As my mission in Joint Base Balad, Iraq wrapped up, I saw massive changes going on around me; dining facility closed, water point drop offs discontinued, WiFi shut off, PX closure...all these things were great indications that we are in fact finally leaving this desolate country. However, these amenities are simple facilities to shutdown, all it takes is a few containers to pack all their goods up and load it on a few trucks. The most dramatic change I saw up in Balad was when logistic trucks arrived in mass and emptied out the combat arms motor pool which were filled with tanks, track recovery vehicles and other heavy machinery. In a matter of one week, two battalion sized motor pools were vacated. The base turned into a virtual ghost town.
Personally, I had an Iraqi General visit my motor pool to inventory everything I would be leaving behind. Slightly nerve racking considering what happened up in Mosul when my convoy was forced out of Contingency Operation Site (COS) Marez as the Iraqi Army was coming through the unmanned gate to take the base over. Within 24 hours of the base being handed over to the Iraqi Army (IA), COS Marez was completely destroyed. US Forces left everything needed for the IA to simply come in, fill the generators up with fuel, turn them on and they could live there. Not exactly how the IA saw it. The IA went in there, took everything valuable out (TVs, fridges, microwaves, equipment etc) and then started tearing things up. I had a convoy up there that was forced to leave before having a chance to get any rest because their safety was in jeopardy. When I say the IA destroyed the base, there is no exaggeration in that. Walls were torn down, windows smashed....take it how you want but they are a corrupt society and always will be. So now I have an IA General rummaging through the building in my motor pool asking what I'm leaving behind. I gave him a broken office chair out of everything in the building. Enjoy buddy.
I enjoy being on the road with my Soldiers. It gives me a chance to get to know them more, especially the ones who's truck I ride in. You figure after going on an 8 hour drive with someone, you get to know quite a bit about them....but that 8 hours is only one way...still got to make the drive back. Its on the road when I get the opportunity to take off the rank and work side by side with everyone. Went on a mission to COS Erbil but had to stop in COS Warrior before moving up thru the northern region of Iraq that's controlled by the Kurds. Getting to Warrior takes you through downtown Tikrit which is never an easy feat in the middle of the day with all the traffic. Fortunately on the way up, nothing happened to us in a historically bad area. Once in Warrior, I got to sit down in a DFAC again! Had eggs to order and bacon for the first time in nearly a month. The unfortunate side of being at Warrior is the living accommodations. In nearly every base we travel to, transients like us are not exactly high on the priority list for the mayor cell to give nice places to sleep in (even though we're there to get us out of Iraq, still not helpful). So in Warrior, the only place for convoy drivers to sleep is either in/on your truck or the gym floor. The only convenience this provided us was the ability to play midnight basketball for a few hours before bedding down. As resourceful as Soldiers always are, it was soon discovered that the padding along the walls were attached by Velcro. Those pads turned into our beds and were spread across the gym floor. What the mayor cell seemingly forgot to tell us was that there was a speaker inside the gym that broadcasted whenever there was a mortar attack. That morning, from 0600-0730 we received 7 mortar rounds, two of which I heard impact and rattle the gym. In that hour and a half, that speaker was almost always blaring the warnings to "Take cover! Incoming!" Sleep eluded me that morning. While driving around the base, I did see something that I found a little comical (and read about a few weeks later in the paper). I drove by the airfield and saw small little cessna single propeller one man airplanes that had "Iraqi Air Force" stenciled on the fuselage. Didn't see any way for a weapon to be mounted nor bombs be attached....not sure how much of a force you can maintain without either of these. Surprisingly enough though, while we were getting ready to roll out and were prepping in the staging lanes, I did see one of these planes circle overhead. Probably could have shot it down with my 9mm.
We pushed out of Warrior after another solid meal and into the Kurdish region where COS Erbil was. It got a little crazy at some points but most of the Iraqi Police up there were helpful when we halted in various places even rerouting traffic for us. At one point, a truck was weaving in and out of our convoy trying to make it past us when it tried to slip in between one of our trucks and a civilian truck. The pickup clipped the front end of the truck in front of me with it's tailgate causing it to spin out of control and down into a ditch some 50ft off the roadside. We halted the convoy and before we could even get out to help, 6 or 7 other civilian vehicles stopped and ran down to help. Amazingly enough the truck was still right sided and was able to crawl out of the ditch. We sent up our medic to provide any aide we could but everyone was just a little shaken up (father, mother and young daughter).
Heading into the Kurdish region there was a drastic change in just about ever aspect of my opinion of this country. The Kurds were not a part of Iraq but were taken over by Hussan years ago. They have their own flag they fly, their military and people are still very hospitable to US Forces as they have not forgotten that not long ago Iraq was run by a dictator and still view us as liberators, not occupiers. Just driving through the region you can tell that they care about what they have, cars were well kept, houses were spread out, saw quite a few houses with GRASS lawns and sprinkler systems....very strange to see. At one point we passed through farmlands...with full blown irrigation systems and giant sprinklers that you see in the plains of the midwest. CRAZY.
Our trip back from Warrior and into JBB we were not as fortunate in terms of being safe. Between Warrior and JBB there is the city of Tikrit which as I stated before, has a lot of traffic and at one point the road winds up and around causing a separation between trucks making them more vulnerable to attack. About 12 trucks in front of me, one truck was struck by two RKG-3s that ripped through the up-armored drivers side door. Ballistic glass was cracked like a spiderweb, pieces of the projectile bounced around the cab striking both occupants multiple times, door wouldn't stay shut and swung wide open exposing the two soldiers inside. What would your initial reaction be if this happened to you? Would you freeze? Would you yell STOP! TIME OUT! at the top of your lungs? Or would you do what these Soldiers did, lock and cock their M4s, point them out the door and get ready to engage? These two were extremely lucky, mostly the driver for had his head been an inch higher it would have blocked where the main body of the projectile exited. The driver, regained his momentary lapse of composure, realized his truck was still running, grabbed the door, held it shut, brought his truck back onto the road (ran up the curb after impact) and drove another 20miles to the safe zone where he finally received medical attention. It really hit home when we finally made it back to JBB where he was taken to the hospital and I was allowed into his room to see how he was doing. Shrapnel along his cheekbone, left arm and left leg and the passenger had some on her left arm. Based on the pattern of gashes had he not been wearing his eye protection he probably would have lost his eyesight. It could have very easily have been me. He was my driver two missions prior. I was in a truck just a few behind him when they were hit. I am not allowed to post photos of this on any website, nor will I, but the photos of the truck show just how lucky they both were. Combat truckers have to either be insane or avoid thinking about the fact that every time we roll, people are trying to kill us.
Anyway the mission my Soldiers and Airmen were tasked to do when we came up to Balad was to shutdown three bases in northern Iraq keeping to a strict timeline and we did just that. Prefect timing too because as we were rolling out the gate in Balad, the Iraqi Army was rolling in yet again (Ford F-350s with a mounted machine gun strapped to the roof and an IA soldier sitting in the bed on an office chair). It was a bitter sweet end rolling out the gate at JBB knowing that this was the last time this group of Soldiers would roll together.
As much as I wasn't looking forward to getting back to Camp Arifjan, I was ready for a steady diet and internet once again. But I will not soon forget the Soldiers I had the privilege of leading, time spent sitting on the roof over my motor pool at night shootin' the s**t with new friends over near-beer, playing basketball with young enlisted, and lightning storms over the staging lanes in VBC. It was an experience I won't soon forget.
Personally, I had an Iraqi General visit my motor pool to inventory everything I would be leaving behind. Slightly nerve racking considering what happened up in Mosul when my convoy was forced out of Contingency Operation Site (COS) Marez as the Iraqi Army was coming through the unmanned gate to take the base over. Within 24 hours of the base being handed over to the Iraqi Army (IA), COS Marez was completely destroyed. US Forces left everything needed for the IA to simply come in, fill the generators up with fuel, turn them on and they could live there. Not exactly how the IA saw it. The IA went in there, took everything valuable out (TVs, fridges, microwaves, equipment etc) and then started tearing things up. I had a convoy up there that was forced to leave before having a chance to get any rest because their safety was in jeopardy. When I say the IA destroyed the base, there is no exaggeration in that. Walls were torn down, windows smashed....take it how you want but they are a corrupt society and always will be. So now I have an IA General rummaging through the building in my motor pool asking what I'm leaving behind. I gave him a broken office chair out of everything in the building. Enjoy buddy.
I enjoy being on the road with my Soldiers. It gives me a chance to get to know them more, especially the ones who's truck I ride in. You figure after going on an 8 hour drive with someone, you get to know quite a bit about them....but that 8 hours is only one way...still got to make the drive back. Its on the road when I get the opportunity to take off the rank and work side by side with everyone. Went on a mission to COS Erbil but had to stop in COS Warrior before moving up thru the northern region of Iraq that's controlled by the Kurds. Getting to Warrior takes you through downtown Tikrit which is never an easy feat in the middle of the day with all the traffic. Fortunately on the way up, nothing happened to us in a historically bad area. Once in Warrior, I got to sit down in a DFAC again! Had eggs to order and bacon for the first time in nearly a month. The unfortunate side of being at Warrior is the living accommodations. In nearly every base we travel to, transients like us are not exactly high on the priority list for the mayor cell to give nice places to sleep in (even though we're there to get us out of Iraq, still not helpful). So in Warrior, the only place for convoy drivers to sleep is either in/on your truck or the gym floor. The only convenience this provided us was the ability to play midnight basketball for a few hours before bedding down. As resourceful as Soldiers always are, it was soon discovered that the padding along the walls were attached by Velcro. Those pads turned into our beds and were spread across the gym floor. What the mayor cell seemingly forgot to tell us was that there was a speaker inside the gym that broadcasted whenever there was a mortar attack. That morning, from 0600-0730 we received 7 mortar rounds, two of which I heard impact and rattle the gym. In that hour and a half, that speaker was almost always blaring the warnings to "Take cover! Incoming!" Sleep eluded me that morning. While driving around the base, I did see something that I found a little comical (and read about a few weeks later in the paper). I drove by the airfield and saw small little cessna single propeller one man airplanes that had "Iraqi Air Force" stenciled on the fuselage. Didn't see any way for a weapon to be mounted nor bombs be attached....not sure how much of a force you can maintain without either of these. Surprisingly enough though, while we were getting ready to roll out and were prepping in the staging lanes, I did see one of these planes circle overhead. Probably could have shot it down with my 9mm.
We pushed out of Warrior after another solid meal and into the Kurdish region where COS Erbil was. It got a little crazy at some points but most of the Iraqi Police up there were helpful when we halted in various places even rerouting traffic for us. At one point, a truck was weaving in and out of our convoy trying to make it past us when it tried to slip in between one of our trucks and a civilian truck. The pickup clipped the front end of the truck in front of me with it's tailgate causing it to spin out of control and down into a ditch some 50ft off the roadside. We halted the convoy and before we could even get out to help, 6 or 7 other civilian vehicles stopped and ran down to help. Amazingly enough the truck was still right sided and was able to crawl out of the ditch. We sent up our medic to provide any aide we could but everyone was just a little shaken up (father, mother and young daughter).
Heading into the Kurdish region there was a drastic change in just about ever aspect of my opinion of this country. The Kurds were not a part of Iraq but were taken over by Hussan years ago. They have their own flag they fly, their military and people are still very hospitable to US Forces as they have not forgotten that not long ago Iraq was run by a dictator and still view us as liberators, not occupiers. Just driving through the region you can tell that they care about what they have, cars were well kept, houses were spread out, saw quite a few houses with GRASS lawns and sprinkler systems....very strange to see. At one point we passed through farmlands...with full blown irrigation systems and giant sprinklers that you see in the plains of the midwest. CRAZY.
Our trip back from Warrior and into JBB we were not as fortunate in terms of being safe. Between Warrior and JBB there is the city of Tikrit which as I stated before, has a lot of traffic and at one point the road winds up and around causing a separation between trucks making them more vulnerable to attack. About 12 trucks in front of me, one truck was struck by two RKG-3s that ripped through the up-armored drivers side door. Ballistic glass was cracked like a spiderweb, pieces of the projectile bounced around the cab striking both occupants multiple times, door wouldn't stay shut and swung wide open exposing the two soldiers inside. What would your initial reaction be if this happened to you? Would you freeze? Would you yell STOP! TIME OUT! at the top of your lungs? Or would you do what these Soldiers did, lock and cock their M4s, point them out the door and get ready to engage? These two were extremely lucky, mostly the driver for had his head been an inch higher it would have blocked where the main body of the projectile exited. The driver, regained his momentary lapse of composure, realized his truck was still running, grabbed the door, held it shut, brought his truck back onto the road (ran up the curb after impact) and drove another 20miles to the safe zone where he finally received medical attention. It really hit home when we finally made it back to JBB where he was taken to the hospital and I was allowed into his room to see how he was doing. Shrapnel along his cheekbone, left arm and left leg and the passenger had some on her left arm. Based on the pattern of gashes had he not been wearing his eye protection he probably would have lost his eyesight. It could have very easily have been me. He was my driver two missions prior. I was in a truck just a few behind him when they were hit. I am not allowed to post photos of this on any website, nor will I, but the photos of the truck show just how lucky they both were. Combat truckers have to either be insane or avoid thinking about the fact that every time we roll, people are trying to kill us.
Anyway the mission my Soldiers and Airmen were tasked to do when we came up to Balad was to shutdown three bases in northern Iraq keeping to a strict timeline and we did just that. Prefect timing too because as we were rolling out the gate in Balad, the Iraqi Army was rolling in yet again (Ford F-350s with a mounted machine gun strapped to the roof and an IA soldier sitting in the bed on an office chair). It was a bitter sweet end rolling out the gate at JBB knowing that this was the last time this group of Soldiers would roll together.
As much as I wasn't looking forward to getting back to Camp Arifjan, I was ready for a steady diet and internet once again. But I will not soon forget the Soldiers I had the privilege of leading, time spent sitting on the roof over my motor pool at night shootin' the s**t with new friends over near-beer, playing basketball with young enlisted, and lightning storms over the staging lanes in VBC. It was an experience I won't soon forget.
Thanks for the post man. Real interesting hearing what you're up too! Keep up the good work.
ReplyDelete