An Irishman in Baghdad

Victor

A friend of mine, who joined the National Guard in California, is in 'quiet' East Baghdad. He's a second lieutenant in a tank unit. I'm posting this more for information than for comment. Technical bits explained at the end.

Christ, what a week. Only reason I know today is Easter Sunday is because my watch tells me it is.

I can also say I now know how I’d react to getting shot at. I get rather miffed. Still not sure if I have a killer instinct or not, explanation to follow.

OK.. So, we have a country that’s in uproar, and we are no longer conducting a change of unit, but full-on combat ops, with a tempo to match.

After my first mission, we get back at about 8pm at which point I am informed that I am going along with the 82nd lads to do an area recon. I also brought all my TCs so that on the way back, we could check out the ground for a mission later in the night.

By the time everything is prepared (Memoranda to write, risk assessments, etc., printer issues) it’s about 1am for me. By 02:30 I’m awake again (So again, lack of sleep), and the entire leadership of the platoon is off to roam around in a HMMWV.

Nothing much happened, we get back, and start prepping for the next mission, which is an area recon. No sleep here either, we leave the gate at about 17:00, with four of my tanks, four AT HMMWVs from the 82nd (with .50 cal, Mk19 instead of TOW, but they kept one of the thermal sights), and the commander’s HMMWV containing the 82nd Company commander, my company commander (doing the right seat ride), their RTO and a driver. As soon as we leave the gate, there’s this loud ‘Boom’. I look over my shoulder, and not three hundred meters there’s what looks like at least an 82mm gone off. We batten down the hatches in pretty good time. Now, the target for this was either our tanks, or a large convoy of container trucks which was waiting to enter the base. There’s this bloody stupid rule that everyone dismounts, gets out, clears their weapons, then gets back in, and enters the base. However, for everyone to get through the clearing point takes for ever, providing a wonderful target.

Anyway, as we progress onwards, we start cracking jokes about now being combat veterans. Riiight.. How little we knew. OK. The mission goes on. For a quiet little part of the war, it’s pretty darned busy. We could see at least five fire fights within ten kilometres of us in our OP as we watch our area (which we think mortars might launch from). The worst of it hit some 1ID guys and resulted in some 15 casualties, I’m told. (Including one Bradley?). Due to the compartmentalization of the battlespace, we weren’t allowed to go charging to the fire fight, though we’d have been there in ten minutes or less in most cases. Finally, however, at about 22:00 we get a change of mission and go get sent to create a checkpoint on the road and try to nab some of the ambushers as they drive back from their ambush. For some reason, we drop the AT platoon, so we’re now down to four tanks, and the command Hummer.

Off we go, and we go careening down the road. We stop at a traffic cone in the middle of the road, apparently there’s an Iraqi police station there. After a little checking to confirm that the guys with the AKs were actually police, we go around the corner and go another.. oh… 400meters, maybe less.

The following will be told twice. The first time is what I saw as it happened, the second is what really happened as after I was discussing things with my lads.
We enter a slightly open section, and there’s a lot of popping. Takes me a fraction of a second to think ‘Hey.. that sounds like there’s another ambush going on. We must be near it, wonder how easy it’ll be to find it?’

The next thing which goes through my mind is.. “Well, would you look at that. Tracers.”

I don’t actually remember figuring out that they’re coming at me. I do remember yelling ‘SCAN RIGHT!!!’ Neither do I remember anything between that point, and looking in the GPSE at a target. Dropping into the hatch, mucking around with the seat, moving forward, doesn’t seem to have happened.

I see the most perfect target I could ever expect to see in my career in the thermal sight. A guy crouched, and running parallel to us, carrying what appears to me to be an RPK. (Initially thought it was an RPG, but I don’t think so).. I call for the platoon to stop (Took me a second, my usual response to an ambush is to drive through it, but hey.. I’m in a sixty-ton tank!), and also yell ‘RPG right!’ on the radio.

“Gunner, coax, troop”. Gunner has already flipped the toggle to ‘coax’

Then a ‘Clunk-thunk-unk’, the sight picture jumps around and I lose sight of the guy. Mutual curses from myself and gunner, he plays with the controls, and I have a target again. The person I’m looking at in the sight has no weapon, both hands are in his pockets, and he’s kind of casually standing around. There’s a built-up area near as well. I cannot be 100% sure it’s the same guy I saw two seconds earlier with the RPwhatever, and so don’t shoot. He strolls around, as if he’s a spectator, than after a minute or two, casually walks off.

We’re left cursing our luck. There was so much fuming going on in the tank, you could probably see steam escaping out the hatches.

OK, this is what really happened.

We drive along, and the enemy open up with an ambush consisting of at least two RPGs and two automatic weapons. Interestingly enough, the ambush is from both sides of the road at the same time. They’re evidently not worried about crossfire, though it does complicate things for us. RPGs fly in front of two of my tanks, one of which detonates on the far side, the other, near as we can tell, did not detonate at all. The tracers were all agreed to be high, possibly they were aiming for TCs. An inspection of the tanks later don’t indicate any hits by even small arms. The actual shooting lasted about three or four seconds, it was over bloody quickly. My lead tank’s loader got off a 16-round burst at one chap, he says he’d be surprised if the guy lived given the range, but I’m not optimistic. Nobody else got off a shot. Indeed, to my knowledge, mine was the only gunner to actually acquire a target. They let off one burst, and went to ground. What we think happened is that they’re not used yet to the concept of a whole bunch of tanks in our area, (Apparently my company has only one less tank along than the entire 1st ID) and thought they had another APC convoy going through (M113s, Brads). They launch their attack without knowing that we were a little stronger than that, but after we stopped, slewed the turrets, and that 240 burst as well, I think they probably all copped on, and decided that discretion was the better form of valour and scarpered.

I yelled to scan, and myself and my loader both dropped like rocks. As for what happened to my tank, it transpired that we traversed back far enough that we hit the inhibitor which prevents the gun from hitting the back deck. Unfortunately, what I didn’t know at the time was that whilst I lost sight of the guy with all the jumping around, the gunner did not (effectively a wider field of vision through the GPS than the GPSE I think) and saw the gentleman in question place the weapon on the ground. I didn’t find out about this until much later. Had I known, we’d have killed him. My gunner thought I knew. Hence my not being sure if I have a killer instinct: I think anyone else in the platoon would have shot him, but I didn’t. Then again, at the time he had the weapon, I had no doubts about commanding ‘fire’ at all.

Terrain involved some irrigation ditches, we couldn’t follow. There was a set of triple concertina wire, followed by the ditches. An attempt by myself to maneuver around the side resulted in the tank pitching forward at a horrible angle, and so we decided not to go forward. Six decides that they’re going to at least get the weapon that the guy dropped, so they get out on foot, have a tank lead and crush the wire, and so the dismount element of two captains and their driver goes out into the zone and starts hunting around for this thing. An hour later, they still haven’t found it. The terrain sucked, it wouldn’t have been too hard for the guy to push the weapon into the mud just under the surface. In the meantime, the tank that was used to crush the wire now has it wrapped around the sprocket, and so is limited in manoeuvrability. It then gets stuck in the ditch, listing at about a 50 degree angle, with the left track wedged in the ‘V’ at the bottom of the concrete ditch. Joy. So now we have to cut the wires, and of course, the sprocket with the wires trapped around it is the one on the threat side. Out hops the E-4 with the wire cutters. Another E-4 joins him, and I figure that I may as well stand out there too and keep ‘em company. I have to take out the bullet-proof plate in the back of my vest to work in the tank, so as I’m standing there holding the flashlight, joking around with the guys, I’m really thinking ‘please don’t shoot me in the back.. please don’t shoot me in the back…’ Considering we’re standing in the open with lights on where the bullets were flying not fifteen minutes earlier, the humour content of our chatting was pretty reasonable. Anyway, we get the wire out, the tank manages to extract itself, and it’s back home. We’re back in the tents by 0500.

cont./...

Victor

cont./...

So, lessons learned.

1) This mucking around with safety regulations such as mechanical safe on the .50, or whatever else that reduces response times has to go. From now on, my toggle switch is set for ‘coax’ and the .50 cal to ‘fire’. I’m just going to be careful about leaning on the butterfly.

2) This stuff happens bloody fast. It was over before we had even known exactly what was going on. I didn’t find out that it was an ambush from both sides until much, much later.

3) I don’t need to immediately drop to the GPSE. The gunner’s already looking at that. I should use that bullet-proof glass thing under the .50 cal and look for flashes.

4) Stay low. They try for TCs.

5) They don’t like taking on a platoon of tanks.

6) Say something like ‘coaxtroopsfire’. To hell with the long fire command. Afterwards my gunner said he was shocked to hear the textbook ‘gunner coax troop’. Chap would have been dead had I been a bit quicker on that one.

Final score was a nil-all draw. Better than a five one win in my opinion. Incidentally, my little foot-long Irish tricolour was flying from the gunnery flag stand just behind the TC’s hatch, so it is now my official battle standard. I hope this means we can get a combat patch now.. surely surviving an ambush counts! Overall, we’re almost spoiling for another fight. Just to redress the ‘you shot at us, so we’ll shoot at you’ balance. After that, if I never get into another fire fight again, I’ll be happy. I just have this naggling worry about a lucky round impacting my handsome profile as it sticks out the hatch.

Anyway, after another, oh, three hours of sleep (we overslept, was supposed to be one and a half to allow breakfast and so on), we head back to the tanks to take on our QRF mission. Basically, live on the tanks for 24 hours in the event that they give us a mission that we need to go ‘NOW’. It’s pretty restful considering, most of the time was spent pulling some slight maintenance on the tanks, and replacing a hub on the idler that got sheared off by the concertina wire. That night, on cots by the tanks, we actually got something like six hours of sleep. Finally.

Next mission rolls on, we go straight from QRF on the motor pool, going back to gate guard at the entry points. I figure the effects of the tank is more that of the psychological boost for our guys than as a deterrent for the other blokes. We are certainly appreciated, even if we haven’t quite found a use for it yet.

Roll back to the motor pool at about 10:00, and hang around there on call until 14:30, when we roll out to the gates again. We finally finish up, off-load the tanks (which we are due to lack of working parts: All the tools and spares are in container vans somewhere stuck between Kuwait and here) and are in the tents again by 19:00 or so.

That morning, one of my TCs said ‘You’re finally getting that crusty tanker look, sir’. I wasn’t entirely sure what he meant until I looked in the mirror. I was positively black from about an inch below eye level to the neck, and about two day’s worth of beard. I saw myself and said ‘Good Christ!!!’.

Definitely need a shower at this point, as do the guys. So I walk over to the shower point, and there’s no water. There’s also no light in the tent, the generator went down, so people have to sort out laundry and whatnot other changes of clothing in the dark.

Anyway, we zonk, get up again about 06:45 (again, I oversleep), and it’s back to the QRF thingy. More semi-down-time. Whilst restful, there’s a lack of conveniences. I have soldiers that haven’t called or emailed home since we left Kuwait and all this violence started. They just haven’t had the time to make a single call, and they can’t do it from the motor pool either. Anyway, we just sit back all day, listen to the radio, and watch mortar shells and IEDs explode around us. One lands on the PX. The cads. We were looking forward to going there on our day off.

Anyway, nothing much happens until nightfall. We’ve just started unscrewing the headlights of the tanks to go to IR, my gunner’s about five minutes away in search of a latrine, and this call comes in that ‘ten trucks with Medhi Army personnel are reported heading your way. Get everyone up and at the gate yesterday!’. Joy. We finish the headlight transfer, find the gunner, and charge down to the gate. We can knock five minutes off that time, but we were still a lot faster than we had anticipated.

Turns out nobody comes, so it’s back to the motor pool and more sleep. I am taking advantage of the time I have now before we jaunt off to a different base for 24 hours to fire off a few ‘I’m still alive’ emails, and this one. Still no water in the showers, but at least I have time to find a change in clothes.

The night after our ambush, I should add, another platoon in the company went out with a platoon of 82nd Airborne riflemen on a search op in the same area.

Apparently the night of all the fighting, the scouts observed a team of about 7 people lobbing mortar rounds at the base. The mortar crew, and a couple of guys for security. They watched them lob a couple, then they had a misfire. The mortar crew then carried out a misfire drill to standard, before they decided to call it quits before we reacted (we had a counter battery fire out today in about 90 seconds, for example) and the scouts then watched the team bury the mortar in a hide site. Frankly, if they were close enough to determine that they were carrying out a misfire drill to standard, I don’t know why they didn’t just lob the Mk19 at them, but anyway. So the next night, off go the riflemen with the two tanks to this area not far from where we got ambushed. They find not only the mortar, and detain a half-dozen people, but they also find a weapons cache of an RPG with warhead, a few grenades, and a number of AKs, possibly part of the lot that shot at us. So there was some good news to come out of that event.

In the meantime, the chow hall is down to two day’s worth of food. Convoys aren’t getting through.

As for other things, the first thing that Top suggested when I asked about a care package request was canned air, to clean keyboards and whatnot. Can’t find it here. I might also suggest small 220-110 transformers, and appropriate socket adapters. Looks like they use the UK Standard three rectangular pins here, not the European round ones which I had initially thought. These transformers and adapters are also slightly hard to find around here for some stupid reason. We’re all good on the usual things like baby wipes and so on, the PX is fairly well stocked on that. Maybe a few recent DVD releases, general morale/relaxation things I guess. Sure, you can use your imagination, I guess. Oh, perhaps you could convince your single, young, attractive daughters to ‘adopt’ the odd single tanker we have…

Anyway, over three weeks have passed since we got off the airplane. Another 49 or so to go, give or take!

My Garmin RINO has proven non-soldier-proof. It’s malfunctioning on me already. (Locking up every few minutes). The outer screen is also badly cracked, as is the one my gunner has. Must fire off an email to Garmin and tell them to produce a ToughRino. Admittedly, even the titanium Rhino Skin hard case for my palm pilot has been bent seriously out of shape. That said, it’s still so much easier to use than the Army issue PLGR. Still waiting for hard drives for our Blue Force Tracker.

Have fun, will write when I can. I think the optempo’s slightly decreasing, thankfully.

TC = tank commander
AT HMMWV = Anti-tank jeep
.50 cal = heavy machine gun
Mk19 = automatic grenade launcher
TOW = anti-tank missile
82nd = 82nd Airborne Division
82mm = 82mm mortar
1ID = 1st Infantry Division
RTO = radio operator
OP = observation post
Aks = AK-47 or similar rifles
GPSE = Gunner's Primary Sight Extension, something that lets the commander see what the gunner is looking at
GPS = Gunner's Primary Sight
RPK = machine gun
RPG = rocket propelled grenade (launcher)
coax = co-axial machine gun, in this case an M240 (FN MAG / GPMG)
240 = M240 machinegun
M113 = (older) armoured personnel carrier (APC)
Brads = Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle, heavier than an APC but lighter than a tank
QRF = quick reaction force
Hotseating = one tank being used by several crews
concertina wire = nasty version of barbed wire
PX = shop
IED = Improvised explosive device
Optempo = operational tempo

Brerrabbit

Fooking hell!

I've been so caught up in the discussion over whether troops should be there or not , I did'nt give any thought to the lads on the ground. The media coverage is so constant and is given in such a way that it dehumanises the combatants and its not till you read a personal account like that, that you realise there are people behind the numbers.

Your mate comes across as a clever, funny guy
Wish him luck will ya?

bizmark

Interesting read

Hope your freind gets home safely

TheWolf

Very compelling piece, really makes you think. Wish him luck from me too

gandalf

Victor thanks for that very interesting reading. Hope your mate gets out of there safely, wish him the best from us.

Keep us updated on how he's doing.

Gandalf.

Ivan

Very good piece.

Wish him luck for me.
Sounds like a good guy.

The Muppet

Interesting and informative read into life on the front line.

The best of luck to your mate and his colleagues.

gandalf

Victor any more news from your friend?

Victor

They are taking a lot of inaccurate mortar fire. My friend and his tank platoon ahve to go out at night to try to intercept those firing with mixed results.

They also had a tank collapse a road and overturn into a canal / ditch - this appears to be the number one natural hazard for the Americans.

chewy

saw this link

http://www.americasdumbestsoldiers.com/?id=55and was in part thinking it would be funny but then i saw this entry....

not funny!

gandalf

Jesus that site is sick. Slagging poor souls that died. What a pathetic way to get your jollies!

BuffyBot

Originally posted by gandalf
Jesus that site is sick. Slagging poor souls that died. What a pathetic way to get your jollies!

Indeed. Didn't find that in the least bit funny. I'm quite willing to admit I'm against the war, but knowing someone who has been in Iraq, if something happened to him and I saw that, I can only imagine how I would feel.

chewy

yes posted it to remind myself not to take too much glee in the us ****ing up in iraq...

one falls into the habit of liking to hear how stupids americans are but then you can go to far

cdebru

yeah its interesting
but dont like the idea of him flying an irish flag
he is not there as an irish soldier
but an irish man who is fighting for the americans
have to agree on americadumbestsoldier site
dont see anything funny in any of that

bobbyjoe

Interesting story makes it a bit more real than the soundbites and security speak we are getting used to.
Did he join the National Guard expecting to be a weekend warrior or did he want to go to Iraq?
Don't think you should fly a flag of another country thats not fighting though.
Hope he gets back ok.

Victor

Originally posted by bobbyjoe
Did he join the National Guard expecting to be a weekend warrior

I think he knew what he was signing up for, but Iraq wasn't part of it, if you know what I mean.

Originally posted by bobbyjoe
or did he want to go to Iraq?

No, he didn't want to be part of Bush's Crusade.

cdebru

if you take the money thats what your getting yourself into
you dont get to decide if you agree with the war you get sent
the lesson is think about it before you sign up to anything like that
but dont be flying the irish flag when you are out there
i dont want to be associated with what he is doing out there

bobbyjoe

No, he didn't want to be part of Bush's Crusade

Seems that this is the case from a bit of what I've been reading National Guard people being sent to Iraq for long stays.
Pity Bush didn't have a taste of war maybe he wouldn't be so eager to send others to it.

cdebru

i think you have missed the point
if you join an army you dont get to choose wether you like the war or not
you just get sent to spill your blood
should have tought about that before he joined its not like usa has not got a history of going to war korea vietnam granada panama iraq afhganistan iraq again
if he wanted to be a stay at home soldier he should have joined the fca or something

Sand

but dont be flying the irish flag when you are out there
i dont want to be associated with what he is doing out there

Dont lose any sleep over it. Any Irish flag in Iraq is probably going to be confused with the Italian one anyway.

Magnolia_Fan

but dont be flying the irish flag when you are out there
i dont want to be associated with what he is doing out there

Nobody here knows what "he" is doing out there because we only rely on the media...The Media is never accurate if you watch Fox News its very Bias in favour of the war if you watch anything else its against the war.

I'd be proud to have an Irish flag out there, knowing an Irish man (not a soldier) out there in the first Gulf war I know his feelings about Sadam Hussein and his family, he was held prisoner for 90 days. He made the news here then yet I never saw RTE or BBC interview him instead they interviewed Irish Soldiers who have never been to Iraq.

Not to be disrespectful to them because this is a neutral country and they are doing alot of good in Liberia, I'm just saying you only know as much as you've experienced, I don't know anything about the situtauon I've never been to Iraq and I've never been in a war myself.

Has your friend ever talked to you about the Iraqi people themselves and things the troops do to help them?

cdebru

what they do for iraqi people
you mean when they are not shooting them
or beaten them or humilating them or torturing them in prison
yeah looks like they were lucky to get rid of saddam
cause if your gonna be tortured my preference would be the americans

Victor

Originally posted by Magnolia_Fan
Has your friend ever talked to you about the Iraqi people themselves and things the troops do to help them?

He's based in a rural area so his platoon rarely interact with people.

I think if the local guys are inviting him over to eat fresh chicken, then he is reasonably respected.

He certainly gives the impression that everything is under-resourced and rushed.

Magnolia_Fan

Thats good, I'd hate to thing that everybody out there was hostile towards them and for as for the other guy...I was asking an honest question and if you truly believe troops are shooting at civilians on purpose out there you are very too far left to see the middle.

cdebru

I was asking an honest question and if you truly believe troops are shooting at civilians on purpose out there you are very too far left to see the middle.

can i suggest having just seen the photos of us soldiers smiling with thumbs up over the corpse of an iraqi who was in their custody
with 40 people killed at a wedding party criticised by hte red cross
that if you believe they are not shooting at civilians on purpose you must have your eyes closed
this was obviously going to happen when you invade aa country and if even only a few oppose you the occupying army has to treat everyone as a threat and in the process alienate more and more of the general populationand put them into the arms of your opponents
iraqis did not want saddam but now they dont want the americans either

Moriarty

Originally posted by cdebru
can i suggest having just seen the photos of us soldiers smiling with thumbs up over the corpse of an iraqi who was in their custody
with 40 people killed at a wedding party criticised by hte red cross
that if you believe they are not shooting at civilians on purpose you must have your eyes closed
this was obviously going to happen when you invade aa country and if even only a few oppose you the occupying army has to treat everyone as a threat and in the process alienate more and more of the general populationand put them into the arms of your opponents
iraqis did not want saddam but now they dont want the americans either

By your logic every Irish person was responsible for every death the IRA caused. I'm sure you'd also be the first to criticise Israel for its policies towards 'collective guilt' when they shut off the power and water to gaza etc aswell. The irony of it all.

Manic Moran

Thanks to one of the moderators for pointing out this thread was still in existance!

To answer the two major questions that have cropped up (Over a year later, but better late than never!)

1) I didn't really complain per se about going abroad. I knew quite well that I was at the mercy of the Army, and could be sent to wherever they wanted to send me. Admittedly, at the time I was thinking I would be probably called up for, in order of likelihood (1) Local disaster relief/law enforcement (2) Peacekeeping (Bosnia/Kosovo sort of deal) or (3) World War III or other such conventional warfighting scenarios. Occupation duty never really entered my realm of consideration back in 2000 when I signed on. Considering I was leaving my GF for a year, yes, I was a little upset, and my parents went ballistic. (You can imagine, the only thing they got from the news was "And in Iraq today, three American soldiers were killed..."). A common thread I'm hearing from my lads after we returned was that it was much harder on our families than it was on us.

2) I generally stopped flying my little tricolour shortly after this incident, except when still on base (Gate guard, that sort of thing). It was great for finding other ex-pats who had joined up. Not so much because there might be confusion, but because since American flags were banned, I felt it wouldn't be right. Some other immigrants chose to keep their flag displayed all year. As for local recognition, I had to pull out Euro notes and point out Ireland on the map when talking with locals. (Family history is a big deal over there)

NTM

gandalf

Good to see you made it out in one piece. Will they be sending you back over again at any stage or have you served you time?

What do you think about President Bush not announcing a timetable of withdrawal yet?

I can imagine your family went through a lot of ups and downs when you were away, hope your parents have calmed down

Manic Moran

I called my dad from Kuwait when I was on my way out, he was at some formal dinner. They all held a toast to celebrate my safe extraction! As a Guardsman, I can't, under current regulations, be sent back for another full tour. Theoretically, they could still get some eight months out of me if they wanted to dredge the barrel, but a lot of that would end up being taken up by mob/demob, so it would only happen if they were absolutely desperate for troops.

There probably should be a timetable for withdrawl, but not the way most people think. What most of the timetable advocates is something like 'May 2006, troop levels 100,000. December 2006 troop levels 70,00' and so on, down to zero, quite literally, a timetable. I agree with the current administration in that such a 'schedule' would be a very bad idea. Still, there probably should be an announced set of 'checkpoints.' i.e. "Iraqi government has 25 fully capable battalions, reduce troop strength by 12,000." "Attacks fall to less than twenty bombings a day nationwide, reduce troop strength by 30,000" That sort of thing. (I'm pulling numbers out of my arse, here).

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if such a timetable already does exist, in the Pentagon. After all, the Army very much would like to get the hell out of there as well (but not at the cost of mission failure) I don't think there would be very much of a problem with releasing it, and it would mollify most of the critics. There's little evidence to show what would happen if such were to be released, a common opinion we voiced to ourselves over there was "These insurgents are idiots. If they want the US out of the country, just stop bombing us for six months, we'll declare victory, leave, and they can have all the civil war they want afterwards"

NTM

RedPlanet

You know the way they carry on about "foreign fighters" coming into Iraq to blow up the yanks?
Well, if that is so wrong, then why is it OK that teh US would have "foreign fighters" in their ranks?

lazydaisy

You dont know that they are foreign in the US military. They maybe US citizens.

Manic Moran

Well, I do happen to be a US citizen.

For those who are not, they must at least be legal residents. In a somewhat Heinleinian move, 'Service guarantees citizenship', being in the military is a fast-track for citizenship. It knocks a few years off the requirement process.

NTM

Maskhadov

IS this the same guy who joined the Belgium army, then joined the irish army before finally joining the american army and serving in iraq in a M1A2 tank ? He wrote for the irish defence farces monthly magazine I belive.

RedPlanet

lazydaisy wrote:

You dont know that they are foreign in the US military. They maybe US citizens.

According to this site http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/200581622640.asp
There are thousands of foreign fighters in the ranks of the us army.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Fair play to Iraq, if they can attract foreign fighters to their cause, more power to em.

Moriarty

RedPlanet wrote:

Fair play to Iraq, if they can attract foreign fighters to their cause, more power to em.

I guess it's one good way to weed out and kill morons alright.

Hobbes

Ok pics. Pretty tame compared to others I have seen.

This your first tour? My cousin has done three tours so far (currently in Germany now though) and a friend in work has her husband currently over there.

Thought they implemented new rules on posting pics online though? Saw a mention to it on the US Army news in Korea (while I was there).

Manic Moran

Possibly. They implemented new internet-related rules shortly after my tour ended.

I never served in the Belgian Army, though I did live in Belgium, I did do a stint in the FCA, I was in an M1A1 tank, not an M1A2, and I did do a two-parter for An Cosantoir.

NTM

A Dub in Glasgo

Has this thread been butchered? as it is a very disjointed read, maybe the mods can identify why and when they decided to butcher

Manic Moran

Well, there was a 17-month gap in the postings...

NTM

A Dub in Glasgo

Still does not help the disjointedness of the thread, what is the salient point of the resurrection?

Maskhadov

Manic Moran wrote:

Possibly. They implemented new internet-related rules shortly after my tour ended.

I never served in the Belgian Army, though I did live in Belgium, I did do a stint in the FCA, I was in an M1A1 tank, not an M1A2, and I did do a two-parter for An Cosantoir.

NTM

ITS YOU !!:D I kind of got it wrong about a few things, the belgium army and the M1A2. I read your article in an cosantoir and it was well written ! good job. The pics you posted on your blog were top drawer too. Good to hear you made it back in one piece

Manic Moran

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Still does not help the disjointedness of the thread, what is the salient point of the resurrection?

I answered a few questions that had been posed. For whatever reason, I didn't answer them at the time. Better late than never, no?

Mask, thanks. I'm working, slowly, on a book. One day, I might even get it finished!

NTM

Hobbes

Might of helped to the confusion. Thats what I get for reading multiple threads with tabbed browsing.

A Dub in Glasgo

Manic Moran wrote:

I answered a few questions that had been posed. For whatever reason, I didn't answer them at the time. Better late than never, no?

Mask, thanks. I'm working, slowly, on a book. One day, I might even get it finished!

NTM

Fair enough, I did not link the 2 until later on

A Dub in Glasgo

A Dub in Glasgo wrote:

Has this thread been butchered? as it is a very disjointed read, maybe the mods can identify why and when they decided to butcher

There was no butchering.
Another mod from what I can understand pointed MM to this thread given that I moved his pictures thread to the more apprpriate after hours section.
Mods may not have a problem with the resurrection of a thread if its cleared with us first.
We usually do have a problem with random posting to very old threads when a new one could have been started with just a link to the old one.
It's tidier that way.