Two Iraq blogs I wrote...

[tallywacker]

Recon Air Assault mission

An early april morning for me starts out this time around 4:00 in the morning. We have an Air Assault mission today, which is using helicopters to bring you to your mission area. We do this so we can maximize the amount of boots on the ground instead of being tied up with guarding our trucks if we used them instead. The morning is a warm 70 degrees and that usually means it will be a hot day once the sun gets up.

I get out of bed and do my normal routine for the morning. Its the process in the army known as Shit, Shower, Shave. I skipped the shower part this morning since I took one before I went to sleep and knowing as well that I would be drenched in sweat in a few hours. I get back to my shanty of a room (it consists of a large room slipt off into sections with plywood) throw on my work uniform for the day and head to my office.

I'm the communication NCOIC (Non-Commissioned Officer In Charge) so i make sure my radio is working for the day and well as other necessary specialty equipment I will be needing. I throw everything into my rucksack to make things an easier carry. Now that my equipment is good, its time to don my PPE(Personal Protective Equipment) which includes my body armor, helmet, kneepads, elbow pads, eye protection, and gloves. Its a lot of stuff to wear trust me and not very light. It will have you sweating up a storm in no time thats why you carry a camelbak full of water to recharge you during the day.

Everything is set. I head to the chow hall, munch down some jello looking eggs and drink some orange juice. Gotta be fueled for the day of walking. Daylight is about to hit so thats my cue to start walk to the LZ for our birds to come. We all sit in a group designated for our bird and goof off during the time we are waiting. I smoke a cigarette and tell one of the soldiers his mom is cow and he calls my sister a whore. The things soldiers do to pass the time.

The blackhawks arrive and its our time to begin the mission. It consists of doing reconnaissance of the area and check to see if there are any weapons caches. Its rather routine for us so we all pretty much know what to expect. Our area has been very calm and that makes me a happy soldier.

The blackhawks reach the mission LZ(Landing Zone) and we jump out of the helicopter. For some reason the asshole pilot flew over a dry field and dumped us into a freshly irrigated field. There is mud and water everywhere. I do my best to stay upright but others aren't as lucky. Acouple soldiers eat the mud and we all laugh. We all start running through this mess once they recover and reach the first house.

There are a few children and possibly their mother, they stand outside watching us and the kids wave hello. I wave back and our translator asks for any information. She has nothing to report so we keep moving through our objectives doing the same process.

We reach a house at middle of our mission schedule. The owner is a member of the local council. We set up long range communications here and our commander talks with him about the area. While he is doing that I go over and say hi to his children. They're are all standing in a huddle amazed at our uniforms and all the gadgets we have. I give them a few toys I had in my bag, which of course make them very happy. You can tell they have always lived rather poor being that they were farmers and worked hard for everything they had. Another interesting thing in this mans case he had two wives. One went over to the chickens, cut ones head off, and starting making their dinner. The other wife brought all of us chi tea and some bread. People in Iraq are always kind to guests in their home. We all have some of the refreshments and thank him for them.

We finish up at this house and move through a couple more fields. They of course are filled with mud as well. Its always funny to see a bunch of soldiers trying to look serious and barely being able to stay on their feet. Never a dull moment.

So far we haven't found any possible AQI leads and no unauthorized weapons. This is very good. It used to be a hotbed of activity, now people are living peacefully which is good to see.

My platoon finishes up our last house. We are a few minutes from pick up so we move to the proper area. Once we get there we kneel and provide security as we make fun of the people that busted their ass in the mud today. We never let people live stupid things down its too much fun. It always comes back around though so its usually fair in the end.

The field we are in front of is bone dry unlike the others. When the birds start landing the dust is insane. I have to turn my back for a moment then turn around and run to the blackhawk. I can't see a damn thing so I do my best to stare at the guys boots running in front of me while my head is down. I see the edge of the door and jump inside.

It only takes us a minute to load and take off. The view on the helicopter is always interesting but my eyes are too full of dirt to enjoy it at the moment. To sum things up we had a successful mission. The area was clear of troublemakers and the people were all friendly. I love every chance I get to interact with the children and do what I can to make them happy. Its the best part of being deployed. Any mission that ends in no injuries and happy kids is a win for me and the Iraqi people.

Humanitarian Aid Mission in Iraq

The morning started off around 0500 to get the trucks ready for today's mission. This usually incorporates checking the fluid on the vehicles, making sure the electric turret controls are working properly, and mounting M2 .50 cal machine gun in our trucks turret.

Being that its a early February morning its around 35 degrees, the gunner makes sure he is well protected from the elements and I make sure the heat in the truck is on full blast. Once we throw our equipment(in my case an external antenna for retransmitting) in the back, we don our kevlars and body armor, and settle into the truck.

Today our executive officer(XO) is going to be our truck commander. He is running behind as always so I go ahead and pull our truck to the convoy staging area on the Iraqi Army side of our patrol base. There i get out of the truck for a moment, long enough to smoke, and bullshit with my buddies until the XO gets there and we can begin our days work. My soldier was hungry so he left the turret and grabbed some muffins and juice to hold him over till we return.

The XO arrives, we mount up in our vehicle's and head out the gate. The drive around us is always rather interesting. Sometimes to pass the time you count dead dogs on the side of the road. Most importantly though, you scan the sides of the road looking for possible roadside bombs and to keep the best distance you can from them.

During this particular drive we pass the "Al Qa Qaa" weapons facility that was supposed to be a storage area for Iraq's WMD's. Its a large area of concrete weapons bunkers and military buildings that has long been abandon. Our battalions artillery batteries now use this off limits area as a test fire range. Continuing our drive we pass many road side Iraqi Army check points and wave to the soldiers posted there. We know a good deal of them because most live on our patrol base with us.

As we finally get around the Qa Qaa we get to a poor area we refer to as "the West Virginia of Iraq" or "Saddams chemical weapon test dummies." Many people in this run down farming area along the Tigris are so inbred that there are many mentally retarded children and adults living here.
Many are standing along the roads just staring at us with worn faces of years of hard living. These are the people we are here to help today.

As we move through the farming village we get to the end where an abandon school is sitting in haggard disrepair. We park our vehicles in such a way to provide 360 degree security around the school. We dismount our vehicles with the top gunners staying put to watch the out laying fields and water canals for trouble. We tactically clear the area and building assisted by our Iraqi comrades.

Once things have been secured, we download our vehicles of the necessary equipment for today's work. My first priority is to immediately setup communications links back to our Bravo Battery command post. There are no good locations for our drop antenna, so in the process of clearing the area other soldiers had already taken control of a near-by structure. I got on top the building and placed the antenna which successfully fulfilled the needs to talk back to the CP.

By the time i did that, other support soldiers that had accompanied us had set up a vaccination station and a place to hand out gifts to the children. The gifts consisted of t-shirts and soccer balls with Iraqi flags on them. Placing a good image of Americans in children's minds is important to help peace further down the road.

Over 300 children passed through the stations and many remained in the area playing and laughing. They families of the children were all grateful because they had troubles providing this basic needs to their children. The highlight of the day was seeing two Iraqi midgets about 15 and 17 years old. They were some funny little guys. One tried to carry all the stuff we gave him up a steep hill and he fell down it backwards. His friends assisted him and he went on his way. The XO decided to get into things so he decided to ride one of the kids bikes around. It didn't have any brakes and it looked like he was going to fall off which brought a laugh from me and my gunner.

The day ended around 2 in the afternoon and we packed up and headed out. We took the same way that we came and passed all the people that had the solemn looks on their faces earlier. This time they were lit up with smiles and friendly waves. The children did the same and waved the little Iraqi flags that we gave them. This is one mission that made me feel really good about what we were doing and got to see the positive results in the peoples faces. Its one of the bright points during the deployment that I will remember for a long time to come.