Per Incendia

It’s been busy, so I’ll back track little bit to when we first got here to Normandy.

One of the first things we needed to do was set up a retrans site on the FOB that would enable comms out into our AO. There was already a site in place, so location was no big deal. I went with a few of my guys to check it out and make sure it was acceptable.

The site itself was fine, it lacked some amenities (such as working AC), but other than that was good. The interesting thing about the site was its location. It’s situated on a ridgeline about 200 feet above the rest of Iraq, overlooking our AO. Immediately surrounding the site are the high, sandstone rocks that make up the ridgeline. In this stone are numerous shallow caves, old Arabic writings carved into them, and the typical refuse that occurs when people enter an area.

The whole of FOB Normandy is rich in history, ranging from its use during World War I as a British/Indian/Pakistani fort overlooking the area (the towers still dot the ridgeline and the tomb of a British General still remain to this day) to its most recent occupants before us – a Corps of Iraqi Army Soldiers and a Basic Training location for the Iraqi Army. Today it is mostly occupied by New Iraqi Army Soldiers and us. There are not enough Soldiers here to use all of the structures that are here; many have become abandoned, disused and neglected. This was once a well-kept place, you can tell by the structures that are here. There are mosques, buildings with swimming pools, shooting ranges, and two vehicle scarp yards.

One scrap yard is full of old tanks and armored vehicles that someone is still trying to fix up to make operational for the Iraqis – in it are old T-72 Soviet tanks, M-68 American tanks, British tanks, and numerous APCs, Anti-aircraft tracks, rocket trucks, and other armored vehicles that for one reason or another have come to rest here. In the other scrap yard are the armored vehicles that have little to no chance of recovery and those are the ones I was told to be careful of. Some of them have big holes punched in their turrets that indicates they were hit by depleted uranium rounds. Depleted uranium is radioactive. They don’t glow at night, but I’ve steered clear of there anyway. Better safe than sorry.

But, back to the site in question.

Once we were up on the hill, I decided to look around – being of a curious nature. From the top of the hill I can see almost to Baqubah to the west and on a clear morning can see the mountain ranges in Iran in the east. A lake north of Normandy is also visible and the Diyala river that runs out of it. It appears as though at one time in the past, the entire ridgeline was underwater. Great chunks of land have been pushed up to the east, causing a broken effect on the terrain and making it appear difficult to cross in that direction. Down the slopes of the ridgeline, I found old Arabic writing, discarded Anti-Aircraft rounds, and, oddly enough, white sea-shells – in the mountains of Iraq; I thought that was odd. On top of the ridge-line are old anti-aircraft gun emplacement and the occasion AA barrel.

Walking down the path, I discovered what appeared to be a man-made tunnel, evidenced by the bricks that supported its roof, and two metal boxes that looked very much like CHUs. Upon closer examination of the tunnel, it was indeed manmade. It looks like someone tried to block it off, but only managed to make it inaccessible by vehicle traffic, it was still very easy to walk into.

Once inside the tunnel, the ground turned very very soft and the air was dusty. Above our heads, bat flew around near the ceiling, ducking in and out and generally bouncing around the area. We could see the end of the tunnel about 150 meter straight through and began to walk. As we did, the bats became thicker over us. The ceiling to the tunnel was approximately 15 feet high and the bats swarmed all over it. We were wearing our uniforms with sleeves rolled down, gloves, hats and eye protection, so we were pretty well covered if a random bat bumped into us by accident.

About halfway through the tunnel there was a big crack than ran through the ceiling. The crack appeared to be very deep into the mountain and was full of bats, just hanging there. Towards the end of the tunnel was a huge cavern in the ceiling, almost perfectly round and straight up. It was also full of bats. I’d estimate the bat population in the 10,000s. Continuing through, we ran into another half-assed blockade and climbed over it back into the sunlight. It was hot, and we had checked out the tunnel, but down the road to our front lay another tunnel – and who can pass up a little exploration?

We walked another 300 meters to the beginning of the next tunnel and walked through. This tunnel was very unlike the first. There were no bats and the dust was thin on the ground. The tunnel was shorter (about 50 meters long) and we walked through. On the other side we came out and saw an inscription engraved on the wall. It read, “106th Huzzara Pioneers, 1918.” So, the tunnels were carved out of the mountain in 1918, but the question still remained as to why. We walked further up the road until it stopped winding and opened into a vast open space into the desert. Across the open desert we saw three big caves that appeared to be almost identical. They seemed to have openings at least 30 feet high and were about 10 feet apart. I was tempted to give it a shot and walk across, but it was too far. At that point we stopped – we were hot, sweaty, and didn’t have water with us (it was in the trucks we left up at the site). Taking into consideration these factors, we stopped there and turned around to head back.

Nearby, the Diyala river flowed past, beckoning us to go for a swim. But, we know what is in the water and so it really wasn’t that tempting. It looked like a nice clean clear blue water, and by Iraqi standards I’m sure it was very clean, but by US standards it was bad.

After coming out of the first tunnel I stopped to check out the boxes that looked like CHU’s. They were train cars. So, putting two and two together, I determined that the 106^th Huzzara Pioneers had carved the tunnels in the mountains for a railroad link that ran probably between Turkey or Iran and here to what was once their out-post during World War I.

There are many other things to find here on this FOB that are lost, ruined, or abandoned. History lives here somewhere – its just a matter of finding it.

The Arabic writing on the stones. No idea what they mean.