Sunday was reasonably quiet early on, after a busy Saturday afternoon, but that changed late when we received word that several of our Iraqi Army (IA) outposts had been hit by the enemy. We headed down to the IA battalion headquarters to learn what they knew about the attacks while U.S. forces moved to the scene to do their own assessment. That evening we put together the different stories to see if we could determine, at least roughly, the ground truth about what had happened so we could start planning for what to do about it.

That evening we also learned that a general officer would be coming to visit, and the unit we're working with had a number of other issues on the plate and didn't have an officer to spare to meet the general. So, while that's not normally on our list of things we need to do, we volunteered to head out and meet with him so the squadron could address more pressing issues.

So it was that Monday morning I jumped in the back of a HMMWV ready to go outside the wire for my first time in Iraq. We rolled out and almost made it to the gate before we got the word the trip had been delayed, and eventually scratched due to bad weather. When the sandstorms get nasty around here, the helicopters stay down, which means not only fewer generals moving around the battlefield but, more importantly, no air weapons teams to support units in trouble and no MEDEVAC aircraft to get wounded personnel to hospitals fast. So my trip outside would have to wait, and we returned to the RIP/TOA process.

Which is going quite well. I have met most of the major players here at the FOB, although there aren't as many of those as we might like because a lot of them have gone down to Ba'quba to deal with the fighting there. In particular, most of the people I answer to are down in the city, so I will doubtless have to take the team into Ba'quba at some point to meet with my bosses as well as to get a feel for those elements of our IA battalion that are in the fight there. I have been impressed, nonetheless, with the elements we have manning our FOB, from a special forces team to military police to elements of the squadron. It's good to be part of a team like that.

Today we head out to finally meet with our battalion. They are geographically separated from us, and we're not currently allowed to live on their FOB due to security issues; we're too small a team to protect ourselves alone, and there's very little other Coalition presence in that area, so we have to drive up every time we want to see them. Somewhat frustrating, but even with the surge there aren't enough spare personnel to augment the MiTTs to allow them that kind of freedom. So we'll drive up today, spend the day checking out our battalion's AO, overnight at the FOB, spend most of tomorrow checking out the AO as well before returning sometime tomorrow. It promises to be an exciting time.

READER COMMENTS

Good entry. People seem to be interested in your viewpoint on events in Iraq. Keep up the good work.

I look forward to reading your blog each day. It is good to hear what it is like for you and the troops. You sacrifice so much so that I have the freedom to read this paper and not worry about a death threat for doing so. Thank you and all the troops for trying to give the privilege of Freedom to another nation of oppressed people. It takes time to reteach humans that are hardened by suffering. God Bless You All.

We appreciate your point of view. Stay safe. We would like to say a sincere "thankyou for your service, Sir"
And God bless you, from San Antonio, Texas.