Christians and Sunnis...

Oct 2007 Al doura Iraq, Well lets see here the best way to start this post is to give a little background of the area. Al doura was an area of Baghdad that rarely had coalition forces in it. The unit we were replacing (2nd ID) was beaten up pretty bad from the area. Al doura at this time was the hot spot for House borne IED's (booby trapped houses) and also Deep buried IED's, RPG's and small arms fire from Al Queda insurgents. Also Al doura had a big populace of christians, and catholics well the biggest I ever seen anyways while I was there. But the sunni insurgents were capturing and killing all the christians and catholics in the area, they even drove a VBIED (car bomb) into a church during mass killing a countless amount of people. Give you a little bit of insight about this place. SHIT HOLE... filled with SHITHEADS....

We got up after a long night of preparation and op orders. I honestly was excited and nervous at the same time. More nervous as to not knowing what to expect and excited to start and finish the operation and come back with everyone. We loaded up on the strykers and rode out to the infamous town of Al Doura. In the early morning darkness all you could see was beautiful stars and I wondered to myself how messed up this place is with beautiful sites like these. For those of you who have seen the clear desert night stars you would know what I mean.

Little did I know what would lie ahead....

We are finally in the town and the hot sun has already risen. As we drive our convoy is halted by an old man blocking our way in the road. My squad leader yells to the man to "Get the fuck out of the way!" the man blankly stares down my squad leader and doesn't budge. My squad leader is fed up and can't waist anymore time and fires a warning shot in the dirt a few feet away from the man. The man still stands and doesn't budge as if nothing happened. My squad leader yells and fires another warning shot as we slowly drive forward and the man finally gets out of the way. Everyone is trying to get in their zone for the clearing operation to start. Some people are getting nuts and yelling and cheering. You know getting psyched for the shit.

The vehicles finally come to halt and we're in the middle of the city surrounded by tall buildings and alley ways. (Man what a place to fuckin be I thought) Before we drop the ramp boss man (squad leader) drops down and explains to us a frago (change in plans) of where he wants everyone to go and how their going to get their and whats going to happen after they get there. Since we always rotated on the vehicle who would stay and man the air guard hatch and pull security while the rest of the teams clear, it finally rotated to me this day. Even though the airguard is an important part of security for not just the guys on the ground but for the vehicle, I honestly wanted to be on the ground with my boys incase something happened. I wanted to be there for them.

Bam, as soon as I drop the ramp everyone rushes out does there 5-25 meter check and runs to a building close by within a few seconds. While the other squads do the same, all are concealed by a screen of smoke placed up wind from us. With all the chatter going on over the radio and with me popped up out of the airguard hatch and listening in... I hear all kinds of crazy shit. Like taking fire, RPG!!, and IED!! All these explosions and gunfire going down on different streets. I'm like dam WTF. Not even a few minutes after hearing all of this I can hear the klacks of AK-47's coming from all over the god dam place and dirt kicking up next to the vehicle. Now reality really kicks in when that shit starts hitting the vehicles around me and then vehicle I'm in.

OHHH FUCK!!!!!!! was the first thing I yelled as it got closer, I honestly was not the only one who yelled that shit hahaha the VC (Vehicle Commander) also got his panties wet when it started to get more real. As it got closer to the afternoon things were getting more intense and shit was just happening. We were now in a part of town where our vehicles were being used to block off roads and allow no personnel or traffic down any routes. The streets we were driving in were overflowed like rivers because of all the deep buried IEDS that have been going off. If your wondering well what does that have to do with the water? Well genius's, they hide and place "deep buried IEDS" under pipes so you can't track them with any kind of thermal device and almost makes it impossible to foresee.

So the fight continues... none of our guys from my unit gets hurt, but I hear of all the detainees and insurgents that we have been taking down. I'm thinking of how good the unit is doing. It's about 4 ish in the late afternoon and there have been a shit ton of attempts for people to drive down our road but all warning shots have proven effective. No unintentional civilian KIA's because we used proper ROE. Which I thought was a good thing with the unit. We start to drive further down the road when I see a women riding a donkey start coming down our street with a few other males following her. They are all dressed in black, and have sheep following them. So weird....

I'm thinking like WHHATTT THE FUUUUCCCKKKKK ARRREEE YOUUUU THINNNKKING!!!!! Immediately I call it out radio it up. I yell as loud as I can in English and arabic to FUCKING stop but they of course don't. I mean really what the fuck are you thinking logically in your head. I mean American, Civilian, Insurgent, or fuckin whatever you are why would you want to keep coming down the street with all these Strykers with enough firepower to just level a town.... Anyways.... I fire a warning shot and they still don't stop, So I gave one last chance. I aim about a meter a way from this guys head where there is a wall to not make a bad error, but make it clear if you keep coming I'm not giving any more chances. I time my shot so it hits far away enough in front and close enough to the male rider on his donkey to let him know what I'm thinking.

It hits and he right away stops his donkey and he was going kind of fast on that donkey slides a litte a turns around and rides away. (Later we found out that group was pace count/ observer for an insurgent mortar team... aka droppin bombs on us)

As the day carries on again, there just so much bullshit stuff thats going on to. The vehicle with my platoon sgt gets fuckin stuck so I have to get out and pull security for the guys trying to hook up chains to pull it out. All I can hear all around me is gunfire and snap crackles and pops on the dirt and walls and shit. I shouldn't have but I was yelling at the sgt who was in charge who is also my friend telling him to hurry the fuck up before we get fucked up out here. lol But cherry old me (cherry/1st deployment ever/ newbie) never got blown up before or experience a real explosion up close and personal, the commander vehicle for some reason decided to shoot I forget what they call it exactly but a smoke grenade out of their RWS and they fired it into the water around our vehicle and they arent the small smoke greandes that go pop either. They never said anything about shooting that fuckin thing and the fuckin thing explodes and it's like fuckin lake michigan goes up in the air and the first thing I thought was IEEEEEDDDDDD mothafuckah!!!! freaking out..... Anyways the whole mess was cleared up and we got the vehicle out. There was also a historic platoon vehicle fire that happened and was put out but the actual events were more comedic then hostile then anything after the events.

So the day is coming to an end and its my turn back on the ground. I switch out with one of my buddies and get right into my guard shift posted up in this old ladies house. Most nervous night of my life ever. No sleep, and scared as fuck lol in a good healthy way....

Well readers if you do ever read this I have to get some real sleep, but you won't want to miss the next segment to this story, plays a role in my everyday life and it lives with me ever since it happened. So beloved readers until the next time.....

TO BE CONTINUED.......

What did I say ? 

deep buried...

just waiting to roll for a night mission..

Saddam's Stadium

Yup........

0630 Today I woke up, it was the hottest fuckin day ever. My cot was covered in sweat, even though the god dam AC had been running all night and day it never really did much. Must of been fuckin broken. Everyone else was just getting up. We all went outside to get in formation and talk about the days duties. I was thinking man we've already been here for two fuckin weeks lets just go already...

1430 Finally they told us that we'd be going down range. I mean shit everythings already packed the fuck up in the connex's already. Sgt. Dice comes into the tent and tells us " hey guys looks like we get to ride some chinooks in, should be fun" ....Man.... Chinooks? I don't feel like getting shot down. But should be fun anyways. Everyone looks pretty pumped to finally get this shit started, been waiting long enough.

1600 " hey guys, change of plans. We're flying C-130's in and then we're getting picked up by our choppers." Sweet! Someone says. "Hellllllll!!!!! Yeahhhh!!! MOTHAFUCKA!!!! RICCCKK JAMMESS!!!" Did someone just say Rick James?? I say. Man everyone was just so excited.

1700 We start loading up on the C130 We each have 3 duffel bags and all our body armor, probably weighing about 10,000 pounds. (Not really maybe like 200 pounds combined) Just tons of crap to carry all smashed and smushed in the bird. We finally take off and people start yelling and screaming getting nuts. someone even goes as far as saying "Hey guys don't worry the last time one of these planes crashed was last week" WOW..... really bro, why would you say something like that right now?

1830 WE FINALLY FUCKING LAND...... Thank God, I hate flying in tight small places where everyone is just fuckin smashed together for over full capacity. But wars aren't fought comfortably are they? We get out of the plane that just flew from Kuwait and all I can hear right when we land in BIAP (Baghdad International Airport) Was a huge fucking explosion and distinctly AK 47 firing. kak kak kak kak kak.... WHAT THE FUCK I say, everyone starts rushing out of the plane and BOOOOOMMMMM another explosion. I honestly didn't know what to think at the time because I didn't see anything happening only hearing what was going on outside the walls.

1900 The gunfire and explosions settles everyone starts to unload everything and we get the brief that the chinooks are coming for us tonight to pick us up. Plus birds can only fly at night at high capacity because they're always getting shot down. As soon as it turns dark the fuckin airport turns into pandemonia so much air traffic coming through tonight. It was crazy. I honestly felt like I was in a movie like Black Hawk Down or something. Idk It was pretty nuts at the time.

2000 "Alright guys keep your fucking heads down!! Make sure you stay one behind the other when we get on the bird!!! We got to head in at an angle so your head doesn't get chopped off! Everyone got it!!!??"  All says "We got it SGT!!!!" (When I say all I mean all of 3rd squad) DUK DUK DUK DUK DUK DUK DUK DUK.... "Here she comes guys!!!" man I'd have to say it felt pretty cool to be running up to our chinook in the pitch black darkness but at the same time I had the feeling that shit could go down at anytime to. "GET ON THE FUCKING BIRD!!!!" "GO GO GO!!" We all piled on that bitch like a can of sardines let me tell yah lol.  Once we got on they raised the back ramp and took off.

2015 The gunner is hanging out off the ramp in the back of the chopper with the 240 machine gun. I was pretty close to the tail of the chopper and man we got up in the air and you could just see all of baghdad. All the lights and streets. Burning cars, fire fights going on, and explosions from far away. Everyone in the bird was silent. Everyone felt pretty serious now. I looked out one of the windows and immediately I could see one of the other birds with a bunch of our boys in it. Someone gave the finger to and was laughing but nobody laughed in our bird cause it was just so serious.

2030 I feel the bird descending and hovering down slower and slower. We go down a little bit more when I see the cross sabers of saddams stadium, I've only seen saddams stadium in pictures before and never thought that I would one day be there myself. Crazy and Ironic I thought. We finally touch down in the stadium and man it may have been 830 at night but it was still fuckin hot as shit. I couldn't believe how hot it was. I wasn't use to this kind of weather. I mean shit I'm from hawaii lol. Anyways they told everyone make sure security is up and don't fuck around. We may be in the green zone but shit can still go down. Everyone gets their guard up again instead of just jammbling on about the whole landing in saddams stadium. Now we just got to wait for transport. In the mean time someone yells, "Hey guys haha isn't it cool you guys it's saddams stadium!!!" "I yell, MAN FUCK SADDAM, and his fuckin Stadium! He and Bin Laden is the reason I'm here those fucking assholes!"

( To be Continued )