Posted on 04/07/2006 10:06:46 PM PDT by MNJohnnie
Iraqi Police in action. Words from Iraq.
Personal stuff cut out......
I could wait to tell you what we saw today. As usual we were doing our routine patrols and as we were heading back to Mares. We saw that the IP’s (Iraqi Police) had one of the main roads closed. Shortly after, we realized that they were working on an IED placed on the right of the road exactly where we normally pass by to make a right turn. This people have a great sense of bravery, because even with the limitation on the equipment that they were using to deactivate the IED, this IP’s worked with it fearless. There were basically about 7 IP’s on the ground, one with binoculars, two with a string with a hook in the middle of it and the rest of them pulling security for the ones working directly with the IED. The technique used to deactivate the IED was merely simple. The used the hook to extract the ignition device away from the round (one 155mm). After the ignition device was away from the round, then extracting the round out of the whole was “piece of cake”. I’m glad and thank God for these men, because it could hit any of our Stryker and cause other tragedy like on February 26, 2006.
Some that cranked me up was that while they worked on the IED, none of us got out of the Stryker at least to help pulling security for them. Though the Stryker it self has a .50 cal mounted and I think they were helping that way. In addition, two of my peers were just criticizing the way that these IP’s worked with the IED. Man I just wanted to tell them that if they know as much and they wanted so bad to do some about it they could go out and help them with the problem. The finally shut up when they saw when the IP’s pulled the round out of the hole. I apologize for this, but I needed to get it out of my system because in the way that I see it is that those men saved our sorry asses from getting blow up. Probably the only way we might would realized that it was an IED there is if it would exploded and even kill or injure some one. I hate the fact of people talking smack and not doing anything about it.
Well this incident also remind me couple weeks ago when a SVBIED blow up and couple minutes later an IED went off about 200 meters away from the SVBIED site. When we there about 15 minutes after all this happened, but the must interesting part is who an IA (Iraqi Army) guy crawled like a snake into the hole just to peep and see what was the status of the remaining UXO (Unexploded Ordnance). After he (IA) realized that this rounds didn’t represented a threat (at least to him), he just pulled them out like candies. Even an explosion took place, it had 5 unexploded rounds inside the IED hole and we heard that the explosion from the EID was quite loud. Now you can imagine how much damage this IED would make if it would go off completely.
I know you like to hear about all this, so this is some that has been going on that I think I haven’t share this one with you. I got you some new Iraqi money, the one that doesn’t have the Saddam face on it. You will receive it with the rest of the stuff that I have for you here. In what box is the mouthwash? Take care and keep getting well. Have a great day.
Though you might like to see the latest from Iraq.
Nam Vet
Improvements in Iraq
Thanks for the post, very interesting and encouraging.
Thank you both.
I though you might like to see this. Some silly people here say foolish things. The troops know the truth of about the Iraqi people
Thank you so much.
In some moments I wonder how hard the war is and how the battle is going.
Better then the junk media will ever tell you. Counter Insurgency is a slow business. Not like conventional war. The growing amount of stuff the Iraqis are taking on themselves is a very good sign.
BTTT
Bump for later.
Thanks for the good word. Been sick of hearing "those people aren't ready for democracy"....
I'm sorry to rain on anyone's parade here, but this letter seems to have been written by a non-native English speaker and I'm a little suspicious of it. Maybe I'm wrong, but this sure looks like one of those pieces of e-mail that just keeps getting forwarded and may have been written by anyone.
I personally KNOW this guy. This is a PERSONAL email TO me not an Internet circular. He is one of my contacts in Iraq. Sorry to rain on your denial parade. The guy is Porto Rican by chance. I did not think it proper to "clean up" his letter and posted it as sent to me.
Great report! Thanks for the type of news we never hear from the MSM.
You've never so much as had lunch with an enlisted grunt, then.
This letter is great because the f%#! has been left out...showing that he cared about the receiver of the email. As for the diction, grammar is not a common commodity in a combat zone, by the way.
Thank you for that. He went right out of high school to the army. Trying to convince him to do his 20 but his enlistment is up in March 2007 and he feels bad cause he is 32 and "hasn't been to college yet". I tell him being a good Sarge indicates he has done a whole lot more then most college grads do their whole life. He and his guys are good people even if they are not the best spellers or grammarians in the world. :-)
If you know the guy that's good enough for me. Sorry if I offended you. It's just that when I see something that's unsourced and written with grammatical errors that Americans ussually don't make sometimes I find it a little dubious. There's a whole lot of BS out there afterall.
I was a 19D from 1985 to 1991.
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