Letters from the front....

[dixicritter]

Sgt Rock has asked me to share his letters home with everyone, so this was the best place I could think of. I'll type out his letters cause he says he can't stand his writing and I'm sure you'll all be grateful that I am...lol.

I came home to three letters in my mailbox from him, after spending the last week in Alabama with my folks. So far I've gotten two of them typed out so I'll go ahead and post them here in the next two posts.

dixi

[dixicritter]

I’ve been thinking of you all the time since I got here (well, even before that) and I’ve finally got some time to sit down and write. It feels funny writing letters again since these days I can usually call from most anywhere or even get you an email. It must be over a year since I last actually wrote you and that was probably at NTC.

I’ll tell you first what it has been like. First we went to North Fort where we spent an extra few hours because our plane was late getting in. Once we finally got to Allex, there was a problem fueling the plane, so we spent an extra hour there. Then we finally took off and were suppose to mid air refuel but weather was bad so we ended up landing in Gander, Newfoundland, Canada. I tried to call but there were problems. Then we flew to Morone, Spain where we were supposed to do a 4 hour layover which gradually turned into a 36 hour layover. It wouldn’t have been bad except they kept getting us ready every couple of hours and then changing the flight time at the last minute. But, eventually we got off the ground and flew to Kuwait and arrived here about 1930 on the 2nd of April, only about 40 hours behind our published ETA.

We are in Camp Champion right now while the Squadron continues to filter in. Our trucks are all ready to go except for ammunition which we get tomorrow I think. We should be getting into Iraq in a couple of days but I’m not completely sure what the mission is yet. It has changed back and forth a few times since we got here.

News from up North sounds pretty darn good, and I’m confident the troop will bring everyone home safely (as possible – sunburn and blisters are starting for some). Lightning (troop) has been doing the convoy escort duty thing a while and have only had one vehicle accident the whole time and no combat injuries at all. It is sort of like I was expecting, the Iraqi soldiers will not attack a Cav escorted convoy because we have too much stuff to shoot at them, they instead prefer the MP escorted convoys, and then they usually are attacking the support wennies because they are scared and don’t do well at reacting to contact.

Incomming mail has not started and I don’t know when it will. It isn’t a big issue for getting stuff for the guys – we brought plenty, But it is a morale thing.

I need to go, but I will mail this letter out then start a longer one to send. This was to keep you up to date and to send out my love. Tell everyone I love them and maybe re-type this letter and send it out (My handwriting is getting bad with lack of practice) to the family via e-mail.

I love you all and miss you all very much. Be safe!

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

Sorry it has taken me so long to write. In my last letter I told you when we were going, but since then things changed (go figure). I am now about 60 miles inside Iraq at an old airbase the Army now owns. One of the platoon Sgt's found a mail drop point so I’m writing this letter quickly since we leave soon. I just wanted you to know I’m doing fine and so is everyone else. I miss all of you so much and hope this war is over soon. I will start a longer letter tonight so it is ready on the next mail drop.

Also let the wives know we are all doing very well except for all the dust, hot water, and sun. We’re all eating well (MRE’s) and have lots of hot water for drinking. No one has gotten hurt or sick, so in that, we are lucky. So far the biggest hazard is traffic – there are hundreds of Army supply vehicles heading north and the Iraqi people in this area seem ok with it, thank goodness.

Love you,
SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

As promised, I’m finally getting around to writing you. So far there hasn’t been any incoming mail but that is mainly because we are getting irregular supply – we scrounge from other units as we go. Outgoing mail basically works because we have found units that have outgoing and incoming from their homebase. Hopefully we can get something normal set up in about a week.

Today we pushed further north to near a town called As Samawah. We are preparing to do Recon and patrols north into an area where they have had some problems along supply lines with irregular fighters. But, according to the planner there may not be anyone there anymore because Iraqi government seems to be unable to fulfill the promised money to suicide bombers.

Last night we were able to get the shortwave radio going and find some English language channels like BBC and VOA so we can get some news. The comedy of the day is to hear what the Iraqi News is saying about the war and know what is really going on. Sometimes the stuff they say is so outrageously silly and obviously a lie it is amazing.

Our daily routine isn’t very routine, but we seem to mainly start operations at about 0230 in the morning. Before you get all amazed at how early this is, this is on GMT or the time in England which is known as Zulu time in military language. Zulu time is about 3 hours off here, so 0230 is 0530 locally. So we go off at about 0230 and move to a new location and prepare for the next mission. So far the missions are only movement to the next point. Sundown is about 1520, so we get a break from the sun after about 13 hours of running. The mornings are nice and cool, but about 0900 it starts getting hot. It isn’t too bad yet, but summer also isn’t here.

Iraq is so hot (well not yet) and so very dry. It is even more dry than El Paso. Everything south of here looks like something out of those “End of the World” movies. Even the air base we were at looked like a trash dump. The US Army is spending a lot of effort to get it cleaned up. As you move north things start to get better, but the entire country is one huge trash dump. Driving through some of these towns is like being in some kind of movie with all the nasty squalor you can imagine. Most of the area is highly irrigated so the towns often look like a bunch of mud brick buildings surrounded by muddy ditches with trash all in and around them. Add to that sheep, goats, some fowl, and lots of mangy ugly mutts and that about gives you what a town looks like. The people don’t seem to do much except sit around and watch the sheep and goats. As we drive along you see lots of men, women, and children along the road. Some wave, some don’t. A few seem glad we are here but most seem to not care or be just ignoring us. The kids all seem glad to see us, but most are begging for MRE’s, so maybe that is why. As we drive through, there is lots of traffic along the roads. I’ve seen lots of Tomato trucks and a couple of lemon trucks, but I don’t know where they are coming from since I haven’t seen any farms so far either. As we drive, we are always nervous about the trucks and cars because of drive by shootings and car bombings, but so far nothing has happened. But despite that, we are staying vigilant for some jackass to start something.

I’m running out of real food! I’ve got some burnt peanuts and some snickers left, but not much. MRE’s are all we have. I would kill for some ramen and some tortillas. I used my stove last night to make some coffee and quite a few people came over. I seem to have the only stove that can work off gasoline. Everyone else brought propane or butane stoves but cannot find any. My biggest problem with my stove is I don’t have a fuel bottle to carry fuel in. I need a small (about one quart) metal fuel can. I keep an eye out when I can.

Other that that, I’m pretty comfortable and well off. Well except for missing you and the kids. And mountains!! Iraq is like Louisiana in 2 ways – flat and lots of sand. If we had some pine trees here and some rednecks, it would almost be Louisiana. At least at NTC I can admire the mountains. Here I have yet to find anything pleasant to the eye. My thermorest mattress is ok, but I really miss my hammock as well. I guess I’ll learn to live with out. I could also use a pad for under my butt because this Hummer seat is too thin and my legs and butt keep falling asleep.

I keep avoiding getting all mushy in these letters because it is easier for me not to even think like that yet. Don’t feel like I’m not missing you, because I am, but for now I don’t want to get into the heartsick lonely letter business for my own good. I do think of you a lot, but I try to keep it to what I should try to describe and how to try and do that. Mostly a lot of this is boredom or menial 1SG business in getting supplies or admin stuff done for my troops.

My main hope is that this war gets over soon and that we don’t end up staying in Iraq very long. My biggest concern right now is that we end up getting stationed here a long time as the police force which in my opinion is a bad idea since we don’t even speak the language. The best thing we could do is get out troops out of here as quickly as possible and let the Iraqi people got on with their business. As I sit here and listen to BBC it sounds like we did a successful raid upon Baghdad. If we are lucky, Saddam and his sons will get turned over ASAP! Of course the Iraqi Minister of Information said we are being slaughtered. Of course our tracking system shows me in real time he is full of crap. I hope tomorrow you can see 3rd Infantry soldiers walk in right in the middle of his brief and take him into custody and show how full of crap he really is. Of course that would be the end of some of my entertainment, but I guess I can live with that.

I’m working on a top 10 list of things to do when I get home. These are not in any order, nor is it a final list, but is a start:

1. Hug kids & wife (kisses too)
2. Drink large glass of tea with lots of ice
3. Eat Gibson’s Pork sandwiches
4. Take kids camping/hiking
5. Visit Fairhope, Decatur, and B’Ham
6. Go to Trail Days in Damascus, VA
7. Hike on the AT somewhere

Like I said, it isn’t in order and it may change. I’ll just need your help making some of it happen, and some may be combined so they happen at almost the same time.

This letter is getting longer than I originally planned, but who cares? I’ve started and stopped it about four times so far just today. I figure I’ll try to write with every spare moment I have today and hopefully find a spot to send mail from tonight – maybe at the 82nd Airborne Division’s main area which is close to here.

I sit here and wonder how everything is going at the house. Is the grass getting cut? Is the website doing ok, is Troll getting things done ok without me? Etc, etc. I hope you can write me as much detail as possible. I want to know everything. I really wish I were there to help handle things and just be there, it would be a lot more fun than being here. But since I can’t, please keep me in the loop. Send pictures, letters, etc.

Quick news flash = apparently we are in the presidential palace in Baghdad and his palace in Basra is being looted by the locals.

Speaking of that, these people can strip something faster than you would believe. On the way here, we saw a few broken down Army trailers and HUMMV’s that were left on the road – stripped down to almost nothing. There have also been a few civilian buses and trucks broken down along the road – also stripped clean. Before we came north, we were told there were broken down along the road and we were hoping to fine some of the few parts we might need in some, but they are so stripped down it hasn’t happened. I wanted to get another seat cushion, armored doors, a cargo trailer, and a fuel bottle for my stove – doubt I’ll have any luck at this rate.

By the way, have I told you this place sucks?

Another news flash = the Iraqi news said we are committing suicide in the gate of Baghdad – Laugh out loud!

I just looked out the window and verified this country still sucks.

8 April 2003
After I finished writing last night we got 160 infantrymen from the 82nd Airborne attached to the troop, plus close air support team, Psy Ops, and a civil affairs team that included an ex Iraqi officer that is a member of the Free Iraqi Force or something like that so we could start clearing towns. Unfortunately they don’t have support yet, so we ended up cross loading some of our food and water to them.

After that a big sandstorm hit and blew stuff everywhere. The funny part is the wind was very dry, so dry you could feel it, but as this dry wind would blow you would also get occasional raindrops. I didn’t get a lot of sleep.

This morning we started moving again, following the bank of the Euphrates River northwest and even got to finally see the river. It was an interesting trip. We found some mines but no enemy at all. We eventually stopped and did a talk thru with the infantry on how we would do the clearing of a town coming up tomorrow – Al Najef. While we were there, the SCO (Squadron Commander) told us that they think Saddam and his sons were killed today in a restaurant in Baghdad. I hope so, and I hope it means we will be finishing quickly.

After that, we regrouped and went to a small town to do a clearing mission as a practice for tomorrow. We arrived and our scouts did an initial recon around the town, then the PSY OPS came in with their speakers saying some message in Arabic while we secured the entrance roads into the town. Then the Civil Affairs guys with the Iraqi came in and talked to the Shiek, Iman, or whatever the village leader is called. AH64 Apache helicopters came in and buzzed the village while my Mortar Team set up outside the town. Then after all that, the infantry started going through to look in all the likely places for any irregular forces that may be hanging out. This area is Sunni Muslim and their Iman (like a pope) told the followers to support the Americans and be friendly. Se we have had a lot of cooperation and everyone seems friendly.

Something else I think I should mention in all fairness to the Iraqi people since I have said how much (repeatedly) that this place sucks. They seem to have a great sense of family. Everywhere I go I see children and adults walking together and doing things together. I feel sort of guilty watching these men and boys that I haven’t spent as much time with the boys as I should. I also feel that way about the girl but around here you don’t see the fathers and daughters hanging out at all. One thing I see regularly is a small truck with extended cab with all the seats full of men and boys, while in the back are the wives and daughters. In that respect I don’t care for how I see women treated here, so I often feel more at ease about my attitude to women on the whole if that makes any sense. But getting back to what I was initially talking about. These people for the most part walk everywhere. You can be a mile or two from the nearest house in the middle of the desert and there might be a guy walking down the side of the road in sandals, or even barefoot. But most likely you will see two to four people walking along and talking to each other. I won’t add it to my list of top 10, but one of the things I want to do more is go walking with the kids and hopefully you. These people with all this poverty, war, deprivation, and repression for the most part seem happy when they are out walking and visiting each other. If these people can deal with all that and still smile and laugh together, I want some of that. I love hiking and backpacking and like taking the boys and girl, but I don’t see this as the same thing.

OUCH! Darn gnats. The flies, gnats, and other insects are getting bad.

So after we finish pretty much, the operation starts to turn into a parade or air show for the locals. They start to stand around in crowds and watch, some even come up and talk to us. This one guy in about his 40’s (although it is hard to tell, he could be 20 for all I know) comes up in broken English and tells us where he lives, that he has 6 wives, and that the Iraqi army is not here. He points out of town and says they are out in the desert somewhere and the towns people are scared. We tell him we have been out in the desert getting them and we wanted to make sure none were hiding out in their town to cause trouble. Eventually we had to leave from the town and went north, right on the outside, between their houses and a wheat field. Something that also happened while we were in town is the Iman did the call to prayer and we had the helicopters pull back out of the way so the locals could hear. At the evening prayers I guess you call them, the Iman did his sermon by PA (kind of like retreat at night on post, except much longer). According to the CA (Civil Affairs) guys, the Iman told the village that it was time for them to act like good muslims and work with the Americans, that we were respectful of their people and town and as proof we made the helicopters move back and stopped operations during prayer time. He told them Saddam and his regime were evil and their time was at an end, not to support them or believe their propaganda or something basically like that.

Today I talked a little with Akned (sp?) the interpreter who said it was on the radio that the Americans have the entire west side of Baghdad and that the Iraqi soldiers are throwing down their weapons. He said that the Americans had intelligence about where Saddam was, so we sent in rockets (probably cruise missiles) and blew up where he was supposed to be, but no confirmation yet if they actually got him. My shortwave is back with supply, so I’m not in the loop now. You probably get better information from CNN most days than I do. And, by the time you get this, it is liable to be 3 week old information. But I thought it would be a good idea to try to paint a picture of a lot we see, hear and do on a daily basis here. Maybe it would be a good idea to read this to the kids or send it out in email. Please don’t photo copy and send it out, my handwriting absolutely sucks, although I’m getting a lot of practice lately. I guess computers with word processors have made me a little lazy and rusty.

I have decided to finally close this letter out for fear I may exceed a weight limit of some sort. I’ll start another in a couple minutes.

I love you and miss you all greatly, more than words can describe. I wish I knew when we will be done so I can count down the days but I don’t know. Keep faith that it will be over soon.

Love,
SGT Rock

Note italic parts are edited from the original version.

[dixicritter]

Yesterday we moved in and cleared a town where the Bath Party had a military like HQ set up in a school and a small complex. Inside were mortar rounds, chemical suits with nerve agent antidotes, and some other assorted crap. While the scouts were up with the infantry doing that, we sat in a small clearing at the edge of town on the Euphrates River which was very nice. We watched small boats pole up and down this small side stream and Kingfisher birds diving into the water to catch fish. Across the street is some sort of shop and the guys that run it brought some pita bread over to one of my scouts and gave it to them. Later they brought him some strong coffee or tea, and about noon actually brought some more pita bread and some sort of huge beans cooked in the pods. I tried the bread and beans which were very good. I am more impressed by the Iraqi people every day. They are friendly, generous and seem to be very family oriented. If some of that oil money could get spent on some basic stuff like water, sewage, schools, and electricity instead of chemical weapons, bio, and an over-sized army for such a small country, then the Iraqi people and the country would be great.

Last night we finally got a resupply, and I got my radio back. Apparently we have most of Baghdad and the entire government is missing. They were pulling down Saddam’s statue and busting it up. They sounded so happy. Amed (or whatever his name actually is) was smiling the biggest grin he could. “Was that from Baghdad?” he asked me. When I told him it was he was ecstatic. I told him that the BBC said Saddam may not have been killed and he said it didn’t matter, someone would get him if he wasn’t dead yet. He also said he thought Saddam was probably out of Iraq a month ago anyway.

This morning we had a report of looting in the village, but it looked like they were taking Iraqi army rations from a warehouse, so we let them. No sense in causing trouble without good reason. This morning they are also reporting looting in Baghdad, but we don’t have the forces to police the city there yet. Since I started writing we have had a report of a US plane going down in or near Baghdad, but it wasn’t clear why, and a report of a Toyota truck running one of our check points with Iraqi soldiers (armed) in the back. Another report has some well dressed guy claiming to be homeless inside the military compound. He said they were letting him live there. He was later seen on a cell phone or had radio – so we are looking to catch him.

Our supplies have started to move north of us to an old Iraqi military compound to set up, so we should move north again soon. The plan as I understand it is to keep going north and clear supply and communication lines from any Bath or paramilitary groups. We will continue to look for and destroy the military stuff – today we are planning to detonate hundreds of RPG & mortar rounds found in the school, but of course we will move them first!

Watching the Iraqi people and the joy they are expressing, talking to Amed, and listening to the radio from Baghdad is making me feel a lot better about what we are doing here. I hear “experts” from other Islamic countries concerned at how a strong Islamic country could not stand up to the US better, and I believe it is this: Except for a few “thugs” (like a mafia almost) no one – not even the military, wanted Saddam. Because of the systems, it was almost impossible for the Iraqi people to do anything about it. It was also impossible for anyone in the country to express that view to others outside Iraq without fear for their safety, or that of their family. Saddam tried to portray himself as a popular leader to those outside his country, and many (especially other Islamic countries) bought it. When the war started – they surrendered or just left and went back to the farm. Then the “Fedien” (spelling?) came in and enforced by execution some of the fighting. But once the leaders started leaving or losing, then the farmers and good Iraqi people voted with their feet. Now even without the Regime, the Iraqi people are peaceful and are going about their business for the most part – this has not turned into the lawless old west by any means. Maybe some of the Islamic experts should stop concentrating on this being outsiders against Islam and needing to defend the religion, but on getting a jack ass out of power and letting Iraq be what it wants to be. I’m no expert, but from my foxhole – that is how it looks.

By the way – we got rain today. About 10 drops hit me as I wrote this!

So the war is not over, but it is winding down. My hope is someone in power that isn’t stuffing money into his pants and looking for a cab to Syria will go on, claim he is left in charge, and surrender on behalf of the regime so the leftovers will meld in and fit in or leave. Even better would be for someone to tell us where all the crap is so we don’t have to keep searching and so some unaccounted for chemical or biological weapons ending up out there in the wrong hands. Imagine some escaping Iraqi general needing cash and holding a grudge against the US selling some nerve agents to the Taliban or other terrorists would serve both their needs and hurt us in multiple ways.

Jump forward to 11 April – Friday.
Thursday afternoon we drove up to Najaf and took over what was fedaeen (spelling?) training camp. The fedaeen is Saddam’s version of the Gestopo, except not nearly as good or efficient. They left this post (which is about as big as the Squadron Motor Pool) and the town looted it. Every window was broken, all the light bulbs were stolen, all the plumbing, electrical switches, food, etc. All that was left was a bunch of uniforms, boots, helmets, canteens, etc. Every bit of it is crap. The Regimental HQ moved into the camp HQ and we turned the training grounds into a motor pool and fight line. The Sergeant Major came up with a plan for us to use their barracks, but they were so nasty and rat infested none of the soldiers wanted to sleep in there. So we are staying on our trucks in the motor pool at night. We burned all the uniforms and equipment because we had a problem with civilians getting detained because they were wearing uniform pants they looted from the camp. We had one incident where a white Toyota (remember a couple pages back) with soldiers and AK47’s riding by getting shot at by our guard force – but it turned out they were the new local militia/police force the Special Forces trained. After that, the SF escorted them in town so we wouldn’t kill them. That night we heard gun fire and the news said the son of some returning exile that was supposed to be a part of the possible new government was captured and killed by some of the people in town – probably ex Fedaeen. Inside the camp we found the training records for the graduates of this school – complete with pictures. So we turned them over to S2 so they could use them to identify possible agitators out there. But most likely a lot of the graduates died in Baghdad where thousands of Fedaeen were killed trying to kill M1 tanks and Bradley’s with AK47’s and school buses.

The next day (today) we drove all the way to Halil which is where the ruins of Babylon are and Babylon University is. Halil had women in normal clothing and acting more like I expect – but not many. On the way to Halil we found 2 destroyed rocket launchers, one ADA gun, and 3 surface to surface missile vehicles with what looked like those Al Sommude rockets. We also found more RPG rounds, 82mm Mortar rounds, and a mine field. It looked like south of Halil was a pretty big battle, with destroyed buildings, destroyed cars, and craters. 2 craters were so big I could have put 2 HUMMV’s in them and still had room. In Halil, there were a few large statues – or rather what was left of statues of Saddam. A few buildings that had Saddam’s face engraved were chiseled and shot up. Pictures of Saddam were around the place, but they were all torn, broken or had graffiti painted on them. Every where we go people say “Go USA” and “Fuck Saddam” (I’m not kidding) I also get lots of “Hello Mister!” I even had a teenage Iraqi girl “flash me”. She pulled down her veil and smiled at me twice from a passing car! I’ve never felt so flirted with. Maybe she wants to be my second wife – just kidding. I’m still amazed by the good nature of the Iraqi people to us. I only hope they don’t expect a lot from us in a short time. I would hate to see the relationship turn from good to bad. I worry that one of a couple of things may happen. One is some soldiers starting acting like jack asses and the Iraqi getting offended. Before you get the wrong idea, we should still be forceful and do our job the right way, but we shouldn’t act like conquerors or act without consideration of the people – today I had to tighten up one of my soldiers because he was waving at the Iraqis but was saying stuff about how he wanted to screw their sister or something like that. He and the other soldiers there thought it was funny, but there are a few Iraqi that speak English. The other thing I worry about is religious fanatics that come to Iraq to stir up trouble and fight their Jihad. I was listening to an Afghan on BBC today that said that was a huge problem for the Afghanis during their war with the Russians. They wanted help and didn’t mind it, but there were some religious fanatics that turned it into their own personal holy war which complicated things for them and eventually led to the problems with the Taliban because the Taliban were almost all foreign Muslims that tried to create Afghanistan into a country they wanted, not what the Afghan people wanted. According to a report I heard, the Palestinian groups like Hamas sent over suicide squads to help, but even the Iraqi Regime didn’t want them and sent them home. Some of the Palestinians were pissed they didn’t get to martyr themselves and were talking about trying to come over and do it anyway. The Iraqis have asked them not to but the Hamas people can’t believe good Muslims would ask them not to martyr or fight the Jihad.

Anyway, I personally wish that the Bush people would stop playing the spoiled brat about “their war” and decide to let the UN take over the peacekeeping. If the French and Germans are wanting to support that – then come on over and let us go home. I don’t want to spend the next 2 years on peacekeeping duty here.
Well, I’ll wrap this letter up tonight and get it out in the morning, then start another. I want to get some sleep before leaving out, the Squadron Commander was talking about having us leave out before daylight just so we don’t establish a set pattern for the Iraqis to get used to – especially those that might want to do something.

I miss you very much. Its times I have to sit around like now that bother me the most. When we are out doing something, then I’m occupied, but sitting around lets my mind wander to what I would rather be doing with you and the kids. I see these families together (mom in the back – ha ha) and realize how much I’m missing right now. I’ve got hugs and kisses I’ve missed from my kids, watching movies together, going on walks and drives together, reading books on long trips to the kids as we travel, etc. I cherish it and miss it. It’s hard to act like a tough 1SG when I think like that. I can’t wait to get home to all that again as soon as I can. I know you are having a hard time at home without me and I feel guilty for that. I hope it gets easier. Please give the kids a big – long hug from me, I want to do it so bad myself now I can barely stand it. I wrote earlier saying I wouldn’t get like this and now I sort of wished I hadn’t. I’ve got an unknown amount of time left here and I can’t go around feeling sorry for myself all the time. Please keep everyone in the information loop on this because I already don’t get enough time to write you let along everyone I should.

Please take care of yourself and the kids for me. I worry about you often. I better go.


SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

words in italics are edits

Things are basically still going about the same. Yesterday we went to (or rather near) Karbala, then back over to Hillah (I think in my last letter I was mistakenly calling it Hilil) then back to Najaf. We have a camp in Najaf that we were supposed to stay in again last night. But when we got back from patrol, we got a Frago to go out and stop the Iraqis that were looting an old Iraqi ammo complex (a Frago is a Fragmentation order – something that changes your mission) and then higher HQ was worried they might get a hold of something bad. So we ran up here and chased them all off. Two of their cars broke down so I used a pull chain to pull start one, and dragged the other close to town for them, they were very grateful – I guess under the old government they would have been shot.

During our patrol yesterday we stopped to check out a soda factory that happened to be near a heavily defended place (not anymore) to see if maybe there was a weapon cache there. As we were trying to get in, the caretakers of the factory came and were very afraid and worried. It turned out that the 3rd Infantry had used the factory as a base during the big sand storms a couple of weeks ago. They had heavily damaged a lot of the inside, taken a truck, drank a lot of the sodas, and apparently stolen some of the video equipment. They had left trash everywhere and the caretakers were worried we were going to do the same. It was disgusting the ways that the unit that had come through there had acted and the commander and I were embarrassed. The interpreter and civil affairs told them how to claim the property loss with the Army and the commander and I apologized. We told them if is was Ghost Troop we would not have let that happen. The Iraqi were very grateful to us and even offered to have us over for dinner. Of course we had to refuse, but hopefully the Iraqi in that area will hear we don’t all go trashing stuff for no reason.

Anyway, back to where I am now. After we cleared all the locals from the ammo complex, we checked it as best as we could in the dark, then stayed here overnight. I would rather be out here in the desert doing a mission than be back in the “camp” pulling guard and trash details, and so would my soldiers.

So this morning at first light we started doing a Recon of the entire complex and an inventory. While the scouts checked the fence to see how much had been stolen and was down, I took some mortars and civil affairs to check out the HQ and administrative buildings. It looks like whatever unit attacked here cleaned it up (tactically) pretty well, but left tons of trash everywhere.

The complex that looked like where troops are housed had lots of burned up AK47’s and a couple of 14.5mm quad machine guns that are used for anti-aircraft fire. It looks like that area had the hardest attack.

So now we sit around here watching huge supply convoys heading north. I guess we are doing our job because no one is messing with them. We are starting to get better re-supply ourselves of food and water. We still have problems getting oil, parts, and ammo, but it is suppose to be getting better soon. Apparently the problem isn’t a lack of stuff, it is a problem with allocation. All the stuff in the logistics yards is aimed for the 3rd ID and the incoming 4th ID & 3rd ACR. No one wants to support the XVIII Corps soldiers and units attached to V Corps. I guess the XVIII Corps commander was at the camp yesterday while we were out and he is going to get that fixed. One of the things that is supposed to mean is incoming mail finally. That would be nice since I am running out of coffee and might start getting low on film soon. I broke my camera somehow. Now I can’t read the LCD display other than number of exposures and the lens cover doesn’t seem to open right. I hope it is still focusing correctly because it still advances so I’m still taking pictures with it. I’m going to start looking for a small box so I can send the film home soon. I may need a cheap camera in the near future.

We have been told we should go north soon. There is still a brigade of the Republican Guard out there somewhere they cannot find, and a couple of major cities up north they feel the rats deserting the ship may have run to. At least a mission to stay busy would be nice. For now we sit in the middle of a large bunker complex with swarms of flies buzzing us. Flies don’t even get phased by DEET, I need to find something that repels these jokers.

You may be glad to know I have only had the start of one migraine headache since I have been in Iraq. I’m staying healthy except my butt and legs that go to sleep while sitting in this HUMMV seat while on these long patrols through the Iraqi countryside. I prefer the country to the cities because the cities are so dirty and crowded. When we go into towns, the smell and filth hit you right away. Small kids run around in it and even play in piles of rotting garbage. At least the towns still have power and water. At night they are still lit, the people with hoses watering their yards, and I even see gas stations and shops open. Ice cream and ice vendors are even out in the street. I have heard about looting and chaos, but I don’t see it anywhere I’ve been. I bet there is some price gouging going on, especially when an Iraqi only makes about $2 a day, and an American will pay $1 for a Coke. I’ve told all my troops not to buy as have other units so we don’t help ruin the Iraqi price system for the locals who cannot afford those prices. I don’t know how long that will last.

Last night I took my first bath in a week. I used that bucket and got totally naked in the back of my truck to scrub down, then changed uniforms. I had worn the other since Friday last week. I then used the bucket to do a load of laundry. Lest you think I’m totally nasty, I wipe down every night with baby wipes and change socks, underwear and t-shirt every couple of days. Water was scarce for a while and that was all I could do given our time and water. At least when I backpack in the mountains there are streams to get in occasionally.

I sure hope someone has already sent me coffee and it comes as soon as we start getting incoming mail. I have started bagging the grounds so I can re-use them for a second pot of coffee. The coffee is getting weak, and I only have enough fresh for about six more pots. Something else nice would be CD’s with MP3’s on them. I have hundreds of songs and funny stuff on the 3 CD’s I have and like to put them in the CD player that also reads MP3 format. If anyone is interested in doing it, it must be a normal DOS file type system final burn, no proprietary file system like NERO or Adaptec can use. I also may eventually need AA batteries since our supply system isn’t working properly yet, normally we get A for some of our night vision devices and such. I have yet to pull out the laptop computer and probably won’t, even as a stand alone for quite a while. I don’t think we plan to get that established for any foreseeable future date. In a way that is good because I can do real 1SG stuff with the soldiers instead of becoming a PAC clerk and email slave to the CSM.

Today we were standing around and talking about the probably future missions and figured we may never see Baghdad. We figure after the war everyone will say “Did you go to Baghdad?” and when we say no, they will think we never saw anything despite seeing almost every other large town in Iraq. We also may be the only guys in the Regiment here for the actual war. We thought it might be funny if at the end of all this only a couple hundred guys in the Regiment had combat patches and theater medals. Honestly I could care less about the patch or any awards, the only award I’m looking for is the “All Body Parts Still Attached and Breathing” award. I doubt they have one because it isn’t listed in AR 670-01, but I’m still going to try and earn it. Another worry is the government turning Iraq into a rotation place like Kosovo, Bosnia, or some other place like that. With only a few years left I don’t want to be rotating in every 6 months to play fly patrol. I say that because I’m killing flies right now at the rate of about 1 every 2 minutes and they keep coming like there is no end, sort of like shelter mice. At least a cool wind is blowing (it is 12:20pm local) and there are some clouds to the south. The RCO was here earlier and said severe thunderstorms are possible.

In case you are passing these letters on – RCO is the Regimental Commander a full bird Cornel. I guess I should also clarify some other abbreviations and acronyms.

RCO = Regimental Commander
CSM = Command Sergeant Major
1SG = First Sergeant (me)
CO = Troop commander (a Captain)
PAC = Personnel Administrations Center
AK47 = Standard Soviet made rifle used by Iraq
14.5mm = a four barrel anti aircraft gun that can also make Swiss cheese of a HUMMV
HUMMV= High mobility, multipurpose wheeled vehicles. The modern Jeep.
3rd ID = 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, GA. Same division as Audie Murphy was in
4th ID = 4th Infantry Division form Fort Hood, TX
3rd ACR = 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Carson, CO. My old Regiment from El Paso before they moved. AKA Brave Rifles.
2nd ACR = 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment from Fort Polk, LA. My Regiment. AKA 2nd Dragoons, the oldest continuous active regiment in the Army.
AR 670-01 = Army Regulation on wear and appearance of uniforms.
V Corps = Fifth US Army Corps. Made of units like 3rd ID, 4th ID, and 3rd ACR. Many of these units don’t normally belong to V Corps, but have been organized under them for this war.
82nd Airborne = 82nd All American Division of mostly infantry
101st Airborne = 101st Screaming Eagles Division of mostly helicopter assault infantry.
XVIII Corps = 18th Airborne Corps. This is the Army’s rapid deployment corps. It is made up of the 82nd, 101st, 2nd ACR, and other light units.

I think that covers a lot of that. If anyone wants anything clarified just ask.

Anyway, back to the letter. Damn flies are driving me nuts.

I have been hearing on the news that the Secretary of Defense is already claiming that the technology overmatch is what is winning the war, and to some degree I agree, but the truth from talking to the Iraqi people is they just didn’t want to fight. There are still lots of people here, guns and ammo could be gotten by almost anyone, but the truth is they didn’t want to die for Saddam for the most part. If the same situation was here (USA), picture this. The Iraqi government set up in Mexico and threatened to invade. We would attack first and ruin his world, but even if we didn’t, every front line unit would line up along the border and do the God awfullest engagement area development the world has ever seen. And even if he did cross, we would fight like Hell! But even if he got through, every American with a rifle would be picking off the invaders. Add to that what exists here – imagine every factory, school, or whatever surrounded by 10’ walls with guard towers (it is really like that here), so every street all the sudden has forts along both sides with good fighting positions for anyone to use. Now add to that a supply of mortars, rockets, ammo, machine guns, grenades, etc. at every school and government building (yes that too is here) and a population that above the age of 18 has mandatory military training and experience with a lot of these weapons. An invading army coming into America if it had that much arranged everywhere would be a nightmare to any invader – especially the south. Yet given all that potential, the Iraqi have just left and gone about their business or surrendered! A few die hards have tried to defend Baghdad, but I bet most of them did so at the barrel of a gun – like in the movie “Enemy at the Gates”. I think to discount the total unwillingness of the Iraqi people to put up with it is a major disservice to them and to the real reason we are winning. Maybe if Saddam was half as loved as he claimed, we would still be fighting at least large scale guerrilla attacks, but we are not. But the opportunity certainly does exist for any Iraqi of the right mind.

Enough of that. I’m have a good time sitting here writing this letter and listening to music. Heck, with these MP3’s I can’t figure out what some songs are or why I downloaded them in the first place. Some I don’t think I ever listened to, or at least not more than once. I have heard some bluegrass, then the next song is a Christmas song, then right after that a classic rock song followed by classical music and jazz. This CD may get old after a while, but for now it is like flipping through radio stations not knowing what will come up next. HA – a rap song just came on! Boy, what was I thinking when I got that one? I am listening to it all though, it feels more “normal” that way somehow.

I know this letter is getting very long, probably going to be one of my longest yet. And what surprises me the most is I’ve not taken a break from writing since I started. I guess this is the closest I get to talking to you and hopefully you pass these on somehow so others can get this. I often wonder as I write what the rest of the family think if they read it? Has SGT Rock lost his mind? Is it really like that? I didn’t know SGT Rockfelt that way, etc. I think it will be interesting to talk to people and family later after I get back and hear what they think of my observations. I didn’t intend to start writing these letters as a journal of my experience during the war, but I sort of feel like in some way I’m in a piece of history that is being made as I write it down. I’m not a reporter or a government spokesman with an angle I need to put on anything for my boss’ agenda or an editor to satisfy. In the end I guess I see what I see and write what I feel.

Enough of that crap too. God I miss you and the kids. Every day I wonder what I’m missing. How are the kids handling everything?

I figure M worries – tell him to not worry at all. Tell him his dad loves him and is staying safe, probably safer than when I drive to Alabama in a rain storm.

W is probably dealing you fits, tell him Dad said to mind his mother or I’ll spank him when I get home :). I’m sure he misses me, but I don’t know if he really has a good grasp of what is going on or what I’m doing.

As for K, I’m sure she mostly worries about graduation and talking to D. Tell her she cannot get married until I get back. I have to be there with Stetson and spurs for the wedding to give away the bride! Besides, his dad should be deploying here in about 3 weeks as I figure it. As far as I know there isn’t a change to the deployment schedule for the rest of the Regiment.

As for you. I miss you so very, very much. At night I lay on the hood of my HUMMV and stare up at the clear dark night and bright stars and think how nice it would be to share this with you. The night sky can be quite beautiful here, but not as beautiful as you. I hope you remember to stay on your diet and not snack so much. Keep drinking water and get some walking in while I’m gone. I want to take some walks with you when I get back. In an early letter I talked about how people walk together, fathers and sons, men and boys, but something I never see is women and men walking together – usually the women are behind the men.

I know I’m losing weight, maybe I can invent the 2 MRE in the desert diet plan. I’ll sell it in books and make a million dollars off it. It will include a diet pill, the anti-malaria pill which is sure to suppress appetites. By the way, I still haven’t lost my mind from taking those. This weight loss plan is working for everyone in the troop by the way. Of course we could eat 3 MRE’s, but no one really wants to.

If you can believe this, I have drained this pen about ½ way in only 2 weeks. The flies are still annoying, and the music is still very eclectic – I just listened to Irish folk music, funk, comedy, and finished off with the theme to the Olympics. Man what was I drinking? LOL

I’m starting to think like a starving hiker, but it is more out of boredom with MRE’s than with calorie deficit.

While I am on that, I cannot wait to get back to the mountains of Appalachia, they are so much opposite to where I am it is like opposite ends of the poles. To sit on a high mountain with cold spring water and feel the breeze on my face while under the shade of trees. Watching hawks soar or hearing birds playing in the background. It’s like heaven to think of that. I honestly wish I could retire and hike like that as soon as I get off this deployment but know I can’t yet. But seeing how the Iraqi people can be happy without anything makes me feel I could be happy doing just about any job as long as I have my family with me and I’m in a place where I like to be. I’m seriously considering starting to look at retirement right at about 20 when I get back. Start looking for a job where I can be in the mountains and spend more time at home or out with the kids instead of out in the field training or deployed. Maybe it is just being away on deployment making me sentimental; maybe it is the flies, heat and dust; maybe it is sitting around a warehouse one too many times waiting for someone to fix something or do something so I could get on with my job; or maybe it is missing you and the kids so much. Staying in to make Sergeant Major doesn’t seem so important right now. I don’t know, but maybe I’ll get back and come on assignment to some semi normal position like ROTC or something and get a few years of sham time (darn flies) to sort it all out. But I could submit retirement request as early as September 2004 for a September 1, 2005 retirement, and actually be out and retired as early as the end of May 2005. As I write this, it seems awful close to now. In that time, I could still make Sergeant Major, but would have to stay in until 2007 as planned. Is it worth it? I don’t know. Maybe it is time to grow up and settle down (maybe grow up isn’t the right word).

I’m still happy being 1SG, but I’m not sure I can keep going off to the Middle East every time the president wants to do something somewhere. It’s not as easy as going down and beating up a bully down the street, in the end you have to look these people in the face and do more. It would be like killing the neighbor next door because he abuses his family, but end up having to take total responsibility for the family after you did it. Sure we liberated Iraq, and it is a good thing, but some of these people lost their families in the process, and we did it. How do you look them in the face knowing that? I guess the world just isn’t as nice a place as some believe it is or should be. On the other hand, I do what I can in my sphere of control to ensure my soldiers don’t trash the place, and in that way I guess I can still try to make a difference. The Commander and I see eye to eye on this thank God, and it makes it a little easier. The Squadron Commander has also been very adamant about the same thing. At least in our Regiment I can be happy with current leadership. But not all units are like this and we have had some problems with other American units just out to kill, destroy, and use whatever they can. Maybe I’m being overly sensitive – after all it is a war, but I see no need for excess in any of that. It is no small thing to take a human life, destroy their home or livelihood, or steal the only means of living because you can. I know I will be able to live with what I have done so far, and I intend to ensure my soldiers act with honor so they can too. I will still do whatever it takes to get everyone home, but I’m not going to compromise my integrity because of the situation either.

Sorry I got off on a tangent again. I really don’t mean to. Don’t worry about me either, I will not hesitate in a fight. I will come home and do what it takes to get my boys home too. Speaking of that, in the two weeks since we deployed, I’ve seen less discipline problems, less family problems, and less needing sick call than I ever have in any other two week period since taking control of Ghost troop, even including block leave. I guess the family problem thing is a combination of you and the Commander's wife handling things and the lack of soldier contact with them. The lack of discipline thing is probably because no one has a lot of opportunity and the low medical thing is probably because they wouldn’t get out of work anyway. We have people getting sick, but they still have to go on mission, so why complain? I imagine once mail starts flowing in we will have some issues.

This pad was given to my by AAFES at the deployment point – that and a box of envelopes. Well I still have most of the envelopes but there is only one sheet of paper after this left on the pad, and except for 2 sheets of paper, I’ve only used it for writing you. I guess that is a good thing. I hope my handwriting is getting easier for you to decipher, heck I may even be getting better at writing. Since this is the last sheet of paper, I will finish this letter up and start another one later. I’ll try and get this one off soon.

I just want to finish up saying how very much I miss you all. I look forward to getting back and seeing you and the kids, but not just them, but everyone in the family. A lot of visiting is in my future after I get back. It will be so great to see everyone again and go back to living normally again. Maybe even settling down for a while. Fort Polk may only see me for a short time after this if I get my way and can move on. ROTC sounds better every day.

I gotta go before I run out of room. I love you!

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

Time for a change of paper and writing utensil. Perhaps I’ll make less mistakes with a pencil, probably not.

Last time I wrote you, I was still guarding an ammo point from the Arabs. Now another unit has taken that over and we are back to our patrol schedule. Yesterday when we got relieved, we came back to Najaf and took a down day to catch up on maintenance of weapons and vehicles. My heater core was leaking, but since I don’t use the heater over here, I just had them bypass it. I also had some other stuff done like putting in a power inverter so I can run 110 volt stuff in my truck. Right now I have my amplified speakers for my computer hooked to my CD/MP3 player listening to “Horse with No Name” by America, pretty apt for the situation I’m in.

Today we did a patrol back down to As Samawah and back. We were supposed to watch the road for about an hour in one location, but the sandstorm we are having is too heavy, so we came back in and are doing priorities of work. I’m telling you this because by the time you get this letter it is old news and not a secret. Hell, most stuff that happens here is on CNN within an hour.

Tomorrow is our last day here. We are doing another patrol north, but I’m not sure where. Thursday we are supposed to go to Baghdad. Once there, we are supposed to clear an airfield to make a base and relieve some Marines in there, then start “stability operations” whatever that ends up entailing.

We still have not started getting mail which is a bummer. One thing everyone keeps asking about is mail. I can’t wait myself. Every day I beat up the Support Platoon Sergeant to see if it is in yet. We have started to scrounge, and so far I have half a case of Ramen cup-o-soup, a 13 ounce can of coffee, two dozen AA batteries, about one quart of stove fuel, and all the bottled water and MRE’s my heart desires. Honestly there isn’t much new to tell here yet. Maybe by the time I mail this off tomorrow there will be a few exciting things to add.

Speaking of mail, some guys here have had problems mailing stuff home. Apparently the 13 ounce limit is pretty strict. There is also problems with people sending mail to Germany. They addressed it to a Strasse instead of an APO. We got a chance for some people to make morale calls, so I prioritized them so guys with issues like pregnant wives and such could go first. The CO and I are last on the list, so don’t kill me if I don’t get to call between everyone else calling and missions/business. First I want to take care of the soldiers first, and I don’t know how well I could handle hearing your voice right now. I miss you so much it hurts. I promise once I get to Baghdad and get a better set up and a more predictable schedule to call. Anyway – I bring that up because apparently there have been problems for family mailing packages here too. I think it was a size problem or something like that. If you find out something about that, please send it out to the family and post it at my site on the off chance someone out there wants to send me something.

Speaking of the site, please don’t forget to renew my site stuff. I would appreciate it if you also regularly posted some of this on the board, so my friends know what is going on here. Thanks! Think of it as practice for you helping post my Thru-hike journal once I finally get to go.

Speaking of hiking and such. I was reading “On the Happy Side of Misery” by Model T Tate, and I just got to a part where he met this hiker with MRE’s, a big dog, and a Drill Sergeant hat on the Long Trail portion of the AT. Apparently Model T was hiking during 1990, because this guy had to leave the trail because of the first gulf war. What a coincidence because just a little while earlier I had been talking with another soldier about hiking the AT and how I had to cancel a planned AT section hike this year because of this one. I planned to mail the book back once I’m done with it since some of the kids or you (or both) expressed an interest in reading it. Now I don’t know if it will be deliverable because of the weight. I may build a simple set of scales to let soldiers know if an item is too heavy. It wouldn’t be hard, a water bottle weighs about 1 ounce, add 11 ounces of water for a total of 12.44 ounces. Then all I need is a lever arm of equal weight on both ends for a counterbalance scale. 11 ounces of water is 55 soda cap fulls of water. I just can’t stop…LOL! Even in a combat zone I’m geeking out. Actually, as I understand what the problem is: you can send packages heavier than 13 ounces, you just have to put the right amount of stamps on it to cover the postage, at that point it cannot be free mail. I’m probably the only person in the Squadron that brought stamps.

Now it is 0150z waiting for the sun to come up in about 30 minutes and the sandstorm had gotten worse. Last night I went to sleep in a calm but dusty place – safe on the hood of my truck. Sometime around 2200z we started getting harder winds which made sleeping a bad experience. This morning when I finally crawled out of my fart sack, dust was extremely thick and stuff was trying to blow away as I put my boots back on. I feel all dried out and tired this morning. I’ve already drank a liter of water trying to hydrate. I made a pot of coffee before bed last night and have it awaiting my urge for caffeine inside my thermos, but I have to get hydrated first.

I haven’t listened to the news for a couple of days because I’ve been busy, but also because reception has been poor, maybe it is the storms. I even got some rain yesterday – just enough to get spots on my windshield.

Today we are going to get ready for tomorrow’s movement and include some safety training. Yesterday, five soldiers within the Corps area were killed, one accidentally killed in an accidental weapons discharge, 2 playing with a Frag grenade, and 2 when their vehicle rolled over. Luckily no one in the Regiment has been hurt, but two days ago one of my guys almost got shot by Eagle Troop when they had an accidental discharge inside the perimeter after coming off of a mission. So a huge part of the training is ensuring these guys understand weapon clearing and weapon status. It is something they are taught in basic, and every time we go out training but for some reason there have been problems. In Ghost we have had two accidental discharges – one when a soldier was loading a MK19 on the start of a mission and didn’t know he had already cycled a ghost round. Both grenades landed about 10 meters from a house as I was watching – I thought it was 60mm enemy mortar fire and called contact. The other discharge was when a guard on the tower was clearing his M240 machine gun and didn’t ride the bolt forward slow enough.

So now I’m sitting here in one hell of a dust storm getting ready to close this letter since the mail runs out of here in about 30 minutes. Visibility is down to about 10-20 meters most of the time, sometimes as low as 5 meter. I would much rather be in a thick fog bank socked in on a mountain top. I love you all very much and miss you more each day. At least the war seems to be winding down, hopefully we can transition to full peace keeping and get home soon. I want to start making up for missed time as soon as possible. Again, I love you and give my love to everyone.

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

words in italic are edits

Here I am again fighting boredom and insects. The flies are getting worse and now the gnats are becoming a pain in the butt.

Last night is when I talked to you on the phone to give you an idea of my timeline. I was highly surprised you haven’t received any of my letters (except for the postcard from Spain) because I have been mailing letters for over two weeks now. The first one I sent was from Kuwait which was right by the airport – so you should have gotten that one within a week or two at the most.

Yesterday we did some work on the perimeter of the camp so we can secure it better. Right now the Marines are still responsible for the camp so we cannot take over. But in a couple of places I’m taking over there were no clear fields of fire, interlocking fields, and places where the civilians could get right up to the guard posts. So I got a chainsaw and some concentino wire and had my soldiers fix it because we take over as it starts getting dark tonight. I’m not used to Marines being so sloppy about things like that, but it has been disturbing. Some of my Marine friends would probably be surprised at these guys lack of discipline. They crap everywhere, and almost none of it is buried. They have crapped in just about every room in this complex that isn’t occupied.

The day we got here they had 40 + cases of vomiting and diarrhea – probably sanitation. They walk around in whatever they wish it seems – some are only in shorts and flip flops. I can be walking around the defensive positions and a Marine will be right there surface laying a turd right next to the trail. They did dig straddle trenches but all I see in there is piss and trash. I have set up a shower and 3 seat toilet to try and fix the problem in my little area, but the flies are on the crap, then the soldiers, then their food – etc. I now have three soldiers with stomach ailments. The Marines leave tonight sometime, so in the morning I’ll make a detail to bury some of their crap. Another problem is the Marines and local civilians. The Marines have been having trouble lately with civilians not listening to them and getting all the way up into the wire (some stick their hands and heads actually in the wall to call to the Marines) so they can sell the Marines souvenirs and sometimes alcohol – and the Marines let them. I never see Marine NCOs on the perimeter checking it out, and when the Marines want to get the civilians to get back, they cannot most of the time. I’m going to fix that in my sector. The Marines did a good job in the fight, but since then have been some of the looters and have encouraged some of the problems with their actions. I have been told these guys are reservists so that may be part of the problem.

Another issue is there are about 5,000 of then and we are only 500 or so. Despite the claim we are sending more troops in – we are also taking troops out. We have an area of about 3 million (as I’m told) of the poorest Iraqi with guys looting, political fighting, and general mayhem to be pacified by 500 soldiers including all our mechanics, support, and staff. I hope this means we are transitioning to an Iraqi led police force, which I don’t because we haven’t seen any, or there are more follow on forces to help out coming.

An interesting thing is we have lost Eagle troop and gained an infantry company from 3rd ID. It is the same company that attacked into Baghdad airport a few weeks ago. Their 1SG told me they were sitting on the airfield after destroying all kinds of stuff there – listening to the BBC. According to BBC, 400 Americans were dead and about 50 American vehicles were destroyed at Saddam Hussein International Airport. He said it was pretty funning because they joked that maybe there were two SH International Airports because there wasn’t any dead Army soldiers on that airport. I figure the source for that story was the Iraqi news agency. The 1SG said about an hour later the BBC reported that the information was incorrect – go figure.

Today as we were preparing for patrols, the Iraqi looters behind our compound found some copper wire they wanted to steal, but it was heavy. So some genius decided to burn it to get rid of the heavy plastic insulation. It created a fire 50’ in the air with a couple of explosions that shot over 100’ – this all about 800 meters or so behind our trucks – I got some pictures.

Then I got to go on my first patrol in Baghdad with the CO. We ran through some back streets and went to an old Iraqi Army Helicopter post where the Marine Regiment has their headquarters. We got some info from them and some maps, since they are pulling out tonight to go south and load ships headed for home. Then we drove to some points to verify some weapon cache that the Marines are trying to get removed prior to pulling out. The Marines may be nasty and undisciplined, but I would rather have them around for the fire power until other forces arrive. It seems like the US government is saying one thing about troops in Baghdad, and doing something else. Freaking politicians.

So now I’m waiting for the Marines to pull out so we can move around and clean up the AO. I just hope my soldiers don’t pick up bad habits (I’ve had to make a couple of corrections on my troops) from the Marines. We should get power here in a couple of days, and maybe running water after that. But I feel we well move in a week or two so this factory can open and put some Iraqi back to work.

It was great hearing your voice last night; I had a hard time keeping it together. Unfortunately I didn’t have much time, the connection was crappy, and all the background noise was interfering. I wanted to talk a lot more and get more details about things. I wanted to talk to the kids and hear their voices. But unfortunately that wasn’t possible. Hopefully we get something going within a month or two to make it easier. With normal power and phone service restored to Baghdad it might be possible. I’m still healthy although today I have felt like crap for some unknown reason. I look forward to getting my meeting done and getting some sleep tonight. I wish I had a hammock!

Tell everyone I miss them and I am looking forward so much to getting home. I have this fantasy about going to North Carolina Mountains and enjoying a family camping trip together. The cool, moist mountain air next to a campfire – playing in a creek and watching the stars at night – that is what I would really like to do. This place is really dragging on me today; hopefully I can get my AO fixed then get out on some missions to make time go faster.

Life just doesn’t seem right to me right now, and I know it is because I’m over 6,000 miles away from those I love. Please stay safe and healthy for me. You are the most important thing in my life.

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

Well now I’m finally in Baghdad and have truly been shot at, well, sort of anyway.

We stayed at the camp in Al Najaf yesterday preparing for the move to Baghdad today. In case I never mentioned it, there was shooting every night in Najaf. Apparently the locals are protecting themselves from the Fedayeen leftovers and some looters. Some are also sort of figuring out who is in charge the hard way. Before we left, Najaf had a police force, fire department, and looked like they might be trying to get some of the trash off the streets. To help finish up, there was an operation done by the Special Forces and the 101st in town that included artillery – but that wasn’t where we got shot at.

This morning we started moving north to Baghdad and passed through a lot of destroyed tanks, APCs, trucks, artillery, etc. But in the towns, life was still going on including the market places where the main highway always seems to go through – and where there is always traffic jams and too many people standing around. I get nervous going through them because we are easy targets in those areas and fighting back would be difficult. In a couple of places we had some run ins between locals driving like jackasses and my trucks. It seems a reasonable person would not try to cut off a truck twice its size filled with armed soldiers and a machine gun mounted on top, but the Iraqi don’t seem to understand they will lose. They get mad when they get bumped, but who cares. We just yell and wave at them and keep going. Hopefully they will eventually figure it out.

So we finally make it to Baghdad which was a traffic mad house. We are assigned to the poorest part of town – Saddam City. You may have heard of in on CNN or Fox news. So here we sit across the street from the worst slum in the entire country where the most of the looter come from. Apparently most of the locals are armed, but mainly shoot at each other – often over looted stuff. The Marines have been here a few days and we are supposed to take over this sector from them so I believe they can leave the country – but I’m not really sure what their next mission is. It is supposed to be 1st MEF, but I personally haven’t talked to any of the Marines yet. If I remember right, that is Trail Yeti’s old unit. Since we have arrived there has been constant shooting by the locals including automatic weapon fire. The Marines don’t shoot back because they would basically be shooting at a neighborhood. We are on the back side of the compound which is a cigarette factory – and the compound is surrounded by a wall. But two Marines have been shot – one just got his kevelar helmet scuffed, and the other got hit in the arm by a ricochet, but should be fine.

Something interesting to note: We are all wondering about this trade embargo that has been in place against Iraq for the last 12 years. We see brand new Mercedes cars, new West German multiple launch rocket systems, Russian tanks, Syrian, Jordanian, and Chinese ammunition and even good old US tobacco in crates fresh from Virginia. Where is all this stuff coming in from? There was an oil for food program that supposedly Saddam took the food and traded it or sold it for arms and stuff – and I believe that could be very true.

So here I am at the factory that smells like a tobacco shop with gunfire coming from the other side just relaxing and waiting to see what the morning will bring. We are supposed to do a “right seat ride” with the Marines a couple of days to get to know the area and operations, then do a “left seat ride” with them while we run things while they advise. It is the normal way to rotate units on peacekeeping duty. So I figure the “war” part is basically over and we are just facilitating the return to a new government. I hope this can turn into a UN thing and let some of those countries come over and do the peacekeeping part so we can get home. I don’t know where CNN and Fox are doing most of the war coverage, but I guess if stopping looting and peacekeeping are the hot story you may see some of us soon since this seems to be the dirty spot of the city. I guess it was too much for MPs so they have Marine infantry and Army Cavalry to do it. I hope we get some infantry attached to us to facilitate clearing some of these buildings if necessary – we can do serious damage from the Hummv – but we can’t drive in a house.

Through the night last night (it is now Friday) there were gunshots and tracers in the sky. The shooting stopped about 0230z this morning. But the respite was short – at about 0500z it started again (z time is 3 hours off local, so 0230 is 0530 local). Then the shooting was just sporatic single shots. Things went calm this morning while we talked about re-supply, perimeter defense, set up porta-potties (homemade ones using plywood and 55 gallon drums) and getting some laundry done. Then all of the sudden a gaint explosion happened on the perimeter. Everyone scrambled to go REDCON 1 and we were totally ready in 30 seconds, but it turned out EOD was clearing some stuff on the perimeter and the warning didn’t get down to the troop level until after the explosion went off.

The commander, XO, platoon leaders, and some of the attachments are off to another compound to get briefings from the Marine staff about our area of operations. Today we will not go out of the compound, and we may not for a couple of days. So right now we are getting administrative stuff done and trying to get some personal stuff done. Fighting boredom is the current challenge. Since we have the building, some are practicing room entry and clearing houses.

The general feel is Baghdad is getting back together and we are just going to do as little as possible to interfere with internal politics. Our area apparently does not want to be a part of Baghdad anymore, Saddam City would rather be a separate entity – but we could care less about that. All we care about is getting the job done and going home.

I figure I’ll finish this letter up at two pages and send the film home with it. Hopefully everything comes out alright because one roll had a problem, and the other was in the camera when it broke. Please get doubles made and send me one copy – keep the other at home. If the pictures don’t come out, then the camera is screwed – in that case send me a new one – a cheap and simply 35mm – but not disposables – they exceed the weight limit too easily.

I miss you terribly. I hope you are missing me as badly as I do you. I hope to get a letter someday (estimates put it at another 2 – 4 weeks) and have some news from the rear. Don’t forget if there is ever anything important to have Red Cross send a message – they can get simple messages through. Hopefully we get showers, laundry and telephone set up soon. It would be so nice to hear everyone’s voice again, although I may have to call at a very poor hour your time – but if I do I want to talk to as many kids as I can. So I wrap this letter up to start another. Hopefully the unconventional wrapping doesn’t cause a problem.

I love you all very much and miss you more than I can say.

SGT Rock

Also just so you all know... I have a camera on its way to Rock now.
dixi

[dixicritter]

As you can see. I have my computer up and working. We are now set up in the water processing station of the cigarette plant: I’ve included a flier from the plant as a souvenir. (This letter was typed out)

Yesterday we took over from the Marines. They were even nastier than I had expected. Next to their sleeping points (within inches) I found where they had been crapping, often unburied. No wonder they had over 60 cases of dysentery so bad that they had to evacuate the marines back to the States (this according to one of their Gunny Sergeants). I had a team of soldiers with shovels going at it for the last two days trying to clean the area up. They also looted the cigarettes and some of the property just as efficiently as some of the local Iraqi people, and tore up quite a few things for simple amusement. I’ve seen Iraqi battle positions that were better kept than this place was.
Also yesterday it actually rained. It rained enough that the entire ground was wet at the same time. It rained on and off all day, which kept it nice and cool. My “office” is in the control room of the pump house, so the building I’m in is still nice and cool even in the hottest part of the day. I don’t have electricity except for the generator nor do I have an Internet connection. Regiment has a SIPERNET connection, which is a DOD WAN that parallels the Internet. If they can get that connection run around to the rest of us, then I will have limited Internet access — hopefully at least e-mail and or IM capability. It seems funny to be typing on a computer — heck even doing paper again. But it is also weird not having an internet connection on this laptop — I keep wanting to open IE or my e-mail to look for stuff.

The rest of the city is getting electricity — you can tell because the locals celebrate every time they get power by going outside and shooting all their guns. Last night we thought we were under attack, but it turned out they got electricity across the street. But it did turn into an attack on a few positions for them— like shooting up the gas station near here for some reason. Since yesterday, we have had a lot of Celebrations. The sounds of gunfire and ricochets are so numerous it sounds like a weird sort of rain going on out there. I don’t know what all they are celebrating each time, but I guess it is different parts of the town across the street (Saddam City) getting power. I hate to see what they will do when running water gets turned on. Maybe they still have some mortars or ADA guns out there to celebrate that one.

Since the Marines have left, we have also taken over the police duties. I think I mentioned that we are 500 +/- cavalrymen replacing 5,000 +/- marines in an area of about 3,000,000 people. There is not a real Baghdad or Iraqi government yet, nor is there a real police force. Anytime something is happening that a police department would handle, we get called — and we do not have the structure to deal with that most of the time. We have been securing military compounds, cleaning weapons from schools, and stopping robberies. I think I mentioned that all the schools in the country were turned into military compounds by the Bath party at some point before the war - as were other non-military buildings. It seems weird considering there are also military compounds everywhere. The only logical conclusion is they were trying to hide the arms in places they thought we wouldn’t bomb like schools and hospitals. But as I as saying, we cannot keep up with all that is going on. We have looters in a compound directly behind our camp we keep running off. It doesn’t matter what we do, the only solution would be to guard everything — which is impossible. At times they are stealing stuff, which seems valueless other than it is there. It often looks like they are stealing just because they can, and to do it before someone else gets it.

Other interesting things that have happened in the last day and a half are we have come within about 10 minutes of capturing the 3 in command of the Arm Fox Troop broke up a bank robbery, we chased a couple of Bath guys trying to bully a crowd and shoot civilians, we hake been breaking down road blocks that the Fedayeen erected thought the area to stifle traffic, etc. Some of the things that Saddam’s people did don’t even make sense for a government to be doing. People all over are very grateful that we are here, and that is comforting. The only ones that are not are the ones that had power and status under the old government and some of the Palestinian people that have moved here and consider us a lackey of Israel and are doing a lot of the inciting for the terrorist attacks that have happened here. Often we have people coming up and telling us their wife, husband, brother, son, etc is tied up in one of the military compound. Unfortunately for them, all those people were killed. In one compound we found, records that were not destroyed documented about 600 killings of prisoners. We were directed to an underground prison for political prisoners but it is empty. Anyone that may have been there and missing does not exist anymore. I’m not saying that they were released either. Whatever you may have heard about Saddam and the Bath party being evil — it is true. Every day we still have people trying to tell us about the prison or a missing loved one they feel is still in a Fadayeen dungeon somewhere, but they are all gone — unfortunately for them. It is no wonder some of the Iraqi exiles and defectors didn’t mind that we had to blow up a lot of stuff to free this country, it is not nearly as bad as what Saddam and his people have done within their own borders.

Add to all that, people that couldn’t worship (including other Muslims) the way they wanted, that the Bath lackeys owned all the industry and kept the profit (this was Uday’s factory) and the way this country was exploited. Even though this country is second only to Saudi Arabia in oil production capability, it is one of the lowest in terms of education, infrastructure, living standards, etc. I hope the next government can do a better job of it. Maybe letting the Germans and their form of democracy getting in here would be a good idea. They seem to have a good balance of capitalism and socialism, which could really help these people. I’m afraid that if the US keeps total control, a lot of large business contractors will get the wrong system in place here. A point of interest is that the Muslim
clerics of a certain sect want to form an Islamic government, but luckily they are in the minority—at least here they are. The other Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc would like to avoid that and have a representative government. It will be interesting 20 years from now to look back and see how it turned out. As I understand it, there is a party trying to get a constitution going to set up how they will do that. But, just remember some of the worst dictatorships started constitutionally.

I have heard a couple of different rumors about how long we are to be here. One (my favorite) has us home in or around June! In that one the mission is to be taken over by MPs and multinational forces. The other says 6 months, but the time doesn’t start until the entire Regiment is over here. If that one were true, then it wouldn’t be until about Thanksgiving until I’m home. I really hope the June one is correct. If it is, I want to take the family camping to either Standing Indian in NC or to Mount Rogers in Virginia. We can visit family in route and make a fun, long, family trip of it. I would even be willing to get a camper from MWR to make it more enjoyable for you, and maybe your parents would like to join us in their camper. I sit here and remember how much I used to love those mountain trips to NC, and I was about Matt’s age for a lot of them. I would like to spend that kind of time with the kids getting them out there even if it isn’t hiking. I’ll do what it takes to make you comfortable. I could settle for the Arkansas Ozark Mountains, but that wouldn’t take us near family, and I like the Appalachians better.

I also read that the combat pay and the separation pay have gone up. I hope you are saving up some of that for me so I can replace the jeep when I get back. I’ll take the Jeep and do some work on it in the spare time since I have the garage cleaned out. That way if K wants it, I can let her take it to Alabama with her (as long as you concur). A lot of what it needs is simply labor with some parts and shouldn’t cost much. An oil change, new spark plugs, cap, and wire; new filters, belt and an adjustment to that power steering pulley; there may be other things I can’t think of now, but it can be done. I would like to get something small and economical without being too tiny. Maybe something like a Honda Civic (if they still make those). I’ll look at that more when we get back.

I personally have been staying healthy for the most part. I’m averaging about one migraine headache a week, and given what we have going on, that isn’t bad. I haven’t got any of the maladies that seem to have been going around with the Marine’s sanitation policy. I hope with the measures we have put into place we can avoid that all together.

Another cool bit of news is the Squadron started receiving mail. Yesterday the first mail arrived—one package for a guy in Hawk Company. No one else has received any in the Regiment, but at least it has started getting here. The people that went to pick it up said there were 20 CONNEXs (a 6’ x 6 x 10’ box) full of mail they were trying to sort with 30 people from the postal unit, and another 8 arrived while the were there. They expect to get about 8 a day, as I understand it, so I figure a slew of mail is due to arrive soon. I hope you have gotten some mail since we spoke briefly the other day. They have moved a postal unit north of Karbala I think. I didn’t even know they had such units. I’m looking forward to seeing what I got. I’m hoping for coffee, ramen, candy, and letters with pictures. Anything else will be nice. I hope to get surprised.

Another bullet storm just started. Power must be on in another place. As I sit here, one of our patrols received some harassment fire but no one is hurt. The Iraqis cannot shoot for shit. Sitting in this camp for hours watching flies is boring. I may go out again tomorrow so I can see some of this stuff they are capturing first hand. Not for any thrill or anything, but to make time go faster and to get a better understanding of what my Troops are doing or seeing.

Nothing new is really on BBC, and I cannot get VOA at this location, at least I haven’t found a station yet. News is getting less about what is happening inside Iraq unless the interpreter tells us. It is strange after living with CNN and FOX covering the War 24 7 before I left to not hearing anything except a couple of sentences about the war in the news. I wonder how much you hear over there. I guess if I were in your place I would be trying to get the news all the time just to see if someone I knew was on there.

Again, please share (as you see fit) these letters with the family and friends. Please save them, someday it will be interesting to read what was happening at this time in history.

I’m going to close this letter out for now and get on to doing some work. I’ve got some NCOERs to process and get the system rolling again. I also promise to start some new letters soon for you and everyone else. Please continue to take care of yourselves and give everyone my love. As soon as I know anything, I will let you know. I also want to remind again that if there is any vital nests that needs to get here — use the Red Cross to get it here in a timely manner. I hope the FRG is working well for everyone back there, please tell me if there are any issues that need the SCO’s or CSM’s attention.
I love You all!

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

Last night I mailed off another letter, hopefully you are getting some of these. We still haven’t seen any mail and it has been about a month since I last saw you and the kids. It is getting easier to deal with the separation but it is still lonely without you.

I can’t remember exactly what I have told you about our recent events, but lately we have seen some of the non-government organizations (NGOs) start to take over and do the relief work. The Baghdad police have started to do their jobs, power is on most of the time, people have running water, the phones are on, and most of the services from before the war are starting to get going. Looting has been going down but hasn’t stopped, and there have been a few incidents with Bath and Fedayeen hangers-on doing some isolated stuff, but nothing major. Schools have even re-opened and the Secretary of Defense is touring the area to see how things are going. For the most part, life in Baghdad is back to pre war levels except that they have less government “interference” in their lives. I’m not totally sure how much it was, but the locals we see in our areas seem happy. The plan now is to try and get the power, water, and phone to stay on all the time, which according to some of the locals hasn’t happened since the beginning of the 80’s when Iran and Iraq started fighting (I think is was 1980 or 1979). So in that respect, there is some work left to do.

One thing the locals have been amazed to learn is they don’t have to pay for water or power. The oil profits and the ability to process energy makes all that free to them, but apparently they were paying before now. We have also been repairing roads and bridges that hake been down for years. The NGOs are distributing aid to the people that have totally lost everything or do not have jobs. A lot of the Iraqi industry is going again (except this cigarette factory) and people are getting paid. The government employees that have come back to work are getting paid from the confiscated money found at the presidential palace and some of the Bath Party headquarters.
As for us, they are saying we may stay here at the factory a month or two, and then move to a centralized post, like at the Baghdad International Airport (formally Saddam Hussein International Airport) where they are moving supplies and troops in. I finally saw some of these supposed peacekeeping troops brought in to stop the looting — they are support people chilling out over at the airport with mail, a PX, phones, showers, portable toilets, laundry, and some even have air conditioning.. We still use burn barrels, sun showers, and do laundry in buckets. The people at the airport will not directly support us, we have to scrounge and beg since they are all directly tied to a unit and we are just an attachment that many don’t even know exist. When the rest of the regiment shows up sometime next month, spends two weeks in Kuwait, then spends a week getting here, then we may get real support. We sure hope so. It would be nice to get some incoming mail, a phone call occasionally, and some other basics. I have been able to work T Rations into the schedule, so at least in Ghost Troop we get showers, hot chow once a day, and have a secure place to sleep and do laundry. Other Troops have some of this, but as places go, we are doing well. It would be different if we were fighting into Baghdad right now, but for the most part, the war is over. I don’t mean to be sniveling, in fact I think we have it good, but it drives me nuts the way this system is working.

Enough sniveling about that, tomorrow I hope to get out of the wire and go on patrol. It will be nice to see how things are going in sector. I ride with the commander in his armored HMMWV when I go because it has a gun and some small arms protection in case I might need it. But today I finally got my armored doors I’ve been trying to get. I’m still looking to get me a gun rack and machine gun for my truck.

We have two 60mm Russian mortars, 4 RPG launchers, and one RPKT machinegun we have captured outside my door. We turned one of the mortars into a guide-on holder, which looks pretty cool. I would take a picture but I only have a few left on the roll. If you can get some more film to me I would appreciate it. I asked you last letter for a new watchband, but one of my soldiers made me a new one from parachute cord wrapped like he does when he makes bull ridding rope and it is pretty cool. I really don’t need a new one right now anymore. I’ve also figured out how to run my Coleman Peak I Multifuel on denatured alcohol because I scored 6 gallons of it by pure accident but have had problems getting gasoline or white gas. The thing is, we are doing with what we have for now. Some of this will make cool things to put away and remember one day. I hope to keep all the maps from the operation so years from now when grandkids or friends ask about the war, I will have a few things they can see (except the weapons of course).

Please, when you write, tell me everything going on back there with all the family and friends you know about. It is hard to even know what to ask anymore since I have been out of the loop so long. I sit here and try to think of what should be going on. I think Karen should be graduating soon, and I wonder how high school is going and if graduation is on track. As I remember it she was on track again after having some self-inflicted problems. I also wonder if she has gotten enrolled into the course she has been talking about and where. I wonder how Mart finished off the school year since he has been doing so well lately. I hope he keeps up at it. And I wonder if William has started losing any of his baby teeth, seems like that should start happening soon. Of course there are a hundred things I wonder about daily, but it would take me forever to write it all down, and I’m sure I would forget some until the next time I wonder about it.

It is now 30 April 2003, and I have big news: I GOT MAIL!

The story: There I was, it was the 27 of April and I was scrounging at the Baghdad airport and found the mail point. While I was there I talked to the mail unit. They told me the name of the unit, the place, and even the name of the NCOIC at the mail unit to talk to. They also gave me a name of another unit to call that could get me in contact with them if I could find a phone so I wouldn’t have to drive there. I decided to drive there on the 28th, but then the big “Saddam Birthday Threat” had us cancel in case there was trouble (of course there wasn’t any) and then the following day I couldn’t because the escort was tied to another mission. So today (the 30th) was the day I planned to go talk to the mail people. Last night CSM Waters devised this plan to go to the same site for the same reason, so in true political fashion I let him think it was a new idea and offered to go with him and provide the escort. So this morning I got the convoy together and lined up, and then we went an hour south of Baghdad to an old Iraqi chemical factory (maybe they made chemical weapons there, hmmmm.. ) where the Army has set up a huge logistics base. We went to another mail unit that for some reason the Squadron and Regimental chain of command has been bugging for our mail. They said they would call us if the mail came to them (again) then I asked them what the process for mail getting here was. Apparently that was a difficult question because the answer was: “It does”. After a few minutes of trying to clarify this, we finally went out to the sorting yard to look around, and sure enough, there actually was some mail for us there — 4 bags! So we loaded that up and I talked to the people with my supply sergeant. The suggested we go to V Corps mail yard as well. This was an interesting turn of events - who is this V Corps mail unit? Well, it turns out this unit was across the street, and they were the postal unit I had been told about on the 27th. So my supply sergeant and I went over to talk to them, and sure enough, they said they had just sorted a MILVAN full of mail for us and had it ready to go on a truck (a MILVAN is a 20’x6’xlO’ container that goes on a flat bed). The guy that told me this was even the SSG I had been told would handle our mail. He said it would be ready for us to pick up in Baghdad tomorrow at the Airport (the one 3 ID burned down yesterday on accident) and since it was such a large amount I didn’t want to try and get it. So we returned with the four bags, one was for my troop. I received four packages. Three were from my aunt and were labeled 3,4, and 6 of 8. The fourth was a package from one of Helen’s friends in Salt Lake City labeled 1 of 4. All contained some goodies, which I set up for sharing with the troops here at my TOC (Tactical Operations Center). I plan to write some thank you notes tonight and tomorrow. The morale in the troop from just this small bag has increased greatly, that and the news more is on the way soon. I can’t wait to see some letters and hopefully some photos soon! Also the 13 ounce weight limit is lifted, the only restriction is on this end - 13 ounces and under is free, 14 and over costs, but we can send heavier packages. I saw some at the mail center in duffle bags and foot lockers.

So with that, I will close this letter out and set it for the mail tomorrow. Then I will get on with the thank you letters for. If any of you are reading this: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

dixicritter,I love you so much and hope that tonight I can get to the phone. If I can’t it isn’t a big deal. As 1SG I can get on other times than the soldiers and I want as many as can get to it to call home tonight. As I always write you, please take care of yourself and the kids. Stay in contact with everyone and stay busy. Get out and see people, don’t just sit around the house and get depressed. It has been a month now, and hopefully the rest will fly as fast as this last one has. Sure it seems long now, but some day we wi1l look back and say it wasn’t that bad. Hug the kids for me and send me some pictures!

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

It has been another couple of days since my last letter. I hope you liked it.

Since I wrote, we had the electricity turned on, but it goes out daily. They also turned on the water for the factory at this pump house, but now my troop area suffers minor flooding whenever the power is on. The water supply to the outside world may not be working correctly. The guy that came to turn on the power and water was a nice guy. He told us how all good people from Baghdad are happy to see us, and that even the people that used to be for Saddam act like they have forgotten who Saddam was. While he was here he was reading the Stars and Stripes Newspaper and was going to leave it, but since it was old, and we had a few copies. I let him take it. He was very happy, but asked me in a low voice “What I really need is the sex magazine, do you have the sex magazine?” I hated to tell him no because it as so funny. If I would have had one, I would have given it to him right there just to see how he acted.

The next day (yesterday) I finally got a chance to get outside the camp again and went on patrol with the commander in the western side of Baghdad. We first went to a school where over 11 - 40’ truckloads of ammunition were kept. We calculated the truck capacity to he about 50 tons, so that makes 550 tons of ammunition in the one place. We have removed some of the ammunition already, and had the loose stuff piled up. The trick yesterday was to hire locals to load one of their trucks since we don’t have the manpower or equipment—plus we want to employ them to clean their country while infusing cash. Anyway, we got 3 flatbed trailers, which wouldn’t work, so we sent it back. Then they got a small truck (about a 5 ton capacity), which wasn’t nearly big enough. Eventually a 50 ton truck showed up and we got that loaded. They cleared two truckloads out, so there are about 4 truckloads left in the compound now. The problem now is some kind of sewer line went out in the area, and the rest of the trucks are stranded in a dry spot surrounded by very bad mud. Today we are trying to get a tank recovery vehicle to go in and drag the trailers out to where the semi tractors can hook up and get them out. Something interesting about this as well: apparently these trucks belong to about 560 people if everyone is telling the truth around here. While I was there no fewer than 15 people came by and claimed that the trailers belonged to them and they all had papers to prove it. They all just wanted to come in and get them real quick if we didn’t mind. Of course we told them no, since they ha ammunition on them, and the American Army claims all ammo in the country as ours until further notice. The guys that ha been guarding it told me they get about 5 guys an hour during the day doing that. Figure about 8 hours x 5 per hour = 40 per day x 14 days, it comes out to about 560 owners or so.

After that, we went to another site that was an Iraqi air defense site. They had multiple air defense missile systems, ADA guns, and some artillery. The Air Force had destroyed most of the vehicles, but the position was in the middle of an Iraqi neighborhood and had the ammunition hidden inside people’s houses. The surgical air strikes took out the guns with minimal damage to houses, but now there are houses full of ammunition all over the place. There was also one small bunker complex where ammo was stored that as not hit. The Iraqi people have been dumping the ammunition on the ground to steal the boxes, so now there are thousands of rounds on the ground. Looking at the area, the EOD guys estimated it will take about 100 workers and 50 trucks over about 2-4 days to get all the stuff out of there.

On the way there, someone did a robbery right in front of us, so we turned around and chased them with out trucks. The guy that got robbed said they had guns, so decided we needed to get those guys to prevent them from being a hazard to the other Iraqi. They jumped a fence into a neighborhood, so I went with the soldiers over the fence looking for them. We cleared a couple of houses, but they got away.

Also on the way to the second site, we passed an Iraqi Air Force base that the EOD guys were clearing the ammo from. Tremendous explosions with secondary explosions were going off. If it hadn’t been real and all those explosions scattering other explosives, it would have been cool to watch. As it was, we pulled back about 5 KM so we could be safe, but still had some stuff landing near us.

We ended up back at camp and time to chill out. Except for a few final things, the camp is almost like I want. We even got some T Rations that I plan to cook up tonight for the soldiers. We found some big pans for heating them in, and have dug a fire pit with grating to hold the pot on. T Rations are like giant sardine cans. All you have to do is boil big pans of water and put the tins inside the water until the tin is heated, then pull it out and put another in. I think it is some sort of pork enchilada— Mexican food!

We still haven’t gotten mail, and it is becoming an issue because it keeps getting put out that there are two CONEXs of mail waiting for pick up, but when the mail run goes, it isn’t for us. This sort of thing happens about every two days. I quit telling my soldiers about incoming mail — I said when I have a mailbag, it is here. Unfortunately the CSM and the SCO go around camp telling everyone.

The phone has also been a problem. It seems that the staff changes the rules about the usage on a whim without telling anyone. I’ve had some soldiers get up at midnight to go wait in line for an hour just to be told that they cannot use the phone for varied reasons that change nightly. In my morning meetings I’m told it will be fixed that night, but every morning it is a new soldier with a new story. I’m not the only troop with this problem. I’ve told the CSM about it and how much dissention it is causing in my troop, and the other lSGs backed me up. I would almost rather not have the damn thing. The CSM said he would come up with a plan and try to make the phone usage a little more evenhanded across the squadron.

Life here in camp is getting monotonous. Getting out of camp wasn’t any better, but at least it was a little different. I hope we get some better accommodations and some sort of rest cycle. It isn’t hard what we are doing, but it is all day, ever day. It would be nice to have a day once ever couple of weeks to just sleep in and screw around. We do have a DVD movie theater set up in camp, but I haven’t gone there because it is when I get a lot of my real work done for the Troop.

I get almost nothing done during the day except kill flies. I’ve gotten up into the 50’s today. The floor around my desk is littered with dead fly bodies, and there are about 20 of them hovering around me at any one time. I tried to take a nap today but the flies trying to climb in my mouth, ears, landing on my head and hands were maddening. In the end I gave up. I could use a nap because I was up to 2300 fixing my guard and then getting up at 0200 with the Troop. Again, all times a Zulu time. So 2300 is actually about 0200, and 0200 is 0500. But back to the bugs: At night there are mosquitoes, which have left me with welts all over because they are a lot smaller than the Louisiana ‘Skeeters and I didn’t realize until too late hat was going on. Now I sleep with my bug net over my position. Either way I have insects attacking me.

All I think about during the day (besides my family) is getting out of here and back to the cool, clean mountains. I cannot wait to get back to the states and get out camping again! At least when we do that, I can sleep without worrying about the guards doing their job correctly LOL.

Ouch, someone just got shot at again on the radio. Luckily the Iraqis cannot shoot for shit or we would be in trouble. A SFC in the troop needs a new windshield on the TCs side, but that has been the closest anything has got to getting hurt from enemy fire. The rest of it has been flying tools in the maintenance section and fingers getting shut in the hatch. There is a company that claims they get into contact every time they go out, but we are out 24/7 and haven’t had anything real, just “happy bullets” and flying debris. The term “happy bullets” is from the Muslims shooting their guns in the area every time they get happy — like when the power goes on. We got lots of that until the CA (Civil Affairs) explained that the NGO (Non-Governmental Organizations) would not come in if there is a bunch of shooting (NGOs are organizations like the UN. Red Cross/Red Crescent etc.) because the do not feel safe. We still get a little of it, like the other day when there was a report (from the company that always feel they are in contact) that there was a riot going on at a gas station. There were lots of people and cars around the station and weapons fire. So the translator, CA, a scout section, and an infantry platoon went there to deal with the riot, they found a bunch of Muslims that were happy to be buying gas again.

Now it is the 26th, yesterday we started having dust storms (definitely not a sand storm) and at about 2100 Z we had thunderstorms, except mud came down instead of water. My poncho liner got soaked before I decided to get out my bivy bag. I kept thinking this wouldn’t last long, but when the thunder started, I decided to go with the bivy. That worked pretty well since I was already up off the ground. This morning everything has this reddish yellow haze around it and most of the stuff is coated with a mud dust brown coat of rain/mud. And then, this morning, we received a FRAGO for everyone to change to local daylight savings time, so now we are at 9 hours ahead of home. I feel like I’m in a Twilight Zone episode — getting very little sleep last night didn’t help.

Rumor and some official info mixed has it that the 4th Infantry is prepared to move north from Kuwait, and are coming up to relieve the 3rd ID. We should be staying here to continue patrolling our area after they get here, but then the mission is unknown after the rest of the Regiment closes on Baghdad. The rumor is that the powers that be are concerned about damage from the armor in town and may have the division stay out of town and do who knows what while the regiment stays in the town and does all the work. The other possible plan is to get a bunch of HMMWVs from somewhere and have the division dismount their armor somewhere and do everything from these loaned HMMWVs. Either way, there isn’t a rumor about when we come home under either plan. There is, however, official word that the stop-loss and stop-move may get lifted or changed, so we may be losing soldiers from the unit so they can get out of the Army like they were originally scheduled to or move to another post like they were originally scheduled to. I hope they make us priority for fill if they do that, otherwise I’ll be in even worse shape for completing the mission. It is frustrating at this point, because we are 10% of the force that came here despite what is being said on the news about people moving in. The division we are attached to is not supporting us for anything. We have not got mail, we are short on rations again, and we have not received any repair parts or supplies through a normal re-supply yet. Almost a month in country and everything is still chaos when it comes to being supported. Top that off with people at division always getting mail, eating real food, having water and food coming out of their ears, and CONEXs full of spare parts they don’t want to share because some dip at division doesn’t want to support us. The Support Platoon Sergeant, the S1 captain, and my Troop XO are doing a hell of a job scrounging, and my maintenance sergeant is doing miracles with RTV and JB weld. So far we only have one truck that is in danger of being cannibalized and that is because of a charging problem. There may not be any combat awards needed for our soldiers, but some of the logistics guys and support soldiers are very deserving. What really gets me is the positive face being put on some of this stuff. Three weeks ago the marines were only getting one to two MREs per day and only one liter of water, and it was true. The infantry I had attached was in the same boat, but there are people out here with supplies that will not give it up. I would love for a congressman to come see this. The Division and Corps commanders did come by here, but all they got to see or hear about was the mission to restore Baghdad, not the logistics. They, of course, were surprised by the amount of area and people we were in charge of controlling and the number of people we have to do it with, but there has not been a change to the districts we are assigned.

About four hours ago a whole cup of coffee was spilled on my laptop! I shut it down immediately and took it apart after I came back from a meeting. It took me all this time to get it fixed, but now it is back to the original condition except for one screw I couldn’t find. It was pretty hard doing it with just a Gerber Multi Tool. I think I will apply to be the Gateway service rep for Baghdad.

Something you could send me to pass the time would be my Medal of Honor CDs and maybe some DVDs since we have the ability to play them. This would give us some other distractions during the down days. We have three or four computers and a DVD player in the Troop, and we are trying to get a 52” television for my “Day Room”. We have some DVDs but they are mostly military type stuff and some dumb action flics. It would be nice to get some comedy movies. Maybe I’ll get the Troop a membership to a DVD of the month club type thing so we can get a selection built; I figure it would be a good use of the unit fund money I brought. So far all we have are some board games, a few dumbbells, and a basketball. We should be able to get more entertainment for the troops since it looks like this is going to be a long-term peace keeping mission. Along those lines, the commander is making a strong case to keep this factory since it is the highest point in this part of town. Apparently the Marines got sniper fire daily until they moved here and cleaned off the roof. Now we can make the case that the place would get looted and create a hazard to the locals and us from snipers if we leave. We have also been working to clean this place up, and many of the visitors and our guys that have been around say we have one of the nicest bases in Baghdad. I guess I believe them. At least my end of the camp is getting better every day.

Now it is the 27th, Today I went to Saddam Hussein International airport on a scavenger hunt to see if we could get supplies that are left over from other units that they do not want. We did get some stuff like toilet paper and HMMWV parts, but nothing we really needed badly. I also got a lead on where the Regiment’s mail may be, so tomorrow I’m going to try and get down there for another scavenger run and see if I can find the Regiment’s mail and bring it back (at least Ghost Troop’s mail) here.

Yesterday evening the ammo consolidation point where we are taking a lot of the old Iraqi ammo blew up. It seems the Iraqi teenagers found some flares and thought it would be fun to shoot flares. At least one landed inside the ammo point and started a fire. All the stuff is either gone or burned to a hazardous condition. So EOD is now clearing it all out.

Today we are stepping up the security because tomorrow is Saddam’s Birthday. They have intel that there may be terrorist attacks on his birthday by Baath party hangers on and some of the Hezbollah terrorists from Syria. They have chemical threats, car bomb threats, vest bomb threats, riot threats, etc. The locals in our area think it is silly; no one they know would want to celebrate Saddam.

So I’m going to close this letter out so I can send it out when I try to track down the mail. One request is a new watchband. I just broke mine about 10 minutes ago trying to take it off. I will try to make something in the interim to hold my watch to my arm (maybe duct tape).

Please take good care of yourself and the children. I can’t wait until I see them again. I especially can’t wait until I see you again. I wish I could tell you when I will be home, but I don’t know a thing. Also, please continue to send my letters, or at least part of them, so that the family and friends can see what is going on. At least now that I have the computer and you can get well written and spell grammar corrected letters to pass on. Please keep in contact with my family as well as yours. I know I can’t be there, but at least the kids and you can see them and talk to them regularly. I’m grateful we both have such great and supportive families, it makes being away and out of the loop easier knowing that they are there for y’all.

I love you, very, very much, and miss you greatly. I have a meeting to go to know. so I’ll close this letter on that.

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

Yesterday is the day I called you and woke you up. For me it was a day I spent in camp fixing some of the admin stuff like NCOERs and fixing up some camp stuff. It was a mostly quiet day. Later on that evening I got a chance to go on a night operation, but I will get to that.

To start off, there was a report of no mail at the Battle Update Brief (BUB) last night from the S1. CPT Schrick gave the guy a bunch of crap because he called someone instead of going like he was supposed to. I was planning to go down there today, to get the mail again if the Jackass didn’t want to do his job. He is starting to truly piss me off.

So last evening the commander decides it is a night patrol night because there was a note given to Eagle Troop’s XO stating that two mosques were arming to attack US soldiers and they were in our area. Our interpreter and CA guys looked at it and figured it was someone trying to settle a score over here and trying to use us, or a Baath member trying to make Americans look bad when we attack a mosque. But we decided it would be a good place to cruise through late at night. Normally I sit here ready to run the ambulance out if there is a problem, but the CO asked if I would like to come along on this one I jumped at the chance to get out.

We rolled out and were still on our way into sector when our Red platoon reported gunfire in their area where they were securing a power plant substation. They said it was a white four-door pickup truck that had a few adult males that drove by at a high rate of speed after they did the shooting into the air. We started heading that direction when Eagle Troop reported a man coming to one of their vehicles stating that his father had been car jacked. The father and the truck were last seen driving into our sector — the truck was a white four door pick up GMC 1998 model. So we started looking for it.

About 5 blocks up the road a large group of civilians flagged us down and told us the direction the truck headed in. Well, they tried, all at once, in Arabic. It was chaos. They wouldn’t just let one guy tell, all of them HAD to get in on it. It took at least 5 minutes to just get a real direction last headed. So we took off again and got flagged down by another group telling us that some Baath guys had just robbed a mosque and which direction they were heading. So left to try and find the truck. After some searching, we pulled over to regroup.

Then this white four-door pickup comes past our trucks without lights. We immediately have the lead guy stop the truck and get the three men out of the truck. Inside was a bag full of money and an AK47. Now before you get the wrong idea: almost ever one here has an AK47. Saddam passed out something like 4 million rifles of various makes, most AK47s, to the civilians so they could help defend the country from invading Americans But they have been used to protect the people from Bath members and Fedayeen — a couple of towns we went through actually organized militias to keep the Fedayeen that were coming to force them to fight out of the towns. So anyway there are three males in a white four-door pickup truck with a loaded AK47 and a bag of money.

So we take them out of the truck and isolate them. The CA and interpreters take them off one at a time and question them (By the way, the CA Major with us is a lawyer) and they all give different stories about selling a car for the money. I clear the weapon and ensured it hadn’t been fired recently, then counted the money, over 1 .5 million dinars. Before you get excited about that too, the exchange rate is about 2500 dinars to the dollar, so this huge bag of cash was worth about $600. Of course in Iraq, you can get a very nice house for about 15 million dinars, or about $6,000. So we confiscate the money and rifle, and then zip-tie the men. One starts crying and tells us how he has a pregnant wife and small child. He breaks down and tells us they were on their way to buy some stolen cast iron.

After some debate, we decide to release the guys; after all, it isn’t that much money and they haven’t really done anything wrong. So we tell them we are releasing them, and then one (the crying guy) tries to kiss the Major’s feet — REALLY! But all he got was a mouth full of dirt as he laid face down kissing dust — yuck! We give them the money back and they are totally shocked. I guess under Saddam they would have been shot, or at least been lucky to leave alive but lose everything. We gave them back all their money and their truck, then told them to go get the lights on the truck fixed (they didn’t work, that is why they were driving without them), but we kept the AK47. If they wouldn’t have lied to us, they could have kept the AK47 too since we aren’t out to confiscate personal property and there isn’t a law against automatic weapons here.

After that, we headed back. On the way a guy riding a bicycle and carrying an AK47 went past us, and Green platoon stopped to confiscate his rifle. The commander got pissed and made them give it back. They got too gung ho from the previous incident I guess and thought we would get some more rifles or something.

Anyway, we get back to base, and I have a chair full of mail. Apparently after the commander got pissed, someone made the S1 go get the mail (it is 1.5 hours one way). I got about 4 packages. So I decided not to go on a mail hunt today. One of the cool things about the mail was the fact I had run out of shampoo, needed a bowl, and someone swiped my Alabama Fire Sauce off my desk. Well my aunt sent me some Habanera Tabasco, a Tupperware bowl, and some Dr Bronner’s mint soap. That was perfect timing. There were lots of other goodies like snickers, lasagna, freeze dried veggies, fire balls, and trail mix that I appreciated, but it is interesting that when you really need something, it can show up just when you least expect it to.

On to this morning. We have a tasking to our troop to provide an escort of two gun trucks on every supply run, which is run once a day —there and back. This morning we sent them out at 0700 as ALWAYS, and about hour later the S4 (the head logistician) calls and wants to know where our convoy escort is. We tell him it has already gone out with the supply convoy. He asks who was in the convoy (he ought to know) and we tell him about the medics, S1, support platoon, supply trucks. etc. So he tells us he needs a two- truck escort for another supply run. We tell him we cannot support it, he seems a little miffed, but who cares.

Enough of that crap. My building is now air conditions courtesy of the Iraqi guys running the place. Apparently the water control system runs off an old microprocessor that overheats easily, so we have to keep the doors closed and the air conditioner blowing at about 70 degrees in here. Life can really suck some times.

It is now the 5th. Last night the XO sat down the S4 and the Support Platoon and ironed things out, hopefully this ends all the problems. At least until the rest of the Regiment shows up around the 20th. At that time, a lot of the re-supply will come from sources that are located on this side of town from a Regimental LSA, and the Support Squadron will do all this running around to gather supplies and bring them here.

I’m going to wrap this letter up. I have a few thank-you notes left to write for the packages I received the other night. I’ve gotten a few done but have to get this done now or I never will. In case someone reads this letter before they get my thank you notes, they are coming!

Please take care of yourself and the kids. I want so much to see them again. The more I think of camping with y‘all, the better it sounds. I’ve been getting up every morning dreaming about being in the cool mountains instead of the hot desert. I can’t wait to be back home and enjoy the simple act of waking up in my own bed and going downstairs and drinking coffee in my own kitchen with my family. I love you all very much and miss you all.

SGT Rock

[dixicritter]

Today was a really hot one. The temperature was at least 100 F. Normally we would have tried to get the guys off the street during the worst part of the day, but today was a busy one. We have gotten 26 of the 42 schools open with students attending, and the other 6 should be going by the end of the week. The power also stayed on 24 hours straight (and it is still on), which hasn’t happened in months around here. I would say things are getting better.

A growing concern I have had since the administrative duties within the Squadron and Regiment have been sliding was that the CO's end of tour award, his campaign award, and his Dragooning ceremony was all being forgotten. In case you didn’t know, we had a similar problem in the rear with that, so the XO and I wrote the commanders end of tour award for the SCO and put his name on it. So last night I wrote the CO's campaign award and then chased down the Adjutant, sure enough — no one has even started it and he leases in a few weeks. I did a little arm-twisting, and now things should be on track. At least on our end (the Troop) got the CO his guidon although we would normally get him the streamers and do a framing. I don’t know what to do about all that, maybe after get back I can get the Draper Award streamer made and sent to him. I wish we could do things right, but I guess it is a bridge too far from here.

I have been busy trying to write thank you notes and get the board done over the last two days (It is now the 7th, fast forward a couple of days here). Yesterday I received a stack of packages and letters. I have been trying to get thank you letters out with all the other things going on here. It has been hectic, and add to that a former Ghost Trooper that wrote and wants to send packages to support the troop. But I’m not the only one, we had a whole 5 ton truck full of mail that my supply picked up for the squadron. The number one priority for the squadron admin staff the last couple of weeks was to find the mail, yet little old Ghost Troop seems to be the only one that finds it regularly and in quantity. I try to tell people how the mail works, but they want it to work another way, so often they are calling the wrong people who tell them that there isn’t mail for us. I think it would be like living in Leesville and calling the De Ridder Post Office to ask why your mail isn’t running. True it is a post office, and they can find out, but it is the wrong one. The CSM even started putting out how the