Letter 25

8/14/06

Hi,
Just wanted to let everyone know what has been going on over here for the last couple of weeks. We just finished up a huge combined operation where the US and Iraqi National Police (INP) swept through several neighborhoods looking for weapons and wanted people. Well, not to say they didn't know we were coming, but there was a note in one house that said " To US forces, this house is clear, please don't break anything". I didn't participate in the house clearing ops, we established security around the neighborhood. We spent at least 12 hours a day patrolling and checking positions and telling Iraqis to put their helmets on. We received machine gun fire one day while we were out and one of our teams was actually attacked by one of the Iraqi checkpoints. The Iraqis thought the Marines were civilians approaching them in the dark of night. One Marine was lightly wounded in the attack, before the Marines were able t o regain control of the Iraqis. The guys responsible were thrown in jail by the Iraqi General. Now we are in recovery ops, basically resting for a couple of days from all of the fun we had and sending up reports and doing all kinds of paperwork, okay, not really resting. Here is a picture of me as we were getting ready to do one of our patrols. It was taken by a Combat Camera crew member who was with us documenting the experience. I have lots of photos of the time they were out with us and a couple of videos that I will have to share with you all. Just wanted to say hello and let everyone know what's going on in Iraq, I'm off to go eat chow, its the first time we haven't had to wear all of our protective gear to eat in 2 months.
84 days left,