I’m quick to post things about and by soldiers whose morale is high, so here’s something from the flip side of that record: this Sergeant is tired and frustrated.
We’d like to go out and do more combat patrols, but the powers that be want us to do it with the Iraqi Police. Problem is, they don’t have any gas. Yep, somehow the country that is sitting on about 20% of the world’s oil supply does not have enough gasoline to provide to their cops so they can go out and patrol a five block neighborhood. Gee, I wonder if those rumours about corruption in the Iraqi government are true?
So we sit. I practice my Arabic. We buy local food for lunch, and enjoy the delicacies of falafel, mutton kebab, lamb tikka, and dysentery. Drink chai, and smoke cigarettes. Talk about how much we miss home, or who in the platoon is getting on our last nerve today. Wave at the Apaches when they fly low overhead. Wait for something to blow up.
Every couple of days, something does. Blow up, I mean. It’s usually one of our patrols in the area. When that happens, we reluctantly load up in our HMMWVs, and drive a block or two, and then sit and watch while a HMMWV crackles and burns and rips itself apart with self-destructing ordnance — all the grenades and anti-tank rockets and stuff “cooking off” from the flames. Fortunately, so far at least, no one has been killed in these attacks, and usually no one is even there when we pull up, so we just “secure the area” and let the truck burn.
The other day’s Big Boom was an RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) attack on a passing convoy, less than 100 meters from my gate. That was fun. This was the same unit that got attacked, also with an RPG, in front of the station a few nights ago. They’re newly arrived here, and are a bit too aggressive. They’ve had a number of “Escalation of Force” incidents where they have lit up civilian cars that have approached them a little too quickly. In all of the cases, it has turned out merely to be innocent civilians. No weapons, no nothing. Just families trying to get home before curfew. Sounds like the locals may be trying to get payback on them.
Most of the time, though, it’s just hot and sweaty and pointless and really, really boring.
