, not knowing whats going on. It turns out the fire extinguisher (different than the fire supression system) randomly started shooting the chalk powder out, which was the reason no one could breathe. We got loaded back up, everyone laughing their asses off! This is not going to be a good night!

That night we ended up doing a dismounted patrol and once again I was on point and we ran in to some more armed guards. Apparently they knew where some dude was we were looking for and we ended up following them to this house. It was freaky because the 4 armed guards had black ski masks that they wore and they were hauling ass, almost running, to this house. I was up front trying to keep up with them while the rest of the guys behind me were steadily falling back. At one point I couldn't see anyone past the guy right behind me and I was getting worried. I had the gut feeling I was being led in to an ambush. These guys also had their tactics down as they pulled security down alleyways that they crossed and everything like that. Once at the house the started pulling security on the door, the roof, the other roofs and down the alleyway. I was totally shocked as I was getting my team ready to enter in to the home. We ended up storming in and clearing everything. There was a man and his wife there but it wasn't who we were looking for and they had nothing in the home. Oh well, sorry for the intrusion.

We finally got to where we were to bed down for the night and I think I was in bed at around midnight. At 0345 in the morning we get woken up to head out and check out some explosions. Awesome. As expected it was nothing and we just ended up getting up and heading out there as a waste of time.

The rest of the next day was pretty relaxed. We ended up dismounting in one of the markets to sieze some scooters. Apparently there are new rules now that forbid the scooters in the markets, but somehow they are all over the place. We ened up seizing 2 of them and putting them on the Humvees and driving them to an Iraqi police station for these people to pick up there. (insert sarcasm) Bet they really learned their lesson! I felt like such an asshole while doing this too, and you could tell we definatly wern't making friends out there that day. Glad Im doing an extra 3 months to take people scooters away from them in the markets. Yay for me!

That night we wen't on a dismounted patrol which was origionally supposed to be a short one. Well, like most plans, it ended up going to shit and turned in to a fairly decent walk with a quick snap raid thrown in the mix. The raid yielded nothing and after a bit of walking and not much to show for it, I was ready to link back up with the trucks and wait for time to slowly pass until we were to head back. Right about the time we were to head back we got word that there was some target location we were to go to in order to break up some plan for a future attack on coalition forces. Wonderful. We headed out and got everything set to do the raid. My squad was to go in and do all that fun stuff. We ended up going in 2 different houses and finding a whole lot of nothing. Sorry, nothing exciting, just another waste of time! :) Oh well, once it was over, we were on our way back to our base to finally come home. Those couple of days felt like a week and more than ever was a looking forward to being back on the FOB. Hopefully things will go a little smoother next time.

A time to give thanks...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 15:30:00 +0000

This Thanksgiving has a little extra meaning this year. It is a time when we give thanks for the things we have, and to remeber that some of the most important things we have are those that we have always had or will always have; our friends and family. But this year, I have a little something more to be thankful for.

To take a few steps back, I'll go back and talk about the last couple patrols I went on. These were the first couple of patrols I had done since being back in Iraq. The first one, there was nothing really special about it. I was a dismount team leader and we did the usual amount of walking around, but I discovered that my body was going to take a little bit to get used to working 20+ hours at a time again. I ended up sleeping every opportunity I had. Fortunately I would have a couple days off before the next patrol. Since the weather has cooled down a lot, I'm not trying to split my time between dismounting and driving, so I should be dismounting a lot more now.

The next patrol turned out to be a true tester of my bodys willingness to function. The day started out like most other days, but after our stop for breakfast we were to do a dismount through a couple of the markets with some folks working for Civil Affairs. These are the people that do projects and whatnot to improve infastructure and peoples lives in certin areas. I was looking forward to this because this has a completely positive purpose and makes me feel as though I'm accomplishing something, even if I'm just pulling security for the people that actually do the work. Anyways, they ended up stopping and talking to just about everyone and we did a loop that would normally take 30 minutes to walk, and it ended up taking 3 hours!!! I was exhausted and sore and sitting back in my truck felt like heaven.

It would be short lived because we were to go check out some possible car bomb factory. We dismounted for that, with the Civial Affairs Maj. for some odd reason. I'm not real sure what business she had going with us but whatever. We found nothing and ended up being out another hour searching through various buildings. Ok enough already, I NEED A BREAK! :)

I'll use this time to gripe about a new rule that is in place. Its called, No More Lunch! Yes. Durring days that we are on patrol and outside the wire we may not stop by a nearby base that we normally eat at and have chow. Breakfast and dinner are still ok (for now) but lunch is a no go. Now this is completly moronic because this base is not far at all and if we were needed in sector for anything we could get there VERY quickly. But again, some officer who never goes outside the wire, and never puts in the hours and work we do, was probably eating a cheeseburger at lunch one day and had an epiphany. "Oh you know what, I think we could be more productive if we cut out a stop of lunch for these guys! Ahh, yes I'm a genius." Thats about how it went I'm guessing, and now, we are forced to eat MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) when there is no reason that we should have to. Hey buddy, there ain't shit going on in our sector. It'll be fine if we have a damn decent meal. But they're not the one making the sacrifice, so its not an issue to them. Makes me mad.

So back to the rest of the day. After lunch it was pretty uneventful and we ended up having to make a trip to the Green Zone for something, which was nice because I was able to have Subway for dinner. We had a night dismount planned acorss sector (its not really THAT far) which we got dropped off for on our way back from the Green Zone. At this point I was totally exhausted and just wanted to chill, but now there was this patrol I needed to do. My team was to be in front, so I took up point and led us around sector. I was pretty suprised how well I still knew the alleyways.

Just before we were almost back we had gotten word that the neighborhood we were in supposodly had 10 guys with AKs walking around in it. We were also told that there was an IA (Iraqi Army) patrol in the same neighborhood looking for them. I instructed my guys to keep their eyes open, but to make sure of what they were seeing so that we wouldn't get in to an accidental confrontation with the IA guys. Oh yeah, the 2 other guys on my team were new and BRAND new. The patrol picked up and continued on.

Very near the end, I turned in to this other alleyway and noticed an older kid sitting on a desk or something in the alley and through my nightvision, it totally looked like he was wearing a training bra. I though to myself, "What the fuck is he wearing?" The nightvision sometimes messes up colors and makes stuff look weird like that, so I tilted my head up to try and look at him with my eyes, but it was kind of dark. I had just focused back on him through the nightvision and had though how weird that was, when his friend, about the same age, whom I had not seen before came out from around him, about 5 meters in front of me. I noticed he had something in his hands and made out the shape of an AK-47. My heart stopped and I lost my breath. Myself and probably my team were done for. Fortunatly my head kept working and training kicked in as I drew my rifle on him, shining my tac-light on him and putting my visible green laser on his chest. Not taking any chances, I flipped my rifle to FIRE. I yelled for him to stop and to drop the weapon. The boy froze in place still holding his rifle. It seemed like an eternity, just waiting to see what he was going to do. Any movement other than a downward motion would of immediately triggered myself, as well as the guys on my team who at this point were now aimed at him as well, to unload on him, filling his body with 5.56mm holes. He made the right move and laid down the AK. I continued to pull security on him and his friend as the guys on my team moved up to search them. The other kid had an AK-47 that I had not seen, and together they had 5 full magazines of ammo. Both these kids couldn't of been more than 16 or 17, but apparently they were part of some security force that we, the US military, have been paying to keep things under control in some neighborhoods. I don't see why we would allow them to carry weapons, and personally I don't think they are, but beyond my control we gave them their weapons back and left to head back and link up with our trucks. My mind was still racing, thinking of all the other different ways that situation could of ended up. I'm thankful that, due to quick thinking and control on my part as well as both the new guys, we did not end up having to waste 2 kids that night.

Once we linked back up with the trucks we got word that the supervisior of the security force had found a weapons cache so we headed down there and dismounted AGAIN to go check it out. Sure as shit, they had found a cache alright. It was 8 or 9 RPGs (Rocket Propelled Gernades) and a couple mines. We gathered them up and took them out to the road and ended up having to wait forever for EOD (Explosive Ordanance Dispoal) to come out and taken them away. As bad as it is, I ended up locking my door in the back of the Humvee and racking out. I was totally exhausted, void of any energy at this point. But again, the proper handeling of those kids with AKs paid off, for I'm sure if we would of shot them, their "boss" would not have cared to help us out with the weapons cache.

So thats about it. That 2nd patrol was a LONG day and totally kicked my ass. But its ok because now any future ones won't be as bad. I now have a little extra to be thankful for this Thanksgiving as well. A potentially horrible situation was defused without incident, and I'm forever greatful that it went down the way it did. Thanksgiving was yesterday, and I didn't really do anything special. I had the day off, which was nice and for lunch they had the whole Thanksgiving day meal. It was pretty good. Nothing great, but for being in Iraq, I can't complain!

My Baghdaddy vacation...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 05:07:00 +0000

I sit down on a metal chair, complete with bent legs and a missing back piece, curtosey of the lack of care and extra weight of men lumbering down upon it with 60+ lbs. of gear affixed to their bodies. This chair will be my throne in this tiny castle, or should I say tomb, for the next 4 hours. I look over and see my grenadier who seems so comforable in the remnants of an officer chair stacked upon layers of sandbags, just high enough to be able to see over the machine gun and out the window of our fortified guard tower. This is going to be a long 4 hours. An hour is long in these towers, 4 hours feels like an eternity sometimes.

I reach in to my cargo pocket and pull out a half smoked pack of cigarettes. I just opened this pack not too long ago. Another consequence of mind numbingly boring guard positions. I struggle to reach the lighter in my pocket, simply because the act of arching my back and snaking my arm over the magazine pouches on my vest, extended farther out thanks to the armor piercing protective ceramic plate nestled in my kevlar body armor. I finally grab a hold of it, though be it by the tips of my fingers and retrieve it for a much need cigarette. Its been forever since my last cigarette, almost 30 minutes, and I'm dying to light up. I faithfully remeber that I can no longer smoke in the guard tower, so I prop the door open and slide my beaten chair across the sandy floor until the front two legs are resting beyond the lip of the door frame, that to me is the legal barrier between inside and outside of the guard tower. I casually sit forward putting myself more than half way beyond the legal barrier I have established. They taught me to round up in math class, so I'm rounding up to this action equating to my body being outside, not inside.

The sun is slowly begining to fall towards the horizon, giving the sky that ominous, dreary look, as oranges, reds and greys splash the sky. I sit there for a minute, with the cancer stick hanging from my lips, and relish in the moment that I am living it. The sounds of, if I had to guess, I'd say 5 Mosques blare at various volumes across the city that is my temporary home, thanks to the idea that US forces should live amungst the people they are working to protect. They should say, Infantry guys who's lives already suck at times due to the nature of their profession, shall be asked to suck some more by being forced to live within the browns and tans with little of the creature comforts that the life on even a small FOB offers. Oh well, I did sign up for it right?!?

The crisp evening air swirls around me as off in the distance the sounds of bullets flying begin to fill the air. It begins as it almost always does with a short burst or a few sucessive shots. There tends to be a silence follwing this initial fury of rage, which I assume has to do with whoever is being shot at trying to figure out where it came from. Then as expected there are more shots followed by the bellowing of a machine gun in response. A firefight has begun, and the sounds which have become so sweet to me, dance around in my ears, filling my head with pictures, memories and imaginations. Go figure, theres trouble in that neightborhood again. I finally bring my lighter to the cigarette which has been begging to be smoked, flick the switch and another destructive force, this one under my control, begins to burn away at the dried tobacco leaves containing the precious nicotine my body desires. How surrel is this? The sky, the sun, the lights, the chill, the calming (i know its crazy) effect of the sounds of a firefight just right up the road, the prayers being broadcast across the city praising Allah, and my sitting in my rinky dink chair, trying to absorb it all in. Yup, this is my slice of Baghdad; my home.

So that was my attempt at some "poetic" ramblings. Figured I'd try something new for a change. So yeah, as you can see its been a little bit since I last posted, but you can thank my vaccation at the 82nd Airborne Resort I had the privledge of living in and protecting for sometime. They blocked access to blogger at the outpost, so I am forced to survive in reading comments that get forwarded to my email and watching the counter on my page rise with each visitor. Speaking of, the counter a few days ago passed 50,000! Wow, that absolutely blows my mind. I would of never through when I put that thing on my page that it would get even remotly close to that. Still crazy to think about.

This trip to the outpost was the first time I ventured out in to the city since I got back from leave. Welcome home, goodbye "home" for a while. See you soon enough, or not soon enough. We ended up doing several patrols while out there, and those tended to be while it was dark out. Sometimes I like going out when its dark, because we can see pretty well and we are able to sneak around and its kind of fun. Othertimes, the green image of the nightvision gets annoying as shit. For these patrols, we were trying some new things and new ways of doing some tactics and got a nice system down for doing random vechicle searches. The purpose of which is to hopefully get "lucky" and to find someone transporting weapons, or bombs or whatever. So far no luck, but we have a great system now that works well, and its nice to do something differnt from just walking around. The first night we did this, I stepped out in to the road to stop the first car, but for some reason he didn't notice the flashing tac-light or the green laser beaming in to his front windshield. I tried yelling, but this proved futile since he had his windows up. He wasn't stopping and I was forced to quickly move out of the middle of the road and to test my rifle to ensure it still fired, by shooting a warning shot in to the air. The car screeched to a halt. Yup, she works just fine! :)

Also durring this time at the outpost, I got together enough guys to swing by the Ministry of Agriculture and talk to someone about getting shots for Charlie, a necessary step in getting him home to the US. I'll post more on this story on the website I have up dedicated to getting him back (link in the sidebar), but basically I was able to coordinate having the guy get the shots and swing by and administer them to him. He recieved a rabies vaccine and two others which I can't remeber what they were. Next time out I have to swing by and pick up the health certificate and that will leave the last step being getting him out of Iraq! I'm stoked that we were finally able to make this happen and I'm feeling very good about getting him home.

That about covers anything, exciting, fun or new that went on this time at the outpost. Pretty mundane as usually, and I'm sure as hell to be back on the FOB. Sometimes I wish I was a fobbit. Yeah that feeling usually passes quickly. I must admit time goes by quicker I think when we are going out and doing things all the time. Shoot we even had one of the desk guys come out with us for the week and a day of patrol. He enjoyed himself, but decided that he would enjoy his desk job more. I can't blame him!