Sunday, June 3, 2007
tour extended
some of you know that troy left for Iraq shortly after January of 2007. His tour was to last 12 months, and he would return home in the early months of 2008. Recenty word came down that troy would be extended until at least April of 2008.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
My apologies
To all who read this blog. I have not been loyal about updating and posting this site. I have just posted everything since march. I hope everyone is well.
JSH
JSH
My apologies
To all who read this blog. I have not been loyal about updating and posting this site. I have just posted everything since march. I hope everyone is well.
JSH
JSH
24 may 2007
So "Murphy" decided to pay us another visit yesterday. Like most of his visits, it involved the vehicles, though this time it was a humvee and not a Bradley. Looking back, its now comical, though at the time laughter was the furthest thing from anyone's mind.
The day started off straight-forward enough; our mission was to escort the Physician's Assistant (PA) to a clinic in town and let him do his thing, which essentially means that we were his private taxi service.
When we prepped the vehicles, the only thing apparent was that one truck was low on fuel but had plenty to make the trip to Camp Hit where we were to pick up the PA. Once on the base, we were able to fill up the truck without much difficulty. This is where things stopped going our way.
After the PA showed up with a medic humvee, we all piled back in the vehicles to take off...the truck I'm driving (which has one person riding "shotgun" and the guy in the turret gunning) won't start. Apparently the battery is low, and needs to be jumped; out come the monster-sized cables...it still won't start. We decide that we can run the mission without this truck and start moving all our gear into the 3 remaining vehicles. Someone walks by and just on a whim tries to start it, which it does. Gear now goes back in the original vehicles, and we start moving. We're not even out the gate and another problem strikes...one of the radios isn't working properly. So we shuffle the order of trucks so that the one with the radio problem is in the middle in case something goes wrong (that way they won't get left behind on accident.) We now have 3 trucks from our infantry company and the one truck with the PA and two medics, one to drive and one to gun. We have to go back to our original base to pick up an interpreter, and drop off a sick Soldier. In the meantime, they've managed to fix the radio.
We get to the clinic in town and park the trucks so we can pull security down all the roads; since the building is on a corner, this means we can't see 2 of the other trucks. The PA does his thing, and we're turning around to head home, thinking that our day is done...here is where Murphy pulls out his masterpiece. I'm now driving the truck which is in the rear of the column, following the medic humvee driven by a guy whom I wouldn't trust to hold a spork. This guy misses the turn, and since I can't see where the other trucks are, I don't realize anything is wrong for another block. When it finally becomes apparent, we make the call over the radio and attempt to turn the truck around; the streets are too narrow, so I have my gunner back me into an alley so I can start what would have been a 3 (or more) point turn. As soon as I put the truck back in "D" it dies. Nothing is wrong with the gauges, but nothing will get this truck to restart. I'm angled about 45-degrees in the wrong direction, but the medic truck can squeeze past to get close enough to jump us. We try for half an hour to get this truck to restart, with no luck; during this time, I discover that my door will not open, but since I'm not going anywhere for the time being it doesn't pose much of a problem. Its now approaching noon, and all we want to do is get back to the base, so we decide we'll just tow it back. Would have been a good plan, with only three small hitches; A) we can't free the tow-rings on the front bumper, so we'll have to tow the truck backwards (these trucks don't have useable side mirrors and have a solid back, so no rearview mirror, either), B) the truck (already overweight because of all the armor) no longer has any power steering and C) with no power we have no AC...not even a fan to keep us cool. But hey...things might work, right?
We now have to push the truck into the street so we can hook the tow strap to the back bumper; in the meantime, we've drawn quite the crowd of civilian onlookers. We later joked that it was like a Saturday morning when your mower breaks and all of your neighbors come over to drink a beer, offer advice and stare at the broken piece of equipment. At one point, we even had some of the residents helping push the truck.
With the tow strap on, we start moving; unfortunately, my truck is still at an angle, and I almost immediately end up running into a wall...much to the merriment of the onlookers. After pushing my truck into the approximate line of travel, we try this again with some success for about 20 feet. We're now faced with our first obstacle...a tight, 90-degree corner. We made sure that the driver of the towing humvee knew to take the corner extremely slow, since I'd be trying this "dead stick." Apparently, he thought slow meant "go as fast as you can," since thats what he did. High school physics teaches that any heavy object in tow tends to take a wider arc than whatever is pulling it, and thats exactly what we did. Physics also says that an object will stay in motion until acted upon by another force; for me, that other force was a wall, which acted with great force to bring us to an abrupt halt. During our brief but wild ride my gunner (who is giving me directions, since we're facing backwards) is yelling for me to turn, and eventually just hangs on for dear life; he later said that the instructions were more for his benefit than mine, and that he could have said anything but it wouldn't have mattered. For the second time in 5 minutes I've hit a wall; since its on the right side of the vehicle no one can get out to see whats going on. After much exclaiming and threatening of grievous bodily harm to the driver towing me, he finally bumps us off the wall enough that I can get straightened out on the road. As we try this once again, we scream over the radio that if the driver doesn't take it slow around this next corner he would soon find himself as the next visual aid for our internal anatomy classes.
After successfully negotiating this corner we have a stretch of road approximately a kilometer long, so all I have to do is keep the truck in the middle of the road. It is at this point that the temperature inside the truck is now approaching 150 degrees, and we still have a long way back to base. The next obstacle is the fact that the intersection where we need to turn is a giant sinkhole, negotiable only on one side but that safe path has a giant dip approximately 5 feet deep; the sinkhole also adds to the problem that to go left we first must turn right to circumvent this lurking disaster. This is the corner the driver should have flogged the truck for all its worth, but instead he took it slow; the result: my truck coming to rest at the bottom of the dip. After many attempts and further threats, we're finally pulled clear; however, the driver of the towing humvee stopped without announcing his intention and we promptly slammed into him, further invoking the wrath of all occupants of my truck. My humvee is now facing the base, so the truck that was previously towing us can now push us the remaining .5km back to base. The logical method would be to slowly make contact, and then once the trucks are bumper-to-bumper begin to push; he instead opted for the "slam into the backend...over and over and over" method, even though by this point we were screaming at him over the radio how he needed to be driving. Besides being a bone-jarring ride, this also presented a problem as we approached the gate to the base. We have barriers set up in a serpentine fashion so that no one can simply ram the gate at full speed; the problem is that at every turn the Bradleys have started digging more dips (like the one at the intersection we just negotiated.) After being slammed into, we don't have the requisite momentum to make it up the far side of the dip; his answer: take a running start and hit us harder! We finally made it to the motorpool where the mechanics could attempt to fix our broken and battered humvee, where we actually had something go right for the first time in hours...my door opened on the first try. Unfortunately, after I peeled myself out of the truck I was immediately greeted by the driver of the tow/ram humvee who's first words were "That wasn't my fault you hit that wall...it was yours." If only looks could kill...
Besides that little adventure, things continue to go well. We're constantly seeing improvements made throughout our town; bridges have been repaired to accomodate vehicles, new businesses have begun to open up along the river, the city government has become more self-sufficient, and the IP's have earned more trust from the residents (enough trust that they are now receiving tips from locals regarding possible insurgent hideouts and weapons caches.) This once very dangerous town has really started to turn itself around.
I hope you got a laugh out of Murphy's latest escapade, I know we sure did though not for several hours afterwards. Just goes to show that all the planning in the world can't stop Murphy's Law.
All the best,
Troy
The day started off straight-forward enough; our mission was to escort the Physician's Assistant (PA) to a clinic in town and let him do his thing, which essentially means that we were his private taxi service.
When we prepped the vehicles, the only thing apparent was that one truck was low on fuel but had plenty to make the trip to Camp Hit where we were to pick up the PA. Once on the base, we were able to fill up the truck without much difficulty. This is where things stopped going our way.
After the PA showed up with a medic humvee, we all piled back in the vehicles to take off...the truck I'm driving (which has one person riding "shotgun" and the guy in the turret gunning) won't start. Apparently the battery is low, and needs to be jumped; out come the monster-sized cables...it still won't start. We decide that we can run the mission without this truck and start moving all our gear into the 3 remaining vehicles. Someone walks by and just on a whim tries to start it, which it does. Gear now goes back in the original vehicles, and we start moving. We're not even out the gate and another problem strikes...one of the radios isn't working properly. So we shuffle the order of trucks so that the one with the radio problem is in the middle in case something goes wrong (that way they won't get left behind on accident.) We now have 3 trucks from our infantry company and the one truck with the PA and two medics, one to drive and one to gun. We have to go back to our original base to pick up an interpreter, and drop off a sick Soldier. In the meantime, they've managed to fix the radio.
We get to the clinic in town and park the trucks so we can pull security down all the roads; since the building is on a corner, this means we can't see 2 of the other trucks. The PA does his thing, and we're turning around to head home, thinking that our day is done...here is where Murphy pulls out his masterpiece. I'm now driving the truck which is in the rear of the column, following the medic humvee driven by a guy whom I wouldn't trust to hold a spork. This guy misses the turn, and since I can't see where the other trucks are, I don't realize anything is wrong for another block. When it finally becomes apparent, we make the call over the radio and attempt to turn the truck around; the streets are too narrow, so I have my gunner back me into an alley so I can start what would have been a 3 (or more) point turn. As soon as I put the truck back in "D" it dies. Nothing is wrong with the gauges, but nothing will get this truck to restart. I'm angled about 45-degrees in the wrong direction, but the medic truck can squeeze past to get close enough to jump us. We try for half an hour to get this truck to restart, with no luck; during this time, I discover that my door will not open, but since I'm not going anywhere for the time being it doesn't pose much of a problem. Its now approaching noon, and all we want to do is get back to the base, so we decide we'll just tow it back. Would have been a good plan, with only three small hitches; A) we can't free the tow-rings on the front bumper, so we'll have to tow the truck backwards (these trucks don't have useable side mirrors and have a solid back, so no rearview mirror, either), B) the truck (already overweight because of all the armor) no longer has any power steering and C) with no power we have no AC...not even a fan to keep us cool. But hey...things might work, right?
We now have to push the truck into the street so we can hook the tow strap to the back bumper; in the meantime, we've drawn quite the crowd of civilian onlookers. We later joked that it was like a Saturday morning when your mower breaks and all of your neighbors come over to drink a beer, offer advice and stare at the broken piece of equipment. At one point, we even had some of the residents helping push the truck.
With the tow strap on, we start moving; unfortunately, my truck is still at an angle, and I almost immediately end up running into a wall...much to the merriment of the onlookers. After pushing my truck into the approximate line of travel, we try this again with some success for about 20 feet. We're now faced with our first obstacle...a tight, 90-degree corner. We made sure that the driver of the towing humvee knew to take the corner extremely slow, since I'd be trying this "dead stick." Apparently, he thought slow meant "go as fast as you can," since thats what he did. High school physics teaches that any heavy object in tow tends to take a wider arc than whatever is pulling it, and thats exactly what we did. Physics also says that an object will stay in motion until acted upon by another force; for me, that other force was a wall, which acted with great force to bring us to an abrupt halt. During our brief but wild ride my gunner (who is giving me directions, since we're facing backwards) is yelling for me to turn, and eventually just hangs on for dear life; he later said that the instructions were more for his benefit than mine, and that he could have said anything but it wouldn't have mattered. For the second time in 5 minutes I've hit a wall; since its on the right side of the vehicle no one can get out to see whats going on. After much exclaiming and threatening of grievous bodily harm to the driver towing me, he finally bumps us off the wall enough that I can get straightened out on the road. As we try this once again, we scream over the radio that if the driver doesn't take it slow around this next corner he would soon find himself as the next visual aid for our internal anatomy classes.
After successfully negotiating this corner we have a stretch of road approximately a kilometer long, so all I have to do is keep the truck in the middle of the road. It is at this point that the temperature inside the truck is now approaching 150 degrees, and we still have a long way back to base. The next obstacle is the fact that the intersection where we need to turn is a giant sinkhole, negotiable only on one side but that safe path has a giant dip approximately 5 feet deep; the sinkhole also adds to the problem that to go left we first must turn right to circumvent this lurking disaster. This is the corner the driver should have flogged the truck for all its worth, but instead he took it slow; the result: my truck coming to rest at the bottom of the dip. After many attempts and further threats, we're finally pulled clear; however, the driver of the towing humvee stopped without announcing his intention and we promptly slammed into him, further invoking the wrath of all occupants of my truck. My humvee is now facing the base, so the truck that was previously towing us can now push us the remaining .5km back to base. The logical method would be to slowly make contact, and then once the trucks are bumper-to-bumper begin to push; he instead opted for the "slam into the backend...over and over and over" method, even though by this point we were screaming at him over the radio how he needed to be driving. Besides being a bone-jarring ride, this also presented a problem as we approached the gate to the base. We have barriers set up in a serpentine fashion so that no one can simply ram the gate at full speed; the problem is that at every turn the Bradleys have started digging more dips (like the one at the intersection we just negotiated.) After being slammed into, we don't have the requisite momentum to make it up the far side of the dip; his answer: take a running start and hit us harder! We finally made it to the motorpool where the mechanics could attempt to fix our broken and battered humvee, where we actually had something go right for the first time in hours...my door opened on the first try. Unfortunately, after I peeled myself out of the truck I was immediately greeted by the driver of the tow/ram humvee who's first words were "That wasn't my fault you hit that wall...it was yours." If only looks could kill...
Besides that little adventure, things continue to go well. We're constantly seeing improvements made throughout our town; bridges have been repaired to accomodate vehicles, new businesses have begun to open up along the river, the city government has become more self-sufficient, and the IP's have earned more trust from the residents (enough trust that they are now receiving tips from locals regarding possible insurgent hideouts and weapons caches.) This once very dangerous town has really started to turn itself around.
I hope you got a laugh out of Murphy's latest escapade, I know we sure did though not for several hours afterwards. Just goes to show that all the planning in the world can't stop Murphy's Law.
All the best,
Troy
Wanted to share some pics with everyone.
Pic 1: These are the type of choppers that we flew on from Al Asad (the air base) to Camp Hit. They're big, which may be tough to determine from the pic. We had about 30 people plus all of our baggage per chopper.
2: This is a typical street towards the edge of town. The pic was taken through the window of my humvee, which is why it looks like it was taken with a dirty lense. The buildings that face the road are all little shops, selling everything from candy and sodas to food and car parts.
3: While we were out on a mounted mission some of us dismounted to talk with the locals and make sure we could get the trucks around corners. This kid came up to us and started talking, even though we had no idea what he was saying. I gave my camera to the gunner in my truck and told him to take a bunch of pics; this was my favorite that he got.
4: We hit the wall they're looking at; hence us being out on foot making sure we could get the trucks around the corners. There wasn't much damage done to the wall, just a little plaster broken off.
5: Taken from a high point in the city while we were out on a foot patrol. Gives a little idea of what the town looks like.
I'll keep taking pics, and eventually I'll have time to resize them so I can send them out.
Enjoy!
Troy
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
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
15 april 2007
Hey guys-
Haven't had much time recently to write, and since our morning mission got bumped back to 10am or so, I thought I'd write a couple lines.
Not a whole lot of celebrating on my birthday (April 1). I think the only thing I did was do my best to stay inside and avoid the sand storm. It never got too bad, as visibility was about 25 meters at the worst point. One of the guys said that it will get so bad we won't be able to see our hand in front of our face. Great. But, we should have a couple weeks still before the big storms usually hit.
I'm sure most of you have read about the Secretary of Defense extending the Active Duty Army tours in Iraq from 12 to 15 months. We found out just like many of you did; I was on the internet checking my email and saw a headline on Yahoo news about the extension. They usually try to give the military 48 hours advanced notice on stuff like that, but I guess they were worried about it leaking before the official announcement. So, we found out just like the rest of the world. The guys here have taken it in stride, as usual. I think a lot of us were expecting to be extended in some fashion, though I don't think any of us expected it to be Army-wide. As of now, we haven't received any new orders, which means that we haven't officially been extended, though we know they're coming. There hasn't been hardly any complaining, mostly because we all know its not going to do any good. A lot of guys' reaction was "Oh....well, OK. Gear up, we've got a mission in 10 minutes." Business continues as always. As with many things in the military, humor is usually a constant companion, and this is no different. One of my guys said, "We're not getting extended, they just canceled our flight in January and rescheduled for April." At least we won't have to be here for two summers!!! Looks like I'll spend both my 25th AND 26th birthdays in Iraq. Not many people can claim that one.
On one of our many foot patrols, our lieutenant came up to me and asked if I had a band aid. I looked at him a little strange and asked what was wrong. Apparently a kid had cut his finger, and the LT wanted to give him a band aid. It took my by surprise at first; here I am carrying a giant aid bag, and I don't have a single band aid on me. I have plenty of trauma dressings, gauze, needles, IV supplies and airway adjuncts...and no band aids. But then again, why would I need them? If one of my guys asked me for a band aid out on patrol I, along with the rest of the guys, would point and laugh, and pass along the age-old military words of advice: Rub some dirt in it, drink water, drive on. Its an Army thing. However, this wasn't one of my guys, so I couldn't just laugh at the kid. We went to one of our vehicles close by and dug through the first aid kit till we found band aids. I wish I would have gotten a picture; me dressing this kid's cut finger, surrounded by 50 more kids watching. We didn't have an interpreter with us, so after much gesturing and speaking very loud and very slow (by both myself and the kids) I finally found his brother and conveyed some simple instructions. I'm just hoping I don't see him in town still wearing the same band aid.
Just over a week ago things were definitely starting to warm up. It was easy to tell when you'd just gotten back from a foot patrol; the body armor we wear doesn't breathe, so it traps heat and sweat, and we end up soaked but only where we're covered with body armor. Makes for an interesting appearance. However, we were reminded that this is only April, and summer is going to be much much worse.
Several days ago I was in bed when I heard a huge boom. So I jumped out of bed and headed for my aid bag, thinking that someone had dropped a mortar into our compound. Turns out, it was a thunderstorm!!! This was something new; we'd had plenty of rain before, but never an actual thunderstorm, just like we have back in the States. A bunch of people congregated outside the main door to watch the lightning; I think for a lot of people it was a reminder of home. However, the novelty soon wore off the next morning, as everything had turned to mud and the storm showed no hint of letting up. That afternoon it finally stopped raining, but not before our entire compound (not to mention the town itself) had returned to the quagmire state we had first seen upon our arrival. Two days later, it rained again. Things continue to dry out, though they are taking their sweet time. With the rain has come cooler temperatures, though I'm not complaining. Along with the mud comes problems walking at night, as a lot of the mud will appear flat but may be waist-deep. One of my unfortunate sergeants found this out first hand. The NOD's we wear are monocles, so our depth-perception is strangely skewed, not to mention that everything is green; you can imagine that this would make walking in mud tough. We were out on foot and had to cross a rather innocuous appearing ditch. It was maybe only 3-4 feet across, but apparently his stride just wasn't long enough. I was already on the other side and heard him squelch into the mud, and then his verbal reaction (that went on for quite a while). He had sunk nearly up to his waist, and didn't look like he was going anywhere fast. We finally extricated him from the mess, and then caught a big whiff of the mud...and other substances. Needless to say he wasn't very happy for the rest of the mission.
At last count, my mission tally is right about 90, though I'm sure I've forgotten to mark a couple. I did some quick math and was thinking that I'd end up with about 500 missions at the end of our tour, but I think it will be much more than that. For starters, we're running a lot more missions than we did the first month or two we were here, not to mention our rotation has changed. It used to be 4 days of missions, then 4 days of guard. Its now changed to 6 days of missions and 3 days of guard duty. The last 3 days I've done 7 foot patrols and 3 missions in vehicles, and we still have three more days before they go on guard duty. When my guys are on guard I usually try to catch up on sleep (though that usually doesn't happen), along with repack/refit my gear. With all the foot patrols we've been on (usually lasting an hour or more) we've gotten used to the weight of all our gear; even my aid bag doesn't seem so bad now.
I've got some new pictures, and will try to get them sent out soon. They show the town a little more thoroughly than the last ones I sent.
Its late, so I should finally head to bed.
Hope all is well,
Troy
Haven't had much time recently to write, and since our morning mission got bumped back to 10am or so, I thought I'd write a couple lines.
Not a whole lot of celebrating on my birthday (April 1). I think the only thing I did was do my best to stay inside and avoid the sand storm. It never got too bad, as visibility was about 25 meters at the worst point. One of the guys said that it will get so bad we won't be able to see our hand in front of our face. Great. But, we should have a couple weeks still before the big storms usually hit.
I'm sure most of you have read about the Secretary of Defense extending the Active Duty Army tours in Iraq from 12 to 15 months. We found out just like many of you did; I was on the internet checking my email and saw a headline on Yahoo news about the extension. They usually try to give the military 48 hours advanced notice on stuff like that, but I guess they were worried about it leaking before the official announcement. So, we found out just like the rest of the world. The guys here have taken it in stride, as usual. I think a lot of us were expecting to be extended in some fashion, though I don't think any of us expected it to be Army-wide. As of now, we haven't received any new orders, which means that we haven't officially been extended, though we know they're coming. There hasn't been hardly any complaining, mostly because we all know its not going to do any good. A lot of guys' reaction was "Oh....well, OK. Gear up, we've got a mission in 10 minutes." Business continues as always. As with many things in the military, humor is usually a constant companion, and this is no different. One of my guys said, "We're not getting extended, they just canceled our flight in January and rescheduled for April." At least we won't have to be here for two summers!!! Looks like I'll spend both my 25th AND 26th birthdays in Iraq. Not many people can claim that one.
On one of our many foot patrols, our lieutenant came up to me and asked if I had a band aid. I looked at him a little strange and asked what was wrong. Apparently a kid had cut his finger, and the LT wanted to give him a band aid. It took my by surprise at first; here I am carrying a giant aid bag, and I don't have a single band aid on me. I have plenty of trauma dressings, gauze, needles, IV supplies and airway adjuncts...and no band aids. But then again, why would I need them? If one of my guys asked me for a band aid out on patrol I, along with the rest of the guys, would point and laugh, and pass along the age-old military words of advice: Rub some dirt in it, drink water, drive on. Its an Army thing. However, this wasn't one of my guys, so I couldn't just laugh at the kid. We went to one of our vehicles close by and dug through the first aid kit till we found band aids. I wish I would have gotten a picture; me dressing this kid's cut finger, surrounded by 50 more kids watching. We didn't have an interpreter with us, so after much gesturing and speaking very loud and very slow (by both myself and the kids) I finally found his brother and conveyed some simple instructions. I'm just hoping I don't see him in town still wearing the same band aid.
Just over a week ago things were definitely starting to warm up. It was easy to tell when you'd just gotten back from a foot patrol; the body armor we wear doesn't breathe, so it traps heat and sweat, and we end up soaked but only where we're covered with body armor. Makes for an interesting appearance. However, we were reminded that this is only April, and summer is going to be much much worse.
Several days ago I was in bed when I heard a huge boom. So I jumped out of bed and headed for my aid bag, thinking that someone had dropped a mortar into our compound. Turns out, it was a thunderstorm!!! This was something new; we'd had plenty of rain before, but never an actual thunderstorm, just like we have back in the States. A bunch of people congregated outside the main door to watch the lightning; I think for a lot of people it was a reminder of home. However, the novelty soon wore off the next morning, as everything had turned to mud and the storm showed no hint of letting up. That afternoon it finally stopped raining, but not before our entire compound (not to mention the town itself) had returned to the quagmire state we had first seen upon our arrival. Two days later, it rained again. Things continue to dry out, though they are taking their sweet time. With the rain has come cooler temperatures, though I'm not complaining. Along with the mud comes problems walking at night, as a lot of the mud will appear flat but may be waist-deep. One of my unfortunate sergeants found this out first hand. The NOD's we wear are monocles, so our depth-perception is strangely skewed, not to mention that everything is green; you can imagine that this would make walking in mud tough. We were out on foot and had to cross a rather innocuous appearing ditch. It was maybe only 3-4 feet across, but apparently his stride just wasn't long enough. I was already on the other side and heard him squelch into the mud, and then his verbal reaction (that went on for quite a while). He had sunk nearly up to his waist, and didn't look like he was going anywhere fast. We finally extricated him from the mess, and then caught a big whiff of the mud...and other substances. Needless to say he wasn't very happy for the rest of the mission.
At last count, my mission tally is right about 90, though I'm sure I've forgotten to mark a couple. I did some quick math and was thinking that I'd end up with about 500 missions at the end of our tour, but I think it will be much more than that. For starters, we're running a lot more missions than we did the first month or two we were here, not to mention our rotation has changed. It used to be 4 days of missions, then 4 days of guard. Its now changed to 6 days of missions and 3 days of guard duty. The last 3 days I've done 7 foot patrols and 3 missions in vehicles, and we still have three more days before they go on guard duty. When my guys are on guard I usually try to catch up on sleep (though that usually doesn't happen), along with repack/refit my gear. With all the foot patrols we've been on (usually lasting an hour or more) we've gotten used to the weight of all our gear; even my aid bag doesn't seem so bad now.
I've got some new pictures, and will try to get them sent out soon. They show the town a little more thoroughly than the last ones I sent.
Its late, so I should finally head to bed.
Hope all is well,
Troy
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