16 December 2007

Al Falluja, "The City of Mosque"


From the Soldier side: I think "GOOGLE" is great, I first used their search to find a person of interest while working in Bosnia. The photo is from Google Earth, it makes Falluja, Iraq look like a nice city. I'm sure the image was from before the Battle of Falluja, because by Dec 2004, about 70-80% of the city was gone.
The USMC and US Army went in and cleared out the F.F.I. (foreign fighter insurgents) those that weren't killed or hadn't escaped were captured. They had a lot of detainees who were in need of a chat.
Part 3, Convoy to Falluja:
Just as my team and I were about to get into the humvees, the supply sergeant came out. He slipped me a few boxes of ammo. I split them with my team. So now I had two magazines...but the ammo he just handed me was all 5.56 mm tracers. I had one mag with all tracers. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
As I recall, the ride to Falluja was pretty quick. As we got closer to Falluja, the only vehicles allowed on the roads were military. Any other vehicle was fair game to be shot at...without any question. I have been a cop for over 25 years, been to a lot of shit, but this ride had me soo on edge, anything might have made me loose it.
Our absolutely useless training warned us that anything could be an IED...every pile of crap I saw, had me worried. The humvees never slowed and drove at top speed to every check point. I didn't like sitting still at the check points, but as soon as we passed, the driver had it in overdrive in no time. 400 Cubic Inch GM turbo diesel with Over Drive.... still moved too slow for someone used to a Ford Crown Vic that could move at 120MPH.
We rolled into the front entrance to Camp Falluja without incident. Drove over to where the Marines we were going to help were and un-assed the vehicles.
To be cont.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"They had a lot of detainees who were in need of a chat."

I wonder if tthe Army tired using 'sharing cirlces' and I statements'???