Summer heat and hot insurgents...

As the summer goes on, the heat seems to go up. As the heat goes up, so does the insurgent activity. Rather strange...we want to work less as it gets hotter, these guys seem to want to do more. That or they're just more pissed off than normal due to the unbearable heat. We're starting to reach into the 120's on a daily basis now. As we move into August...that'll start reaching the 130's. I can't begin to explain how hot that is.

My main area of operations is right next to the National Police station. This happens to be a high profile target for insurgents...more so of late. That being the case, it means we're having plenty of shooting to run to. Most of the time, they've already scared the bad guys off. Others, we show up, fire a couple bursts and the bad guys run off. It's impossible to pursue them due to barriers on the neighborhoods, and if your gunner doesn't hit with the first burst, the fight's usually over. So we end up with several short, high intensity engagements a week of late. It gets frustrating to say the least.

Add in the frustration of lying locals. Their constant complaint is of the National Police check point randomly firing into their neighborhood. The NPs don't randomly shoot...they might get a bit excessive when they do shoot, but it's usually not random. So we keep asking the locals...who's shooting from their neighborhood. Of course, everyone's innocent, knows nothing or sees nothing. Do we have proof they shoot? Yeah...while moving to the latest engagement at the checkpoint, two rounds hit in front of my truck. Only place they could have come from was in the neighborhood. Unless the NPs have magical bullets that go over walls and through houses to seek out humvees.

Our NPs did lose someone recently. They were obviously upset, but it hit my guys as well. It was one of the NPs that we interacted with quite a bit, had traded items with and even given a CIB (which is a high honor for an infantryman...but for them, more so to get it from us). I was more upset that my platoon wasn't out at the time to help them out, especially after hearing how the unit on the ground did next to nothing as far as returning fire or helping the NPs with casualties.

Lastly, but definitely not least, my CO found an EFP recently. Everyone made it out ok, the truck was done, though. They had one minor that will be return to duty soon and another that's already back on missions. EFPs are one of the few things we're actually scared of here. Old technology, but tough to do technology. They're generally imported from Iran in some shape or form. Thankfully this one was aimed a little off. The EFP was followed by small arms fire, which made for quite a bit of fun on our part. Not sure the insurgents enjoyed it...but we dropped nearly 10,000 rounds, 3 AT-4s, and then had a pair of Bradleys join in with their main gun. The target house basically disappeared. Can't say we got confirmed kills..but per normal for us, the bad guys learned they really don't want to mess with our trucks. Most convoys will drive through, shoot a few rounds and get out of the area...not us. We fire them up and maneuver if can...

About all for now. Another days ends for me here as I write this. Another day closer to going home. The rest of the heat to contend with before the home stretch of holidays draws us closer to Carson.

Never a dull moment...

Almost. The majority of our time here is spent driving around. We'll stop, talk to some people and generally listen to the same gripes and concerns over and over again. "My power doesn't work" "I don't have propane" "The NPs at the gas station shot my gas can" blah blah blah. Sometimes their concerns are real. Most of the time they're full of it and have their own agenda towards things. So most of the time we give them the always insightful "We'll look into it".

Sometimes we get to play actual infantrymen. Around the beginning of the month, we were visiting the NPs at the local station...listening their gripes and moans (theirs are generally actually relevant and meaningful). While we I was talking to them, their checkpoint outside the gate started taking fire from a building not far away. 2-3 guys with AKs on the third floor. NPs did what NPs do. They started spraying back with their AKs and PKCs (belt fed machinegun...). Meantime, we mounted up in our humvees and rolled out to see what we could do.

What we could do was get on line outside the building and unleash 2 .50cals and 2 M240s. That along with a couple guys dismounted firing their rifles and another that had dismounted as we left the gate firing his SAW made for some very unhappy insurgents.

During a semi lull in the shooting, I dismounted the rest of us and we headed to the building. Luck being what it is...bad guys along with NPs started shooting again. So we had the priviledge of approaching a building with bullets coming from both directions. When we got the building, I called back and got my terp to stop the NPs from shooting. We pushed on and opened the doors on the front of the building. Both sets of doors came up dry...no stairs. We went around the corner of the building and spotted a cooler on the ground. Thinking it might be a bomb and not wanting to find the hard way...we shot it. A lot. No boom so we drove on. Only other door on the bottom and still no stairs.

We cleared the house behind the building and went on the roof. Too high. And only place we could move to was impossible with all that we wear. We moved back and got the NPs, hoping they would be more mobile. Not so much. Still no roof access. All theh while, we could hear things sliding around and weapons being worked up above us. The windows were barred...so not much chance of a grenade (plus it was a little ways up there to throw one ;)).

As we moved back down and got were questioning some of the neighbors, our SAW gunner opened up again. The street had cleared off and he opened up on the guy that was shooing everyone away. We pursued and cleared several more houses. Kinda slow going with everything we wear, though.

The next day, we went back to the building. We borrowed a ladder from a local and made an entrance up the front of the building. Inside we found plenty of shell casings, bullet holes galore (had to be hell having .50cal cracking next to em :)), and blood stains near some of the windows, two bloody backprints on one of the walls and as we made it to the stairwell...arterial spurts on the wall. So no confirmed kills...but they were definitely hurting bad. There was also a dish of tar, probably used to plug wounds. The scene had also been cleaned up quite a bit. When we got downstairs, we found out why we couldn't get in...they had bricked the wall up. So new plan...we take fire from there again...an AT-4 (rocket launcher) gets used on the wall.

So of course we do take fire from there again a couple days later...on my day off. Obviously I was upset...but the guys did breach the building the an AT-4 and clear it. Bad guys weren't in there anymore...but it was cool nonetheless. They also ended up killing two guys in a field not far away that were trying to flee with AKs.

Couple that with today's brief firefight on our way home as we stopped to help out some NPs, a small IED, a couple anti-tank grenades (from Iran) thrown at our convoy and it's been a fairly busy couple weeks for our platoon.

As always...remember our brothers to our south, though. A sister company got hit pretty hard. 5 KIA and several wounded in one attack. A complex ambush initiated by a deep buried IED. We're definitely taking our lumps as a Battalion...I've been to more memorial ceremonies than I care to, but we're also making a lot of progress. We've captured some top guys and generally disrupted the enemy pretty well. We're also making strides in getting basic services back online and updating some schools in the area. So it's not all for nothing...