Aco. 4-9 will spend the next month getting ready to return home. We sprayed fresh bumper numbers on the Strykers so they can be shipped from Kuwait by boat. Some men will have to stay with the vehicles on a special detail and return home a few weeks later. It takes about a month to make the trip. I heard today that the 4-9 battalion advance party is already back in the states. That party is mostly the people that do all the paper work, lucky them.
Two new mortarmen have arrived and been incorporated into our platoon. One has college credit and has been given the rank of Private First Class. I came in a Specialist for completing my degree. It is odd to get new people so late in the deployment. The day after they arrived our platoon went back to Camp Warhorse and began packing our extra equipment into shipping containers, theirs included. That's the way the Army runs things. No point in having them sit back at Fort Lewis until we redeploy.
The Iraqi Army continues to improve their operations here in Baqubah. More and more they look like professional soldiers. It isn't just their conduct but also their numbers that will determine when U.S. forces can hand over control. I heard that as of now there are enough IA to cover 50 percent of Iraq. I spoke with one IA Lieutenant that is a professional soldier and served in the Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein. He says there have been drastic improvements made to their forces since we stepped in, both training wise and in regards to equipment and organization. Iraqi soldiers now carry M16s and officers have M4s. They patrol in our humvees and old armored personnel carriers. I have seen them in MRAPs as well which is a big deal.
Iraqi Army outposts are not up to par however. They continue to patrol out of old buildings without necessary fortifications. Road checkpoints are guarded out of small bunkers, parked vehicles or from behind concrete barriers. I'm guessing that the construction and engineering section of their army is ailing or nonexistent. Whenever we pass their posts in our Strykers we wave to them. They seem content with their situation but obviously they do not have the training and work ethic that we do. I'm not sure their situation can even be improved greatly, the cultural standard for their army is just more relaxed.
My main concern is still to get out of here unharmed. Pretty soon a new unit from a different brigade will show up and start doing our patrols. I have managed to make it through this deployment without firing my personal weapon (M4). I haven't been in a vehicle when it hit an IED. I have not been in a firefight and there have been no training accidents in our platoon. With all that said, I will not consider myself safe until I am on the tarmac at Balad and board the plane for Germany. Not much more to go, just hanging in there bearing the heat.
Welcome!
29 April 2008
16 April 2008
Day 377
Yesterday a bomber detonated a vehicle borne IED in front of the government center here in Baqubah. Over 40 people were killed and many more were injured. Bombings took place in Baghdad and Mosul in the north the same day, so the bombing here was part of a series of attacks. I was sitting at one of the computers in our upstairs computer room when there was a large bomb blast somewhere close by. You can usually tell the bigger ones because the shockwave rocks the building more. Immediately people started to speculate on what happened. About a half an hour later our headquarters platoon along with the commander and first sergeant were on the way to Camp Warhorse to get the vehicle mounted bomb squad (EOD) and escort them to the site. We had to take a roundabout route to get to Warhorse because the bombing occurred in the middle of heavy traffic on the route we usually take.
It is really terrible that there were so many civilian casualties. I'm not sure how many Iraqi Police if any were hurt, but the bombing targeted civilians, not our forces. Our platoon drove through the crowded street less than an hour before the bomb went off while on a different mission. I feel very lucky we weren't there because a bomb of that size would have injured us even if we were in our vehicles.
Riding through the center of town today I noticed a mark on the pavement where the bomb went off. There was barely any traffic, in stark comparison to the traffic jam there the day before. I looked at some of the Iraqi Army soldiers standing guard on the side of the road there and they looked disturbed. They may have helped haul the bodies off.
Although things have been quiet here for the most part, there is a constant threat. According to Rear Adm. Greg Smith “They (Al Qaeda) no longer possess the capability to terrorize and intimidate major population centers or large swaths of Iraq’s countryside, but they certainly maintain both the will and the capacity to indiscriminately kill and maim innocent Iraqi citizens with vehicle and suicide bombs”
--http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20080416/ZNYT03/804160331/1003/NEWS
I have learned that the conflict is not what you expect or what you want it to be, and that bombings or attacks will come at odd times. We are trained to spot roadside bombs and suspicious vehicles, but there isn't much we can do when the attacks are so few and far between. With less than two months left my main concern at this point is to make it out of here safely. Whether the Iraqi Army and Police are trained and competent to take over our duties or not, I am ready to get out of here.
In other news, a number of our guys have been arrested while on leave or have gone AWOL. One soldier is rumored to have joined the UFC rather than coming back from leave. It's true he is a fighter but I have no idea what he's up to. Less recently one of our guys committed arson while on leave and went to prison rather than come back to our unit. Several others have been arrested on leave for drunk driving and spousal abuse and their return was delayed.
The list goes on - there was a guy from my squad that didn't show up the day we deployed. Instead he stayed back and was attached to a different brigade. Word came around that he landed in jail as well; there was a bench warrant out for his arrest in Louisiana. One of our sergeants supposedly went crazy and insisted that he couldn't take it any more, he needed a drink of whiskey. I was on leave at the time, and when I came back he wasn't with us.
This is not to say all our men are criminals or capable of evil deeds. We have a lot of stand up guys that are here to fight for our country and our people and that includes myself. In fact our unit is statistically one of the better ones. There is enough stress and bad feelings around here that people want to leave for good. Going AWOL isn't the solution though because they usually drag you back.
It is really terrible that there were so many civilian casualties. I'm not sure how many Iraqi Police if any were hurt, but the bombing targeted civilians, not our forces. Our platoon drove through the crowded street less than an hour before the bomb went off while on a different mission. I feel very lucky we weren't there because a bomb of that size would have injured us even if we were in our vehicles.
Riding through the center of town today I noticed a mark on the pavement where the bomb went off. There was barely any traffic, in stark comparison to the traffic jam there the day before. I looked at some of the Iraqi Army soldiers standing guard on the side of the road there and they looked disturbed. They may have helped haul the bodies off.
Although things have been quiet here for the most part, there is a constant threat. According to Rear Adm. Greg Smith “They (Al Qaeda) no longer possess the capability to terrorize and intimidate major population centers or large swaths of Iraq’s countryside, but they certainly maintain both the will and the capacity to indiscriminately kill and maim innocent Iraqi citizens with vehicle and suicide bombs”
--http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20080416/ZNYT03/804160331/1003/NEWS
I have learned that the conflict is not what you expect or what you want it to be, and that bombings or attacks will come at odd times. We are trained to spot roadside bombs and suspicious vehicles, but there isn't much we can do when the attacks are so few and far between. With less than two months left my main concern at this point is to make it out of here safely. Whether the Iraqi Army and Police are trained and competent to take over our duties or not, I am ready to get out of here.
In other news, a number of our guys have been arrested while on leave or have gone AWOL. One soldier is rumored to have joined the UFC rather than coming back from leave. It's true he is a fighter but I have no idea what he's up to. Less recently one of our guys committed arson while on leave and went to prison rather than come back to our unit. Several others have been arrested on leave for drunk driving and spousal abuse and their return was delayed.
The list goes on - there was a guy from my squad that didn't show up the day we deployed. Instead he stayed back and was attached to a different brigade. Word came around that he landed in jail as well; there was a bench warrant out for his arrest in Louisiana. One of our sergeants supposedly went crazy and insisted that he couldn't take it any more, he needed a drink of whiskey. I was on leave at the time, and when I came back he wasn't with us.
This is not to say all our men are criminals or capable of evil deeds. We have a lot of stand up guys that are here to fight for our country and our people and that includes myself. In fact our unit is statistically one of the better ones. There is enough stress and bad feelings around here that people want to leave for good. Going AWOL isn't the solution though because they usually drag you back.
03 April 2008
Day 365
It has been a year since our unit arrived in Kuwait. We were originally slated for a 495 day deployment, but that has been cut short. President Bush vetoed the bill that would have brought us home much earlier, maybe before the end of last year. Everyone has had their fill of the desert and wants to go home to their family and friends.
New Iraqi Army soldiers arrived a few days ago and are being incorporated into their jobs here at the JCOP. I met a group of them on guard today, both enlisted men and officers. They are generally friendly and always ask the same questions like are you married, do you have kids and have you been to New York. A few of them went to the market to get lunch for everyone and they got me something too. We only get breakfast and dinner chow here at the JCOP so it was nice to get a small sandwich to tide me over. The sun is shining every day and the temperature has been in the 80s. Hopefully we will miss most of the heat that comes with the summer. At night it doesn't get too cold either.
The rest of my squad is out on a mission with one of the bravo platoons. I am at the JCOP pulling guard at the back gate. The situation has both good and bad qualities. There is a chance the team will fire the 60mm mortar without me so I will miss some action. It is kind of fun to fire the mortar handheld, but it is a pain to clean up all the packaging from the round casings. The team will be gone for two days and I have the room where we stay to myself. It is relatively quiet so I can read.
Baseball season has started up and everyone has been watching the NCAA basketball tournament on our satellite TV. I hope they broadcast hockey playoffs on ESPN, the Penguins are 1st place in the East going into the playoffs. I might have to wait till next season to see the action.
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