First Combat Experience

Well, what can I say? I am now a combat veteran, though I really don’t feel like it. I always think of combat vets as old guys who went to Vietnam. Now, I will be one to replace those ranks of veterans. To express some of my experiences on this blog, I hope to remember these times and better myself later in life.

First off, I just got back from a 2 week operation called River Bridge. My company went from town to town clearing each house by house, vehicle by vehicle. We even went through a lot of farming fields. Searching, just searching for anything that would kill us whether that be illegal weapons or explosives. For the most part, we confiscated single barrel shotguns, extra AK-47s (they are allowed 1 per household), occasional handgun, and even a little bit of explosives. We even detained a few people along the way. Some days lasted 24+ hours and we had to learn to sleep an hour here or there during the day to keep us going.

One thing that I would like to let people know about is how friendly some of the Iraqi people are to us even though we enter their homes and conduct a very thorough search of their belongings. We were offered food, tea, and candy, even from a man who I just cut off his lock into his shop down the street. We also went into empty houses or buildings, though sometimes we did not have that choice, and went “firm.” Which means we set up security outside the house and secured the inside as well. Then we took a short break usually to eat lunch or sleep for the night. I found this odd when we had to kick people out of their house even, but we usually let them stay. Even with all this going on, they gave us blankets and food at night. This was truly shocking for me to witness.

That brings me to my next point: breaking into their homes and businesses. This is something that has to be done when the occupants are not home. I got pretty good at it, especially when we had to enter about 50 shops in a row. I am now very proficient in hammering, cutting, or kicking in doors, locks, and gates.

Children generally like us in the towns I’ve seen. Marines hand out candy to them and talk with the ones that can speak a little bit of English. Plus, they treat us kind of like celebrities; asking for our names to be written on their hands. Generally, it is always a good sign to see children around us because Iraqis won’t let their children get hurt by these terrorists.

The biggest complaint I have about my job is the load I have to carry on my shoulders and back. Back in the States, they always tell us to train like we fight, but for some reason they would never give us a full combat load to train with. What I mean by full combat load is this: flak jacket with SAPI plates, Kevlar helmet, camelback with 3 liters of water, 7 full magazines of rounds, a couple hand grenades, a few grenade launcher rounds, binoculars, extra first aid supplies, and other mission essential gear like night vision goggles, breaching kit, flash bangs, and trauma bags with the occasional AT-4 anti-tank rocket launcher. For me, this load is about 50-60 pounds of constant weight put upon my shoulders and back. My shoulder hurts so much that I can barley move my arm to feed myself. So, anyone who wants to send me some good pain killers and icy hot, I would be in your debt. Unfortunately, the mobile PX only comes around here twice a month and sometimes I am out doing ops.

Now for some interesting things that happened on this operation. My platoon did not receive any small arms fire, though other platoons did and it was sniper fire or a RPG that went between two AAVs (Amphibious Assault Vehicles, this is what we use most of the time). The first time I heard an explosion, not our own, was when I was sleeping at our firm base we set up in town. It was a mine that blew up the front of a humvee just outside the wire. Suffered a few casualties and everyone will live. This is not a sound I like to hear wake me, but nonetheless, something I realize I will experience a lot of.

We lost some coalition forces, Iraqi Freedom Guards, during an IED explosion with a brief fire fight. Our Abram tanks were able to roll out and help them out by blowing up a building hiding the insurgents. I did not witness this, but was able to hear the fight in the distance. The Iraqi Freedom Guards are a well trained force that I respect and admire. We lived together for short periods of time and was able to work side by side with them clearing houses. We are also fortunate that they can enter mosques and conduct other operations that the U.S. can’t do.

All this never really scared me like I thought it would until I had my experience with an IED up close. This happened near the end of the operation and we just rolled up into a new town early that morning. Startled the usual house searches and when we got to the second house, I was providing security outside for my team when all of the sudden I was hit with this shock wave followed by a very loud explosion. I turned around and saw a very large cloud of smoke rolling into the air about 200 meters behind me on the road we just rolled up on 30 minutes prior. Luckily, no one was injured and shortly thereafter, weapons platoon lit up a speeding car with a large amount of gasoline in the trunk shortly after the explosion. They killed 2 Iraqis that is believed to be a SVBIED (Suicide Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device). One tactic that the terrorists here use is a IED followed up with a SVBIED. After this all occurred, my team was in front of the platoon who was in charge with searching the area. I was walking down the same road where the IED 200 meters behind me went off with a possible daisy chain of 155mm IEDs along that road. I’ll say just this, I was very aware of my immediate surroundings and where my team was moving the remainder of the mission.

I think this will sum up everything that I did for about 2 weeks here in Iraq. I do have some other stories, some tragic and some pretty funny like my squad literally sitting next to an IED for about 5 hours before we noticed it. Thankfully the detonator was broken, so we were told.