Peru

"It's this whole other country..."

Iraq Pictures

Crossing a canal (fortunately there was no sewage in it)

Shooting with the Iraqis

One of my Iraqi counterparts

My platoon receiving their combat patches

Teaching Iraqis how to fix a HMMWV

One of the many shrines to Sadr in the area (he's the guy at the bottom. His father is on the right, grandfather on the left, and the guy on top is Ali Hussein, the OG Shia guy)

Stryker in the desert

Dust Devil

People drink out of this same canal

Arm wrestling Iraqi kids

This wasn't the kind of weapon we hoped to find, but oh well.

Diyala River

These pictures represent a pretty good cross section of the different areas we saw, things we did, and Iraqis we encountered. The pictures that look like they were taken from up in the air I took from a helicopter. From October 2008 to June 2009 we lived in a small Combat Outpost in a village in the Diyala River Valley about 35 minutes Northeast of Baqubah, which in turn is about 45 minutes Northeast of Baghdad. Diyala province runs from just outside Sadr City in Baghdad in the SW all the way up to Kurdistan in the NE. The easter border is the Iran/Iraq border and the western border is the Tigris river. The COP we lived in consisted of an Iraqi school and a few houses that were surrounded by blast walls, making a sort of fort in the middle of an Iraqi village. We spent alot of time searching the palm groves along the Diyala river for caches and IED's, and did manage to find some sizable caches left over from a few years ago when there was actually fighting going on. All our operations were conducted in conjunction with the Iraqi Army, which is why they are in some of the above pictures. We also spent time training them on vehicle maintenance and marksmanship, which is always interesting since they do not emphasize weapons safety the same way we do.

On 1 January 2009 the Status of Forces Agreement became official, but that did not change our daily operations. Part of the SOFA stipulated that all US troops would be out of the cities by 30 June 2009, but since nothing changed in January, no one on the US side really thought that the Iraqis would enforce this clause. Once 30 June drew close, however, Iraqis began insisting that they were serious about the out of the cities clause, and our COP as well as many others was closed and our company moved to FOB Grizzly, about an hour to the north. With the move we adopted a new area of operations that covered a huge swath of land bordered by the Diyala River in the south and followed the Hamrin Mountains all the way north to the border with Suleymaniyah Province. After 30 June US forces' movements were very restricted, so we mostly just met with the Iraqi Army to ensure that they were patrolling their areas. Fortunately, we only had to deal with about 6 weeks of this before our replacement unit arrived and we passed everything over to them.

Back

As you may or may not already know, our unit got back to Alaska early yesterday morning. We spent about a week in transit at various camps in Iraq and Kuwait and then made the 17 hour flight with a one hour stop in Germany- Frankfurt I think but don't really care. That should answer the basic travel questions. Since we're back in the land of high speed internet I'll post more pictures soon, and if I'm feeling especially froggy maybe I'll write a synopsis of our year in Iraq. So, thanks for all your prayers over the last year and stay tuned right here for more exciting tales from Alaska.

Pictures

Here's what the eastern Iraqi desert looks like, in case you were wondering:

Dust Devil.

Here are my rings during a dust storm, which is why everything looks brown.  Took this during the worst dust storm we've seen over here.
I've got alot more pictures, but it takes a while to upload, so I'll just do a few at a time.

Article

I recently had the "opportunity" to write an article for our brigade's monthly news letter.  Now, I don't want to throw around the word propaganda lightly, but maybe, just maybe it smells a little like propaganda.  Since I had to write about what's going on at work for work, the article might as well find it's way onto the blog so I can combine work and not work.

One note on the article is that it is not about something my platoon did but about another platoon in our company.  However, we all do pretty much the same stuff and my guys and I have had very similar experiences.  Also, I tried to minimize the acronyms, but there's still plenty in there, so here's a short glossary:

IED- Improvised Explosive Device

IN- Infantry

SFC- Sergeant First Class

FOB- Forward Operation Base

HA- Humanitarian Aid

IP- Iraqi Police

SSG- Staff Sergeant

CPL- Corporal

AO- Area of Operations

ISF- Iraqi Security Forces (denotes military and/or police)

Kharnabot- a town in our AO (see above for AO definition)

One other note: this is the uncensored version that I originally wrote.  The Army, being what it is, didn't appreciate some of the sentiments expressed in the third paragraph so they changed it.  Not a big deal, but I think it's funnier this way.

Here's the actual article:

"On 15 May 2009, something significant occurred in Kharnabot- nothing involving insurgents, IED’s or rocket attacks, however.  Instead, 1^st Platoon C/1-24 IN assisted the Iraqi Police with Humanitarian Aid distribution in the town that formerly served as a base for rocket attacks against FOB Warhorse.  SFC Schramm led the patrol along with members of the Kharnabot Police Station and said, “It was an exercise in by the numbers to get them to plan and execute it, like in basic training.”  A total of 51 families received bags of rice or sugar, but more importantly, 1^st Platoon helped their Iraqi partners with an aid drop and showed Iraqi citizens that the Iraqi Police are not only capable of protecting them but also helping those in need. 

            While all the supplies came from Coalition Forces, SSG Jones ensured that the Iraqi Police did most of the legwork as far as organizing and distributing the drop.  “All they needed was to be pointed in the right direction, and once they saw what the goal was they got the job done,” said SSG Jones.  Previous HA drops in AO Centurion always featured ISF in some aspect, but Friday’s operation enabled the IP’s to set up, unload the truck, check the list of names, and pass out all the HA to the appropriate families; an especially important step for the IP’s given the looming 30 June deadline for all Coalition Forces to withdraw from Iraqi cities.  The days of Coalition Forces’ HA drops are numbered, but it is certain that the Iraqi Police now have the experience they need to continue assisting the poor in their towns.

            Although the aid distribution was an overall success, it was not without hiccups.  At first, some of the IP’s enlisted young children to help unload the heavy bags, but 1^st Platoon quickly put a stop to this.  Other people were discontent with either the sugar or rice they received, preferring one or the other.  “I guess free isn’t good enough,” said one CPL, a team leader in 1^st Platoon.  Despite the seeming lack of gratitude, most people were very happy with the food.  SFC Hart said that the part he was most impressed with was that all the key players arrived on time and that the IP’s had an efficient system where people could wait, get screened, and receive their aid with minimal hassle.  While the IP’s might not have conducted the mission in the exact same manner as 1^st Platoon, the end result was the same and the US soldiers learned a valuable lesson- enable the Iraqis to do things their way as long as it gets the job done.

            Once all the sugar and rice had been passed out and the crowd drifted away, US soldiers and Iraqi Police were left alone on the streets with the satisfaction that comes from knowing that they helped people in need.  For 1^st Platoon, there was an additional feeling of satisfaction because they are accomplishing the mission of training ISF to be self-sufficient.  In the large scheme of things, one successful HA drop might seem insignificant, but in Kharnabot joint distribution of Humanitarian Aid proved to be a substantial milestone on the road towards US withdrawal and Iraqi self sufficiency."  

Again, this is basically a GO USA puff piece for a newsletter, but hopefully the next time their reporters go on leave they won't "ask" me to fill in.

RLTW

Non-crying Iraqi Baby

So it's been a trend over here that little kids are afraid of me and tend to cry.  This is the first baby that didn't get upset, probably because it's too little to know better.

Anyway, we've been here 6 months now and it's gone by much faster than expected.  Since the US's days are numbered in Iraq, we're under increased pressure to get Iraqis running and protecting their own country.  Most of what we do is focused on restoring infrastructure, developing their economy, improving the Iraqi military and police, and getting the government to be more efficient and at least a little less corrupt.  They're doing good if they settle for just a little bit of graft and some "lighter treason".  Sometimes we get to do the actual infantry thing, but so far these occasions have been few and far between.  Hopefully the next six months go by just as fast and we continue to see the situation improve to the point where Iraq no longer needs us here.  Until then we'll continue eating goat, drinking chai, and terrorizing children.  

Pictures