Just another day...

This is a quick update. Nothing vital...nothing too exciting. Things are still relatively quiet in our area, despite the news reports of car bombs galore in other sectors of Doura.

I posted a video on youtube.com located here. It's a little dark (it was early morning), but you can make it out I think. It's of an IED we found. It ended up being a 130mm artillery shell in a bag. The EOD folks couldn't get the bag open so they were going to try to open it with a small charge and see what was in it. Well...they succeeded.

Otherwise we've had more visitors come and go. We entertained an Italian reporter for 24hrs wanting to know about the new JSS system starting up. Geraldo was here on the 15th doing a story on the Market (and no...I was busy elsewhere...so no pic with him....still upset about this.). On the plus side, our little AO is apparently the shining example of how "they" want things to happen. So that's a good thing I suppose.

About time for an update

So I realized I haven't put an update on here lately. It wasn't all do to being busy, that's just not the case lately. I am...but not so much that I can't type out a little bit here and there to keep folks up to date.

So generally, things have been quiet here in Dora. Quiet is a relative thing of course. Since the last update, one of our platoons had a guy shot in the head (he's fine and in Germany right now), an Iraqi LT was shot in the leg, we've had a couple vehicles blown up to the point of being deadlined, a little girl was shot a by an insurgent down the street from us (the platoon out there at the time took her to the hospital, think she ended up losing a leg..but we're the bad guys?), my medic patched up a kid that had been shot in the chest in a dispute over propane (still...we're the bad guys?), we've had CBS reporter Lara Logan here doing a story on the market (it was a 3 part series...still trying to find it, but it is out there...I've seen the video), a guy blew himself up placing an IED in the market (he didn't die...but lost a hand among other things) and numerous spray and pray shots.

And my part in most of this? I'm rarely on the patrol that this stuff happens to (except for the Lara Logan one...). It's weird, really. No real complaints. Quiet's not necessarily a bad thing in this area...and compared to what it used to be, it's amazingly quiet.

I mentioned the Iraqi LT above. We're working with the Iraqi Army now. They're in the Market every day with us. Not 24hrs like us, but they're there. Mostly competent. Generally trying to do the right thing and definitely wanting a fight. The ones that are left anyway. When the unit heard they were coming here, 2/3 of them left. They can do that apparently. I guess they heard bad things about Dora and decided they've had enough of playing army.

That microcosm of an event shows why we're still here, though. The numbers shown on TV of how many Iraqis have been trained and are "on duty" are skewed to the say least. Not to mention the competence level. They'll never be to a competence level that we in the West would consider acceptable. It's not in their culture. But we're also not training them to fight another large army that's well trained and capable. So really they just need numbers, decent training and decent equipment. All of which they're getting. The IA's (Iraqi Army) rides around in the same humvees that we do, minus all the armor upgrades we have (but it's still a great ride and 100% better than what I had the first time I was here). They have good rifles, good clothes, and what seems to be an improving logistics line. Logistics is the hardest thing for them to learn. They never had it. The long logistics lines that we take for granted are a foreign concept to most armies in the world (even to an army like China...). These guys are still barely a step above foraging...and really most of what they do could be consider foraging.

I know "The Surge" is a big deal in the news. It'll be effecting us, apparently. Exactly how right now I'm not sure. But I have no doubt it'll be a huge benefit. Mainly because of the implementation strategy they have in mind is exactly what needs to happen to effectively fight the war that we're in. What seems to be on the drawing board is exactly what SFC Perez and I had talked about when we got here and saw what was happening. You can't fight from large fortresses like we are. You HAVE to spread out and be more flexible. That's what's going to happen with this "surge". Lots of little bases around Baghdad. Makes it easier to make quick hits and raids...to more effectively eliminate the insurgents.

But I digress. For those of you watching the Super Bowl...look for one of my team leaders, SGT Lehigh. He'll be in the Baghdad Bowl aired on CBS prior to the Super Bowl. Should be playing CB...not sure for Bears or Colts (they'll be wearing those jersies). Me...I'll be hanging out at one of our new duty stations here...the Iraqi "911" center. Part of the process of integrating 24hr operations to these guys. That's another foreign concept to them. But we're helping them get together quick responder areas to send Iraqi Police, National Police, and IA. Eventually it'll include ambulance and fire trucks. Baby steps for now. But at least in the right direction. Now all we need is time.

New Year

So we moved silently into the new year here. The bredth of our celebration was my "Happy New Year, guys" as the opening to our patrol brief for the night. A brief outcrying of "woos" followed. It's hard to get too excited about holidays here I suppose. The only family we have to share them with is ourselves. We spent most of Christmas driving around looking for bad guys in the Market. Our Christmas dinner wasn't very impressive. But we did have each other to drink egg nog and fake wine with.

Right now we're running the night shift. Not much happens at night. The drive to and from the market is probably the most harrowing thing we do. No real complaints there, mind you. The biggest threat in the market at night is really sleep. It's a constant battle. Have to yell at my driver every now and then...and he at me, too. It is a nice break, though.

It's been somewhat quiet in the Market. Quiet meaning generally less than one IED per day.

I'm still amazed how IED's get dropped in the market while we're driving up and down the street. It's good in the fact that there's enough people that we don't notice it I suppose, that means the locals are confident enough to come back to shopping without being afraid of being killed. Bad for us because it apparently gives lots of cover for the bad guys.

The situation in general is weird, though. The bad guys use women, children to drop IED materials. They'll spend days building up the spots slowly. Then we get a truck hit. Thankfully no injuries so far...just some trucks towed back home. These folks are innovative, though...that's all I can say to that.

And I'm still intrigued at battlespace sizes. It's almost like we drive to work every day to do battle at the local mall. Very similar in area covered. It has a lot to do with mission and just general concentrations here, but still seems odd to me.

Before I go, have to mention the Saddam hanging. I was asked about protests here about it. I've seen none. We expected a lot of different things. We got nothing. Apparently on the news there's video of protests. I equate it to the protests you see on tv that happen in DC. Something's always being protested there. But it rarely is televised. Here, it has to be. There's not enough "newsworthy" material otherwise. The news folks don't want to put on tv that we've increased power capacity in the country, that we're improving water works and sewage, that a new school opens nearly daily, that hospitals are being improved and built. That goes against their aims of making the public think that things are horrible here and that the US completely destroyed this country and need to leave. We're doing great things here that don't get reported. Yes, we lose troops almost daily. Our brigade's lost a few itself the last few weeks. But we're also getting rid of more and more Al Qaeda and mujahadeen. We're improving the living conditions of these people. We're slowly, but surely making this place capable of standing on its own. In this quick fix society...we forget how long we had to be in Germany and Japan after WWII to help those countries. That we still have troops sitting in Korea for a reason.

There's no quick fix...and failing here is too critical to the region to let happen.

New home in Dora

My original Company, Alpha, lost an LT about a week ago to a roadside bomb. He ended up with 2 broken arms and some facial injuries, but is otherwise fine. He's back "home" now in DC recovering at Walter Reed. Because of that, I got pulled back into A Co to take over that platoon (which happened to be my original one numerically...2nd).

I've been here 3 days now. I've been on 2 patrols and 1 'raid'. So far that has accounted for 1 firefight that lasted a few minutes, a couple mortar rounds that landed within 100 meters of our truck while we were staging inside a National Police station, and numerous "shots fired' in our direction with no way to shoot back (no positive target to shoot at...).

It's definitely been interesting so far. I must say, it's kinda nice. There really is an actual fight going on in Iraq. And watching these young men do their job is a thing of beauty. Our short engagement started with nothing more than my gunner shouting "There's a man on the roof!" then he started going off with his 240. We stopped and immediately all the doors opened as the two guys in the back got out and took up firing positions. Me? I was stuck. The trucks have so much armor that when the back door is open...i can't open mine. In the mean time I got to sit in the front seat calling up the report with an armored funnel behind me. Good times. We eventually maneuvered forward onto the building (right after I got my door open...I wasn't missing that part) and cleared the one we took fire from and several others. Found nothing. It's easy to leave when you have an AK and wear sandals.

The "raid" in Dora market today was the second big thing. I have a feeling the first will be fairly routine soon...but the raid was something intended to be bigger. Gen Casey and NBC news were supposed to show up, but I think the rain kept them away. Dora Market is the place that is supposed to be used as a staging area for attacks on the Green zone in Baghdad as well as Sadr City. Essentially we spent around 8 hours clearing all the shops/buildings. Not nearly the fight that was anticipated. We did take a couple mortar rounds while we were staging, luckily nothing was hit considering how many trucks were bunched together before we moved out, but otherwise it was quiet. No complaints...just a whole lot of work. Breaking locks isn't easy. And my platoon alone went through several hundred. That's a tribute to young men using brute strength and one really cool saw (which hopefully there'll be pictures of soon...).

Well, that's my briefing for today. I have to get to bed...need to rather. I get up to go on patrol soon. Dora is my new home. I'll be spending a lot of time there...

Frustrations abound...

Nothing particularly exciting going on lately. That's a good thing I suppose. It's also frustrating. We keep having our brethren down in Falcon come through and tell us what is going on with them and what they're doing. To say the least they're actually doing the job of the infantryman. While we up here continue to police a bridge. I suppose we'll get to run around a bit more when we do a mission change, but until then it's generally slow and frustrating.

So what's so frustrating? Generally policies we have to abide by. Mainly because they hamper our ability to do our job effectively...but they make those higher up and back in the States "feel good" about our safety. Problem is, we've reached a major point of diminishing returns. In the infantry we've always preached speed = security. Apparently Congress doesn't agree. They think more armor = security. Armor's all well and good until you get down behind cover and can't move anymore. The very basics of our job is fire and maneuver. We're quickly moving towards becoming static firing positions. The amount of armor they want us to wear makes any elongated maneuver on an enemy next to impossible and proper use of our weapon due to the amount of side armor they have us wear makes it cumbersome at best.

And that's the tip of the iceberg here. Things that shouldn't matter in a war zone, things that you look hard at while in garrison in the States, they're even tougher on here. If we still wore black boots, they'd have to be shined to mirror finish.

I've been reading a book called "The Devil's Secret Name". It's about an ex SF guy from the Vietnam era who works for Soldier of Fortune Magazine and tells about all the places he had to go for stories. When he visits Israel he notices something interesting things. The soldiers, although some of the best in the world, look in shambles. Long, unkempt hair. Unshaven. Boots and uniforms dirty. But their weapons are immaculate. They were worried about the things that mattered for the job at hand. Tactics. Training. Weapons handling. They didn't care about a good outward image...they let themselves shine on the battlefield. And it was said by them that if they killed 20 Palestinians before dying, then it was a waste. They were more important than those 20. That's the way it should be.

In the meantime, we'll sit here in the Green Zone where you can be fined for smoking too close to a stone and marble palace. And listen with envy as our A Co brothers come through telling of firefights and raids.

Same old same old in the IZ

So it's been a bit since the last post. Sorry. That's the way life is here I suppose. I'd like to keep this updated more often, just not working out that way all the time. I'll try, though.

So what's been going on in the last...three weeks? Lots. A chunk of which I really can't talk about here. I'll post what I can, though. Just say I've been busy outside of the work on the ECP and I'm not real happy about that.

But happenings at the ECP. Some of the normal stuff out of the way first. We average about a body a week. That's lovely business right there. One of them that I found took some convincing. No one really wanted to believe me that it was actually a body. All that showed was what appeared to be a head. Enough showed that you could read the guy's final moments like a book, though. They're a very brutal people here when they want to be. And for what appear to be quite petty reasons. Our terps break down the shia and sunni fighting down to the simple fact that the two sects differ on how long and when to pray. I know there's somewhat higher level thinking in there somewhere that the rest of the world recognizes...but to these people it's that simple.

We also had a run in with the IP's (Iraqi Police). They're generally not trusted in the first place. One day they decided they to put up a traffic control point on the end of the road that ran into our ecp. Essentially they cut off traffic flow to us and were keeping everyone out of the IZ. Suspicious to say the least. Me and one of my SGT's were escorting an OGA (other government agency) out to escort a car in when we were told about the IP's. We also noticed that the streets in general were quiet and not very busy and there were no civilians around. I gotta tell ya...that's a scary thing to have happen. Generally the locals know when something is going to happen, so they skeedaddle. Just not good signs. So we sent the Iraqi Army (IA) guys out to see what was going on (Hey...I'm not risking my guys for that...). The IP's gave the IA's some story about a meeting at a hotel down the street. That's fine, but there was no need to cut off traffic to us. It made no sense. I told the IA's to get them to leave or we would make them leave. The IA's love knowing they have us behind them. Big smiles from their LT when he heard that.

So while they're walking out there...you have me, this OGA dude, one of my SGT's and one other of my soldiers scanning the area, looking for anything suspicious. It dawned on me that the OGA might have some assets I don't. So I asked if he had any helicopters in the area that could check things out for us. He told me to hold on and pulled out his cellphone. Now...to me...that's incredibly cool. It'd take an act of Congress (almost literally) for me to get anything airborne over my position. This guy pulls out a cellphone and calls one in. No problem. Calls em up. 2mins later there's a helicopter over our heads. I'm definitely in the wrong line of work...

So the IA's talk to the IP's and a couple cars start coming through. Excellent. We can get back to work, right? Well, as we sit behind our makeshift bunker, the OGA behind a tree, a car decides it's been waiting too long. It revs its engine and picks up speed through the serpentine of jersey barriers. Our terp steps out and yells "Aguf! Aguf!" (stop! stop!). We all take aim at the driver. I switch to semi and hear 3 other distinct clicks as the others do the same. I start to pull the slack out of the trigger as i keep my sights on the guy's chest. The terp continues to scream. And the guy slams his breaks on. Less than a foot from the final cones that would have been his death. In less than 5 seconds this all happens. We had less than five seconds to decide this guy's fate. The OGA was shocked we didn't shoot. The other two were waiting for me like they're supposed to. And this guy lives because he stopped his car 12inches short of a pair of cones.

This is where I work everyday. A place where stupidity can get you killed. A rush to get to a meeting might mean you don't go home to your family. And innocent people might have to die, so that we can go home safely.

This is where I work.

Work work work...

So it's been a few days. Things are slowly settling in. Very slowly. Eventually we'll get a routine I suppose, but right now not so much.

We've done a little bit of training...a bit of which was convoy training. Our commo went down during it...so we get to redo that at some point. All of us very excited about that fact. In the meantime we're starting to filter into the checkpoint and start filling holes there.

A couple days ago (I guess the 4th...it all runs together a bit) we had what apparently is a normal occurrence at our checkpoint: We found a body in the river. Nicely bloated. Apparently that happens once a week or so...so keep an eye out for those lovely updates.

Otherwise, we're just waiting to take over full time and get into more of a rhythm. Pictures should be updated now, though. Just a few shots (slow internet here ;)).

Long week of stupidity...

Week or a few days...whatever...it's been long.

Our Battalion...yes...battalion...was put on lock down this week for a few days due to one company (I'll somewhat protect the innocent I guess and not name it...) losing 16 shotguns. Yup, 16. Apparently didn't make it to the country. We searched every conex at camp buerhing then went down to the port here in Kuwait and searched every one of the conexes there. I can't begin to tell you the excitement that was felt by all.

What other stupidity? Well, the term "light infantry" continues to take on more and more laughable characteristics. We added side armor plates to our vest this week. That's 8 more pounds. Eight more pounds isn't much you say? Let's see if we can break this down...

Vest with plates: 26lbs
Side plates: 8lbs
Ammo: 18lbs (I like my bullets...)
Helmet: 2lbs
Night vision: 2lbs
Radio: 5lbs
Water: 7lbs (guesstimate...that might be light...but close to a gallon of the wet stuff)
Pistol: 3lbs
Grenades: 4lbs
Smoke Grenades: 4lbs
Miscellaneous items: 2lbs

So that's just over 80lbs of "stuff". Throw in the weapon with sights, mag loaded, etc and you're looking at another 9lbs.

And we're supposed to be able to run and around in 130 degree heat for extended periods of time while actively engaging targets with that. Nice, huh? So...thanks Congress for giving us that extra 8lbs...we definitely needed it. Nevermind the fact they asked and infantry guys told em to get bent and they still passed the bill to buy the crap.

Outside of those two things...let's see what else has been going on. Someone way up decided my guys needed to be on "fireguard" in our tent to make sure it didn't burn down. Cause that's a legitimate threat here apparently. I figure if you're in the tent and it catches fire you have about 30 seconds before all the plastic melts around you and you're pretty much toast anyway. Why does someone need to be awake to wake everyone up for that? At least if you're asleep it won't hurt as long or at all...

Otherwise, we did a range to zero weapons. I got a new scope...an ACOG (4x scope). Pretty happy about that.

Not sure what else to add right now. We're on the downslide before we head north to the wonderful city of Baghdad. I'll try to add a couple pictures of this place when I can, but we're not allowed to take any of the actual camp...so they'll be kinda sparse.

Till later I suppose.

Kuwait it is...for now.

So we got to Kuwait. Had a little lay over in Germany for about an hour and a half and then made it in on what I think was the 15th of October. Most of the trip became a blur of sleep, wake up and be fed some sort of meal, begin watching movie, sleep, wake up to another meal...

Can I just say that jet lag sucks? Cause wow. Me, my platoon...we sleep. Lots. I'm blaming it on the jet lag. It could be the incredible heat. I'm not sure. But I like to think we can handle the heat and it's just still the jet lag.

So far for us, though, we've been doing a bit of training and generally trying to bide our time well before we make our push north into Baghdad. I can't really give that time line for obvious reasons, but it'll be soon enough and hopefully not too soon.

We're acclimating well to our new Company as we were sliced into Delta (I was in Alpha) as the Battalion did a bit of rearranging. Our CO and 1SG are pretty good guys and seem to be decent to work for. If nothing else, the CO tries to give us as much information as we can possible handle.

I know this is a bit discombulated. Sorry about that. Tired on this end after a bit of a late night and around 2hrs of sleep. Sensitive items conex showed up and we had to unload and distribute that stuff.

I'll keep posted on anything else...but as is we just have some more training ranges coming up, nothing too exciting.

Till then...

New pics posted

I posted a few pictures of the new hat I had to get because I'm attached to a Calvary unit while I'm in Iraq. Little cowboy look going on.

We leave out on Fri 13th. Ominous? We're hoping it's a lucky day.

I'll check back in when I get to Kuwait.

Getting Started

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