North Bound on Tampa

Route Tampa is a four lane highway that runs from way south of Baghdad to somewhere way north of Baghdad. It’s kinda like the I-35 (For those of you that know what Interstate 35 is.) of Iraq. There is no paved shoulder just a smooth gravel area about the width of a traffic lane on both sides. The median is also unpaved and covered in gravel as well, with some random shrubberies thrown in there to liven the place up. Tampa truly is “The Highway to Hell”, it accounts for more IED’s that any other route in all of Iraq and the hottest stretch of highway just so happens to be in my area of operations.

Yesterday afternoon my platoon was relived out at the patrol base by our 1st platoon. We had just done our 48 hours there and now it was their turn. They had just came down Tampa in the south bound lane and notified us of a suspicious bag on the side of the north bound lane. They said they checked it with binoculars and the sights from the main gun on the tank but determined that it was just a trash bag and called it “clear”, but to take caution. Hours later I find this out.

For the time being I am the truck commander (TC) of my truck. The name of the truck is eloquently, “The Slutty Pumpkin”, it’s a long story and you have to watch the show “How I met Your Mother” on CBS to really understand. Usually I am the gunner, but my actual TC is on leave so I have taken over. For the past month while I have been a TC I have been the TC of the rear truck in the convoy. But today on the way back north, back to the FOB, I was lead truck. The lead trucks job is pretty “simple”. It’s to stop all traffic coming in the opposite lane, to push traffic back away from roadways feeding to the highway, look for any sort of possible attack on the convoy, dodge potholes and previous blast holes in the road that can hide landmines waiting to be driven over, and most of all search for IED’s. Most IED’s are placed along the side of the road and remote detonated. There are some that have a invisible Infa-Red beam that shoots across the road and when you cross it the IED detonates. Some have a command wire that runs back to where the “trigger man” is hiding, then some have tiny copper wires that are laid across the road and when you run them over they connect and detonate the IED. It may not sound like much but when you also got your lieutenant in the next vehicle back calling up the most obvious things on the radio non-stop the whole way, (“Be advised the sky is blue” kinda stuff…) and yapping all sorts of other useless’ crap out to you it take some concentration and patience to get from point A to point B.

So there we are headed north, creeping along at a blistering 20 mph due to the fact that we are having to tow a tank back that broke down the night prior while we were conducting some raids in the area. The shoulders of the roadways are littered with all sorts of junk, tire shreds metal scraps, trash bags and everything else that can blow out the back up a truck. No, they don’t have the “Adopt A Highway” program over here, yet. I notice a plastic bag laying inches of the road which is a little odd for it to be so close to the edge but it’s blowing the in wind and appears to have nothing in it. Right as we are directly next to it fate just so happened to blow some wind directly in the bag blowing it open and letting me look directly in it. “OH SHIT IED! IED! IED! GO! GO! GO!” I screamed to my crew. My gunner hits the grounds screaming “OH SHIT". Thats all could manage to say, thanks for that update there pal! I grab the “hand mic” to the radio and call over the net “IED IED, STOP! STOP! STOP!”.

The whole time in my head I am thinking; “Oh my God this is going to blow up right here on me. I am only like 4 feet from this thing; this is going to really suck.” My driver has since stomped on the gas a pushed up out of the way, all the other vehicles were able to stop just before getting to it. We got lucky they didn’t get the chance to detonate it on us. There is no doubt that they would have blown up one of the trucks. But the bag just happened to be blown open so I could see it looking right back at me. Kinda like looking down a loaded gun during a bank robbery. It was crazy to see a bomb just sitting there. Back in January when I get blown up I never saw it coming, nor did any one on the crew that day. This one was a 155mm artillery round with a long range cordless phone base wired to it and some red duct tape holding it all together. I probably could have read the serial number off the round I was so close. As usual Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) came out and used their high-speed little robot and some C4 explosives to “dispose” of it. Once again making the roads safe for Americans and Iraqis alike.

We got lucky again, for the month of February we have found two IED’s and have yet to be hit and that alone is extraordinary. If the platoon gets hit by 2 IED’s a month it’s considered a good month. So far for the month we have yet to get hit. But the month isn’t quite over yet. Just add that to the list of crazy moments here in Americas fifty first state, Iraq.

And now for your viewing pleasure, a little video my gunner filmed that day. Enjoy.

Super Mario Brothers

It rained the past few days and one thing the desert doesn’t really handle is its rain. Up here towards the north it’s really not so much sand, like a desert, its more dirt, like a barren unwanted wasteland. So when the rainy season begins all the dust and dirt from the previous eleven month drought turns to a nasty muddy soup. Then you drive a few tanks and trucks around in that and churn it up into a thick mud like paste that sticks to everything and your boots track it everywhere. But I guess we might as well enjoy the rain while it is here. Lord knows we will be wishing for it come July.

In other news we are back from another fun-packed trip to the patrol base. As most of you know our patrol base rotation are suppose to be 48 hours but for some reason my platoon ends up out there for longer nearly every time. Its really not a big deal being there for a few more hours in the big picture of things, but at the end of the rotation you are hungry, dirty and tired you just really want to get replaced so you can “combat suit up!” one more time and head back to the FOB; where hot showers, rooms and chow await. Not to mention, phones and the beloved internet. It was pretty low key trip all in all, no IED’s or anything crazy. Well, I take that back. When the IA, (Iraqi Army, we work very closely with them out here. It is after all their country and it will soon be their job to run this little puppet show.) were coming back from dropping off one of their soldiers they noticed one of the local IED Terror Cell leaders and his brother (“The Super Mario Brothers” is what we will call them) driving a truck the other direction. So the IA swing around and after a little resistance the “Mario Brothers” became property if the Iraqi justice system. They also just so happened to find the RPG-7 that the brothers where carrying with them. So just like that, two more bad guys off the streets. After running the names of the “Mario Brothers” they turned up to be suspects in a lot of bad business in the area. They are involved in everything from kidnappings, murders, weapon sales, to IED production, placement and detonation. The two of them apparently have a hand in everything that goes on in this area and more than likely had something to do with me getting blown up a few weeks ago.

It’s crazy that “Mario”, the oldest, was only like 22 years old and his little brother “Luigi” was only 17, and they are pretty important amigos in this show. So I am happy to see that they will be going to some dirty prison somewhere to rot for quite some time. Enjoy the vacation you two…

That pretty much wraps up everything that has been going on the past few days. The mud, the patrol base, the “Super Mario Brothers”; yeah, that’s really about all I can think of. Hope you all have fun with the ice back home in Oklahoma and Texas and where ever else you maybe, stay safe, and I will write again soon.