Anaconda or Bust, Pt.VI: Homestretch

Let's wrap this up.

So we are finally on the road. Once again I am the #2 Scout vehicle in what is now a relatively short convoy....6 vehicles. We leave Anaconda and travel down the paved, although very rough, road in North Central Iraq. We bathe the road in light so we can detect anything in the road. To our side is the blackness that is Iraqi farmland….a very nice place for someone to hide but tonight they don’t mess with us. We are travelling with our ‘teeth showing’. That is we have our weapons systems trained in all directions, we are tactically spaced and we move with a purpose. If your convoy looks like you are not to be messed with…they won’t attack us (at least that’s one theory).

We pass onto the highway and roll down Iraqi Highway #1, passing ISF* checkpoints in the opposite order we passed them the night before. Our unit makes it to Baghdad without incident. At about midnight we start to drive by the urban areas of North Baghdad. On the roads are other CF** convoys. They are stopped. We find out they are waiting for EOD*** to clear an IED that is found. These delays turn out to be the norm for the night. We don’t find one but others do…and we are stuck behind them, marking time in the Baghdad street.

We pass through my old area of Baghdad…slowly. As we make our way, the radio is alive with some small talk but mainly its communications about what is happening on the routes. When you drive through a city in the night you expect to see the lights of the streets and buildings. Tonight it is dark except for a few porch lights or light generators in the distance. Overall it is dark except for the lights we cast on the road. We pass the Iraqi tanks that are parked on the overpasses. Our vehicles gladly slow down for the tanks and the soldiers on these checkpoints because it is their overwatch that is keeping AQI* from seeding the streets with IEDs.

Baghdad is like this throughout the city…checkpoint after checkpoint sitting in the darkness. We stop for fuel at Camp Liberty, one of the largest bases in Baghdad. While gassing up we find out there is a delay on the route while another unit clears an IED so we wait in Camp Liberty to pass time. After about an hour the all clear is given. There is still about a 6 hour drive ahead of us so we are eager to resume the drive.

We drive….and drive…and drive…and drive some more. Nothing much is going on as we pass convoys, make contact with Army attack aviation (Apaches) who cover our move, and zip down the highway. We have one more stop to make; Scania for breakfast and fuel.

Before we get to Scania the front end of my vehicle suddenly drops. THUD. It doesn’t seem too serious. Could be anything…probably a flat. I radio for the vehicle behind me to come up and inspect my ride. He pulls up beside me and confirms….flat.

Changing a flat tire at night sucks. Changing one at night in Iraq under combat conditions sucks more. Ill tell you about how we pull it off later. This is blog is getting long and you already know how it ends, right?

Anyway, we get back on the road and push down to Scania. Fuel, breakfast, pick up more trucks then head south. It is finally light. After 6 days on the road I finally get to see what we are driving in. The open desert is…well, barren. Not much except the occasional camel heard, goat herd and a few people on the road walking to school or work. Some are just wandering.

After a few more hours, an overheated truck, and a trip where we continually fight sleep….we’ve been on the road for 9 hours….we finally make it back to COB Adder.

The mission quickly winds down. After we secure our weapons, clean out the truck and account for all of our equipment and baggage we are done. My crew drops me off at the hooch and its sleep time. You know what its like after a very long trip. You just want to sit down. I do. Then I sleep for hours. Its just about noon. I’m exhausted, excited because I’ve accomplished a pretty big mission, and I can’t wait to do it again.

I will.


SABER TWO,
out.

*Iraqi Security Force
**Coalition Force
***EOD=Explosive Ordnance Disposal: the bomb squad
*Al Qaeda in Iraq

Anaconda or Bust, Pt. V: Anaconda

On Sunday we wake in the late afternoon, just in time to head over for chow at the DFAC (Dining Facility). We all eat a healthy meal, talk with a few old friends we run into and get ready for the trip to Anaconda. By now the routine is pretty familiar, only the places and faces are changing.

After we do our PCCs (Pre-Combat Checks) on our men, weapons and equipment we load up, link-up with our convoy and head for the gate. Anaconda is less than an hour drive from Taji so it doesn’t take long. We still take the journey very seriously and watch the road with total focus. After passing several Iraqi Army, Iraqi Police, and Sons of Iraq checkpoints, we make the turn into Anaconda.

We count in the vehicles to make sure none of the trucks have become separated in the darkness then we head over to refuel everything…this takes a couple of hours since we have so many vehicles. After refueling is complete, some administrative chores are done then we find our way to our next set of modest, very modest, accommodations. The housing we stay in is very plain, almost like a boy scout camp. The billeting for transient units like ours is very basic; 4 walls, a roof, and a cot for each of us. We all are in the building together. Sleep is what is needed and that is what we do.


Anaconda is called an Logistics Support Area. It is one of the largest bases in Iraq with facilities to support maintenance, supply and sustainment for almost everything. While we are there we take the opportunity to visit the various specialty shops to fix equipment that has developed trouble during the trip. I have to have my communications gear worked on so we let the civilians in that shop do their mechanical magic.

Anaconda is also home to a very busy Air Force base and Army Airfield. Jets are constantly taking off with afterburners and landing after missions. Army helicopters are always in the air. It is a busy place.

Nighttime comes and we do the usual PCCs for the mission. We get our intelligence briefing then find out we don’t have a load to escort south. Our plan is to ‘deadhead’ south. That is, we just drive by ourselves. This is good news to us because it means we don’t have to hassle with a long convoy and we can make good speed. We have a long drive ahead of us so with the news of the dead head we plan on making a one-night hop back to Tallil. It will mean about 9 hours on the road but after the week we’ve had, we think we can make it.

Commando 1-6 gathers the members of the unit together and we discuss our plan. The usual information is disseminated, battle drills are rehearsed, and equipment is once again loaded and prepared for what will hopefully be our last night on the road.

We gear up, start up and line-up for the trip. Its 10pm. Let’s roll….again.

Saber Two,
out.

Anaconda or Bust, Pt. IV: Baghdad

We make the turn off of one MSR (Main Supply Route) to another which turns us in the direction of the Iraqi Capital city. The road is a four lane interstate-type highway. It is dark. There is a checkpoint at the turn manned by an Iraqi Security Force unit. Their job is to make sure insurgents don’t have free-reign over the road.

As we pass the checkpoint each vehicle with a radio calls in his location;

“Commando One-Six (the Convoy Commander), this is Scout,…passing ISF checkpoint, time now.”

Scout #1 and me, still ahead of the main body, drive into the dark. We dodge holes in the road and inspect each one with a spotlight as we pass. There are a lot of holes in the MSR. We don’t like this road very much because of its trashy condition. IEDs are often camouflaged in trash and there are lots of places to hide them on this route.

“Commando 1-6, this is Scout, passing blown tire on the right…marking with chemlight…its clear. Over. “
“Scout, Commando 1-6. Roger, out.

There are bushes, piles of old barbed wire, trees, and lots of previous blast holes in the road from IEDs of days gone by. We check each one and mark them. Something is moving off to the side. It’s a dog. A stray dog in Baghdad. What a miserable existence that animal must have.

“Commando 1-6, this is Scout. Iraqi Army checkpoint ahead. Crossing median, time now.”
“Scout, Commando 1-6. Roger, out.

This area of Baghdad is pretty remote. It is lined with junk yards, cluttered lots, piles of construction debris, and not much that appears to be worth a damn. Areas like this are prone to attacks on convoys but tonight…so far…none have occurred. This part of the route lasts for several miles before we come to our next change of MSR.
We maneuver a maze of checkpoints, sharp turns, and on-ramps to get onto the next part of the route. This part is particularly hairy. It is known for its frequent attacks. There are many checkpoints and guard shacks on the route to keep the insurgents in check. Each one we pass has men with weapons, staring into the darkness, looking for the enemy.

“Commando 1-6 this is Scout. Passing Iraqi T-70 tank. Pass on the right.”
“Scout, Commando 1-6. Roger, out.

There isn’t much chatter on the radio during this leg of the journey. Everyone’s eyes are trained on the route around them; total focus. We turn onto the final MSR that takes us out of Baghdad proper and leads us out of the city then northward to Anaconda. It’s almost daylight. We’ve been on the road for about 5 hours non-stop except for the occasional ‘code yellow.’ I used to be responsible for this part of town. It’s a homecoming of sorts: a strange homecoming. Even in the dark I can see it has changed….more concrete barriers, more fences, more crappy Iraqi buildings, more war damage than 4 years ago. It appears to have gotten worse. I’m a little sad to see that.

Civillian traffic is starting to pick up. As we clear Baghdad we get a call from the Movement Control Team. They tell us that we are to make an unscheduled stop at Taji. “What? You gotta be kidding me. We’re almost there?”

“SABER Main, this is Commando 1-6, Request permission to push straight to Anaconda.”
“Commando 1-6, this is SABER Main, permission denied. R.O.N. at Taji. Out.”

URON…Unscheduled Remain OverNight. It basically means stop, rest, move out tomorrow.
So, we pull into TAJI, a large logistics base north of Baghdad. We could have made it but this does a couple of things for us. It gets us breakfast in an hour or so, gets us another day’s rest, we get to hit one more large PX, and it adds one day to the already unusually long mission.

Sometimes you don’t get a vote. FIDO. Tomorrow we push north….again.

SABER 02,
out.

Anaconda or Bust, Pt.III: The Milkmen of Iraq

Its midnight and its dark inside my HMMW-V (hummer). The only lights on the inside are a few green or red LEDs on my radio. The bright glow behind me comes from my gunner's video monitor. My gunner is PFC David Knighton. They call him Crow. He stares into that monitor for the duration of our nightlong journey to Anaconda. This is one of the tools we find IEDs with. Ahead of us is the dark night. The only light comes from our unusual amount of spotlights that turn the night into day. To our left and right is a sea of darkness....it is the Iraqi desert....there's something out there but we are primarily concerned with the roads...this is where our fight is.

Tonight we finally continue the trip to Anaconda. We are escorting dozens of semi tractor trailers full of stuff. Things like fuel, milk, food, lumber, vehicles, and a myriad of other things that allow soldiers in this war to operate under the best conditions possible. My CET (Convoy Escort Team) Commander, LT Lang Doster calls himself the Milkman of Iraq.....without his escorts....the GI has no milk.

As we drive the only sounds we hear come from the chatter on the radio. My driver, SPC Ryan, PFC Knighton and me keep each other awake by talking about everything....the army, the war, other people, politics, home, religion and anything else. We will drive until after sun-up so any topic we can think of we talk about. On the late night Iraqi highway its a survival skill.

The other noises in our headsets come from the rest of the convoy. We cross-talk about the mission at hand and we also call about humourous topics. We mercilessly pick on each other. Anything is game. Once again...survival on the late night highways. Falling asleep at the wheel is something we are very aware of and we talk to avoid it.

My radio can't hear everybody in our convoy because our string of vehicles is so long. Our vehicle is one of the scout pair so we are way out in front of the main body, making sure the route is clear for everyone else. The other night we had to turn around in the highway because of the weather. It took almost 90 minutes to do that. There is an old song that says, "give me 40 acres and I'll turn this rig around." Well, how many acres does it take to turn around our string of semis in pitch black darkness? Apparently we had enough because we did....with much difficulty.

The road is a 4-lane interstate of sorts. There are no painted lines. Farms come right up to the shoulder. There is the occasional concrete jersey barrier, checkpoints, discarded wire and old blown tires. There are also lots of scars from the war. Mostly in the form of blast holes from previous IEDs. Those usually get patched but there are several right along the edge of the road that show evidence of explosions in the not-too-distant past.

As we approach the big city of Baghdad we fall behind another convoy. We debate about passing it but find out that it is a route clearance team. These guys have special equipment to find IEDs on the road. We decide it is better to trade speed for security so we follow the RCT for several miles.
After an hour or so the RCT and us part ways and we continue toward Baghdad. We are close…right on the edge. It is about 3am and time to make the turn into the city. It was an interesting turn…..I’ll tell you about that part of the trip tomorrow.

SABER 2,

out.

Anaconda or Bust, Part II: Scania

Well, we didn’t make it far. We made it to Scania.

Our trip to this point is uneventful. We left yesterday evening after evening chow. Our convoy got on the road with all its trucks. Usually our convoys are enormous and are made up of semi-tractor trailers hauling everything from fuel, milk, lumber, vehicle parts, and anything you can imagine. It is a long, long group when you string them out on the road. We passed one convoy that had nothing but flatbeds full of SUVs destined to ride the roads up north. They got a piggyback ride for this trip.

In this convoy I command one of the scout vehicles. We drive ahead of the convoy with our eyes and sensors trained on the road. Our job is to find the turns and get us safely from point A to point B. It is also our job to find trouble before the convoy gets to it. In this part of the world trouble is damaged roads and IEDs. Last night we found plenty of the former, none of the latter. It was a good trip.

Point B for yesterday’s journey was a place called Scania. It is also our home for tonight.

Scania is the name of a military truck stop somewhere in south central Iraq. It’s a relatively small place. It is secure; surrounded by tall concrete walls and tough men with weapons in guard towers.

Scania has food, fuel, a few things for us to do, and it has my convoy. Dust storms stopped our forward progression. We hoped to push forward today but we already know our fate; sleep here again. We didn’t even get our wheels rolling. That’s how bad the weather is.

We geared up, got our vehicles ready, did our radio checks and coordinated for the move but nothing rolled. Other convoys are stuck here with us. Its like a convention of stranded tourists….much like people stuck at the airport during a snowstorm….everyone stuck in one small place together with one thing in common: they don’t want to be where they are.

Tomorrow we will try again but for tonight we stay here. What does the convoy-bound soldier do in Scania? Sleep, eat, pull maintenance on your vehicle, clean your weapon, watch movies, call home, sleep, eat…wait.

As soon as we learn we are stuck we don’t dare go to sleep…we save that rest so we can sleep right up until tomorrow’s move. We head off to the small movie rooms at the MWR building and find a movie we haven’t already seen a dozen times.

I’ll stay up, eat chow then go to bed. When we get up we will do a few things then start the routine all over again with another Operations and Intelligence update. We will do more pre-mission maintenance then get ready for the next leg of our journey and hopefully make it to Anaconda.

For now, we wait.

SABER 2,
out.

Anaconda or Bust

Today I am going on the road. I got a ride in one of the convoy escort Humvees that make the run to and through Baghdad. This is my first combat mission since I've been here and I am excited. It's not like the last time I was in Iraq. Then we went on hundreds of short-duration missions inside Baghdad. We interacted with the locals and did a whole lot of work to get the country back on its feet.

This time we are doing very long convoy escorts that last for a couple of days and cover hundreds of miles. Its day 1 and we will pick up our convoy and drive ot our first refueling stop...a place called Scania.
Before we roll we prep. We prep men, weapons and equipmetnt for the long journey north. The photo on the left is the Operations and Intelligence briefing every convoy member gets priort to start. Its where everybody learns about the routes and what may lie ahead on the journey....including the weather.

The weather is supposed to be dusty this evening which may mean we won’t complete our trip north. With a little luck and a clear route we will drive all the way to our destination, place called LSA Anaconda. Anaconda is a Logistics support area. Its got everything.....big PX, nice chow halls, first rate maintenance shops, airfield and a lot of other good stuff. The convoy we escort carry the things that Anaconda needs to support the rest of Iraq.

Our trip will take us through hundreds of miles of open desert, camel herds, sand, poor construction, Bedouins, date palm groves, and one city...Baghdad. I'm a little apprehensive about Baghdad because it has a tendency to make the news a lot. Also, its a city I don't want to get lost in. Making the wrong turn on a poorly-lit street can make for a really interesting night.

We'll see how it goes but I think we will do okay. There are several of us who have been there before and can feel our way around pretty well. Plus we've got more maps than we know what to do with.

Anyway, that's what 's on my plate today. I'll try to update you on the trip later.

SABER 2,
out.

Live Under A Blood Red Sky: Raining Mud

Okay, Ive really done a terrible job with my blog. Ill try to do better and Ill try to get a new topic next time but Im in a weather rut.
My roommate in college, Don, introduced me to the rock band U2 back in the 80s. Ive been a fan ever since. I think one of the best live albums ever is Live Under A Blood Red Sky. I always that that was a neat title but it really couldn’t mean anything. Well, I thought about that album the other day because we were Live Under A Blood Red Sky…another dust storm, but the effects were incredible.
The dust storm coincided with an actual thunderstorm. The sky turned brown with sand then rapidly went to a yellowish tint and about 10minutes later the entire area was red. Literally it was a blood-red color. Then it was almost black as night. This was at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. It then began to rain. Naturally, the drops cleansed the sky of the sand as it rained. The effect there was muddy water raining down. Everything caught outside was covered in muddy water. My uniform had numerous brown stains from the mud rain.

The weather here is generally boring. Hot, dusty, hot, dry and hot. Temps have averaged about 110. So far the hottest was 118. As we get into the summer the temps will naturally climb. I think it will be about 120ish in June and near 130 in late July and August. I can’t wait (he said sarcastically). I’ve got to get another thermometer…mine only goes to 120. They sell thermometers that go to 140…I’ll have to get one..somehow.

Other than that, things have been pretty normal for this place. Our convoys go out daily and we continue to study the enemy and find ways to safely and successfully execute our mission which is to escort those logistics convoys. I think I’ll get out on one this week and make a trip through Baghdad to see what the routes are like.

I normally don’t do convoy work. My job is support those convoys by analyzing and briefing enemy activity. This trip will get me out of the office and give me a chance to get a feel for what I am supporting. It helps me do my job better when I understand what’s going on on the roads. Wish me luck. Ill tell you about it when I get back.

That’s about it for now. Take care and Ill write more later.

SABER 2,out.