Veterans
American Soldier Perspective – Iraq May 2007
Posted on: June 04, 2007
Que Pasa everyone,
Just got back from a night on the town. Still no power, running water,air conditioning, and all the other stuff we take for granted. Through the course of the night the sounds of gunfire and explosions could be heard from multiple directions. Finally got to bed at about 10pm was still 93 degrees in our room, sweat all night long, slept (sort of) in shorts and t-shirt under a sheet (to keep the mosquito’s off) was still soaking wet all night long.
I mentioned in a previous post about the local population tiring of the Al Quaida, and JAM. It’s showing some promise. Today I could hear on the radio that three Mosques were under attack by the IAQ. They (IAQ) have made it known that they will target locals and punish them. The up side is that local militias and US forces came together to prevent/defeat the attacks. FYI the car bombs and attacks against civilians are usually to punish the civilians for not supporting them. I fail to see the reasoning in trying to gain support from the population by killing them, woops I forgot IAQ wants to purify Islam through violence, and unite the world under one Caliph, my bad.
Continued efforts to enlist the aid of locals in the fight against the insurgents is ongoing. You might have heard of some of the positive things happening because of it. Recently 40+ Iraqi captives were freed based on a tip from some locals. and we are seeing an increase in locals providing information to coalition forces.
But with the increase in information there is also an increase in violence, the IAQ in particular is desperate to maintain it’s hold on specific muhallas and the civilians living in them. On a side note since we started conducting our patrols with the NP in our sector several months ago, along with the increased Coalition presence there has been a noticeable drop in violence in our sector. And the locals say the bad guys are not as active in our area. But other sectors are not as lucky.
A few days ago soldiers in and around our FOB put together a fund raiser (sort of) 2000+ soldiers came together and paid $10.00 each to be able to participate in a 12 mile road march. The proceeds are being used to help in the reconstruction of some local schools.
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