Happy Holidays!
As a reference: Google Earth: Market is 33 15 13.00 N 44 22 59.20 E 24th St is the big road just below the "triangle" running east/west. Muhallah 822 is south of that (Muhallah is neighborhood).
We're in the middle of a Shia "Holiday". Most people know what holidays mean in these parts...
This particular "holiday" is the mourning of an imam (religious leader) that was killed around 1000 years ago. So...how does one mourn this death? Well...by crying...making a pilgrimage...and of course cutting each other, wrapping each other in chains and dragging each other around. Oh..and if you're a female, you just have to slap your face a little bit. Sounds reasonable, no?
This partcular imam is improtant to the Shia because he was supposed to help lead them to victory over the "insurgents" (insurgents in this instance are sunnis...I talked to one of my terps about this for a while...told him outright they were nuts). So the cutting and self deprecation is done because they feel guilty for not protecting this imam well enough, ie, they should suffer for that...best yet, they should die. Heckuva way to "celebrate".
So that brings me to our days lately. Had a very long one yesterday. Since the Shias are celebrating and they blame the Sunnis for the death of this imam and well...we patrol a Sunni area...you do the math.
Our day started out mostly quiet...of course, not too many folks are up at 0500. Around 0800 we started hearing lots of gunfire to our south and some to our west. Since nothing was coming at us, we figure it's good ole sectarian fighting. And out of our AO. Around 0900, casualties started coming north for help from the Americans. Our first candidate was a 20something female with a small shrapnel wound to the leg. Nothing bad, doc patched her up and we headed over to the next one that had come up.
The next two were young 20's males. One shot in the face. One shot in the lower back. I had our medic working on the one shot in the face and started getting my other guys checking some of the locals for gunpowder. The IA's showed up with their ambulance and started loading up the two wounded. The one with the lower back wound found out they were going to the local hospital and not the CSH and had his buddies grab him and carry him away.
One of the guys did check out for gunpowder, but by the time we turned around from checking it, he had taken off back into 822. Definite procedure change will be made because of that. Obviously these guys weren't just on the receiving end of random gunfire.
We got the gunshot wound to the face off to the hospital and started to move back to our position on the west end of 24th. 2 other trucks roving the market and one on the east end. As we got back in place, one of our two rovers started taking fire down from 822. No big deal, no real target to shoot at, could just be overflow from the stuff going on down south. So the continued on.
A few minutes later, one of those trucks took a round to the turret glass. Sniper. The had eyes on the building and returned fire. A good, heavy barrage from their M240. I get the sitrep and ask how far down the house is. 50m is the reply. Cool...let's go get em. I ask permission to enter 822 (since it's not our AO...) and away we go. We bound down the side of the street using backyards. Climbing walls in our gear isn't fun...taxing to say the least. We get to the approximate house and I call for verification. Nope. Not there yet. We look down the street. At least another 250m. Apparently the 50m "guess" was made by the gunner...while he looked through his scope. Frickin privates. We get on the sidewalk and bound back up the street to the market.
We mount back into our trucks and start getting back in position. Again, don't have a chance to get there before another casualty comes up. This time a 10yo boy. Shrapnel through the face. It went in one side, wrapped around the front of the jaw and exited the other side. Knocked out several teeth and he was bleeding pretty bad. With no IA assets left, we took him to the CSH. The patched him up there and he went into surgery to repair a facial break. We were told he would have died if we hadn't taken him...so I guess something good happened.
While we were at the CSH...the rest of my platoon showed up (we headed to the CSH right at shift change...so thankfully didn't have to leave any trucks by themselves for very long). They were engaged throughout the rest of the day. One "brave" insurgent decided to step out of an alley around 90-100m away from one of our trucks and open fire. My guys returned fire...didn't have a chance to find out if he was killed...but he was definitely hit. 7.62 into the body anywhere creates a lot of bleeding...and given their medical possibilities...pretty sure he was a goner at some point. The rest of the engagements were of the 500m variety. So lots of shooting and not much else. More of a posturing game of who can make more noise. It's seldom that anyone comes close to us...they generally know the results.
So that's the current "holiday" happening. Not sure what it's called...and I honestly don't care. It's the same as any other holiday here...an excuse to go out and shoot more. It's all they know.
We're in the middle of a Shia "Holiday". Most people know what holidays mean in these parts...
This particular "holiday" is the mourning of an imam (religious leader) that was killed around 1000 years ago. So...how does one mourn this death? Well...by crying...making a pilgrimage...and of course cutting each other, wrapping each other in chains and dragging each other around. Oh..and if you're a female, you just have to slap your face a little bit. Sounds reasonable, no?
This partcular imam is improtant to the Shia because he was supposed to help lead them to victory over the "insurgents" (insurgents in this instance are sunnis...I talked to one of my terps about this for a while...told him outright they were nuts). So the cutting and self deprecation is done because they feel guilty for not protecting this imam well enough, ie, they should suffer for that...best yet, they should die. Heckuva way to "celebrate".
So that brings me to our days lately. Had a very long one yesterday. Since the Shias are celebrating and they blame the Sunnis for the death of this imam and well...we patrol a Sunni area...you do the math.
Our day started out mostly quiet...of course, not too many folks are up at 0500. Around 0800 we started hearing lots of gunfire to our south and some to our west. Since nothing was coming at us, we figure it's good ole sectarian fighting. And out of our AO. Around 0900, casualties started coming north for help from the Americans. Our first candidate was a 20something female with a small shrapnel wound to the leg. Nothing bad, doc patched her up and we headed over to the next one that had come up.
The next two were young 20's males. One shot in the face. One shot in the lower back. I had our medic working on the one shot in the face and started getting my other guys checking some of the locals for gunpowder. The IA's showed up with their ambulance and started loading up the two wounded. The one with the lower back wound found out they were going to the local hospital and not the CSH and had his buddies grab him and carry him away.
One of the guys did check out for gunpowder, but by the time we turned around from checking it, he had taken off back into 822. Definite procedure change will be made because of that. Obviously these guys weren't just on the receiving end of random gunfire.
We got the gunshot wound to the face off to the hospital and started to move back to our position on the west end of 24th. 2 other trucks roving the market and one on the east end. As we got back in place, one of our two rovers started taking fire down from 822. No big deal, no real target to shoot at, could just be overflow from the stuff going on down south. So the continued on.
A few minutes later, one of those trucks took a round to the turret glass. Sniper. The had eyes on the building and returned fire. A good, heavy barrage from their M240. I get the sitrep and ask how far down the house is. 50m is the reply. Cool...let's go get em. I ask permission to enter 822 (since it's not our AO...) and away we go. We bound down the side of the street using backyards. Climbing walls in our gear isn't fun...taxing to say the least. We get to the approximate house and I call for verification. Nope. Not there yet. We look down the street. At least another 250m. Apparently the 50m "guess" was made by the gunner...while he looked through his scope. Frickin privates. We get on the sidewalk and bound back up the street to the market.
We mount back into our trucks and start getting back in position. Again, don't have a chance to get there before another casualty comes up. This time a 10yo boy. Shrapnel through the face. It went in one side, wrapped around the front of the jaw and exited the other side. Knocked out several teeth and he was bleeding pretty bad. With no IA assets left, we took him to the CSH. The patched him up there and he went into surgery to repair a facial break. We were told he would have died if we hadn't taken him...so I guess something good happened.
While we were at the CSH...the rest of my platoon showed up (we headed to the CSH right at shift change...so thankfully didn't have to leave any trucks by themselves for very long). They were engaged throughout the rest of the day. One "brave" insurgent decided to step out of an alley around 90-100m away from one of our trucks and open fire. My guys returned fire...didn't have a chance to find out if he was killed...but he was definitely hit. 7.62 into the body anywhere creates a lot of bleeding...and given their medical possibilities...pretty sure he was a goner at some point. The rest of the engagements were of the 500m variety. So lots of shooting and not much else. More of a posturing game of who can make more noise. It's seldom that anyone comes close to us...they generally know the results.
So that's the current "holiday" happening. Not sure what it's called...and I honestly don't care. It's the same as any other holiday here...an excuse to go out and shoot more. It's all they know.
posted by Robert Plummer at 3:36 AM
1 Comments:
WOW!! That makes my day sound a little boring! Glad to hear that you guys saved the little boy....
Melissa
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