Short update will be expounded later
April 16th, 2005
We got ourselves moved into the land of the red zone. Rockets, and snipers and terrorists, oh my!!! Everyone was quite excited. You have to understand the way the Army works. See, only about 20% of all the people in theatre ever leave the FOB (Camp). Now this means leaving the FOB in the green zone where you don't even walk around with a magazine in your weapon. I suppose it would make a fairly effective club though. OK, of those 20% about 10% actually enter the red zone (Dragons be there). Of those 10% probably less than 10% go on combat missions. So, out of say 1,000 soldiers, 200 may leave the FOB, 20 may enter the red zone, and 2 actually fight. Of course there are about 120,000 soldiers in theatre right now, so you can do the math. I know my camp has about 150 people in it, and probably 35 actually participate in destroying the enemy. So anyway, we hooked up with the ING (Iraqi National Guard). Did a lot of TCPs (traffic control points) and foot patrols. We captured several large weapons caches, I think our camp gained some notoriety wuth the wahabes (arabic for terrorist or evil man). So they decided to bomb us. Scary stuff at first, but then you realize if it's going to get you, you'll never even know it. So who really gives a shit. It was a fairly well planned attack. They fired a 120mm rocket into our perimeter, then drove a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) with 100lbs of explosive into the gate. That one blew, and they hauled ass with a second one to take out the second gate ) it was also 100lbs. Just as their attack looked like it was going to work, the tower opened up on the last vehicle, wow, what an explosion. That was the one aimed for the center of camp. It was a 300 pounder. I think it would have gotten us pretty bad. So, we patrol, fight, sweat, andbleed with the ING for about 2 months when we are given new orders. It appears Our mission is going to some National Guard unit, and we have to train new Iraqi Army recruits. I would have gone into more detail about things that happened while we were fighting with the ING, but I'm kind of in a funk right now, and don't feel like telling about it. Today was the first day with the new recruits...they seem promising, and are willing to learn. But it certainly isn't what I want to be doing. I've been here for 2 months hunting bad guys, and know I have to be a drill Sgt?
We got ourselves moved into the land of the red zone. Rockets, and snipers and terrorists, oh my!!! Everyone was quite excited. You have to understand the way the Army works. See, only about 20% of all the people in theatre ever leave the FOB (Camp). Now this means leaving the FOB in the green zone where you don't even walk around with a magazine in your weapon. I suppose it would make a fairly effective club though. OK, of those 20% about 10% actually enter the red zone (Dragons be there). Of those 10% probably less than 10% go on combat missions. So, out of say 1,000 soldiers, 200 may leave the FOB, 20 may enter the red zone, and 2 actually fight. Of course there are about 120,000 soldiers in theatre right now, so you can do the math. I know my camp has about 150 people in it, and probably 35 actually participate in destroying the enemy. So anyway, we hooked up with the ING (Iraqi National Guard). Did a lot of TCPs (traffic control points) and foot patrols. We captured several large weapons caches, I think our camp gained some notoriety wuth the wahabes (arabic for terrorist or evil man). So they decided to bomb us. Scary stuff at first, but then you realize if it's going to get you, you'll never even know it. So who really gives a shit. It was a fairly well planned attack. They fired a 120mm rocket into our perimeter, then drove a VBIED (Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device) with 100lbs of explosive into the gate. That one blew, and they hauled ass with a second one to take out the second gate ) it was also 100lbs. Just as their attack looked like it was going to work, the tower opened up on the last vehicle, wow, what an explosion. That was the one aimed for the center of camp. It was a 300 pounder. I think it would have gotten us pretty bad. So, we patrol, fight, sweat, andbleed with the ING for about 2 months when we are given new orders. It appears Our mission is going to some National Guard unit, and we have to train new Iraqi Army recruits. I would have gone into more detail about things that happened while we were fighting with the ING, but I'm kind of in a funk right now, and don't feel like telling about it. Today was the first day with the new recruits...they seem promising, and are willing to learn. But it certainly isn't what I want to be doing. I've been here for 2 months hunting bad guys, and know I have to be a drill Sgt?
posted by Chad | 12:43 AM
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