After holding OBJ VIRGINIA (the SCHOOLHOUSE) for a couple of days, we were relieved by a company of Marines. Cougar pulled back to our initial AA outside the city to refit and refuel. We thought that we were going to get a chance to rest, but no such luck. We had to immediately return to our holding position on ROUTE HENRY and ROUTE DONNA for another push into the city. This time we pushed past DONNA all the way to GRACE in the southern portion of the city. We had minimal contact and were pulled back to the AA.
Later that night, after dark set in, we pushed back into the city. This time we went further down HENRY and the streets to either side, going into the alleys and side streets and destroying any cars or anything that looked like it could be used for an IED. We paused for a while during this sweep so that the CO could work out a possible freindly fire incident that took place involving an A 2/7 platoon that accompanied us on this sweep and a Marine unit that was in an area that we were told was clear of freindly forces. That took a long time.
We pulled back to ROUTE Fran to sort it out, but our Bradleys kept getting stuck in all of the downed power lines. While we were waiting, the dismounts got out and pulled security on 23 so they could untangle their track. They were looking around the area and found a 109mm recoilless rifle mounted on a Jeep Cherokee hidden in the ruins of a mosque. They melted out the breach with an incendiary grenade to disable the weapon. It was an old US Army surplus weapon according to the plate on the side.
We finished up our sweep, smashing and destroying whatever looked “IED-ish” and returned to the AA to get a few hours of sleep.
We held the objective all day, with light resistance in our immediate AO. We took some sniper fire periodically, and responded with 240 and small-arms. At one point, there was a sniper that just wouldn't go away, so our dismounts on the roof of the building fire a Javelin at the building across the way that they suspected the sniper to be shooting from. That seemed to work pretty well! After that they used the Javelin and its CLU to spot targets, especially at night. The CLU has a thermal sight that is almost as good as the new Bradley sights.
A stray artillery round came in and landed in the building right next to C22. That shook things up a bit! We got on the horn and called up to have them cease-fire on their artillery. It helped having a FSO (Fire-Support Officer) on hand that could talk directly on the fires net.
We stayed up all night the night before, and about 1 in the morning we finally rolled through the breach in to the city. It took us a while to get the whole company through, but we finally made it into the city. We rolled along the northern edge of town until we got to the north/south road that we were looking for (ROUTE HENRY) and started our mission, which was to move south on HENRY clearing a path for the folow-on forces.
About daybreak, we had pushed south to the east-west road that was our stopping point for the initial attack (ROUTE DONNA) and we held there for a long time while the other units around us caught up. The Marines to our east had a pretty hard time of it, we could see them getting lit up as they attacked a building in that direction. My platoon wanted to head down that way and support them, but the CO nix'ed that idea. We got upset, but a Marine tank section pulled up to support them so it was OK.
Our dismounts got out of the tracks and set up in an abandoned building for a few hours. There was really light resistance in our sector, and at dusk we pushed down south to our main objective (OBJ VIRGINIA, but we called it the SCHOOLHOUSE).
As we pulled into the area around our objective, we passed through some of the most damaged parts of Fallujah. The tank platoons went in ahead of us to block off some of the roads around the SCHOOLHOUSE, and we pulled up to the objective. My track (C21) was tasked to suppress the first building in the complex while C23 rammed the wall to create a breach. I pumped mad HE into the building and used HE to knock down some large trees that were covering the front of the building. 23 knocked down the low wall in front of the target building and rammed the wall, then pumped a few HE rounds into the hole. They backed up, pivoted around, and dropped their dismounts into the breach. SGT Field's team went in first, and they described it like a scene from a movie, with fire and smoke filling the initial room. They were unprepared for the desks and tables in the room, and had to climb up onto the desks and run from desktop to desktop.
We secured the building and moved on to take the rest of the buildings in the little compound. It took us about 2 hours to secure the rest of the compound. Once the objective was secure, my platoon pulled security around the compound with the Brads while the tanks roamed the area looking for insurgents.
We SP'ed (Start Patrol) from Camp Fallujah to our attack position, a staging area near the outskirts of the city. We waited there all day as the task force got into postion behing us. Late that afternoon, the bombing in the city intensified. By nightfall, the volume of fire being poured into the northwest corner of the city was awesome.
Well, not really.
I fired my first shot in anger today. We did two raids overnight, and during the second one my track was blocking traffic on a main road while the dismounts raided a couple of houses down an alley. I was signalling cars to turn around using a handheld spotlight, and one of them wouldn't take the hint. He stopped, but then kept coming, so I signalled again, and when he got almost to my track I fired a round from my M16 in front of his car. Simultaneously, a 2/162 National Guard guy fired over the top of the car. Needless to say, the guy stopped and turned around in a real hurry!!!
Today we said goodbye to one of our own. We held a memorial service at Camp Cooke (TAJI) for SSG Gregory Pennington. SSG Pennington died on 21 Jun 04 due to a mortar attack the Patrol Base Gunslinger where 3rd platoon was stationed. He died saving other soldiers. When the first rounds hit, he yelled 'Incoming!' and began to direct soldiers to the safety of the building. He made sure the soldiers were safe before seeking cover himself, and just when he entered the building, a mortar round landed behind him. He was wounded by shrapnel in the back of his head and in his back. He lived long enough to make it to the hospital in the Green Zone, but died during surgery.
Greg Pennington was a hero in every definition of the term. He was a loving husband, and an excellent NCO. All of the soldiers in C 2/7 Cav will miss his easygoing, quiet manner and the way he always managed to keep his head under pressure. I only knew him for a year, but he was one of the nicest men I have ever met, truly a good person. And that is rare in these times.
Well, there is a upside to guarding a bunch of reporters. Fox News stopped in to ask the LT if any of our guys wanted to say “Hi” to their families and friends back home for Memorial Day. We all jumped at the chance, and they will air our messages on the Cavuto Show at 3:30 Eastern Time on Memorial Day.
Too cool!
Sigh, I guess I am stuck here another couple of weeks. Our first platoon has been held over so they won't be relieving us anytime soon.
The hotels we are guarding are pretty nice for Baghdad standards.
There is hot running water, and the food is way better than at Camp Cooke or FOB Provider. Last night I had breaded pork chops, cole slaw, and apple pie. Mmmm…warm apple pie. Oh, my mind wandered for a minute there, sorry. We have a couple of rooms in the different hotels. The dismounts sleep there. I pretty much hang out in the MWR room or sleep in my track at night. We rotate on the tracks at my position in 6 hours on, 6 hours off shifts, so I get enough sleep, but I wish it was a little more.
I can't say more than this, but yesterday we got some info that made us step up our security today, so instead of having just one of our two tracks at this postion on guard, we have both at the same time. It just means that we have to stay in the tracks a lot more today instead of hanging out in the MWR room or going to the hotel rooms for showers and naps and stuff. Of course this happened today, right? Some birthday.
I will try to borrow a digital camera to take a picture of the mosque across the street and the park in the middle of the turning circle in front of me where Saddam's statue was. It is really beautiful. In the mornings, afternoons, and nights the mullah's sing the prayers over the loudspeakers in the minaret on the mosque. It is a strange sound, but I am getting accustomed to it. I think they are haunting and beautiful songs. I wish I could understand the language. I am learning simple things like the numbers. A lot of the signs on the shops downtown are in both Arabic and English. I don't know if it was like that before the US came here or not.
To our left is an apartment complex that looks like it was lifted right out of the projects in New York. Four large apartment buildings. Almost every window has a satellite dish on the balcony. At night there are what we call “rolling blackouts” like they have in LA. Our hotel complex never loses power, but the streets all around do. The air smells constantly of burning garbage, since everywhere around people burn their trash to get rid of it. No matter what time of day, you can look around and see someone burning trash. Last night, one guy even burned his trash on the balcony of his apartment. We saw some flickering lights in another window and sparks flying, and when we scanned it though the binoculars, a guy was welding a bed frame or something, right in his own apartment.
Well, it has been a long week so far, and it is only half over with. The detail in Camp Doha turned out to be 3 days of sitting around doing absolutely nothing in a hot tent. They finally got us back over to our camp this afternoon, but things weren't much better. As it turns out, since we are attached to a National Guard unit that leaves later than our battalion, we are leaving with them when they go up north. Since they haven't even left the US yet, that could be a while. It also means that C company is doing a lot of the details and is last in line for a lot of the ranges and other pre-deployment stuff behind the rest of the battalion. Of course, we will probably end up being last in line behind the National Guard unit when they get here as well. Oh, well, that's the Army for you!
My smallpox shot is looking really nasty. It is about the size of a dime, and looks like an oozing, pus-filled boil. It is surrounded by a 2-inch diameter circle of red, feverish skin. Oh, and my lymph node under that arm is swollen and hard. The smallpox vaccination also itches like crazy.
When we got back from Doha, a lot of people in the company had mohawks. Of course they called them really high high-and-tights, but the brigade Command Sergeant Major saw some of them in the chow hall and chewed out the battalion CSM and of course he chewed out the First Sergeant, and it all rolled downhill. It looked stupid anyway, but I didn't see how it was hurting anything. It started out with just one guy, and of course over the last three days more and more showed up.
They gave us a lot of stuff that we needed, mostly the MOLLE equipment that goes with our OTV (replaces the old Vietnam-era flak vest). Really nice stuff, and it's about time the army got away from the WWI/WWII pistol belt, suspenders, ammo pouches and canteens. The whole system is really well thought out, and makes it a lot easier to manuever with all of your personal gear on.
I finally got my laptop up and running today. The power in the tent is 220v, and of course everything that we brought uses the American 110v. I guess the Army jusr can't make all of the power outlets 110v, or at least provided some of the outlets adapted for use with the US 110v. I got my power converter hooked up in my track, though, and now I can charge up stuff like my GameBoy. Lucky for me that my laptop comes with a switachable power supply that automatically adjusts for European voltage. I'm a little upset, since there are some files that I thought I had transferred from my desktop to my laptop before I deployed, and they just aren't there. Arrgh.
We have a lot to do before we roll up north. The rest of the battalion finally got their vehicles and they spent the day unpacking them and getting them ready for action. We have to get the mechanics to tap out some bolts where the loading/unloading crew at the docks snapped off the front right armor of our vehicle. The bolts were sheared clean off, meaning they had to hit at just the right angle with a little force, in order to pop that panel off that way. I wonder what they hit…