Monday, July 17, 2006
Updates
I apologize for not posting recently, it’s been a tough couple of weeks. Early in July (Or was it late June? The days have started to blend together.) two of the MTT advisors were wounded by IEDs. Both were minor injuries, but it was enough to get them both sent back to the States. Couple that with several other small occurrences, and we ended up with a demanding schedule of patrols. My commitments as a JTAC also kept me up all hours of the night, so I spent a lot of my downtime in the rack instead of typing blog updates.
Just a few days ago we mounted a fairly major operation into an area over which we have no real control or presence. Our battalion’s piece was to move to the objective area by convoy and search several areas of interest. Because of the high threat of IEDs along the route, we had an EOD team come out and lead the convoy. I can’t say enough about those guys, they found and recovered more than half a dozen IEDs without a single one going off. Thanks to them, we covered the entire distance to the objective and back with no casualties or damaged equipment, which was certainly better than what I expected to happen. The only downside is that it was extremely slow going.
I spent over ten hours cooped up in the back of a Humvee during the operation, and because it was my job to coordinate the aircraft that were overhead covering our movement, I couldn’t really leave the Humvee and its radios. The Marines on my team are very experienced at doing the ANGLICO thing from a Humvee, so they moved two laptop computers and a radio into the back of the vehicle and turned my seat into a no-kidding workstation. I had several capabilities back there, not the least of which was being able to call up maps and satellite imagery of the area on one of the computers. As cool as that was, after ten hours we were starting roast inside the vehicle. I was definitely glad to return to the OK Corral so I could stretch my legs and cool off.
About a week before all of this happened, we inserted a large patrol in the same area using Army Blackhawk helicopters. I wasn’t sure how the Iraqis would handle the helicopters, but they took it in stride and were very quick to adapt to basic heliborne operations. The operation went very smoothly, and we surprised a car-full of bad guys while searching a couple of houses. The Iraqi jundi, with no prompting or assistance from the American advisors, stopped a passing car and detained the men inside the car once a cursory search turned up a car battery, copper wire, and several digging tools. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these guys were geared up to plant an IED somewhere. The jundi pulled the car off the road and set it on fire, and after we had left the area, we heard two large secondary explosions come from the burning wreckage. The rest of the patrol was pretty uneventful as far as enemy activity. We inserted early in the morning, so by the time we were getting close to our pickup point the sun was starting to bear down. Of course, the toughest terrain was at the end of the patrol. We had numerous canals to cross, some of which required a running leap, and some of which we just gave up and slid in. All in all, it was six tough hours from the time the helicopters touched down in the landing zone until we were picked up by a convoy from the OK Corral.
More to come soon. ¶ Monday, July 17, 2006
I apologize for not posting recently, it’s been a tough couple of weeks. Early in July (Or was it late June? The days have started to blend together.) two of the MTT advisors were wounded by IEDs. Both were minor injuries, but it was enough to get them both sent back to the States. Couple that with several other small occurrences, and we ended up with a demanding schedule of patrols. My commitments as a JTAC also kept me up all hours of the night, so I spent a lot of my downtime in the rack instead of typing blog updates.
Just a few days ago we mounted a fairly major operation into an area over which we have no real control or presence. Our battalion’s piece was to move to the objective area by convoy and search several areas of interest. Because of the high threat of IEDs along the route, we had an EOD team come out and lead the convoy. I can’t say enough about those guys, they found and recovered more than half a dozen IEDs without a single one going off. Thanks to them, we covered the entire distance to the objective and back with no casualties or damaged equipment, which was certainly better than what I expected to happen. The only downside is that it was extremely slow going.
I spent over ten hours cooped up in the back of a Humvee during the operation, and because it was my job to coordinate the aircraft that were overhead covering our movement, I couldn’t really leave the Humvee and its radios. The Marines on my team are very experienced at doing the ANGLICO thing from a Humvee, so they moved two laptop computers and a radio into the back of the vehicle and turned my seat into a no-kidding workstation. I had several capabilities back there, not the least of which was being able to call up maps and satellite imagery of the area on one of the computers. As cool as that was, after ten hours we were starting roast inside the vehicle. I was definitely glad to return to the OK Corral so I could stretch my legs and cool off.
About a week before all of this happened, we inserted a large patrol in the same area using Army Blackhawk helicopters. I wasn’t sure how the Iraqis would handle the helicopters, but they took it in stride and were very quick to adapt to basic heliborne operations. The operation went very smoothly, and we surprised a car-full of bad guys while searching a couple of houses. The Iraqi jundi, with no prompting or assistance from the American advisors, stopped a passing car and detained the men inside the car once a cursory search turned up a car battery, copper wire, and several digging tools. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that these guys were geared up to plant an IED somewhere. The jundi pulled the car off the road and set it on fire, and after we had left the area, we heard two large secondary explosions come from the burning wreckage. The rest of the patrol was pretty uneventful as far as enemy activity. We inserted early in the morning, so by the time we were getting close to our pickup point the sun was starting to bear down. Of course, the toughest terrain was at the end of the patrol. We had numerous canals to cross, some of which required a running leap, and some of which we just gave up and slid in. All in all, it was six tough hours from the time the helicopters touched down in the landing zone until we were picked up by a convoy from the OK Corral.
More to come soon. ¶ Monday, July 17, 2006
