one of my posts from bd on the war in iraq

[jagerhunchback]

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i've been out of kirkuk, so i can't report on things there with noel, but here's whats going on in my neck of the woods. i'll try and send pics to noel and hopefully he can post them on here, net speed is too slow over here. laters
For the past few weeks we've been tear assing all over the Diyala River Valley looking for a guy named "al". Finding him has been difficult to say the least. Al leaves "gifts" for us in the form of ied's and the occasional mortar barrage. Countless nights of ambushes and movement to contact patrols still have not turned up al. Finally we get solid intel about the towns that al has been living in. The first town we take is known as "al sidah". Our recon elements have thus far smoked about 20 of al's friends on the outskirts of this town, and finally we go to assault his town with the idea he's ready to fight with us. unfortunately al refuses to play and scurries off into the next town. in al-sidah we establish a patrol base with the 82nd airborne unit that were currently attached to. While in this patrol base the 82nd get hit with a vbied that leaves one dead and 16 injured. 4 of the injured belong to me. My platoon sergeant escapes with a nice chunk of shrapnel in his heel and 3 of my troops roll out with burns from what ends up being a homemade explosive made from fertilizer and gasoline, not a nice way to welcome us into town to say the least. This ends my platoon being attached to the 82nd's C-trp 5bn 73rd cav. From Al-Sidah we head back to FOB Warhorse and begin planning for our next take down. after 5 days or so of refitting, planning and rehearsals we get geared up for the take down of 2 towns, known to us as objective "isuss" and objective "minotaur". our attachement to the 82nd brought us from our part of iraq "kirkuk" down to the lawless badlands of the Diyala River Valley. In this valley Al-Qaeda has taken over and brought hell to both the shia and sunnis that live here. They spew their propaganda about our forces to the locals, hoping to further their own cause in addition to spreading their "wahabi" version of islam. all of that is about to change. al and his brothers are about to meet all of the members of our task force, known as Task Force 300. My Platoon is to infiltrate ahead of everyone else first by vehicle, then by foot and establish blocking positions around objective issus. We insert and set up squad size kill teams on suspected river crossings denying the enemy the ability to leave. We move under the cover of night, eager to get to our positions so we can dig our hide sites. The hide sites serve two purposes, they camouflage us from the enemy so if he attempts to escape we can easily dispatch him. in addition we unlike our enemy know that at 0355 this assault is going to begin with a 3 hour long artillery and mortar barrage. Both 155mm howitzers and 120mm mortars are going to pound the palm groves that surround the objective. While the steel is flying and we have the objective cut off the rest of the task force is going to air assault into the town with ch-47 chinooks and uh-60 blackhawks while ah-64 apache clear any insurgents from the landing zones. day 1 nets us 19 bad guys killed, scores of caches found, 2 car bombs already wired are captured and defused, 14 ied's placed on the road are found and destroyed. The task force loses 4 of our own to a vbied that detonates instantly killing 4 soldiers from the 82nd. Al and his friends are desperately trying to get out and finally brave the arty barrage where they run into one of my blocking positions, they are quickly rewarded with 200 rounds from an m-240b machine gun firing on cyclic from a distance of 75m. Most likely their last thoughts were "we should have stayed in the village". fficeffice" />
After things are wrapped up in issus aka Qubbah we then head to refit our gear and upload more water and MRE's. For us its the same drill, insert unnoticed, establish security and comms, then dig for your life. the deeper in the earth you dig, the more survivable your position will be. Throughout the night we dig, once our holes are large enough for each 3 man team and their gear we begin camouflaging our site. Seven hours later were all extremely tired and the sun is about to come up. the task force is'nt hitting this town for another 24 hours so we lie in wait, observing everything in our battlespace and reporting to higher. Any insurgents we see get either a healthy dose of 155mm HE or we call the apaches in to take care of them. For us in this first phase of the operation the idea is that we are to remain undetected by the local populous and the insurgents, shooting them from our hidesite is a last resort, until the rest of the task force gets into the city and starts pushing insurgents our way. For the next 4 days we sit cramped and stuffy in our hide sites scanning for enemy. At the same time we are being eaten alive by mosquitoes, gnats and ants the size of your thumnail, our only reprieve is at night once the moon goes down. Unfortunately for us there is a 3/4 moon so we cant leave the concealment of the hide until the moon has set for the night and the valley is covered in darkness. For 3 days we piss in water bottles and bake in our own protection. This time of year is interesting in that it's hot during the day and in the low 40's at night so as far as the weather goes your not going to be comfortable. Finally the rest of the task force makes its move into objective area Minotaur aka Zaganiyah. Firefigts break out all over the city and our quickly ended by the task force. during their clearance of the city 3 homes are found to be rigged with explosives and set to blow while our guys are in them, luckily we're slow and deliberate in our clearance. EOD is called in and they diffuse the bombs. unfortunately one of the houses dispells a noxious gas that hits about 20 soldiers, it's quickly ascertained that the fumes are chlorine gas and that slows are momentum for a bit, the air force is above us and kindly drops j-dams on the house all that is left is rubble. further on in the fight the task force finds the mother lode. An al qaeda training camp, complete with office supplies in addition to a countless amount of weaponry. One of the enemy KIA's is found with an american visa and tickets for a flight to jordan then new york with his final stop being boston. various other effects were found that will remain classified. Finally after 6 days of life in the holes or hide sites we get the order to exfil. We grab our stuff, bury our holes and move out. on our way to our rendezvous point a man is riding a bicycle towards us. we shout for him to stop, he keeps coming, we point our weapons at him and still he comes, i shout to my men "warning shot" and fire a round in the dirt, the man looks up and is shocked. he stops his bike and hops off. still holding the bike i yell "taftish" arabic for search. he looks at me confused as if to say "your arabic is horrible and i wont do what you tell me to". i bring my the crosshairs on my trijicon a.c.o.g. scope onto his chest and he sets his bike down, my soldiers motion for him to come forward and to put his hands up, he complies. turns out the man is deaf and had neither seen nor heard us until i fired the warning shot. we search him and his bike, he is neither an insurgent nor a suicide bomber, we sit him down and gesture for him to stay while we continue our movement forward to the link up point. we would have been justified in killing this man, he had crossed the 51% margin of reasonable doubt in regards to his intentions and the likelihood of him being enemy. i have no clue who was praying for him, but he was incredibly lucky he did'nt become a casualty of war. next time you take a flight and wonder why your plane made it safely to its destination, don't thank the tsa thank those of us over here bringing the fight to the enemy in his land instead of us fighting the war in new york or boston.

[B767]

Do not fret.....Obama will sit down with Al and they will come to an agreement....... Stay safe.............