Name: Anonymous 2006-04-08 1:25
part of a letter from a soldier in Iraq, more good news you won't here from the MSM:
....
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.
....
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.