It was mid afternoon…sometime between 2 and 3 PM and I was lying down to take a short nap before the early evening patrol. It was cooling off a little but it was still over 100 degrees outside. I heard the muffled sounds of mortar rounds striking nearby and then the triple chime of the PA system coming up to inform us that we had incoming fires. More rounds hit…5 or 6 in total over a period of 15 to 20 seconds and by the time the last had hit I was in body armor and helmet with weapon in hand heading out the door to make sure all my Joes were accounted for and unharmed. Minutes later we were rolling out the gate headed to the POI (point of origin) while our own 88mm mortars returned fire to that location.

How did we know where the POI was? Well….there is this cool Radar that picks up the flight arc of artillery and mortar fire and back plots it. It will give you a 10 digit grid coordinate to the launch point. That’s good enough to put you within 10 feet of it.

Today, it was within a couple of miles. If you are familiar with country dirt roads you know they cut around the countryside and you can be sure that the locals know them like the backs of their hands. Over there it’s the same….except that each one has an irrigation channel of some kind running along it the usually prevents you from driving where you’d like. Needless to say, it took a little while to get to the exact POI. When we did it was a field and my dismounts and I swept it and the surrounding area for about 150 meters looking for the launch site…….and the impact points of the Counter Battery Fire. We found neither. It is possible that the launch system was in the back of a truck and that it was long gone before we even left our gate but there was nothing to indicate that anything had happened here…..no base plate imprints, no foot prints but ours and no residue.

After an about 30 minutes we gathered up and started moving down a dirt road towards the location our vehicles were to link up with us. About 300 meters up the road we came to a village……and there we found the impact points of our Counter Battery Fire. The first thing that gave it away was the wall around the Mosque that had a hole blown into it……Then we started seeing people come out and trying to talk to us and pull us to see more damage. I went into a courtyard with 3 of my Joes while the others provided security. I was rubble, broken glass, a truck that had been hit in the cab area and blood. We called it back to the FOB. Counter Fire had hit this village. One house had taken 2 or 3 hits…the truck and caught a lot of shrapnel, a wall between 2 houses was blown down, the wall around the Mosque had been hit and there had been some injuries. A woman and her newborn baby had been hit as well. The locals had taken the injured to the local hospital. They had their own little clinic but it had been closed for quite a while for lack of supplies.

It could have been worse……much worse. If it were not summer and still in the heat of the day then people would have been outside. The children at the least would have been out playing. Hell….had it been a couple of hours later they would have. As it was, there were only a couple of injuries, the property damage and the baby.

We came back here several times in the weeks and months that followed. We brought our medic to check on the injured, supplies for the clinic, clothing for the children, supplies for the school (which had been missed by about 50 meters) and Civil Affairs to talk with the Village Leaders. By we…I mean my platoon…my Joes. Others may have come but I don’t know who or when. We did escort a truck from the FOB there with more school supplies but I don’t know what else was done, if anything. An investigation of the Counter Battery Fire was done but I don’t know what happened with that either. I wasn’t important enough to know. I know that village though…and some of the people….I see them all the time.

**Please note.....some of the details at the beginning are fuzzy. Its been nearly 2 years since this event and I have never written about it beyond the initial AAR. From the time my feet hit the ground though this is as exact as I can make it. I think about this place and these events a lot.**

We were on the first of two route clearance patrols for the day. This one was first thing in the morning and we were using an M1A1 Abrams and 3 Up Armored Hummers to clear the main supply route between our Post and the main Logistics Base about 25 klicks away. Our segment had been clear in the 3 months we had been there but today would be different.

We were about 5 klicks out from the FOB. A little spindly old Farmer came out from the side of the road and flagged us down. He wanted to show us something. We brought our interpreter and after a few minutes we got the gist of the situation........there was a bunch of wire on this land that wasn't there yesterday and wasn't his. He took us to it and there was this spool of the single strand stereo speaker wire laying there near some trees. I sent my Joes out in a sweep to secure the area and examined the wire.......it had been spooled with two strands side by side and two wires were running off of the spool, down the tree line towards the road. I yelled to my Lt so he could call it up and started following it. It went up into a tiny culvert and disappeared. I called the Lt again and told him what I found. There was no way that there were shells in there so I felt safe. Heh....was I wrong.

The area was secure at this point and we had control of the means of detonation so again, we felt safe.......stupid? You betcha. The Lt came to look at the wires and I was reaching into the culvert to see if they were just tied off for later attachment. See....the insurgents don't have to assemble everything in one spot and then emplace it....sometimes they do it in parts. Guy A assembles the shell and detonator, Guy B has the expertise to do the initiator and Guy C...the expendable Guy, he gets to go out and assemble the parts on site and set it off. Sometimes he messes up and blows himself to hell while setting it in....bummer.

Anyway, I was slowly running my hand along when I came to a bulge. Now to say that my mouth went very dry and my palms got very wet in the space of a second would be a slight understatement. I yelled for everyone to get clear and with the exception of my Lt, they did. I slowly pulled my hand out and with it came a small cube the size of a Rubix Cube. It was clear tape holding together the initiator. Oh...Joy....The wires from the initiator to the device ran straight to a mound of dirt that I had been standing with one foot on or kneeling next to for several minutes. I set the cube down gently and ordered that the perimeter be pushed out 200 meters. We called for EOD and they came and blew it. I asked what they though it was and the guy who placed the charge said it was probably 2 152mm rounds, one stacked on the other due to the size of the blast and the depth of the hole. Dirt, stone and metal schrapnel landed around a 100 meters from the blast site and it took a section of road with it when it went up.

The location for the set up pretty much meant it would have been used on a supply convoy coming to my Post....the site could be observed from the other direction. Those shells would have seriously damaged anything not armored and I was standing on them. I just got a free pass and I became about 1000% more careful about everything after that.

An IED or Improvised Explosive Device is......well......a bomb. Its not TNT or Plastique, though either may be used as a detonator. When the Coalition Forces steam rolled the Iraqi conventional forces many or the well trained Republican Guard soldiers as well as Special Forces went into hiding. Munitions were cached all over the country but there were no howitzers to fire the artillery rounds.

Enter a reasonably smart guy with a background in explosives and a willingness to take chances. The nose cone of an artillery shell has the fuse or detonator. It can be set for impact or air detonation but....it had to be fired. Our smart guy removes the fuse and replaces it with some C4 and a blasting cap with wiring. Initially they were crude......single strand stereo speaker wire would run from the detonation assembly to a hiding spot where the whole thing would be set off with a 9 volt battery. As time went on and smarter guys came along they started using programmable walkie talkies, garage door openers and cell phones as initiators which allowed the Insurgent to be increasingly farther from the area....finally needing nothing more than eyes on to time the blast right.

Now....most of the stuff I saw was 152mm shells. They make one hell of a boom and have a fairly substantial kill/wound radius. They might be daisy chained (I was at a site that had 15 of these), stacked, buried individually or placed inside roadside trash or road kill. Bottom line is they were always concealed and if you weren't careful, you could be standing on top of one.

Near the end of my time there the bad guys got a hold of some engineering cratering charges. These are a shaped charge that make one hell of a big hole in roads, bridges, landing strips and the like. However, if you lay it on its side....with the cone facing the roadway, it will make one hell of a hole in whatever is in front of it when it goes off. These were harder to conceal but they would take out anything....including a Tank.

Now....why did I write this? Because some of the stories that follow will talk about these little gems and I guess I wanted anyone reading this to have a better understanding of what Troops run into over there.

A FOB is Military speak for Forward Operating Base. In Iraq, there are no "lines" of battle but rather hundreds of little Posts called FOB's throughout the Country.

FOB Paliwoda, formerly known as FOB Eagle, was renamed in memory of Capt. Eric Paliwoda, who died 02 January 2004 when an enemy mortar round scored a direct hit on his room. He was 28.

The Military has a history of naming things aftre the Fallen. When I left FOB Paliwoda there were 2 more monuments to men I served with.....SPC Daclan and SFC Villanueva.

When I was in Balad at FOB Paliwoda, we had a PA system that was used for 2 reasons. It was used to announce out-going fires or incoming fires. Incoming means that the post was under rocket or mortar attack and that happened 3-5 days a week. When it was keyed it had a three tone ascending chime. It became reflex to jump for cover when you heard it because you might not hear what was being said...only the chimes and you didn't want to be caught in the open when rounds started hitting.

Now....what are the odds of finding someplace here with the exact same kind of PA system? Apparently pretty damned good. I was in a Walmart grabbing some cheap golf balls I could sacrifice to the ponds and treelines and there it was.....'bling Bling BLING'. I went into a squat and was looking for cover before the tones even finished. I was about to yell at people for not moving out to cover when I realized where I was. I stood up and looked around to see who saw me and there was a little child in a carriage looking at me a laughing that innocent little baby laugh. I made a few faces at her that I knew would keep her laughing and then I left. I've been to a Walmart once since then........

You know...there is a hell of a lot I want to say but I just can't tear myself away from the trainwreck that is the Middle East.

I've been told that I should write about some of my experiences there so I will. I told my doctor I was going to post them here and she said, "good". I wonder if she really understands.

i'm trying to tell you something about my life
maybe give me insight between black and white
and the best thing you've ever done for me
is to help me take my life less seriously
it's only life after all

yeah well darkness has a hunger that's insatiable
and lightness has a call that's hard to hear
i wrap my fear around me like a blanket
i sailed my ship of safety till i sank it
i'm crawling on your shores

i went to the doctor,
i went to the mountains
i looked to the children,
i drank from the fountains
there's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in a crooked line
and the less i seek my source for some definitive (the less i seek my source)
the closer i am to fine
the closer i am to fine

-Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls


********


There was this burgular. He committed a crime. (Because hey, that's what criminals do. That's their job.) Anyway, he was sent to the king for punishment. The king told him he had a choice. He could be hung by a rope or take the punishment behind the big, dark scary steel door. The criminal quickly decided on the rope.

As the noose was being slipped on him, he asked, "Out of curiosity, what's behind that door?"

The king laughed and said, "You know, it's funny, I offer all you guys the same choice, and nearly all of you pick the rope."

"So," said the criminal, "What's behind the door? Obviously, I won't be telling anyone," he said, pointing to the noose around his neck.

The king paused then answered, "Freedom, but it seems most people are so afraid of the unknown that they immediately take the rope."


********


your enemies= your teachers

your failures= your wisdom

your mistakes= your discoveries

your conflicts= your growth opportunities

your undesired endings= your new beginnings

your grapes of wrath= your raisons d'etre

your painful feelings= proud proof that you are dealing with your feelings head on...


(hmm.. not sure why I put this here... Tim and I have three blogs, altogether, *shrugs*... it's not ranting, just thoughts... :)