Rain, anyone?
Just a couple of months ago I was reading an article on how global warming was going to turn the center of the US back into a dust bowl comparable to the 1930’s. I’m thinking that this will not be the major problem this summer. On the topic of rain, it actually began to rain here a couple of weeks ago during a sand storm. The result was basically mud globs falling from the sky. The rain part didn’t last very long.
Everyone is probably already aware of the fact that IEDs are the main killer of our troops over here right now, with 80% of US casualties being caused by IED strikes. My guess is that I don’t even have to define what those initials stand for, but just in case, they stand for Improvised Explosive Device. There are now several variants on the IED term. A VBIED is a vehicle borne IED, while a SVBIED is a suicide vehicle borne IED. The difference is that a person is in the SVBIED when it is detonated, while the VBIED is a parked vehicle that is detonated by remote control or timer. There is also the HBIED, or house borne IED, and then there is the SVEST, or suicide vest. Basically, it seems that if anything explodes and belongs to the insurgents, it has the term IED attached. The most deadly to date has been the Iranian provided EFP IED, which is an explosively formed projectile IED. These devices have copper placed inside of them and upon explosion, the copper shoots out towards the target at super high speeds and in a molten state so that it penetrates through armor. The EFP has been a Shiite weapon due to their close ties to Iran. The Sunni up here in the north have fortunately not been able to get their hands on those things yet, although they are trying to make their own version.
While I was eating dinner last week, I was approached by a couple of lieutenants who informed me that they have used the Lessons Learned handbook on route clearance, but that this handbook, being two years old now, was outdated due to the rapidly changing enemy tactics and procedures. They wondered if I would be interested in working with them to update the information in the publication. That happens to be one of the reasons I am over here, so of course I was interested. These lieutenants are combat engineers who work in a route clearance company. Their purpose in life over here is to clear routes of IEDs, so naturally they invited me along to watch them practice their trade.
Needless to say, we have convoys and patrols out on the roadways constantly. These route clearance units are some of the most appreciated units out here. Their priority is to find and clear any IED that is along their assigned route. To clear it is to make it safe before it explodes. If they do not successfully recognize an IED, they will tell you that their second goal is to have that IED explode on them rather than on another US or Iraqi convoy against vehicles that are less protected from the blast than the vehicles they use. This is what these route clearance units do, every day and every night, all over Iraq.
The big vehicle in the attached picture is called a Buffalo. It is a 25 ton monster, and that mechanical arm on top is used to poke around at suspicious objects. The caging that you see is used to defeat rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs. While the route clearance crews have to keep a sharp eye out for IEDs, they also have to keep an eye out for the angry insurgents, who obviously are not happy when these crews remove their IEDs. While the Buffalo is by no means invincible, it can take a pretty big punch and keep on moving.
I jumped in and rode in the Buffalo on a morning route clearance mission that took us on a round trip from Tikrit all the way south to about Samarra and back. We were clearing a well traveled divided highway with 2 lanes in each direction. The route clearance patrol is made up of four vehicles, and they take up both sides of the highway, with 2 vehicles driving against traffic and 2 driving with traffic. The locals understand the drill by now, so when they see the vehicles coming, they pull over and stop. This does tend to tie up traffic, but the other option for the locals is for them to hit more IEDs themselves if the Americans weren’t out clearing their roads.
There are different ways for an insurgent to detonate his IED on a vehicle. One way is through a remote control device, such as a cell phone. They also use pressure plates over their IEDs, or crush wire, which is exactly what it sounds like. If you have never seen an Iraqi roadway (and chances are that you haven’t), they are strewn with trash and discarded tires and anything else you can imagine. All of this stuff makes for great hiding places for IEDs. The crews travel these roadways enough that they are very good at recognizing when something is out of place. It is a technique called change detection. There are blast holes all along the route from previous IED attacks, yet these guys will notice when a hole looks as if it has been re-used. Among all of the trash, they are able to recognize when something looks out of place, and they are great at noticing wires on the roadway. They don’t take chances by passing on something that looks suspicious. Just because a hole was empty yesterday doesn’t mean that it will be empty today, so the patrol is slow and meticulous.
The crew poked and prodded at several objects during our patrol, but we didn’t find anything IED related. A couple of impatient locals tried to weave their way through the patrol at one point, but that isn’t allowed due to the VBIED threat. They kept coming despite the flashing lights and blowing air horns, but the site of a .50 caliber machine gun aiming down at them made them reconsider. For the record, the patrol does move off of the roadway on several occasions to allow the cars to pass. An unfortunate side effect of that nice gesture is that the locals sometimes find the IEDs that the route clearance team may have found. The insurgents will watch for the route clearance patrol, and they will try to arm their munitions to hit the US trucks when they see them coming. They know that the cars have to remain behind the patrols. On occasion, the patrol has pulled off to allow traffic to pass, not knowing that an IED has been armed just up the street. The result is obvious. AQI is losing its popularity right now, so they really don’t like to kill locals unless they are police or army, so these types of incidents don’t go over well for their cause.
While there are still plenty of IEDs being placed, total IEDs found and hit have been reduced significantly up here in the north in the past six months. Route clearance crews are on the job both day and night, and yes, they are even spotting these IEDs at night.
The big Iraqi Army (IA) push up in Mosul is having some pretty decent effects. While the IA arrested over 800 suspects up there, our guys estimate that about 200 were high value targets. Not a bad haul. While many AQI headed west to escape back to Syria over the open desert, the US had some task forces out there waiting for them. Over 300 AQI were killed trying to get to the Syrian border in the past couple of months, and many more were captured. It now appears that some of the AQI who escaped Mosul are heading back in this direction down the Tigris River Valley. Looks like it’s time to call on those Navy Riverine forces to come into action up here. The Marines have actually been using the Navy forces over in Anbar Province in the Euphrates River Valley, so maybe they will let our side borrow them for awhile. Unfortunately, over the past couple of days, AQI has gone to Iraqi Police homes in Mosul and placed RCIEDs (Remote Controlled IEDs) next to their front doors. They have also killed 2 Sheiks up in western Mosul for calling on the locals to help the IA defeat the insurgency. As I have said before, AQI vowed never to be pushed from Mosul, so they aren’t going to leave quietly.
To give you some idea about the reduction in the level of violence in Iraq, there have been fewer enemy attacks in the rest of Iraq combined than there were in the north last week. I am not pointing that out to suggest that things are out of control in the north, but that things are settling down in the rest of the nation. The Sunni are still battling up here the best they can, and Syria is close enough to keep offering sanctuary and support. To put the numbers in persepective, one year ago, there were as many attacks per province per week in the north as there now are in the entire northern region per week. An attack does not mean killings, by the way. It is just enemy action directed against coalition forces or IA or other local nationals. The battle is certainly not over, but the violence is heading in the right direction.
Let me give you a quick Vince Lombardi quote. He once said, “It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.”
I write that quote to segway into the fact that Saturday was the Army’s 233rd birthday, and I have to put in a plug for my service. The Army is doing some heavy lifting over here and over in Afghanistan. Our sister services are here as well, but the Army is carrying the bulk of the load. Its forces are taking the heaviest casualties, both in killed and wounded. That isn’t surprising since this is mainly a ground fight. However, as I have mentioned before, there are several other federal agencies that are missing in action, and the Army is filling in where they are absent.
We use the term, “The Army,” but that Army is made up of individual soldiers who get up, suit up, and head out into the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan to perform their duties – every day. It really isn’t possible through email to do justice to the work they are performing or to the situations that they are encountering, but I can tell you that they are definitely “doing” and they are “achieving” – every day. They aren’t running from AQI, or Ansar al-Sunnah, or al-Mahdi, they are running after them. It is a pretty amazing feeling to link up with a platoon of soldiers, gather in a circle and unashamedly say a prayer, then load up and go search for bad guys. I am honored to be having the opportunity to work with these soldiers who are, in their words, just doing their jobs. I can tell you that you can be proud of the soldiers in your Army as it turns 233.
Just a couple of months ago I was reading an article on how global warming was going to turn the center of the US back into a dust bowl comparable to the 1930’s. I’m thinking that this will not be the major problem this summer. On the topic of rain, it actually began to rain here a couple of weeks ago during a sand storm. The result was basically mud globs falling from the sky. The rain part didn’t last very long.
Everyone is probably already aware of the fact that IEDs are the main killer of our troops over here right now, with 80% of US casualties being caused by IED strikes. My guess is that I don’t even have to define what those initials stand for, but just in case, they stand for Improvised Explosive Device. There are now several variants on the IED term. A VBIED is a vehicle borne IED, while a SVBIED is a suicide vehicle borne IED. The difference is that a person is in the SVBIED when it is detonated, while the VBIED is a parked vehicle that is detonated by remote control or timer. There is also the HBIED, or house borne IED, and then there is the SVEST, or suicide vest. Basically, it seems that if anything explodes and belongs to the insurgents, it has the term IED attached. The most deadly to date has been the Iranian provided EFP IED, which is an explosively formed projectile IED. These devices have copper placed inside of them and upon explosion, the copper shoots out towards the target at super high speeds and in a molten state so that it penetrates through armor. The EFP has been a Shiite weapon due to their close ties to Iran. The Sunni up here in the north have fortunately not been able to get their hands on those things yet, although they are trying to make their own version.
While I was eating dinner last week, I was approached by a couple of lieutenants who informed me that they have used the Lessons Learned handbook on route clearance, but that this handbook, being two years old now, was outdated due to the rapidly changing enemy tactics and procedures. They wondered if I would be interested in working with them to update the information in the publication. That happens to be one of the reasons I am over here, so of course I was interested. These lieutenants are combat engineers who work in a route clearance company. Their purpose in life over here is to clear routes of IEDs, so naturally they invited me along to watch them practice their trade.
Needless to say, we have convoys and patrols out on the roadways constantly. These route clearance units are some of the most appreciated units out here. Their priority is to find and clear any IED that is along their assigned route. To clear it is to make it safe before it explodes. If they do not successfully recognize an IED, they will tell you that their second goal is to have that IED explode on them rather than on another US or Iraqi convoy against vehicles that are less protected from the blast than the vehicles they use. This is what these route clearance units do, every day and every night, all over Iraq.
The big vehicle in the attached picture is called a Buffalo. It is a 25 ton monster, and that mechanical arm on top is used to poke around at suspicious objects. The caging that you see is used to defeat rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs. While the route clearance crews have to keep a sharp eye out for IEDs, they also have to keep an eye out for the angry insurgents, who obviously are not happy when these crews remove their IEDs. While the Buffalo is by no means invincible, it can take a pretty big punch and keep on moving.
I jumped in and rode in the Buffalo on a morning route clearance mission that took us on a round trip from Tikrit all the way south to about Samarra and back. We were clearing a well traveled divided highway with 2 lanes in each direction. The route clearance patrol is made up of four vehicles, and they take up both sides of the highway, with 2 vehicles driving against traffic and 2 driving with traffic. The locals understand the drill by now, so when they see the vehicles coming, they pull over and stop. This does tend to tie up traffic, but the other option for the locals is for them to hit more IEDs themselves if the Americans weren’t out clearing their roads.
There are different ways for an insurgent to detonate his IED on a vehicle. One way is through a remote control device, such as a cell phone. They also use pressure plates over their IEDs, or crush wire, which is exactly what it sounds like. If you have never seen an Iraqi roadway (and chances are that you haven’t), they are strewn with trash and discarded tires and anything else you can imagine. All of this stuff makes for great hiding places for IEDs. The crews travel these roadways enough that they are very good at recognizing when something is out of place. It is a technique called change detection. There are blast holes all along the route from previous IED attacks, yet these guys will notice when a hole looks as if it has been re-used. Among all of the trash, they are able to recognize when something looks out of place, and they are great at noticing wires on the roadway. They don’t take chances by passing on something that looks suspicious. Just because a hole was empty yesterday doesn’t mean that it will be empty today, so the patrol is slow and meticulous.
The crew poked and prodded at several objects during our patrol, but we didn’t find anything IED related. A couple of impatient locals tried to weave their way through the patrol at one point, but that isn’t allowed due to the VBIED threat. They kept coming despite the flashing lights and blowing air horns, but the site of a .50 caliber machine gun aiming down at them made them reconsider. For the record, the patrol does move off of the roadway on several occasions to allow the cars to pass. An unfortunate side effect of that nice gesture is that the locals sometimes find the IEDs that the route clearance team may have found. The insurgents will watch for the route clearance patrol, and they will try to arm their munitions to hit the US trucks when they see them coming. They know that the cars have to remain behind the patrols. On occasion, the patrol has pulled off to allow traffic to pass, not knowing that an IED has been armed just up the street. The result is obvious. AQI is losing its popularity right now, so they really don’t like to kill locals unless they are police or army, so these types of incidents don’t go over well for their cause.
While there are still plenty of IEDs being placed, total IEDs found and hit have been reduced significantly up here in the north in the past six months. Route clearance crews are on the job both day and night, and yes, they are even spotting these IEDs at night.
The big Iraqi Army (IA) push up in Mosul is having some pretty decent effects. While the IA arrested over 800 suspects up there, our guys estimate that about 200 were high value targets. Not a bad haul. While many AQI headed west to escape back to Syria over the open desert, the US had some task forces out there waiting for them. Over 300 AQI were killed trying to get to the Syrian border in the past couple of months, and many more were captured. It now appears that some of the AQI who escaped Mosul are heading back in this direction down the Tigris River Valley. Looks like it’s time to call on those Navy Riverine forces to come into action up here. The Marines have actually been using the Navy forces over in Anbar Province in the Euphrates River Valley, so maybe they will let our side borrow them for awhile. Unfortunately, over the past couple of days, AQI has gone to Iraqi Police homes in Mosul and placed RCIEDs (Remote Controlled IEDs) next to their front doors. They have also killed 2 Sheiks up in western Mosul for calling on the locals to help the IA defeat the insurgency. As I have said before, AQI vowed never to be pushed from Mosul, so they aren’t going to leave quietly.
To give you some idea about the reduction in the level of violence in Iraq, there have been fewer enemy attacks in the rest of Iraq combined than there were in the north last week. I am not pointing that out to suggest that things are out of control in the north, but that things are settling down in the rest of the nation. The Sunni are still battling up here the best they can, and Syria is close enough to keep offering sanctuary and support. To put the numbers in persepective, one year ago, there were as many attacks per province per week in the north as there now are in the entire northern region per week. An attack does not mean killings, by the way. It is just enemy action directed against coalition forces or IA or other local nationals. The battle is certainly not over, but the violence is heading in the right direction.
Let me give you a quick Vince Lombardi quote. He once said, “It is time for us all to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it.”
I write that quote to segway into the fact that Saturday was the Army’s 233rd birthday, and I have to put in a plug for my service. The Army is doing some heavy lifting over here and over in Afghanistan. Our sister services are here as well, but the Army is carrying the bulk of the load. Its forces are taking the heaviest casualties, both in killed and wounded. That isn’t surprising since this is mainly a ground fight. However, as I have mentioned before, there are several other federal agencies that are missing in action, and the Army is filling in where they are absent.
We use the term, “The Army,” but that Army is made up of individual soldiers who get up, suit up, and head out into the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan to perform their duties – every day. It really isn’t possible through email to do justice to the work they are performing or to the situations that they are encountering, but I can tell you that they are definitely “doing” and they are “achieving” – every day. They aren’t running from AQI, or Ansar al-Sunnah, or al-Mahdi, they are running after them. It is a pretty amazing feeling to link up with a platoon of soldiers, gather in a circle and unashamedly say a prayer, then load up and go search for bad guys. I am honored to be having the opportunity to work with these soldiers who are, in their words, just doing their jobs. I can tell you that you can be proud of the soldiers in your Army as it turns 233.
A disappointing update on the soccer tournament up in Kirkuk. So far, the Iraqis are up 2 games to 0, after whipping the US 6-1 and 4-1. Nobody listens to the lesson’s learned guy, but I’m telling you, football; play them in football. On second thought, I’ve watched the Army football team in recent years, so maybe that isn’t such a smart idea, either. In all seriousness, these games are attracting hundreds of people from the community. They are really enjoying it.
Everyone stay dry, and take care.
5 comments:
Craig: just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your service. I know those words have been said before and probably don't seem like much but all of us here at home pray for and care for all of our troops!
I'd love to penpal with you and your guys. I'm prior army/95B and US Coast Guard reserve.
You can email me at ramcc07@yahoo.com.
Again thank you for all that you're doing and I pray that you'll be back home soon.
Chaplain Rick McCann
Rick,
Thank you for your prayers. They are being felt. Those words do mean a lot, by the way. The support matters a lot to everyone over here.
Thanks.
I am finally glad to see someone write a positive email about the good things our troops are doing.My son is on his 2nd tour and they have done alot of good.Keep up the good work!! Armydad
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the blog post From the Front: 07/07/2008 News and Personal dispatches from the front and the home front.
I want to say thanks to you and all the troops who've stepped up to fight for and protect our way of life here in the USA. We would be nothing if not for your service to our country.
You've liberated over 50 million people and given them a gift of freedom, that few of them, if any, would've even dreamed might be possible in their lifetime.
The United States military is the Greatest Liberating force the world has ever seen!
ps. You make me so proud to be an American. Stay Strong, Be Safe and come home soon.
Gary
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