Fuck the Militia

"You guys have to go check out National Police check points that have been over run." "Wow that's gay." "After that we are linking up with 1st PLT to raid a Mosque in [Nasty Part of Town]." "Okay that's not so gay."
The main route we had been working on recently was empty and it was the middle of the day. Smoke from tire fires was in the air. Lately Sadr's militia went buckwhile coming out to fight. Fighting from Sadr City spilled east into Bravo Company's sector. Alpha, and Bravo and some elements from an Armored unit were in the midst of a heated battle in Bravo's sector uprooting militia men from the check points. We drove by a check point tower we had built and the side of it had been hit by an RPG. We drove past numerous check points that were abandoned. Reports of a certain checkpoint that had been taken over by JAM came across the net. We drove to the checkpoint and it was manned by a bunch of National Policeman. Maybe they were JAM but they were in uniform so it wasn't cool if we smoked them.
We finished up with the checkpoint tour and drove to the link up point. We waited for an hour for 1st to link up with the NP's and then to link up with us. Only one NP volunteered to come with us. We moved to the target block and set up a cordon. 1st hit the Mosque and they found several EFP's lots of explosives and weapons. Meanwhile gun fire and explosions went off around us. The LT took a team to a roof where they took small arms fire. An RPG flew up the street directly infront of the trucks of 1st Platoon and they clipped his ass. We rounded up the explosives into 1st's trucks and we were given the task to lead back. There was some argument about which direction we should travel and finally we went with the LT's pick of south when the consensus was to avoid the street the RPG was fired up. We moved slowly it was dark now. Air assets were in the middle of calling up "We have personnel with RPG'S moving u-" BOOOOOOM. An explosion followed by 2 bright blue flashes from transformers coming down lit up the road in front of me as I watched the lead vehicle disappear clouded by smoke. My mind flashed back to Sept 4th my hand on the handle of my door ready to get out and assist. Immediately 2-4's back up lights lit up the street as he came across the radio. "We're good! Backing up!" Everyone was good but the truck was fucked. The LT and my truck moved up to secure the intersection so that we could hook up and tow the truck back. Air assets were calling up people moving to our position. Small arms fire started to poor out of every nook and cranny. I told Hannibal to fire high and down the streets to keep people off of them, finally after so much small arms I told Hannibal to fire on a building where we saw muzzle flashes. Hannibal laid down a sustained burst on the building. With the truck hooked up we towed and fired our way out. We had to tow the truck in the middle of the night down one of Iraq's most dangerous routes. We made it back to the FOB with 1st safely and no casualties. 1st PLT had schwacked a couple of people along with us.
The next day we moved with 1st back to the COP as we went to cross the highway we heard small arms fire coming from our sector. 1st was out in front and had immediately started taking contact. An RPG flew past their lead vehicle soon after he was cut to pieces by a 240B. I believe that the fire died down as they realized how big our element really was. Burnt remnants of tires at almost every intersection, and no on was on the streets.
Later that night we found ourselves hitting another Mosque. 2nd Platoon was tasked out as the main effort. We moved down dismounted and stacked by the door. The breach element kicked in the door and threw in a flash bang. The stun grenade went off and my men flowed into the mosque. We searched from top to bottom and found nothing. Apparently it was bad intelligence. After we searched a couple surrounding buildings and coming up with nothing we headed back to the COP. Hours later we were told we had to go to the DAK and pick up equipment for the "beleaguered" NP's. We would be moving with a Platoon from Delta Company who were escorting a BSB element to pick up an Alpha company truck that had been destroyed. 1st moved dismounted to link up with the NP's. As we moved mounted to link up with said NP's I was monitoring Delta's net as we heard an IED go off, then minutes later another. It was delta they hit 2 IED's within 5 minutes of each other. We linked up with the NP's and drove to link up with Delta, they were about 10 minutes in front of us. Now it was to the point they were reconning by fire possible EFP's, and IED's. We were doing the same.
We made it to the DAK and linked up. A follow on mission came over the net and Delta was tasked to pick up a platoon from Alpha's COP. No sooner did they leave the gate then an Explosion ripped through the night, and then another. The Delta 2-6 element came over the net "They almost got us again we are good." What a lucky bastard this dude was eating IED's like pez just near misses every time. At about the same time Hannibal yells. "RPG on the roof!!!!" "Fire, shoot, shoot, shoot!" I yelled. Hannibal started laying waste to the roof tops. The other gunners picked up on his fire and put fire on the roofs, then Hannibal spotted another and let the 7.62 rain on his militia ass too. Meanwhile Delta was firing on the buildings with thier .50cal machine gun doing some serious demolition and remodeling. It was a steady gun fight until they pulled back into the DAK with Alpha. The thing is it was really about 1.5km from the DAK to Alpha's cop.
It was daylight now and the men from 2nd Platoon had been moving since 9am the previous day. With the NP equipment loaded and BSB still trying to load the Alpha truck up our element went out to secure the Route we would be traveling on. We drove down past the burnt out NP truck on the side of the road and got eyes on our egress route. Dco called up and told us they were moving, suddenly the air erupted in small arms fire from all angles, every vehicle 2nd platoon had started to fire. Kum spotted a guy with a machine gun down the street firing on us, he told Hannibal and seconds later his militia ass was looking for his 40 virgins. It was solid gun fire on buildings and down the street we were on. Hannibal's eagle eye picking them out then his deadly finger picking them off. C Wade in the lead truck was picking off guys in a window and he said it was like a video game, he would fire the guy would go down then come back up. After a final burst his ass didn't get back up. Delta moved out in front of us and we moved slowly. We saw a spot in the market where the militia had put an IED that had detonated on Delta. The market was burnt out they destroyed their own fucking market, and for what?
We made it back to the COP gun fire and explosions coming from muhallas around the AO.
Today I read a message from AlSadr's office calling for a cease fire. I would hope so because the only people suffering from their actions are their own people. They found that out when they hit a tank and then a tank and a Bradley moved up firing main gun and 30mm coax. DOOM ON YOU FUCKERS!
2 Soldiers from Alpha were killed and 2 severely wounded. Less than a week to go.
FUCK THE MAHDI
DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!

Not Out of the Woods Yet

I told Kum to grab the AT-4 (medium anti-tank rocket launcher) and sling it on his back. With the recent spike in violence I wasn't about to start taking chances. My team leaders checked their men and prepped them to step out of the gate. No trucks were coming with us tonight. It had been a while since we moved dismounted through the sector and it was welcome stretch of the legs. The big iron doors squealed open and my men and I made our way out into the street. It was by my account just a familiarization walk as we had officers from the unit relieving us in our formation. We got our spacing and moved silently into the night. Checking roof tops and the sides of the roads through the green hugh of the night vision for any signs of unwanted company or things that go BOOM. We moved silently until a pack of wild dogs that roam the streets of Baghdad decided they wanted everyone to know we were out. In the distance we could hear our sister company's in contact and air weapons teams raining down death in the form of hellfire missiles and 30mm cannon fire. It was a short walk and before we knew it we were back in the comfort (if you can call it that) and safety (I use the term loosely) of our COP. Anticipation for contact was high considering all the shit going, but returning with nothing further to report is also a blessing in its own way. Then again going out and looking for a fight and coming back with out firing a shot is a real let down. I will compare the feeling to "BlueBalls" and saying that a majority of you will know how I feel. Try 14 months of "BlueBalls".
We pulled into the FOB this morning and I got out of the truck and shrugged my gear off. I'm tired, more tired than usual, the last couple of days have been interesting. The heat has picked up a bit and we are sweating a little more than usual. Along with the heat comes the crazies.
I took a look at the guys and I could see the fatigue in their eyes. The last two days have been long and interesting. Right before I got online the incoming alarm went off as I was getting my hair cut. I waited and waited and when I tried to leave they told me I couldn't go out yet. This was after a sufficient amount of time had passed. The FOB Nazi's were holding me hostage afraid that if I go outside into the big FOB of uncertainty that I would get whacked. Where are those guys when I roll out the wire. "Hey no Deuce you can't go its dangerous out in sector." I feel as though I live in a huge oxymoron.
I got online to check out the news to maybe find out a little more about what the hell is going on here. I read an article about how the Green Zone is "Under Seige"............ Wow. That's it, that's all the fucking news that is going on about recent events here. Have all the reporters gone home or they are just holed up in the GZ drinking mocha frappies and shit and a couple of rounds hit in the GZ so suddenly its under seige? I might be speaking out of turn but hey around the whole AO shit has gone a little loopy. If you call getting rocketed a few times Under siege then I don't know what you would call ol'Rocketmiyah? Under-apocalypse??? Just be thankful your not driving around in the IED laden streets of B-dad you fucking Burger King eating fucks. (I apologize for using Burger Kings name in vain) Explosions and gunfire are a constant more so now than it has been within the last month. Apparently some people not so happy with AlSadr are pissed and have been trying to step up. (That's according to the AP). On the roof of the COP you could look out and see smoke from JAM guys lighting tires on fire. Maybe they had just seen Blackhawk down on cable? I'm not understanding why they just couldn't wait till we left to start some shit. Now it feels as everyday that we get closer to leaving the more dangerous it's getting for us. To bad though we won't hole up. JAM has really picked a shitty time to give AlSadr the bird and start fighting on their own. You see, you have a shitload of trigger happy Grunts itching to settle a score, you wanna fight fuckheads????? Good!
Well before the shit started to splatter upon the fan roughly about 3 days ago. We were out into the wee hours of the morning trying to make our little piece of shitty highway safe for all who travel the road. We were up all day and all night and when we got back to the FOB I crashed. I slept hard until about 2pm. I woke up conducted the 3 S's and mozied my happy lil 11B firm buttocks down to the PX. When, hark what do I see? People walking in 2's and in 3's. Under their arms what do they hold? Mops, brooms, and drawers of plastic mold. Oh what is that what could it be? What is their patch, oh I must see. Oh yes it is our relief, its the Ivy of 4th ID.
Boy was I happy they are here, and even last night they went out on a dismounted patrol with us. Later the novelty wore off as I went to the phone booth and it was packed with people that just fucking got here. You can't help but hold a grudge as you go use your creature features around the FOB, mainly internet, and phone and find people that have only been in country a couple days yacking and typing away. Meanwhile we've been away from home for 14 months and out at the COP for the last 9 days, and all you want to do is make a call and here is this doosh that just copulated with his significant other only maybe a couple weeks prior sucking up phone time. I'm not bitter though cuz soon I will be going home!
Like I said with sudden hemorrhoid flare up the days have become longer and are at the most dangerous since we are so close to popping smoke.
I would tell you about our "Assault" into the swimming pool to grab 40 armed men, but uhhhh it was pretty fucking stupid.
DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!!

Reup if your crazy....

Well........ I did it again. 4 more baby 4 more. I didn't get any money. I did get my choice of duty station. I can say its non deployable and I'm really excited about that. Its off to Relaxin Jackson when I'm done here.
Its actually pretty sweet. Since 2001 I've hardly been home at all. I was in the New York Guard and after 9/11 they kept me busy and away from home. Out of the last three years I've been home for 7 months of it. I'm excited to actually be able to be home and be a father and husband. Part of me will miss being deployed, thats what we do, its what we train for. I don't really know what I'll be doing in Jackson but I do know I will not be deploying.
A couple of people have told me that it will be range cadre or assisting with the training of the new recruits that go through there. That will be cool I love to train soldiers.
It was really a mutual decision between my wife and I. She only wanted me to take a tactical halt for a while. I knew ever since I was a kid this is what I was going to do. I love it, I love the people, I love to lead and I love to teach young Soldiers. I love being in the company of heroes.
It was crazy though as my wife and I talked about life since 9/11 and how much I haven't been home. Babies became big kids and I missed pinnacle moments in their lives. I know for the next 3 years (depending on my work schedule) I will be around for birthdays, Christmas's, and all that other normal guy stuff that everyone else gets to enjoy. What the remaining years have instore after that I don't know. The way most of us have to look at life in the Military is one deployment at a time.
In 1995 a punk ass kid from small town Washington walked into a Marine recruiter office, and was later wisked away to MCRD San Diego, 12 years later here I sit in Iraq for the 2nd time, with another 4 years ahead. Its been a strange and wonderful trip. I've seen and done things I never would have imagined. I'm doing what I dreamed about when I was a kid watching Tour of Duty and playing with GI Joes. Hopefully now that I'll have some stabilization I'll be able to attend the schools I've been trying to go to for the last 10 years. Most importantly I'll be able to watch my kids grow up live and in person. We will see what the future holds.
DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!!!

Picture Page Picture its time to grab a pen and a pencil....

Its me and Setz packing up things and putting them away.... Ohhh its getting close.

2nd Platoon PUNISHERS. 2nd to None.

DOC sleepin in the truck.
No thats not dirt on my lip.....
SGT Mildog fellow former Marine, turns out we were on the same boat together and also went to the same CAX never knew eachother but been to the same places.
Locals playing soccer on the field we had made for them.
Big splosion.... It was big.

ASS IN 9

Ok so I know that I said I was going to post pictures (lied) I know I said I was going to post a thrilling new post in the never ending saga to bring peace to Iraq (lied). Not really I didn't really so much lie as I did maybe misinform- DON'T JUDGE ME! I learned it from the military! Well I mailed the lap top home today so its one less thing I have to carry on the freedom bird when and if I do so make it on said imaginary airplane. Due to a series of misfortunate events i.e. sleeping in, I didn't quite get on there and write what I said I was. I will though.......... Pictures, I got the pictures on a thumb drive and when I get back out to the COP I will upload them. It seems as if the MWR computers inherited viruses from peoples thumb drives so they don't let them load up anymore.
Right now I'm supposed to be back at the chews going through my Soldier's computers checking for porn and inappropriate pictures, i.e. savage death shots, and burnt up trucks and the like. I'll get to that soon enough. The PL came up to me and told me I was to do this and that later he would go through and "Spot check". The word Spot Check really aggrivates the shit out of me. Especially when said Spot Checking will be done by a man who is younger than me and has less time in the Army than my shaving kit. Spot checking I know must be done. It's supposed to be done. Never the less to me it screams "I DON'T TRUST YOU!" Although I do spot check my team leaders, not that I have any doubts in their abilities to accomplish the mission, but at this point I have more time and experience in these things than they do in which my PL does not.
I tell the PL "Well if your gonna do that why don't you just check em, and then that way we are not wasting time double dutching." Then we got into this whole conversation about what spot checking is. He has his views and I have mine. It really could be that its my time of the month and had he initially come up and handed me 100 bucks it still would've made me butt hurt.
I later went to chow and encountered the PSG and he told me that when we get to the COP we have to do a 100 percent ammo count. I know these things have to be done but they get under my skin and what time they pick them to be done at or by. Sometimes it doesn't make any fucking sense. Last time (in Iraq) we did the ammo count we were mission complete pretty much not punching the wire anymore. Does that not make more sense then to conduct the count after we're done punching the wire? Its probably just today getting on my nerves. I might need to sleep in. All these very small issues are annoying the shit out of me.
On a good note though we did have Nacho's for dinner and they rocked. Well I have to skee dattle and go call the misses then I will conduct Operation check for inappropriate photo's. Finish packing whats left of my gear, play some Call of Duty Roads to Victory on the old PSP, read my book and then go to bed, and not in that particular order.
DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!

Shorter than a Midget on His Knees

Where the fuck have you people been? Oh ya its me that dropped off of the net. Well quite frankly I just haven't felt like writing and really nothing significant has happened for me to write about. There probably has but most likely I've been really lazy. Anymore we are just doing the same old shit day in and day out. Not like the wahabi's haven't noticed either, they are pretty smart like that. Dusting off the old Kalashinikov's and RPG's to come out and take pot shots and such. Clever little fellas.
Packed my bags tonight its getting close really really close. Its interesting all the conflicting information that we keep getting about what the hell is going on. You'd almost think that these people haven't done this shit before......... Oh yeah. They haven't. Needless to say I'm a tad frustrated but at this point its to be expected. Fuck it just go out to the COP one last time burn some shit barrels, say good by to my kiddie friends down the street (today Setz gave away his T.V.). Come back to the FOB do play the connex game, hurry up and wait and we will be on that bird baby. Soon really soon.
Nothing really going on to much sorry to disappoint really. All we've been doin is playin combat engineer and occasionally hanging the ol' arse out on the side of the road trolling for VBIED's. Any day is as dangerous as the next, we are still on a roll just missing EFP's or hajj will set them out right after we leave to taunt us, but we have something for that ass big man so keep it up. The next time you think your being sneaky you'll wind up with a 2nd asshole somewhere in the vicinity of your forehead! hehehehehehehe.
I'm gonna post some pics later to those faithful readers that keep coming back and cursing me for not writing anything new, I apologize. I'm just as bored as you are, between dodging road side bombs and rockets and what not.
Well stay tuned and I'll post some pics and hopefully a little better post on the next one. TTFN.
DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!!

P.S. Blogger the damn spell check still doesnt work readers are going to really start to notice that I have the IQ of an Infantryman soon if you don't fix that shit!

Dogs and Pony's

What? You guys in a hurry?

There is probably nothing so unnerving then walking up and down one of the most deadly pieces of highway in Iraq ok ya there is. It’s setting up a traffic control point on said highway. Especially after we’ve gone after terrorists who are known to build and traffic vehicle born IED’s (VBIED- [V-BEDS]). What makes it worse is knowing the destructive power a VBIED has. I’ve been near to these massive explosions caused when some fuckhead loads up a truck or car with as much explosives as he can. They are fucking crazy. I think the people that don’t respect them are those who have never been near one.

Somewhere up the chain someone figured that doing these TCP’s along major thoroughfares was a stupendous idea. Once you stop traffic it takes about 5 minutes for that shit to back up about 400m with cars jam packed 3 lanes. Anyone who has ever driven on the belt way or any major freeway and has seen what an accident will do to the traffic has an idea of what I’m talking about. Take that and put it in a place where Snipers live on the left and right of you, maybe some one has a VBIED in the garage near this place (its not like they don’t know what were doing we have kind of fell into some patterns) and plans on hooking up with 40 some odd virgins on this lovely day. I forgot to mention that in the past there were a couple of RPG attacks on this lil stretch of lovely asphalt.

D-Roll searching a truck with a dead sheep and a live sheep in the back. Good job D-Roll, yes yes you do have to search the dead sheep it might have a bomb up its ass. Ok D-Roll roll up your sleeve time for the live one.

My job in all of this is to initially stop traffic. Me and my boyz have some tricks up or sleeve to try and mitigate the risk for all those involved. –I’m not telling you but if you’re in the military and want to know what they are feel free to comment and I’ll e-mail it to you. The men of 2-2, our piece of the pie is to stop traffic and begin to funnel it to the search guys. The search guys have it the worst but that’s as far into that as I’m gonna go. Use your imagination. We do all this all the while you couldn’t fit a BB up our asses. One day we got Froggy and handed out Newspapers to those stuck in traffic. Hindsight being what it is makes me think “What the fuck was I thinking.”

Attempting to get traffic to stop and move in an orderly fashion, with a little help from the National Police.

That’s all well and good and we’ve somewhat got a system down and we really do what we can to mitigate risk. Honestly I just don’t see the logic behind it. Seriously if you got some bombs in your trunk and your coming down the highway and you see traffic backed up, are you gonna take the risk and wait? Now don’t sit there and Armchair General because anything your thinking we’ve thought of……. Trust me!

Here’s the meat and potatoes of all this. If you’ve been in the military or hell if you work some where that has “Big Bosses” you will know what I’m talking about. You know that when the head cheese comes around, a General, Congressmen, Regional Managers, what ever it may be, you know that things get dumb. Clean isn’t clean enough and on the fine day I’m describing the idea was for said General to “See us out there.” The whole day’s events were orchestrated and timed for us to out walking up one of the deadliest highways so the General could “See” us. You think this guy saw a dismounted element on the ground on the side of one of the most deadly roads in Iraq and stopped? No, he didn’t. I’m not even sure if he waved. This isn’t the first time we’ve played this game. The honorable Senator Joe Liebermann once came out to visit the market in our sector. It happened to be as hot as donkey balls (that’s really hot) and we walked it once to secure it which is Officernese for kill time. Something I learned you can count on with VIP’s is that they will always be late, so that your ass can hang out in the breeze when they come through they are gone faster than when they arrived. Senator Liebermann walked about 300m got his picture taken and rolled out. We waited for 3 hours that day for him.

I get it everyone wants to look good, but if you already look good then why go out of your way. I understand the Army side of it, and the political side of it. It’s a game and you just have to play it. My problem with it is that the pawns have names, families and lives. Why do something for the sake of just doing it to show face when it doesn’t have any tactical value?

The walk up the road for the General- we had already been doing that shit, the TCP’s we set up before that they do serve a purpose for the most part. Do we like doing them? Fuck no!! They are dangerous as hell. You know as well as I do when big heads come around mid management likes to put on the Dog and Pony show.

Here is a video to give you an idea of the magnitude of these fucking VBIEDS its an old video that I found on YouTube but you'll get the idea.

DEUCE DEUCE OUT!!!!!!

Monotonous Monotony

With everyday as monotonous as the last I really haven’t felt like posting all too much. Since the last post there are 2 COP rotations of shit that I didn’t write about. Mostly we’ve just been walking down the damn highway and setting up traffic control points in the hopes that we will catch someone transporting something on the main highways.

We did go out on a raid we were the support element so we were basically hanging out the whole time making sure nobody tried to make a mad dash to freedom. 3rd Platoon was main effort and pulled some bad guys stashing weapons and explosives in the house. The most fun thing we did was go and look for a piece of equipment out in town.

We got the call to go find the piece, we rolled up into the market area, and it was dark and early morning. No one was stirring around. There were a couple of guards and we decided it best if they hung out with us and kept their mouths shut. One guy was either drunk, guilty or both but he started to cry like a baby. The other guards we had with us were obviously chastising him in Arabic for being such a lil bitch.

We approached the building that the equipment was last seen getting up there was another story. We decided to enter a house 3 doors down went to the roof and started our best impression of Spiderman climbing over walls going roof to roof to get to the building we needed to be on. Any other time this shit would be rather easy but toting around the bulkiness and extra weight provided by our gear makes it more of a pain in the ass. One point we had to scale a ladder more or less made of twigs and the only place to climb up was right next to the edge of the 2 story building.

We made it to the top of the 3 story building and begin searching. Youngness fired a flare out of the 203 to illuminate the area. We looked and didn’t find shit. (Apparently we didn’t look good enough but I’ll get to that.) After not finding the equipment we started searching house to house. Going to the roofs of big buildings and looking out towards the surrounding areas.

Setz and I spotted a tall ass building, probably the tallest building in the area. It was probably a 7 or 8 story apartment building and as luck would have it the door was chained and locked from the inside, and wouldn’t you know it…. We didn’t bring the fucking bolt cutters. Normally I would just blast it with the shotgun (well maybe not this one) but hey we didn’t bring that either. Someone faltered on their fucking PCC’s and PCI’s. I’ll take the blame for that one.

We had some options, fire a 203 smoke into it and bust it, put my frag on it and blow it the fuck away, or just wake someone up to come down and let us the hell in. We chose the least destructive of the options and nicely knocked upon the door. We were able to wake up some of the residents and they came out to the balcony and we yelled “Hey come down and let us in!”, we even had some passer’s by (at this point the people are starting to wake up and go to work) yell up for us and tell them to come down and unlock it. One dude even came down the stairs and stopped about 10 steps from the door and turned his ass around and went back to bed.

At this point I was fucking furious and was 5 seconds away from blowing the fucking door out of existence but the LT came around the corner with some bolt cutters. Once they realized we were going to cut the chain to pieces they wanted to come down and unlock it. Sorry folks you had your fucking chance. We cleared every dumb ass room and floor all the way to the bloody hell top. I’m here to tell you that shit was the tallest building in our AO. Here is a little known fact, Setz is afraid of heights….. We searched surrounding roof tops from our lofty vantage point. When we get a call of a revised location for the equipment. The revised location takes our silly asses right back to the very first building we were on. At this point we have been looking for about 4 and a half hours. Yes if your thinking it was on that first fucking roof, you’ve got it. I have to put that one on the LT cuz he was the one over on the side it was found on. Lesson, never let your LT look for shit cuz if it’s in front of him he isn’t gonna find that shit.