7 may 2007

Hey
I've been trying to write again for the last couple of weeks, but haven't had the time to sit down and write another update. Things around here have really gotten busy, and it doesn't appear that this will be changing any time soon. Our schedule has changed again, as well. My schedule used to be 6 days of missions, followed by 3 days of stand-by for QRF because the rest of our platoon was on guard duty. Normally, QRF wasn't called that much, so those 3 days were a chance for us to rest. Now they have changed it so that there isn't 3 days of straight guard duty, its all mixed in with the other rotations. This means that we have three 3-day rotations, all of which run missions.
So far the only time that this has really been rough was when we're on the QRF rotation. The standard for us is that at any time of the day or night, we have to have a team of guys out in the Bradley ready to roll (meaning full battle-rattle, etc) within 5 minutes of the call. "The call" is someone from the command center grabbing a bull-horn and screaming up the stairwell "QRF, QRF, QRF!!!" Usually its just a drill, though occasionally we'll actually roll out on something. If on the drill we don't make the 5-minute mark, the drill doesn't count, and we can usually expect to be woken up in the middle of the night for another one. QRF switches between the squads in my platoon so the guys aren't on QRF for more than a day out of the rotation. QRF also has the job of doing a mounted patrol every morning sometime around 5-6am. This can make for some very short nights, and very early mornings; this is especially true when we have a late mission the previous night, a QRF drill at 2am or so, and the patrol at 5:30am.
As I stated when I started this email, its now 2 days after I had enough time to start this email, and I now have a couple more minutes to write. I'm hoping not to be called away, though the likelihood of this is slim to none.
Over the last couple of weeks since I last wrote I have broken the "100 mission mark." As of right now I think I'm sitting somewhere around 120 and always climbing, thanks to our new schedule and high operations-tempo (op-tempo for short).
They say the summer always shows an increase in insurgent activity, and it seems this place is no different. I don't know if this is actually the case, or that our intelligence unit now has so many more contacts that we're learning about things that have been going on without our knowledge. Either way, we've certainly been busy.
The weather has gotten dramatically warmer, and in just a few days. We had been in the 70's and 80's for a couple weeks, had two days in the 90's and its been well over 100 for almost the last week. The humidity isn't nearly that of coastal Georgia where we are stationed, but is considerably higher than the rest of Iraq due to our proximity to the Euphrates. Earlier today I was at the big base, "Camp Hit," down the road less than 10 miles, and the humidity is almost nothing out there. Its incredible the change just a few miles can make. Our concern now is to get everyones air conditioning working; many of the units in the Soldiers rooms don't work, including the one in the aid station. They say we're supposed to get a new one in the next couple of days, but I'm not holding my breath. At night it will cool down some, though the aid station acts as an insulator and keeps the room temp right about 90, much warmer than any of us would like.
Our trip to Camp Hit this morning was to get our humvee's A/C filled with Freon. The mechanics aren't sure how long it will last, but for now at least they blow air that is somewhat cooler than it used to be. We think they may keep the inside of the trucks around 110, which is much better than what they had been. Thankfully we haven't had to use the Bradleys in a while, which is nice because they don't have any A/C, just a fan in the back.
On top of the weather, we've been dealing with some sort of viral stomach bug for the last several weeks. I think we're finally on the trailing end of it, which is definitely a cause for celebration. None of the medics were affected by it, but we had plenty of Soldiers come down with it. Loperamide/Immodium was more than worth its weight in gold!!!
On several occasions, we have run missions during the day, and then been out all night as well. Right now one of the medics is in the aid station trying to grab a catnap before he has to go back out again.
A couple nights ago we were on a raid that looked promising. Several hours later, we ended up back at the same house. While this mission was wrapping up, we received a call from base that we had a follow-on mission. Apparently, the IP's found a car in town that was still running, but had no one around it. Once we wrapped up at the house, we headed across town to set up around the car to make sure no one got too close. Thinking that it might be a car bomb, our bomb squad was called out to assess the situation. After having been there for an hour, we finally got the radio call that they were leaving the big base down the road. At that point we knew we were in for a long night. After sending out their little robot, nicknamed "Johnny 5" from the movie "Short Circuit," they placed a charge to blow the trunk open. It didn't work...only the blasting cap went off. Finally they succeeded in opening the trunk, along with blowing off both rear tires. After they wrapped up, we headed back and arrived at base shortly after 6am. It had been a very long night.
We continue to do a lot of training with the IP's in town. All of them have gone through an academy, and now we provide on-going training; several times we have had civilian police officers show up and help out. Their training has included everything from the use of handcuffs, weapons training, eithics classes, to arrest and detention classes. They have been used in a lot of our operations, especially when we go on raids; all of this is building up for the eventual transfer of authority, when we step back and they take over.
On one of our last missions I think they gained a healthy amount of respect for all the gear we carried. The mission was to hit three houses at once instead of one at a time; this prevents people from running, but it also requires more people. We had a lot of IP's with us on this one, and due to the area we were operating in, it was decided we would walk there and back. We made sure the IP's were "geared up" as best as possible before we left; the walk out wasn't so bad for them, but there were more than a few that were hating the walk back. One of them had a machine gun that is similar to one we use, but it is much lighter; at first he had it resting in his arms, then across his shoulders, and at the end of the mission had it hanging in one hand as he trudged back. None of them were carrying anything close to the amount of weight we were, and they were hurtin' after that walk. Its tough though, because this is not a very physical society.
As part of our way of warning system, we use flares that are fired from a metal cylindar about 3 inches wide and about a foot long. The gunners in all the humvees have them up in the turret with them just in case. Yesterday we were rolling out on a mission just like we do any other day; we were still inside the wire when the gunners flare got loose and rolled into the truck. I saw it fall in and had enough time to realize "BAD!" The flare tumbled, then landed on the cap used to ignite the blasting cap that sparks the flare. It sounded like a bomb went off inside our truck!!! The whole truck filled with smoke as all 5 of us scrambled to get out. I was sitting behind the driver and manage to get my door open, though try as I might I could not get my left leg up enough to step out of the truck. Finally I had enough of the smoke and threw myself head-first out of the truck. Since I couldn't see at the time, I failed to notice two very important facts: A) the truck was still in drive, and rolling right along, and B) the driver had already left the truck. This meant that after I hit the ground and rolled, I immediately saw the tire coming straight for my legs; once I had again rolled myself to relative safety, I looked up to see the driver performing a near-perfect 3-legged race with the humvee as he desperately tried to hit the brake. As the truck ground to a halt, I was back on my feet running to the truck to grab my aid bag (lightly toasted, but still in good shape) and make sure the other guys were OK. Once we realized no one was hurt, we couldn't help but laugh; we must have looked clowns trying to escape their burning circus car! Nothing important was damaged in the blast or the several small fires afterwards, so we concluded that we were still able to continue with the mission...until one of the doors wouldn't close. With the up-armored humvees, each door weighs around 400 pounds and has a latching system that has to be in proper alignment to work. In this case, it had somehow gotten off track, and now wouldn't keep the door closed. With two bad occurances in less than 10 minutes, we decided it was not meant for us to go on the mission.
Last month we started sending guys on their 2-week leave; the 14 days starts when they hit the US, not when they leave here. This is a good thing because it sounds like anywhere from five to seven days until they're back on home soil; total time away from the unit is about a month because of the travel time. So far we've been able to keep up the same pace with fewer guys without much of a problem. All four of us medics will be going on leave right in a row; the first in July, and I will be the last in October. We know we're going to be extremely busy trying to cover 4 platoons with 3 medics, but we all know that it'll be worth it.

Thanks for all the letters, packages and emails I've received. I'm still working on emailing more pictures.

I need to head to a briefing for another mission,

Best wishes
Troy