DAY 67 / FEB 04

DAY 67 / FEB 04

So, we had another patrol go out and come back in today. A successful run to the far reaches of Iraq – closer to Iran than to Warhorse. They fixed a signal thingy and scooted back home. The people are still mostly friendly, the kids still wave and there was even a teenager who gave them the thumbs up! And that was in an area known for IEDs.

The worst things about the patrols are the unknowns and the POSSIBILITY of an IED. You drive by and see a dead dog in the middle of the road – is it really just a dead dog, or is it a dead dog with a 155mm howitzer round in it? You look for wires and antennas and if you don't see any, you take a chance and go for it – but give it wide berth. If it even smells suspicious, you call EOD and wait for hours for them to arrive.

Then you race down the road at 50 or 60 mph and hope the cars get out of the way. In the towns you press into the traffic and constantly honk your horn to move people along. The police try to wave people out of your way, but some people are just too slow and you nearly smash their aluminum Toyota with your uparmored steel plated humvee. These trucks don't stop on a dime. The people ride bikes, motorcycles, donkey pulled carts, and little things that look like giant motorized wheelbarrows.

As they approached a traffic circle, a small four-door car pulled out in front of the lead truck – and missed getting crushed by about 6 inches. I saw the video. In it, you can hear the tires squeak as the driver cuts hard to the left.

On the trip they also encountered numerous vehicles on the side of the road – broke down. In the training world, these are almost always VBIEDs. In the real world, they are almost always NOT VBIEDs but are just people who's piece of crap car broke down. In the training world, you stop and wait for someone to clear these people along. In the real world, you can't do that. You assess the situation and make a break for it. One of the TCs said that he flinches every time he goes by one.

But, everyone returned safely with little to no problems. Another mission complete with no casualties. It was a good day.