25 April 2006-another drudgingly boring day,for those of us at Taji FOB,north of Baghdad-I was assigned as executive officer of my cavalry squadron's Headquarters troop,due to medical limitiations preventing me from going out on patrol with the guys.An immensely boring job-dealing mainly with vehicle maintenence issues and supply issues-and attending LOTS of meetings,and then briefing trhe commander.In other words,an office bitch.Anyway,on that day,I managed to hitch a ride on a convoy leaving the wire-I HAD to-to try to keep from going bonkers.Well,we got our guntrucks prepped,got the safety brief,and an itinerary of everywhere we would be going that day.Most of it was rather routine-inspecting some Iraqi army checkpoints,checking road conditions,checking on some guys we had outside the wire,and finally,we were supposed to run by Abu Ghraib prison,for SOMETHING the major wanted to check on.I was looking forward to seeing the infamous Abu Ghraib,after all I'd heard about it.Anyway,we departed the squadron area,rolling to the back gate,where we all dismounted and charged our weapons.I locked and loaded a 20 round magazine into my M-14 rifle,and headed off into indian country.Well,the first few miles were rather uneventful,and did'nt really see much-got stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway,but judicious use of the siren on our trucks paved the way for us through the traffic.We then arrived at an Iraqi police checkpoint a few miles away,where myself and another NCO assisted the squadron executive officer to inspect and assess how the Iraqi position was.Nothing much going on there,except I had to tell my "terp"(interpeter-to tell an Iraqi major that if he kept talking with his hands-WHILE his hands contained a ruger 9mm pistol-I would certainly not hesitate to put a 7.62 round in him the next time the muzzle pointed my way.He got the message.....we finished up,then we went to a place called "concho"-a hotbed of insurgent sympathizers.We inspected the defenses there,then walked back to our trucks.There were several shady looking characters hanging around a gas station by concho,and after what happened that day,would'nt mind "discussing" a few things with them.We continued on,and about 2 miles away,outside the village of Al Saba Boor,a REAL hot spot,a command detonated improvised explosive device was set off underneath the vehicle I was riding in.It did'nt SOUND very loud,but it blew us about 25 meters off of the road,and then into a big field,where we bounced for a couple hundred meters before the driver was able to get the truck to stop.We then dismounted,and looked for the triggerman,to kill his sorry ass-no such luck.
Almost immediately,we had helicopter gunships overhead,and I pulled the young private out of the drivers seat,and drove the vehicle back up onto the road-it was still drive-able-barely.We then waited for a reaction force to arrive from Taji,and a wrecker to haul us back in.A platoon of Estonian infantry arrived after about an hour,and searched for insurgents,but without result.A few hours later,the wrecker arrived,along with EOD,to blow some remaining explosives,in place,as well as assess the IED.Those guys were GOOD!They identified exactly what types of explosives were used-a soviet 130mm and 152mm artillery shell,buried 2 feet underneath the road,and command detonated by wire.(I saved and framed a peice of the det wire).It was a hairy experience,but we all walked away,more or less in one peice.Lots of guys were'nt so lucky-a week prior,we lost three guys,in the same area,to an almost identical IED,so I count my blessings every time I think about it.(the pic is me,standing by the crater.Its not as clear as I had hoped)
