Monday,Jan 30 2006, 08:04:30 AMMy life

  I decided that I would start writing a journel about what is going on in my life.  Im an Infantryman not

a writer so Im sure my spelling and grammer will be horrible.  I am currently about 6 months into my

tour of Iraq.  I had started a journel on paper while we were still in Kuwait.  While there I found out that

my time as a squad leader was up and I was going to an Iraqi Army post to teach the Non

Commisioned Officers Acadamy for the IA ( Iraqi Army ).  Needless to say I was devestated.  I was

losing my squad and worse yet I was to spend my tour as a pogue ( what all Infantryman refer to rear

echelon types ).  Well, we came into Iraq and my company went to the Syrian border and I came here.

The first week here the NCO Acadamy shut down.  We thought that we were going to be sent back to

our companys.  We sat around here for about a week with our thumbs up our asses doing nothing.

Finaly my Command Sergeant Major came out and told us that we were not to go back to our company

but that we were to shadow the Special Forces team that was here and become combad advisors to

the Iraqi Army.  To keep it short the next few months went by pretty quick.  We did multiple missions,

captured many bad guys, lost a few IA, and lost one of our good friends.  The SF team is now gone

and we are here on our own doing the same mission.

  I got back from leave a couple of days before Christmas.  Leave was great but it went by too fast

and now Im back here doing the same shit.  Except for a couple of exceptions the last couple weeks

after I got back were pretty uneventfull.  I got sniped at once but the sniper was incompetent and

missed me by a mile.  The other day we were doing a TCP ( traffic control point ).  I was standing

by an old bus stop with my interpreter.  I had IA on the roof of the clinic that was also next to the bus

stop and some IA  searching cars.  There was also some IPs ( Iraqi Police ) down the road doing

patrols.  From the south we were engaged by small arms fire.  The position on the roof of the clinic

took a round but missed everyone and one of the IA trucks was hit once again missing everybody.  I

had only one round wizz by me but it was about two feet over my head.  My boss and one of the

other advisors went to where the Strykers were parked with some of the IA, and i stayed putt controlling

the IA that I had with me.  The Strykers and IA vehicles were near where the shooting was so the

Dishka ( a Soviet heavy machine gun ) opened up on the house where they thought that the fire was

coming from.  My boss took some IA and cleared that building but all they found was a bunch of

bullet holes from the Dishka and a family huddled on the floor in the back room.  It was at this time

that the AIF ( Anti Iraqi Forces ), otherwise known as Ali-Babba oppened up in my dirrection from the

Mosque accross the street from the bus stop and the building next to the Mosque.  One round missed

my head by less then a foot.  My interpreter and I were busy ducking and weaving as the bullets

skipped around us until we found cover.  Lucy for us one of the IA on the rooftop started returning

fire and kept Ali-Babba from engaging us anymore.  Also the Diska swiveled around and was lighting

up the tower in the Mosque where they were shooting from.  Our A co was able to clear the building

next to the Mosque but we were unable to get authorization to go into the Mosque itself.  The

afterword of all of this is nobody on either side was hit.

  The other night we went and did a hit on another house.  As usual the Iraqi Soldiers scaled the

wall of the courtyard and opened the gate from the inside.  They started trying to kick in the front door

but were unable to get it open.  At this point I was getting pissed at all the banging going on so I got

a big cinder block from the construction site accross the road and gave it to them to use as a battering

ram.  It worked and they were able to get into the house.  To make the story short we found the

guy we were looking for and detained him and his seventeen year old son.  On the way out his

teenage daughters and his wife were wailing and throwing themselves at my feet begging me not

to take him.  That is one of the hardest things to deal with.  I feel compasion for the families of

these guys, but I have a job to do and Im going to do it.

  The last couple of weeks have been spent training the IA with a couple of missions and patrols.  They are doing realy well with the training that we have been giving them and seem eager to learn.  On one of the patrols we were investigating some graffeti that glorified Saddam.  While we were doing that the

IA Platoon leader got a call on his cell phone saying that another patrol hit an IED and had some dead and wounded. So the Platoon leader decided to go to the explosion site and help out.  We all hurried into our vehicles and started down the road.  We were not far when their rear truck slowed down and stopped.  We thought that the whole convoy had done so and we stopped also.  At least until it was realized that the truck had broked down so we went around and tried to catch up to the rest of the IA since the truck had broken down next to an IA checkpoint.  After a couple blocks of trying to catch up our Captain decided that since we didnt know where we are going we were going to turn around and go back to base.  That was the end of that patrol.

  The next mission we recieved was a big one.  We were to take down a cell of AIF that had been laying IEDs up and down the road.  My part was to go into a house with a Platoon of Iraqi soldiers and take

down one of the bad guys.  It was to be just myself and my interpreter plus the IA.  It went pretty smoothely.  The IA scaled the walls of the courtyard and then kicked in the front door and zip cuffed the guy.  This guy was sitting in the living room on the floor with his hands locked behind his back and his family in the other room.  I started asking him questions and he told me he had an AK47 in the house (which he is allowed to have), but said he couldnt remember where.  I told him either he tells me where its at or im gonna have his house torn apart looking for it.  Needless to say he all of a sudden remembered where it was at.  We also found almost $7,000 in American brand new $100 bills, and about $600 in Iraqi dinar.  Plus he kept a financial record of everbody he gave money to in 3 notebooks and the numbers of money are astronomical.  We detained him and that was the end of that mission.

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