Recovery

Four long days away from base. We arrived back "home" late last night dirty, sore, tired, and incredibly stinky. For four days we lived in an upside down shipping container, half a dozen paces from a smouldering trash pile consisting largely of burning plastic and cardboard; right around the corner from blazing oil drum pots in which the troops incinerated human waste from the latrines with a mixture of diesel fuel. It can be easily surmised that my frame of mind on any given day shifted with the wind. Rack time (sleep) meant trying to cover every exposed piece of flesh (else it becomes a feast for the mosquitoes) without smothering oneself. Every morning I awoke bright and early to the deafening cacophony of birds, donkeys, cows, dogs, roosters, etc. You would not believe the noise! More than once I was ready to strap on a bandoleer, lock-and-load, scale the walls and go Steven Segal on some farm animals!

We were on a patrol base, which is a smaller, temporary base situated in a particularly troublesome piece of our area of operations (AO). It is essentially the size of a supermarket. This area is right on the al Qaeda superhighway, and snipers, IED's, and mortars are nearly daily occurrences. As we were heading out the wire on our first mission, nearby shots followed by the crackle of radio communications changed our mission to sniper-hunting. What fun it was to run from cover position to cover position, through boot-sucking muck and sewage, through palm groves, over broken concrete walls, and through tangled wire, as fast as your legs can carry you while wearing full body armor that gets heavier with every breath. Unfortunately, this bad guy got away... for now. Another attack the next day lead to an equally unsuccessful chase, although one cow did pay the ultimate price when an Iraqi soldier used a machine gun to vent his frustration at the elusive sniper.

A bit of good news. While patrolling the neighborhood trying to get info on the sniper, I found myself standing in unidentifiable red muck that stained the middle of the road. Interrogation of the locals revealed that it was the remains of a couple of terrorists who apparently got fumble-fingers while trying to place an IED nearby. Ah, so THAT was the big boom this morning! That is the kind of terrorist activity we LIKE to see!

Also, had the opportunity to pass out some school supplies and goodies to elementary school kids as their school day ended. Holy crap!! It was like being dipped in steak sauce and dropped in a tank of piranhas! As it was winding down, one little kid tugged on my sleeve, "Mista, mista! Give me money!" I started chasing him. "No, you give ME money!" Don't think he thought it was funny...

Just trying to pass on some "atmospherics" here. OpSec makes it difficult to drill down to any kinds of detail in a blog. Also, just want to let everybody know that we still have all fingers and toes, health is good, morale is good, and we all miss family and friends very, very much.

Shout out to the rest of 324 out here. Hey guys. Keep up the good work, and keep your heads down.