Monday, June 27, 2005
Straight From Iraq
I've heard from Jared in Iraq again.
Greeting once again from Fort Tal Afar. Well, we are finally past our halfway point. Right now the date of the day (and it changes often) for us to come home is somewhere around the end of December. Since I mobilized in mid-October (wow that seems like a long time ago), we are on the home stretch. Right now our focus is not get complacent but to remain vigilant in all that we do.
Our missions have been pretty varied. There is a large mountain range just south of us that runs about 10 miles long and is about 2 miles wide that we are searching for weapon caches. We found some bombs the other day, but the insurgents had already taken all of the explosives out of them. We do sweep through the area looking for tire tracks and freshly dug areas to help find these. In addition, we have also been doing some engineer route recons. There is only one way for the tanks that we are with to get around the mountains and it takes about an hour to get around them. We have been going through the mountains looking for passes that the tanks can traverse. I even took some time myself to get behind the wheel of a 12,000+ lbs HMMWV and take it on some serious off-roading looking for passes. "Where we're going, we don't need roads!" We also have been conducting route sweeps at night looking for insurgents placing IED's. On several occasions, we have been driving with all of our lights off, using night vision devices and thermal imagery (based off body heat) and spotted guys placing bombs on the side of the road. We move to intercept these people who always take off in their cars/trucks. This is where it gets interesting because these HMMWV's were made for power and protection, not speed! We have shot up a few of their vehicles, but many times, they drive off into villages and hide amongst the locals there.
We have conducted several large scale operations in the area. We have twice taken sections of the city of Tal Afar and conducted cordon and searches where we block off a section and go door to door searching houses. We have captured several known terrorists this way thanks to some good intelligence work and the bravery of some of the locals in reporting the locations of these men. These missions tend to be the most dangerous as we are moving through insurgent territory to include kicking in their doors and trying to determine immediately who is hostile and who is not. My heart goes out to the children of this country. They are so young and innocent but trapped in this dangerous country. On this last large raid, a team and I went on a door to door move to find some snipers shooting at another of my squads. As we would kick in doors to get out of the street where the enemy was shooting as us, we would find women with their children. These little children were actually quite calm with all of the bullets flying. We would actually have to take these children and their mothers into a back room that would provide them the most protection. All while we make our way to their roofs to shoot back bullets and grenades at the enemy. In another house, the mother was offering one of my squads cold water while her children were playing. I knelt down to play "high-five" with a young boy not much older than Hannah. He would jump as high as he could to slap my hand and when he would hit it, he would just grin and giggle. The sad part that blew me away was when I asked one of my squad leaders where the man of the house was. He informed me that his hands tested positive for explosives and he had an AK-47 with several magazines of ammo (which the weapon is not illegal to own, but there is a restriction on ammo). This family's father/husband had been taken into custody and they were serving us tea and their children were playing with us. (Note: the man was questioned and released as he had the extra ammunition for protection and he worked with fertilizer, which causes a positive for explosives).
Pretty soon, we will be doing a demolition mission where we will be blowing up this rubbled police station that not only stands as a reminder of the damage the insurgents can do, but also gives them a hiding place to put out IED's on a major route. We were originally going to reduce the 2-story building to rubble, but now are going to do some surgical explosions to just bring the building down and then have a large bulldozer to finish the job.
The fort we live in is getting some improvements, in some part to the guys of my squad. We have about 5 large rooms that house about 30-50 Americans and about 10 large rooms that house about 60-75 Iraqi Army soldiers. We went in and built some walls to help section off the rooms to give some of the guys some privacy and their own living area. We have done some electrical and plumbing work to help improve the standard of living here. The food service and unit we are supporting are working to complete a contract that will start serving American. We were able to use some money to get some Tony's mini-pizzas and Hot Pockets, however, I never knew you could really mess up French Fries, until I got here.
The guys are really getting settled in. They have repaired a large TV that the Iraqis had sitting here and now have a mini-movie theater. I keep asking if the guys want to borrow the 36-disc set of Little House on the Prarie that I have, but I don't get many takers. Show's what they know!
Please continue to pray for us as we are in harms way, just as much, if not more, than ever. Philipians 4:13: I can do all things through him who strengthens me!" God will get us through!!!
For God and Country, Jared
I am consistently blown away by the way he reports such things -- these people really are heroes. While we are on the ubject of really honoring these guys like we should, please, I mean really PLEASE read Ben Stein's Last Column for E!online.
Greeting once again from Fort Tal Afar. Well, we are finally past our halfway point. Right now the date of the day (and it changes often) for us to come home is somewhere around the end of December. Since I mobilized in mid-October (wow that seems like a long time ago), we are on the home stretch. Right now our focus is not get complacent but to remain vigilant in all that we do.
Our missions have been pretty varied. There is a large mountain range just south of us that runs about 10 miles long and is about 2 miles wide that we are searching for weapon caches. We found some bombs the other day, but the insurgents had already taken all of the explosives out of them. We do sweep through the area looking for tire tracks and freshly dug areas to help find these. In addition, we have also been doing some engineer route recons. There is only one way for the tanks that we are with to get around the mountains and it takes about an hour to get around them. We have been going through the mountains looking for passes that the tanks can traverse. I even took some time myself to get behind the wheel of a 12,000+ lbs HMMWV and take it on some serious off-roading looking for passes. "Where we're going, we don't need roads!" We also have been conducting route sweeps at night looking for insurgents placing IED's. On several occasions, we have been driving with all of our lights off, using night vision devices and thermal imagery (based off body heat) and spotted guys placing bombs on the side of the road. We move to intercept these people who always take off in their cars/trucks. This is where it gets interesting because these HMMWV's were made for power and protection, not speed! We have shot up a few of their vehicles, but many times, they drive off into villages and hide amongst the locals there.
We have conducted several large scale operations in the area. We have twice taken sections of the city of Tal Afar and conducted cordon and searches where we block off a section and go door to door searching houses. We have captured several known terrorists this way thanks to some good intelligence work and the bravery of some of the locals in reporting the locations of these men. These missions tend to be the most dangerous as we are moving through insurgent territory to include kicking in their doors and trying to determine immediately who is hostile and who is not. My heart goes out to the children of this country. They are so young and innocent but trapped in this dangerous country. On this last large raid, a team and I went on a door to door move to find some snipers shooting at another of my squads. As we would kick in doors to get out of the street where the enemy was shooting as us, we would find women with their children. These little children were actually quite calm with all of the bullets flying. We would actually have to take these children and their mothers into a back room that would provide them the most protection. All while we make our way to their roofs to shoot back bullets and grenades at the enemy. In another house, the mother was offering one of my squads cold water while her children were playing. I knelt down to play "high-five" with a young boy not much older than Hannah. He would jump as high as he could to slap my hand and when he would hit it, he would just grin and giggle. The sad part that blew me away was when I asked one of my squad leaders where the man of the house was. He informed me that his hands tested positive for explosives and he had an AK-47 with several magazines of ammo (which the weapon is not illegal to own, but there is a restriction on ammo). This family's father/husband had been taken into custody and they were serving us tea and their children were playing with us. (Note: the man was questioned and released as he had the extra ammunition for protection and he worked with fertilizer, which causes a positive for explosives).
Pretty soon, we will be doing a demolition mission where we will be blowing up this rubbled police station that not only stands as a reminder of the damage the insurgents can do, but also gives them a hiding place to put out IED's on a major route. We were originally going to reduce the 2-story building to rubble, but now are going to do some surgical explosions to just bring the building down and then have a large bulldozer to finish the job.
The fort we live in is getting some improvements, in some part to the guys of my squad. We have about 5 large rooms that house about 30-50 Americans and about 10 large rooms that house about 60-75 Iraqi Army soldiers. We went in and built some walls to help section off the rooms to give some of the guys some privacy and their own living area. We have done some electrical and plumbing work to help improve the standard of living here. The food service and unit we are supporting are working to complete a contract that will start serving American. We were able to use some money to get some Tony's mini-pizzas and Hot Pockets, however, I never knew you could really mess up French Fries, until I got here.
The guys are really getting settled in. They have repaired a large TV that the Iraqis had sitting here and now have a mini-movie theater. I keep asking if the guys want to borrow the 36-disc set of Little House on the Prarie that I have, but I don't get many takers. Show's what they know!
Please continue to pray for us as we are in harms way, just as much, if not more, than ever. Philipians 4:13: I can do all things through him who strengthens me!" God will get us through!!!
For God and Country, Jared
I am consistently blown away by the way he reports such things -- these people really are heroes. While we are on the ubject of really honoring these guys like we should, please, I mean really PLEASE read Ben Stein's Last Column for E!online.
