MOVED MOVED MOVED

WE'VE MOVED!!!!

Although Blogger is sweet and uber cool, I wanted to branch out and try another recommended weblog hosting site.

So, please update your links to my new home at Talking Salmons.

I hope you'll like it!

pack your linens and start your grinnin

Like the primordial oozes from some billion years past, a new blog is forming in the nether.

Behold! The makings of a NEW BLOG. Be prepared to make the move, friends, but not quite yet. I'm ironing out bugs.

More to follow.

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flickr

I'm in the process of uploading the bulk of my photos to that flickr.com site I see lots of people using.

Please bear with me as I figure out the best way to incorporate this new site into my entries. I'll fiddle with how best to showcase photos and the like as I delve into Blogger, html, and all that crap.

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Tilil, Part 1

DSC_3607
Originally uploaded by salemonz.

Tilil, Iraq.

Eight hours south at best speed. I’d be in a Heavy Equipment Transport with the 377th Transportation Company, moving some M109 Paladins south to be shipped back to the states.

HETs are said to be the third largest vehicle on the ground. The first is the sled NASA uses to haul the space shuttle. Second are those dump trucks used in stone quarries. Then comes the HET. I don’t know if that’s exactly true...but it sure is a big sombitch.

SP was at 2230. I rolled in to the 377 motor pool around 2145 to manifest and receive the “stay awake and don’t shoot anybody” briefing. Good times. Hello’s all around. I was the new guy – all of this was organized through my section sergeant.

It’s always awkward meeting a group of guys in the dark. You have no idea what anyone’s name is or what they look like, so any introductions are moot by morning when light comes around.

“Get comfortable Salmons,” the convoy commander said after the briefing. “The roads are red, so we’re on hold.”

That meant our route had experienced “hostile activity” within the last few minutes. Whether bomb or ambush, we liked to let things settle down before heading back down the same route. It could take awhile before we were cleared to leave.

I asked where my truck was, eyed the ladder, and then my gear. I’d have to make trips.

After the ascent to the cab, I situated myself in the “third seat” or rear bench. The driver and TC station were independent full-out chairs, but the rear seat actually was two flat pads that formed a bench when down but became two bunks when the back portion was propped up.

“Yeah, we don’t leave these damn trucks,” my driver said. “We eat, sleep, and live out of here. It’s how we do.”

My driver was a stop-loss soldier. That means his time was nearly up when the military enacted a special clause that kept him in past his contract date long enough to deploy.

“I should’ve been out a year and two months ago,” he said through a winter cap he had pulled over his face, laying back in his chair. “And they wonder why I don’t give a sh*t. Two weeks and we go home. Three months after that, I’m a civilian.”

This guy’s plight was typical. Say what you want, good or bad about the military, the mission, God, justice, truth and all that, but there are a lot of men and women being held in the military far past their agreed-upon enlistment date.

The saying good or bad things part comes in when the argument comes to blows about how nobody forced this kid to sign the contract, how he volunteered. And that’s all true. We all raised our hand, and so on and so on, the mantra goes. The sticking point is how many of us were given a high-pressure sale, like a sneaky car salesman, and got a lot more interest on our loans than we wanted to pay. Yes, we agreed to it, being naive enough to trust others, but we still don’t think well of the salesman.

My ears always perk up when I run into these guys, since I stand a good chance of becoming a stop-loss soldier myself. Upon our intended return date from this deployment, I’ll have one year and three months left on my contract. That’s a dangerous amount of time. Usually you’re in the states eight months to a year before heading back. I’ll probably end up like this guy, just weeks away from leaving when I’m tagged for another year rotation in this paradise.

As the driver settled in to get some sleep, I climbed down the cab ladder to socialize with some of the other Joes while we waited.

The dark was lanced by thin beams of light from some cab lamps. The idling roar from the monster trucks was almost enough to cover over the crackling of gunfire that started up behind us.

“Hear that? Someone’s lighting something up! Yeeeehaaawww,” one of the gun-truck escort soldiers yelled as he passed by. Our escorts were newly arrived from some place, eager to earn some medals.

The four guys I had meandered to just shook their heads.

“We’re two weeks out from leaving. He can have all the IEDs he wants,” one of them said.

These guys had experienced attacks as part of their daily routine. Collectively, their unit had put in nearly 16,000 operational miles during their year. They were ready to put this place behind them -- at least for a few months, then they'll be right back for another go-round.

The gunfire continued for a few seconds. “They’re getting ready for ya,” one said to another.

“Why me? Why they always getting ready for me? I got kids. I got a wife. You take ‘em.”

We laughed for a minute before the convoy commander yelled over the engine noise. “Mount up. We’re rolling.”

Doing a quick check on my weapon and ammo, I climbed back into the truck that would be my home for the next couple of days.

To be continued...

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there and gone again

We've been on black-out comms for the last few days, so sorry for the lack of posts.

I'm out for awhile on patrols and such, be back in a few days.

Booya!

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New link

A college chum of mine Joshua Hynes is part of a site called "friendswithmanagers." His eye for typography and design is uber. I thought I had put him on my link list, but hadn't :p Check it over yonder --->

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Football with the boys

While waiting for our escortees to finish off-loading their pallets of supplies and ammunition, some guys from the brigade Personal Security Detail broke out the football and started chucking it around. I took the time to brush up on my sports photography skills, which don't see much use while deployed.

Sgt. Hedgepeth takes some time to regroup after a fumble. Better luck next time, jerky!

Spc. Campbell plays dirty, shoving Sgt. Ludlam during a pass. Hardcore, son. Bring it!

Going long! A little too long, as Lud almost gunned it outside the perimeter.

Sgt. Martinez is an ace with every weapon system we have. With several confirmed kills from his last deployment, he's a good guy to have up top.

Soldiers performing riverdance...hrrmmm. I still can't shake it from my mind ;)

That's all I got today. Peace, love, and all that.

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On guard

Here are a few pics I was able to grab while interviewing some of the camp guards. While at first one might pity the poor schmos who are saddled with this mind-numbing undertaking, upon some inquiring, I found out that they work one eight-hour shift a day. Compared to the 10-15 hour day shifts that we deal with, I'd be the first to volunteer for some guard-tower action.

Pay no attention to the soldier peering out the top of this tower. You probably didn't see him because of his camouflage anyway, right? Super secret stuff.

I thought the flag placement was interesting, you know, since we're all about peace and liberty and all that.

Ah, the Iraqi countryside. Endless fields of mud and grime. Huts dot the landscape, some long, some short. And satellite dishes on almost every roof.

Hulks of cars and rusted piles of metal and trash are everywhere. Mounds of dirt are piled here and there for no reason. I've been in a lot of spots in central Iraq, and they all pretty much look like this.

Here is an Iraqi soldier. They are very careful to cover their faces when they go out, since reprisals and acts of violence against their families are guaranteed if the public knows who they are. They work three weeks and are off one. Pretty nice setup. Well, apart from the whole "my neighbors will kill me if they knew what I did" gig.

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The room

So I thought I'd post a couple of pics of my room. I'm thankful every day for it, especially since I spend a lot of time living in other camps, in tents and such. Having this place to come home to after my trips away is very nice.

My roomie is Native American. His wife sends a lot of post cards. Pretty sweet stuff.

There it is, the room in all it's splendor. Notice the svelte carpet ($37.99) and lamp ($4.99).

There's my view. Nice, eh?

Here's the bed. I wanted a blanket to keep the dust off the covers, so I picked one up at the PX, not paying attention to the price. Waiting in line, I finally made it up to the cash register. It turned out to be $47. Ouch. It's warm at least.

Ah yes, the road guard vest; my talisman of safety. We have to wear this sucker everywhere, and they're even talking about making us wear it in our DCUs, since the peeps who stay in their offices all day are freaks about safety. Nothing says tactical like a bright orange vest.

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A lighter side

A welder from one of our maintenance companies puts together a "gun box" used by the US and Iraqi Armies. The boxes are placed in the back of old US 5-ton trucks and give soldiers riding in the rear some semblance of protection against shrapnel and small-arms fire.

Keeping it real

I’d count to three, then I’d end this guy’s life.

All the mental checks were done. Night aperture? Check. Round chambered? Check. Aim? Center of the chest. Clear shot? Perfect.

He was in my sector of fire, along the right side of my truck. It fell to me to shoot. It fell on me to kill.

Ten minutes earlier our convoy had halted along a particularly prickly stretch of road on our way to deliver mail to several camps in the Baghdad metro area.

“IED,” the call went out on the radio. The first vehicle halted quickly, followed by the rest of the convoy. Dousing our lights, we draped the night around us.

“Calling EOD, everyone just sit tight.”

I would remain standing. My station on this particular romp was in the rear of an old Army 5-ton truck in what we call a “gun box” – a steel box dropped into the truck bed. It was pretty low tech, consisting simply of a few welded steel plates. At the front of the box was a pivoting turret with a mount for a .50cal, or in our case, a 240B machine gun. My gunner was assigned to cover the convoy’s left, leaving me to wander back and forth.

We were the third gun truck, behind the prior two GTs and four civilian mail trucks. Two more trucks, a bobtail, and the final GT made up the final portion of our group. I guess we were in the middle-ish.

Time in a halt ekes by. Your eyes dart in the darkness to every alley, rooftop and patio, trying to spot a possible ambush before Haji gets an RPG off.

“Insurgents will hijack a house, use it to fire a few rounds off, and then get out,” my convoy commander said – a sergeant just like me. “So don’t feel bad if you have to fire back, the people who live there usually run away.”

After a few minutes, all the shadows start to move. Every sway of leaves, every bag tumbling in the street becomes a group of bad guys. It can make you a little batty, especially since you can’t ever hear anything over the convoy’s engines idling.

But, there! Shifting shadows, coming down the road on our right. I swung my spotlight around and flipped the switch. Who would be running along an American convoy at two in the morning?

The answer was an Iraqi in a blue jacket, jeans and with an AK47.

“Here we go,” I remember saying. The gun truck behind me started shouting “Stop! Stop!” to the guy, but he kept on running.

Just then a car, hidden under an overpass a few dozen meters behind us started up and pulled forward.

Okay, now this was getting interesting. The guy made it to the passenger side of the car. What kind of car was it? We were looking for a specific description of car that had attacked a convoy earlier that night. This wasn’t it, but looked close.

He still had his rifle. I watched it carefully. Other soldiers were yelling plenty, I would focus just on his motion. Any move toward us, and I’d fire.

At the driver seat was a man with his head down and hands up. In the back was a woman with two small children, all with their heads down and hands up, perfectly still.

The man with the rifle now was very nervous. I guess he noticed about five weapons pointed directly at him and three spotlights illuminating any avenue of escape. He became very fidgety.

It was strange since the other people in the car were so calm. What was this guy’s problem? Why was he so scared? My first reaction was that this guy was the trigger man for the IED we’d stopped for. He stood around for a few minutes, saw that we weren’t going for it, and decided to try to get the heck out of there before EOD came. It was awfully suspicions how he came out of hiding like he did, and just to have a car waiting for him.

But that was all circumstantial. I’d seen enough episodes of Law and Order to know I didn’t have an outright reason to send this guy to Allah. I’d have to wait for something more.

He got in to his car and started pulling forward into our convoy. “Woah woah woah!” We all shouted, and they stopped the vehicle.

Again, the driver and rear passengers stayed still, while the jittery guy started climbing out quickly. He rounded his vehicle and started walking toward our convoy.

My hands tensed, pulling my rifle close. My aim was rock solid. I was totally calm. No adrenaline, even. Here I was, on the ragged edge, where a man has to face the possibility that instead of a kind, loving citizen, he is a killer, a harbinger of oblivion. It was strange – empty, passionless, calculated.

My trigger felt like a knife’s edge. I held my finger very carefully, poised, ready to pull back and send a shard of metal and fire streaking toward this man and wound myself at the same time. He was still a few meters away. I’d count to three. A very quick three.

On two he stopped, walked back slowly to his car, got in, and drove away very slowly.

“Dude why didn’t you fire,” some of the guys asked afterwards. “I would have totally lit him up.”

Easy to say this or that afterwards, but it’s a different story when you’ve sighted someone in.

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