Photo Story Monday - Wires, Skulls And Switches

[unhappycamper]

Photo Story Monday - Wires, Skulls And Switches
Monday, February 04, 2008

It always comes back to those fucking palm groves.

A week in that thick, tangled, humid mess of trees, bushes and huts, and it was without a doubt the worst week of my life. We set up on a road along the Diyala River to conduct a huge search and clear of the groves. Nearly every man who could walk was taking part, and from my earlier account, you can tell it was becoming a custom to overload myself with superfluous equipment (though carrying both bolt cutters and a shotgun to use on the three total locks we found was a wise move). In ten minutes my neck was already burning with all the weight on my back. After half a mile down the road, the whines of the Stryker engines were overcome with the ambiance of the wind blowing around the leaves and trash on the side of the road. We found our entrance point.

It took awhile for everyone to get lined up so we could move as one giant unit forward. I watched my team leader for every move and mimicked his actions. Every halt, every crouch we together. We were about fifteen feet into the tree line when a transmission came broken over the radio. "injured....explosion...targeting dismounted personnel." Son of a bitch, man. We all knew there would come a day when insurgents would set up Tamagotchi IEDs to explode right in our fucking faces, but we really didn't want it to be that day. Fifteen feet into our clearing mission that was several square miles over seven days, and we were paranoid to take a single step.




So, like, was it really sandy and deserty in Iraq?


Even few yards we walked, we stopped. And walked. And stopped. And walked. And stopped cold, because our interpreter spotted an RPG round hanging in a tree above our heads. While we silently wondered if it was a booby trap or just a stray rocket, the kind explosive ordnance disposal units came out to collect and blow it up.

And so we went onward! For about twenty more feet. I could go on like this, but we did a lot of stopping, laying on the ground and waiting for something the next six days.


Rest of photo essay at: http://armyofdude.blogspot.com/2008/02/photo-story-monday-wires-skulls-and.html