Posted on 10/18/2005 3:55:32 AM PDT by Jet Jaguar
t's not unusual for the soldiers of the Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade to seize weapons caches while patrolling the streets and villages of Iraq. But the stockpile they unearthed outside a chicken coop Tuesday set a record.
It took three days to blow up.
"Without a doubt, this was a significant find and certainly crippling to the (anti-Iraqi forces) operating in my sector," Lt. Col. Mark Freitag wrote by e-mail this week from Rawah, Iraq, where his cavalry unit, from Fort Wainwright, is stationed.
Stryker brigade commander Col. Michael Shields said the cache is the largest one the 172nd has uncovered since the 3,800-person brigade arrived in Iraq in early September.
The action started early Tuesday morning with a raid on a chicken farm near Anah, a remote desert village southeast of Rawah.
"We had reason to believe that the chicken farm was being used to store weapons and ammunition," Freitag wrote, without going into further detail.
Freitag's C Troop commander, Capt. John Hawbaker, 28, led a raid on one of the farm's chicken coops, but found it empty. Then, one of his "industrious" enlisted men, 31-year-old Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Mestas, eyed several depressions and dirt piles behind the chicken farm, Freitag said.
What happened next was described in an official Task Force Freedom press release this way: "Thanks to the diligence and innovation of a soldier they were able to get on-site excavation equipment operational and uncover the munitions."
In other words, Freitag explained in his e-mail, "(Mestas) 'hotwired' a backhoe that was on site and began digging."
Mestas, a Colorado native, first uncovered a military van filled with ammunition and weapons. He found more stockpiles as he continued to dig, Freitag said.
Freitag, 39, said it is not uncommon for his soldiers to find small caches of ammunition hidden away in buildings and culverts.
In the city of Mosul, where another large part of the 172nd is stationed, commanders have reported uncovering guns and rockets in vehicles and homes. Just recently, for example, an Alaska platoon in Mosul uncovered a half-dozen improvised bombs while on patrol, according to an article this week in Newsweek magazine.
But this was a "huge find" and Freitag called in reinforcements to help with the excavation. The assisting units brought two bulldozers with them (not hot-wired).
Pictures of the site show a metal trailer buried deep in the sand in an area that is flat and dusty as far as the eye can see. Explosive munitions of all shapes and sizes line metal shelves inside the windowless container. Large cloth sacks full of something sit nearby.
In the end, the team uncovered a chilling array of weapons: 220 rocket-propelled grenades; 40,000 7.62mm armor-piercing rifle or machine-gun rounds; 100 2.75-inch diameter rockets; 10 mines; 1,000 .50-caliber rifle or machine-gun rounds; 68 mortar rounds; 100 shotgun shells; 20 improvised claymore mines; 1,959 artillery projectiles; one rifle; a mortar bipod; four 122mm rocket engines; one mortar tube; 3,000 feet of detonation cord; 37 40-pound bags of red and black explosive powder; and 100 1-ounce primers.
The munitions were blown up, or "reduced," in military lingo, over three days by an ordnance disposal unit.
"It was the picture of a successful combined and joint operation," Freitag said.
On Friday it was unclear if anyone was living at the chicken farm or was wounded or detained in the raid. Freitag could not be reached for follow up questions because of the 12-hour time difference between Alaska and Iraq.
The Task Force Freedom press release concluded on this hopeful note:
"Anyone with information on anti-Iraqi insurgent activities should call the Joint Coordination Center's telephone numbers at 513462 or 07701623300."
We don't know that they were Dove Loads. They could be 00 buckshot! Weapons of *ss destruction, if you ask me.
Weren't they (the MSM) the very ones griping about the 'mercs' in NOLA protecting the rich while the poor had to fend for themselves?
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