Oerdin's Iraq thread - Continued

[Dinner]

Opps, Uday and Qusay were shot in Mosul not Tikrit. Saddam's spider hole was just north of Tikrit though. Looks like I won't be seeing Uday's safe house after all. BTW I did piss in the master bathroom at Saddam's main palace in Tikrit so I guess I did use the grand dictators luu. To bad the water wasn't working.

[Dinner]

Ok, now for the serious stuff. I got two RPGs fired at my convoy today including one at my vehicle. Luckily, both of them missed. I was running a mission to the Tikrit Police Station with Civil Affairs, HQ 1-18, and a truck with eight Iraqi National Guard and everything seemed to be going well. The major and the other officers go in to speak with the major and various persons inside while I take my ATL and three ING outside to the market to distribute anti-IED leaflets. We've had an increasing number of IEDs lately and last week there was even an anti-tank mine found in the middle of the main highway so Psyop is trying to discourage that behavior by pointing out that it is almost always innocent Iraqi civilians who end up dying. Any way things go well and we distribute over 800 leaflets in 20 minutes.

As usual it was damn hot and to reward the guys for handing out the leaflets so quickly I tell the guys that I'll buy everyone Ice Cream; at 4 for $1 even I can swing that. So any way we get ice cream and everyone is relaxing. We've been to this police station dozens of times before and nothing ever happened. We have our perimeter set up and everyone is in the right place but most of the guys, myself included, are paying more attention to the ice cream then the perimeter.

That's when two medium sized explosions went off on the other side of the highway. I was sitting in my uparmored humvee eating ice cream (just like most everybody else) so I didn't see anything until the explosions. My turret gunner is well trained so he immediately started to travers towards the impact area. I could see the dust crowd but I didn't know exactly what had happened; the blasts were to small to be car bombs but it could have been IEDs, mortars, or RPGs. I take up a firing position behind a wall of HESCO barriers and watch a bunch of police and ING run over to the place where the explosions occurred (about 50 feet from me), however, I kept thinking I had better not run to the explosion site and I ordered my team to wait a minute before going over there. I kept thinking about how Palestinian bombers will often set a small diversionary bomb so that a crowd will gather around and then they detonate the big bomb plus if it was a mortar then the firers have that spot zeroed and the next round will likely land there.

So any ways I let 60 seconds go by while covering the growing crowd from behind the HESCO wall. Three Iraqi civilians crashed there cars into each other when the explosions occurred and no secondary explosions occur so I grab my translator and three INGs and go over to see if there are any wounded. There are no wounded other then a couple of guys who got banged up in the car crashes but there are two small impact craters on the far side of the concrete and I found the twisted remains of an RPG-7 tail fin nearby. Right then two US soldiers who were originally watching the rear of the police station come running up and say they say the RPGs right after they were fired and that one of the RPGs just missed their vehicle and the other one went wide of my vehicle.

They say they know where they where fired from and the two of them start running off towards the supposed point of origin. I didn't want them to go off alone without proper support but both of them are SFCs so they out rank me so I couldn't really tell them no. I see CA is on the radio calling in the report of contact and requesting telling the QRF our location so I do just about the only thing I can do I grab my ATL, have my translator tell the ING to follow us and we run after the two SFCs who said they knew where the RPGs came from. We form a tactical column and after a block we arrive at a house which one of the SFCs says was the point of origin. We form a combat perimeter and the SFC begins banging on the door and yelling for them to open up (in English). When no one opens the courtyard door the SFC tries to break it down but it doesn't work so two of the other soldiers climb over and unlock the courtyard door.

Inside is an Iraqi house wife who is completely hysterical. She's screaming her head off and crying at the same time. The SFC is yelling at her in English to tell him where the rocket men are; I realize yelling at her in English isn't going to get us any where so I try to find my translator. It turns out the translator got scared and had gone back to the police station so I radio for him to rejoin the team immediately and that we needed him. It took him a minute or two to arrive and by then a four man team had gone in to clear the house. The woman is still screaming hysterically and the neighbors are coming out of their houses to see what's going on. My translator finally arrives and I decide I need to take control of the situation so I have him explain to her that two RPGs were just fired at our convoy and that we believe they came from her house. She denies that any RPGs were fired from her house and says she wasn't involved with any attempts to kill Americans. She's still crying so I tell her to stand against the wall (so she'd be out of the way and easier to watch), that no one was going to hurt her, and that if the house was clear we'd leave. The search team comes out of the house and says they didn't find anyone else or any sign of weapons. Six more soldiers arrive on the scene and the Captain from HQ 1-18 take over he tells us to search the house next door and then he apologizes to the woman for scaring her and was explaining to her what happened right as my team goes to clear the house next door.

The house next door was completely empty. It didn't even look like anyone lived there. I begin asking the neighbors if they saw anything and one of them claims that they saw two men with RPG launchers fire the RPGs then get into a white four door car and speed off. Four or five Iraqi police cars loaded with policemen arrive and we have them cordon off the whole neighborhood. I realize the men who fired the rockets are most likely long gone but it's best to try any way, maybe we'll get lucky.

The Captain has us search two more houses but we turn up nothing. So I decide the only thing left for me to do is to have my translator broadcast over the loud speaker system what happened and asking anyone who saw anything to please report it to the Iraqi police station near by. Of course no one comes forward saying they saw anything. Still a hair raising day.

[Dinner]

Things are definately heating up a bit over here and I expect it to get hotter over the next couple of weeks. There are some operations in the works that are bound to piss off some of the locals so how can it not?

[debeest]

Stay indoors, Oerdin.

By the way, how do you pronounce your screen name?

[Dinner]

O-er-din.

[Kropotkin]

I realize yelling at her in English isn't going to get us any where so I try to find my translator.

No ****, Sherlock!

But really, stay away from RPGs out there. You're one of the best source of news on the iraqi situation out there, we need you alive!

[johnj92131]

Here is a link to a story from another soldier in Tikrit, written by SGT. 1ST CLASS HARVEY COLE, with Company C, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.

Any chance you know him Oerdin?

http://www.waxahachiedailylight.com/WAXAHACHIEDAILYLIGHT/myarticles.asp?P=1021147&S=420&PubID=16514

[Dinner]

I don't know a SFC Cole but I live in the same building as Charlie 1-18.

[Dinner]

I've been sick as a dog for the last three days. A couple of friends and I went out to midnight chow at the dinning facility where we got pizza. The pizza was cold and looked like it had been sitting around for a while but we were hungry so we eat it any way. The next morning all three of us were sick. Throwing up and having the runs.

The runs are the worst part. It's like you're peeing out of your arse.

[chequita guevara]

I hate that.

[Barinthus]

Ugh, eat some bananas - it helps to stop the runs sometimes.

Whoa, must be a heart-pounding day for you (the house searching incident). Glad nobody seems to be hurt.

As you probably know already, the Iraqi government signed that amensty order. Have you been able to deduce the local population's reaction to the offer? And to the recent calls by Sadr to resist the 'occupation' (is it even an occupation anymore?) and the government?

[Kropotkin]

Things seems to be heating up quite a bit again. It will probably get a tad worse before the disorder reaches a peak and goes down again. So it might be a good idea to eat some more of that pizza and find a nice sick bed, preferably in a bunker of some sort.

[Ted Striker]

Poor advice.

He should unleash the methane gas/diarreah weapon on the insurgents.

[Dinner]

Bar: We've seen limited surrenders here in central Iraq but there has been a large increase in the number of people seeking amnesty in the shia area of southern Iraq, especially near Najaf. I suspect the recent government/coalition action near Najaf has something to do with it.

Last night at around 8pm a mortar landed in the parking lot in front of my palace. In total three vehicles, including my uparmored humvee, were damaged. The rear driver's side tire got a two inch gash in the side wall, there were four dime sized shrapnel holes in the rear driver's side fender, and a chunk of the rear driver's side window was taken out. The window is made of bullet proof glass so it didn't shatter but there is a nice mark left in it.

We put the spare tire on this morning and went out as usual. We attended the city council meeting in Al Alam which is just on the east side of the Tirgris from Tikrit, distributed 700 anti-IED leaflets in Al Alam's main market place, and inspected a new irrigation water pumping station on the north side of Al Alam. The contractor had claimed the pumping station was completed, however, when we got there the he couldn't get the thing to run. So we cancelled the ribbon cutting cerimony and the sheep which was going to be the main course at the party got a reprieve for a day or two.

[Pekka]

Damn it Oerdin, sounds like there's been some action. That's the worst IMO, getting 'ambushed'. Good stuff it missed your vehicle Just thinking though.. how the hell can they fire 2 rpgs and miss both on vehicles not moving? Do they have some kind of improvised rpgs or are they just not trained to handle it, or what do you think?

But still, that's pretty scary stuff. Good thinking on the chase though.. looks like you have your stuff together in stress too Ability to think under situation is gold.

Come back in one piece. And give'em hell!