Having fun in Iraq

4/23/06


Hello everyone, just thought I would write everyone again and let you all know how things are over here. Our team has been busy with several new transitions. Our Iraqi Brigade General was replaced with another General, and within a week we had to take him to the hospital for a possible heart condition. I guess he just isn't used to working with people like us. A couple of days ago they changed our Brigade from 4th Brigade 1st Division Commandos to 7th Brigade 2nd Division Public Order Brigade. That changes all kinds of stuff for us on the American side. We even thought we might have to move again. Luckily we aren't going anywhere, we are staying with the Iraqis we have been working with. It doesn't really affect a lot of the way we operate, except for on the Admin side, it changes how the reports are done and where they go through. Good thing I'm the Admin officer. So not to confuse everyone even more, but our higher headquarters was MNSTC-I, (multi-national security transition command Iraq) disowned us and we now belong to IAG, (Iraq Assistance Group). That really messed up a lot of our Admin stuff, especially leave. I had to spend a lot of time and effort to make sure our guys who are going on R&R in May were taken care of. Of course I have to make sure everyone in June is squared away too, especially me. Speaking of me, I almost got shot a few days ago. I was talking with another Soldier who had just returned from a patrol. He didn't clear his weapon when he came back in and it wasn't on safe. I was only a few feet away from him when he fired a round into the ground next to his foot. Of course he swears his weapon wasn't loaded, but you have to treat every weapon as if it was loaded. I will also have to send some more pictures out. We had a mission the other night where we had some Engineers come out and try to dig a burn pit for the Iraqis since they have decided that collecting garbage is more fun than disposing of it. Well the Engineers brought out two ACEs (Armored Combat Earthmovers) basically big armored bulldozers and within an hour had them both stuck and partially buried. We had to call in two bigger armored bulldozers to pull them out. I attached a picture that I took, but it is kinda hard to see exactly what is going on. As you can see, the tracks are completely buried. I was talking to the Engineer who was in charge at the time and he had gotten his HMMWV stuck in the mud a couple of days after that incident. He said his buddies are having a good time picking on him for all of that. Well, I just wanted to let everyone know what was going on these last couple of weeks. Take care and I will write more when I get a chance.