Day 85 / Feb 22

DAY 85 / FEB 22

 

I was hoping it would be another quiet, nothing going on day.  But it was not to be.   Tonight at 2145 we went into another blackout.  I don't know why, but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough.  It had been 20 days since the last blackout and this brings the total number to three so far.  25 days is our record for not having a black out.  We are doing good on the mortars though – no attacks for the last 16 days.  The record for that is 16!  I guess we now are working on the most consecutive days with a mortar falling on the FOB.   Maybe I should put my IBAS on!

 

The fact that the blackout occurred now (at night for us) means that back home its still morning and that somewhere – probably back at Fort Carson – a group of people is making phone calls and getting everything for the notification.   One group of Soldiers is pulling their Class As from the hanger, where they hope to never have to take them off for this reason.  Somewhere else, a volunteer team is making the necessary calls to round up the people who will be on the "CARE" team.   They will all drive up to the home of someone who, when they woke up this morning, was very happy and content even though her or his Soldier was in Iraq because they were ok.   Its more likely than not a very young wife, maybe having only been in the Army for a year or two – and this is probably the first time away from her husband.  Her whole life is about to change.   They will walk up to her door and, for her sake, I hope she doesn't notice.  I hope she doesn't hear the vehicles pull up, that she doesn't go to the window full of dread, and see the one thing that she never wants to see.   Some know what it means when the Soldiers walk up to the door all dressed up, some don't.  Some hope its not what they THINK it is.   But, this time it is.  Her neighbors will all see, and they will know, and they will feel sorry for her.  But they will also be grateful that its not them.   Deep inside they will breath a sigh of relief that the cruel, cold hand of death has passed once again over their house. 

To speculate on the actual casualty would be foolish, but I'll do it anyway.  He (for he is almost guaranteed to be a he) is a young Soldier, probably E-4 or below and probably the turret gunner of an M1114.   His vehicle may have been hit by an IED, but I think its more likely an accident – a rollover, a collision with another vehicle, or his truck rolled off an embankment into the river where it sank to the bottom.   But it could have been a bomb.  There are plenty of them.  He is probably a combat arms Soldier, an infantryman, an artilleryman, a Scout.   He is probably not from our unit or even our area of operations.  I'd guess that the event occurred in the vicinity of Samarra.   Rethinking my position, I might have to give equal chance to the possibility of a bomb as opposed to an accident.  I'd have to up the "bomb or direct fire" chance because of the recent Sunni / Shia uprising that could very well escalate to a civil war.   Someone blew up the Golden Mosque (maybe in Samarra).  If it does go to civil war, I don't know where that put the United States.

 

UPDATE:  As it turns out, it was an IED that killed our Soldier.  He was not from my Battalion and it was from the Samarra area (closer to Balad though).  They were stopped, recovering a vehicle that had either been damaged or broke down (more likely damaged by an IED) when a second IED went off.   It caught one of the vehicles on fire.  The gunner and commander got out, but the driver was not able to (it was a tracked vehicle).   In all two of our Soldiers were killed.  THIS is what war is.  There is no nice way to put it.