Oerdin's Iraq thread.

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Arrian
My first car was SUCH a PoS. But it was the right thing to give me. I was a freaking maniac back then!

Heh same here. I still have those ridiciously high insurance premiums, sigh.

everybody's first car should be PoS. Mine was definitely one ha.

[Frankychan]

[edited due to stupidity]

[Frankychan]

[same]

[The Mad Monk]

That's the smartest thing you have ever posted.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Cruddy
Best of luck - I'd send you some tea tree oil to sort it out but you never did PM me an Army post box address... Too late now, best of luck with it.

Sorry Cruddy, I must have missed that post or else I would have responded. Thanks for the tip about tea tree oil though.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by oerdin's sis
Flipped??? Is that the word for what you did to the poor little Escort?? I thought it was more like rolled... How about my Moza??? Mall security had to call me!! : ) And the others!!! Poor little cars!!

The Monza simply didn't have enough motor oil in it. As I recall you did that as well to a certain '74 VW.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by oerdin's sis
Well.... I have often wondered if the way to get all the bad guys to surrender is to simply allow Oerdin to drive freely around the country......

Most of the soldiers drive really, really poorly over here. They don't want to stop in traffic because then you are a sitting duck for an ambush so instead they'll drive on the sidewalk, the median, the other side of the street, any where so they won't have to stand still.

I remember a one hour trip from Tikrit to Balad I made with a few of the guys from the 362 Psyop Company right before they left to return to the US. I saw one of their vehicles get into four accidents in a one hour period. That's an average of one accident every 15 minutes.

They even welded on steel ramming plates just so they could do more damage to the other vehicles. Still, most of the Iraqi civilians now get out of the way when they see a military convoy. Before they'd just sit there or maybe even try to cut you off so I guess something good has come of it.

[Kuciwalker]

[Dinner]

The last two days have been kind of slow. We've been working with Alpha and Bravo companies of the 1-21 to control two demonstrations, however, using the word demonstration isn't really correct since only a handful of people showed up. One of the local Shi'a Imams feels that Arabs and Kurds are being treated as second class citizens in Kirkuk and he has called two demonistrations to display Arab/Turkomen unity. The problem is he called is demonstration on the same day as a big demonstration in Baghdad. The result was everyone went to take part in the Baghdad demonstration and almost no one was left for the demonstration in Kirkuk.

The poor Imam tried to fix the problem by call for a second demonstration the next day but it seems most of the people were to tired from the previous day because no one showed up.

In other news I have finally gotten my hands on a side arm. I picked up a spare Tariq 9mm semi-automatic pistol which was given to me by a Captain in the 1-21. They took the Tariq during a cordon and search mission several months ago because the owner had more then the legal limit of fire arms in one house. The Tariq is not a pretty looking gun nor is it particularly well made but it is based on a Berretta design so does function well enough. The Tariq was made under licence in Iraq during the eight year war with Iran and is actually a cheaper cousin to the Berretta 9mm pistol issued by the US Army. The main differences are that the tariq is a single action handgun with an 8 round magazine while the American handgun is a double action with a 11 round magazine. The US made Berretta also makes extensive use of plastics to lower weight and has a hammer decocking safety while the Tariq requires the opperator to manually decock the hammer (thus risking an accidental firing).

I carry the Tariq in a Special Ops brand drop down holster which I bought four years ago for my deployment to Kosovo. I've also sawed off the wooden stock on the Libian made AK-47 I've aquired. The Libyan version of the AK-47 is a real dog with parts that look poorly machined and wood that looks like it was rejected by every other manufacturer before the Libyans finally got their hands on it. The front site post is broken but it has a wooden foregrip on it so with the stock sawed off it might actually be useful as a scattergun. I have one clip with 29 rounds for the AK so my M-16 is going to remain my weapon of choice but at least I now have a few back ups.

[Barinthus]

I sure hope you tested those back-ups you have. Wouldn't want one of those to explode in your face during being under fire.

[Dinner]

I need to find a nice out of the way place to test them. The Tariq seems to be in excellent working order though I'm not to sure about the AK.

[Barinthus]

Seems gunfire's a norm especially during a celebration over there so just time your practice to correspond with theirs .

You don't get opportunties to go around the countryside?

Yeah I was more concerned about that AK, it's a Libyan one after all! Ah well I'm sure you know what you're doing.

[Dinner]

I do get lots of opportunities to visit the country side. I will test them soon.

The AK seems to not have the original firing pin and the new one looks to be a bit to long. There were carbon marks on the bolt which seemed to indicate blow by was occuring when the weapon was fired so I'm not to egar to fire it.

[Barinthus]

Hire out some rural Iraqi to test it out for you?

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Oerdin

---

They even welded on steel ramming plates just so they could do more damage to the other vehicles. Still, most of the Iraqi civilians now get out of the way when they see a military convoy. Before they'd just sit there or maybe even try to cut you off so I guess something good has come of it.

Psyops trying to win the hearts and minds of the local population?